Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.
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In this way, imagination is not only about creative thinking or about forming grand, novel ideas. Rather, it is about seeing our way into someone else’s future reality and exercising our empathy and resourcefulness to build that reality.
Even if some of the stats above aren't consistent with our personal opinions, we knew that we could hold multiple truths, as could those in our community, so we entered into a chevruta (learning partnership), to name explicitly which profound truths we were each holding and which we agreed on. While we discovered that we were not that far apart from each other, it was important to continue to engage on this topic in an era of disturbing polarization, one that is characterized by a lack of nuanced dialogue, where saying the “wrong” thing can you get “cancelled,” instead of giving you an opportunity to learn.
Applications are now open for Class 6 of the Wexner Field Fellowship for promising Jewish professionals who plan to continue to pursue careers as professional leaders in the North American Jewish community.
Aug 2021
Pilot WFF and WGF/DS Alum Jennifer Weinstock (Class 26)
I don’t have any easy solutions and yet I hope that the lessons we have learned from this pandemic will push us all to think in new ways about old problems. Let’s commit to radical accessibility, radical welcoming, and making it as easy and compelling to opt into Jewish life as it is to visit a museum in Denmark in pajamas.
Staying committed as allies to reflection and “an active, consistent, and arduous practice of unlearning and re-evaluating,” will hopefully lead us to taking more smart risks and experimentation over the coming year, and the years ahead.
If you are tired of talking about racial justice in the Jewish community, good. So am I. However, we are fatigued for different reasons.
Organizations who value representation over tokenism encourage feedback, see change as vital to growth and empower everyone to feel as if they have a central role in advancing institutional goals.
I only grew in all of these skills while being in relationship and receiving support from colleagues, teachers and friends. It’s not the what, it’s the who.
They offered me a job to build and be the rabbi of an online congregation. I remember sharing this plan with someone who said, “Okay, I understand what online means, and I understand what congregation means, but what the heck is an online congregation?!”