fp LB 07 program 1 - huc.eduhuc.edu/sites/default/files/chronicle/Chronicle70.pdf · 1...

ChronicleChronicleHEBREW UNION COLLEGE - JEWISH INSTITUTE OF RELIGION/2007 ISSUE 70The

A FOCUS ONLEADERSHIP:

New FellowshipPrograms PrepareTransformationalLeaders

Leadership andPeoplehood:American andEuropean RabbinicalStudents at HUC-JIR/Jerusalem

Learning to Lead:Social Responsibility

Innovations inSephardic Studies

Reaching Out toa New Generationof Jews

ChoreographerLiz Lerman onActs of Creation

Leadership Institutefor CongregationalSchool Educators

The 40th Anniversaryof the Struggle forSoviet Jewry

Faculty Features:Dr. Martin A. Cohen,Dr. William Cutter,Dr. Norman J. Cohen,Dr. Michael A. Meyer

1 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

2 PREPARING TOMORROW’S LEADERS: NEWFELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS AT HUC-JIR

Kim Zeitman

5 BECOMING LEADERS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLEIN JERUSALEM Francine Lis

8 LEADERSHIP AND JEWISH PEOPLEHOOD:NORTH AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN RABBINICAL STUDENTS JOINTOGETHER AT HUC-JIR/JERUSALEM Kim Zeitman

10 LEARNING TO LEAD: SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE HUC-JIRCURRICULUM Kim Zeitman

12 THE SEEDS FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE: JEWISH TRADITION AND THE

SEARCH FOR REALISTIC GOALSDr. William Cutter and Dr. Aryeh Cohen

14 BEYOND THE GOLDEN AGE: INNOVATIONSIN SEPHARDIC STUDIES AT HUC-JIR

Leah Kaplan Robins

17 A LABOR OF LOVE: DR. MARTIN COHEN AND SEVENDECADES OF SEPHARDICA Leah Kaplan Robins

20 DAILY ACTS OF CREATION: ART, IMAGINATION, ANDHOPE IN THE 21ST CENTURY Liz Lerman

23 THE LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE FOR

CONGREGATIONAL SCHOOL EDUCATORSElizabeth McNamara Mueller

26 WITHIN AND BEYOND THE SYNAGOGUE: REACHING OUT TO A NEWGENERATION OF JEWS Elizabeth McNamara Mueller

29 LET MY PEOPLE GO: THE 40TH ANNIVERSARYOF THE STRUGGLE FOR SOVIET JEWRYJean Bloch Rosensaft

38 MOSES AND THE JOURNEY TO LEADERSHIP:TIMELESS LESSONS OF EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

FROM THE BIBLE AND TODAY'S LEADERSHIP Dr. Norman J. Cohen

43 JOACHIM PRINZ, REBELLIOUS RABBI: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY—THE GERMAN AND EARLY AMERICAN YEARS Dr. Michael A. Meyer

47 GRADUATION/ORDINATION/INVESTITURE 2007:ADDRESSES, PRIZES, PRESENTATIONS, AND PHOTO ALBUM

DEPARTMENTS

45 HUC-JIR/FACULTY PUBLICATIONS AND

RECENT FACULTY ARTICLES OF NOTE

46 ON VIEW AT HUC-JIR

52 PROGRAMS FOR HIGH SCHOOLAND COLLEGE STUDENTS

Contents

The Chronicle is published by the National Office of Public Affairs.

Editor: Jean Bloch RosensaftContributors: Dr. Aryeh Cohen, Dr. Norman J. Cohen, Dr. William Cutter,Dr. Judah Folkman, Liz Lerman, Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, Francine Lis,

Dr. Michael A. Meyer, Elizabeth McNamara Mueller, Leah Kaplan Robins,Rabbi Herman E. Schaalman, Lynn Schusterman, Kim Zeitman

Design: Tabak Design (www.tabakdesign.com)Photo Credits: Isaac Harari, Richard Lobell, Janine M. Spang, Marvin Steindler

On the cover: HUC-JIR student welcoming the New Year amidthe Israeli landscape.

For an inside view of HUC-JIR…..check out the real-life storiesof students at HUC-JIR atwww.huc.edu/blogHUCStudents’ blogs discuss why they chose HUC-JIR, their programs,courses, and faculty, student life, the HUC-JIR community, Jewishlife, and experiences that are significant in their lives, includingstudent pulpits, internships, and much more.

CALLING ALL ALUMNI!!The Joint Commission for Sustaining Rabbinic Education, co-sponsoredby the CCAR and HUC-JIR, in partnership with HUC-JIR’s Departmentof E-Learning, offers all alumni the second year of Ten Great Texts –a program featuring 10 HUC-JIR scholars presenting texts from ourclassic and contemporary sources.

You can also access the archive of the first year of this series, as wellas 23 archived courses, including mini-courses, sefira study, and more.

For more information: elearning2.huc.edu/jointcomm/ or contactDr. Ruth Abusch-Magder at [email protected] or (973) 275-1789

Year 2: 2007 - 2008

History Carole Balin

Liturgy Eliyahu Schliefer

Islamic Studies Reuven Firestone

Liturgy Richard S. Sarason

Jewish Thought David Ellenson

Education Isa Aron

In his 1857 prayer book,“Minhag America – The

American Custom,” RabbiIsaac Mayer Wise amendedthe first paragraph of the ‘Ami-dah, the prayer par excellencein Jewish tradition, to read,“V’zocher brit avot – O God,Who remembers the Covenant(brit) made with our ancestors,”in lieu of the more familiar,“V’zocher hasdei avot – O God,Who remembers the lovingdeeds of our ancestors.”

Rabbi Wise was of course notopposed to the fact that ourancestors had on many occa-sions performed wondrous andgood deeds. However, he wasuncomfortable with the rab-binic doctrine of “Zechut avot(Merit of our Ancestors),” ashe felt that it was not appropri-ate that we rest upon the meritsof the deeds performed by oth-ers – even our mothers and ourfathers. Rather, RabbiWise de-sired that God and the Jewishpeople recall that a Covenant wasestablished with our ancestorsand that we Jews today, no lessthan our ancestors in generationspast, are called to covenantal re-sponsibility by God, Who asksthat we serve as shutafin (part-ners) with the Divine in thetasks that are required to mendthe world. This vision ofCovenant lies at the very heartof Jewish religious tradition andthis notion provides for an idealof freedom and responsibilitythat animates the educationalendeavors we undertake at theHebrew Union College-JewishInstitute of Religion.

As we educate students at theCollege-Institute, we hope thatthey will come to internalizethe memories imposed byJewish history, and that thesefuture religious and communalleaders and teachers will affirmthe Jewish story as their own.We hope that the knowledgethat they will acquire at HUC-JIR will transform them intopeople who will be worthy ofthe covenantal tradition thatall of us have inherited, andthat all of us ultimately arecalled upon to transmit. Ourstudents bear great responsibil-ity to that chain of traditionthat began at Sinai. At the sametime, we would be remiss if wetaught that fidelity to the pastabsolves them of responsibilityin the present. The notion ofCovenant requires that theybe mindful of both past andpresent. It also demands thatthey understand that theirs isa responsibility that extendsinto the future as well.

This is the task of the College-Institute, and as you read thesepages of The Chronicle I hopethat you will have a sense of thevitality that is present on ourcampuses as HUC-JIR attemptsto remain true to the teachingsof Rabbi Wise and seeks to ful-fill in so many ways its ongoingmandate to educate students ina tradition of covenantal duty.

Rabbi David EllensonNovember 2007 Kislev 5768

2007 ISSUE 70 �1

WE JEWS TODAY, NO LESS

THAN OUR ANCESTORS IN

GENERATIONS PAST, ARE CALLED TO

COVENANTAL RESPONSIBILITY BY

GOD,WHO ASKS THAT WE SERVE

AS SHUTAFIN (PARTNERS) WITH

THE DIVINE IN THE TASKS THAT ARE

REQUIRED TO MEND THE WORLD.

President ’s Message

2 � THE CHRONICLE

PreparingTomorrow’sLeaders:New FellowshipPrograms atHUC-JIRKim Zeitman

The Mandel Fellows Program

The College-Institute has embarked on new initiatives offering intensified

leadership training to exceptional rabbinical students. The goal of these

programs is to develop visionary leaders for our people, who will understand

the dynamics at play in the American Jewish community and who will be able

to transform their synagogues and their communities into vital and exciting

arenas of engagement and meaning.

“We are greatly indebted to the Mandel Foundation,

Bonnie and Daniel Tisch, and the Charles and Lynn

Schusterman Family Foundation for their visionary

support for these new programs,” says Rabbi David

Ellenson. “Their generosity will enable future generations

of Reform rabbis and educators to truly make a difference in our synagogues and

schools, the Reform Movement, and the American Jewish community at large.”

T he role of the rabbi as con-gregational leader is critical

to creating synagogue communi-ties that will engage the ReformJews of today and tomorrow.Dr. Rob Weinberg, NationalDirector of the Experiment inCongregational Education(ECE), observes, ”The rabbiplays a unique role in the trans-formation of the synagogue andsynagogue life. To transformcongregations rabbis must actboth as symbolic leaders andcollaborative leaders.“

To help our students become suchleaders, HUC-JIR has partneredwith the Mandel Foundation tocreate the Mandel Fellows Pro-gram. This program provides anadditional year of study that willenable exceptional rabbinical stu-dents to enhance their leadershipskills, educational abilities, andorganizational knowledge withthe goal of creating vibrant Jew-ish learning communities inReform synagogues.

The Mandel Fellows Programbuilds upon the rigorous, five-year academic and professional

course of study already requiredof all Reform rabbinical students.Students who apply and are se-lected as Mandel Fellows willspend a sixth year of study earn-ing Masters degrees in the Schoolsof Education on HUC-JIR’s LosAngeles or New York campuses,where they will engage in reflec-tive learning and shaping a newvision for Jewish institutional lifeas well as their own professionalpractice and leadership.

During their year as students inthe education programs, MandelFellows will also participate in

two special seminars created bythe Mandel Foundation in col-laboration with HUC-JIR faculty.A winter seminar at BrandeisUniversity’s Mandel Center willfocus on a vision for Jewish lifein North America and its expres-sion in Reform synagogues. Atthe completion of their year of

The 2007-2008 MandelFellows: (from left) MelissaZalkin-Stollman, Rachel Kort,and Melissa Simon at HUC-JIR/New York; and Ari Margolis,Noam Katz, Erin Ellis, RenaPolonsky, and Dan Medwin atHUC-JIR/Los Angeles.

2007 ISSUE 70 �3

The Bonnie and Daniel Tisch Fellows Program

education studies, Mandel Fel-lows will participate in anextended seminar at the MandelLeadership Institute in Jerusalem,concentrating on the centralityof Israel and Jewish peoplehoodwith special attention to enhanc-ing the capacity for these futurerabbis to embed these two coreaffirmations in the vision and lifeof Reform synagogues.

“The Mandel Fellows will bene-fit from the unique training ofboth our Schools of Educationand the Mandel Institute faculty.

Through this program, theywill gain a clearer sense of howto shape an engaging Jewishcommunity that can touch peo-ple ‘s lives,” says Dr. Norman J.Cohen, Provost of HUC-JIR.

Eight Mandel Fellows are chosenannually from among those rab-binical students applying to theeducation degree programs in LosAngeles and New York. The cri-teria for selection include academicexcellence; demonstrated leader-ship potential; capacity for vision;capacity for reflection; and com-

mitment to the congregationalrabbinate and transforming syna-gogue life. A national HUC-JIRcommittee of faculty and pro-gram directors selects the MandelFellows based on both writtenapplication materials and apersonal interview. For the 2007-2008 academic year, three menand five women have been selectedas the first cohort of MandelFellows. Mandel Fellows studyingat the Rhea Hirsch School in LosAngeles are: Erin Ellis, NoamKatz,Ari Margolis, Daniel Medwin,

and Rena Polonsky. MandelFellows studying at the NewYork School of Education are:Rachel Kort, Melissa Simon,and Melissa Zalkin-Stollman.

The Mandel Fellows Programwill equip participating rabbinicalstudents with the understandingand skills necessary to guide theircongregations to become engag-ing, visionary institutions ofJewish living and learning.

Jewish identity is a matterof choice for American Jews

today, and it falls to the Jewishleadership to encourage andinspire future generations toembrace Judaism. HUC-JIRmust therefore train its rabbinicalstudents to exert leadership increative and innovative ways, tohelp bring Judaism to the centerof our childrens’ lives, and createan inclusive Judaism that speaksto new generations.

The Bonnie and Daniel TischFellows Program – a pilot initia-tive that has been inagurated atHUC-JIR for the 2007-2008academic year – is uniquely de-signed to meet this need. Eachyear, five carefully selected rab-binical students will be namedTisch Fellows and complete a

three-year intensive leadershiptraining program. By identifyingand nurturing successive cohortsof students with outstandingpotential for leadership, HUC-JIR will create an extraordinarypool of talent for today’s evolv-ing Reform Jewish and largerJewish world.

Tisch Fellows will be identified atthe end of the second of the five-year rabbinical program, throughfaculty evaluations, recommen-dations from the Dean, Provost,and President, and personal in-terviews. They will receive fulltuition scholarships and livingstipends, enabling them to focuscompletely on their studies andprofessional development. The2007-2008 Tisch Fellows are JillPerlman, Joseph Skloot, Rachel

Shafran, Yaron Kapitulnik, andMatthew Soffer.

The leadership program willinclude 3-5 days of intensiveseminars each year, focusing onsuch areas as organizational dy-namics, creating community, andbecoming a change agent. Eachseminar will have a major intel-lectual or spiritual theme, suchas “Social Responsibility andJudaism,” “Israel,” or “God,”around which course work, textstudy, and professional develop-ment activities will be designed.

Tisch Fellows will be requiredto complete a summer rabbinicalresidency program, designed asan eight-week experience onsitein a congregation, Jewish organi-zation, Jewish camp, or healthcare

facility, under the supervision ofa trained rabbinical mentor. Asresidents, the Tisch Fellows willreceive a unique and individual-ized hands-on learning experiencewith the opportunity for reflectionand advisement with a mentor.

As many aspects of the rabbinicalrole are learned on the job, eachTisch Fellow will participate inan additional mentoring programthat will begin during their fifthyear and continue for two year-following ordination. This

Rabbi Shirley Idelson, Dean,HUC-JIR/New York, and BonnieTisch with the 2007-2008 TischFellows at HUC-JIR/New York:Yaron Kapitulnik, Jill Perlman,Rachel Safran, Matthew Sofer,and Joseph Skloot.

4 � THE CHRONICLE

The Schusterman Hevruta Programprogram will pair fellows withrabbinical mentors who havedemonstrated the characteristicsof transformational rabbis.Fellows will meet regularly withtheir mentors as they interactwith congregations and institu-tions that are increasinglysophisticated and demand abroad spectrum of professional,spiritual, and intellectual skills.

In addition to the intensive pro-grams described above, TischFellows will benefit, with theirfellow students, from an enrichedcurriculum that will include spe-cialized spiritual, intellectual, andprofessional development in suchareas as pastoral counseling, so-cial responsibility, and outreachand conversion. Tisch Fellowswill also have the opportunityto pursue their academic andintellectual interests throughindividualized coursework,structured opportunities to in-teract with professors in theirfields of interest, and vehiclesfor independent study.

“With so many unique opportu-nities and experiences, TischFellows will acquire the skills torespond to the complex andchanging issues of their rab-binates with skill, sensitivity, andconfidence, inspiring the Jews ofmodernity to willingly and joy-fully embrace Judaism,” saysRabbi David Ellenson.

In an effort to increase collabo-ration between the Reform andConservative denominations ofJudaism, Lynn Schusterman, Chairof the Charles and Lynn Schuster-man Family Foundation (CLSFF),has initiated a five-year interde-nominational pilot program forrabbinical students studying atHebrew Union College-JewishInstitute of Religion and the Jew-ish Theological Seminary (JTS).The initiative, called the Schuster-man Hevruta Program, will bringtogether Reform and Conservativerabbinical students in academic,religious, and social settings, rep-resenting the first time JTS andHUC-JIR rabbinical studentswill be involved in a sustained,collaborative educational program.

“The goal of the fellowship istwofold: to train transformationalrabbinic leaders capable of pro-found and sensitive change in thecommunities they serve, and tobetter equip the rabbinate to ad-dress the ever-evolving needs ofthe American Jewish community,especially those of interfaith fam-ilies and other Jews who findthemselves on the margins ofJewish life,” said Lynn Schuster-man, who announced thecreation of the program at HUC-JIR’s Graduation ceremony, heldat Congregation Emanu-El ofthe City of New York on May 3(see page 47).

In addition to their regular course-work, Schusterman HevrutaFellows will study together inregular meetings and retreats fa-cilitated by faculty from bothseminaries as well as educatorsfrom STAR (Synagogues: Trans-formation and Renewal) and theCenter for Leadership Initiatives,Inc. (CLI). The Program will fo-cus on areas such as counselingcongregants in areas of accept-ance and diversity among mixedfaith families; strategic planningand administration; interdiscipli-nary and interdenominationalapproaches to rabbinical curric-ula; and general leadership skills.Students will have the opportu-nity to collaborate, studytogether, and build leadershipskills in a context of the sharedvalues of the Reform and Con-servative Movements in Judaism.

Rabbi David Ellenson said,“I am grateful to the Schuster-man Foundation for its visionin initiating this fellowship. Thisprogram models the kind of co-operation that can and ought tomark American Jewish life. Ourswill be a partnership that respectsdenominational differences,while also recognizing that theAmerican Jewish communityfaces a common set of challengesand requires transformationalrabbinical leaders who will revi-talize contemporary Jewish life.”

Professor Arnold M. Eisen,Chancellor of JTS, stated, “Theconnections our students willmake with their fellow students atHUC-JIR, and the deepening tiesbetween our two institutions,bode well for the future of theAmerican Jewish community.”

Starting in the fall of 2008, eightoutstanding students (four fromHUC-JIR and four from JTS)will be admitted to the programfor each year of the five-year pilotphase of the project. The Pro-gram will cover tuition costs andprovide an annual cost of livingstipend for all participants fortheir third and fourth years ofrabbinical studies; afterwards,participants will receive ongoingsupport as they search for em-ployment and the opportunity tojoin the STAR network of rabbis.

Schusterman expressed thehope that “this cooperativerelationship will yield benefitsfar beyond the campus wallsand bring congregations fromthe Reform and Conservativetraditions together.” �

New FellowshipPrograms atHUC-JIR(continued)

Sandy Cardin, President of theCharles and Lynn SchustermanFamily Foundation (CLSFF);Lynn Schusterman, Chair,CLSFF; Rabbi Ellenson; andBarbara Friedman, Chair,Board of Govenors, HUC-JIR.

2007 ISSUE 70 �5

Jorg Ahrens was born in post-HolocaustGermany. Raised in a nonreligious homein Frankfurt, he knew that one set of his

grandparents were Holocaust survivors.A year ago, he decided to move to Israel.

Andrea Zanardo grew up in Milan, Italy,and is a Jew-by-choice and the first Progres-sive Italian rabbinical student. In 2000 hewas one of the founders of the Associationof Progressive Judaism in Italy.

Tracy Fishbein always loved to sing. She grewup in a large Reform congregation in St. Louis,where from the time she was 13 she sang inthe Temple choir.

When Evan Schultz was a child, his familyseemed to move to a new city every two yearsfor his father’s job. As he adjusted to a newschool, a new neighborhood and new friends,he always found a home in his local synagogue.

Matthew Dreffin attended a glass blowingworkshop while a student at Tulane Univer-sity. After Hurricane Katrina, he moved backto New Orleans to work in a glass studio tocontribute to the rebuilding of the city.

After finishing Georgetown Law School,Carole Gould settled in Park Slope, Brook-lyn, where she raised two sons, worked as a

tax attorney, and wrote a weekly column forThe New York Times Sunday business section.Carole was brought up by unaffiliated Jewishparents and first stepped into a synagoguewhen she was looking for a Hebrew Schoolfor her young children.

What do these people have in common?They are participating in the 2007- 2008Year-In-Israel Program at HUC-JIR inJerusalem.They are among a class of 52bright, creative, and enthusiastic graduatestudents from the United States, the FormerSoviet Union, and Europe who have em-barked on a new journey toward becomingJewish leaders as rabbis, cantors, educators,and communal professionals. What betterplace than Israel to begin their training toserve the Jewish people?

“This class reflects the success of our Move-ment,” says Rabbi Naamah Kelman, Directorof the Year-In-Israel Program. “They are out-standing products of our NFTY summercamps, our synagogues, and campus life, andinspired by our finest alumni. What distin-guishes this class is their commitment tocommunity building. Many come with first-hand life experience in social action andsocial justice as a source of motivation, whileothers have felt the “calling” to serve our

people since high school and are eager toget started. Most have been out in the worldfor a year or two after completing undergrad-uate studies, which certainly enriches theirjourney. Unlike the beginning of the aca-demic year last summer, during the LebanonWar, we are off to a wonderful and peacefulstart; at the same time, the students areawash with activities and opportunities toenjoy Jerusalem and Israel. My hope andprayer is that this simply continues.”

HUC-JIR’s Year-In-Israel Program is a rigor-ous eleven-month program of professionaleducation that marks the beginning of a chal-lenging and inspiring path toward becomingProgressive Jewish leaders. Rabbinical, canto-rial, and education students are required tospend their first year on the Jerusalem campusfor a year of bonding – with classmates fromaround the world and with the land and thepeople of Israel. The goals of the programare many and include an intensive immersionin the Hebrew language, experiential living inthe modern State of Israel, acquisition of coreJewish textual skills, and an exploration ofone’s religious and spiritual identities. Mostparticipants report their year in Israel to beone of the richest experiences of their lives.

BECOMING LEADERS OF THEJEWISH PEOPLE IN JERUSALEM

Francine Lis

Year-In-Israel students at HUC-JIR/Jerusalem

6 � THE CHRONICLE

This year’s class includes forty-one rabbinicalstudents, five cantorial students, and six edu-cation students, one of whom plans to pursuea second Master’s degree in Jewish Commu-nal Service at the College-Institute’s Schoolof Jewish Communal Service in Los Angeles.Four of the HUC-JIR students were bornoutside of the United States in Israel, Ukraine,and Russia, three are Wexner fellows, one is aUnited Jewish Communities Federation Ex-ecutive Recruitment and Education Program(FEREP) scholar, and eight are second-careerstudents. For many, this is one of numerousvisits to Israel, and for others, this is their firsttime in the country.

In addition, for the first time ever, HUC-JIRis partnering with the two leading liberal Jewishseminaries in Europe to host four of their first-year rabbinical students (see page 8) as part ofthe Year-In-Israel Program. These four stu-dents (two from Abraham Geiger College inPotsdam, Germany, and two from Leo BaeckCollege in London, England) are launchingthis historic and unique relationship.

The students experience the energy and bus-tle of the Jerusalem campus with its manyexciting programs and activities. At any givenmoment during the opening week of schoolin July, students interfaced with Jews of allages and backgrounds from all parts of theglobe – with classmates in their own pro-gram, with adult learners studying inHUC-JIR’s two-week Liberal Yeshiva pro-

gram, with alumni gathering for the annualAlumni Seminar (see page 7) for a week ofstudy with leading Israeli academics andcommunity leaders, with the larger Jerusalemcommunity during Shabbat services, andwith alumni living in Israel or visiting duringthe summer and participating in the AnnualAlumni Havdalah Reception. Furthermore,one only needs to take a short walk from theidyllic campus setting to experience the vital-ity of life in Jerusalem, whether it is walkingthrough the Old City, navigating the crowdsof Ben Yehuda Street, or enjoying the manycultural activities taking place at any givenmoment throughout the city.

The Year-In-Israel student community isdiverse in background, but has shared aspi-rations. Igor Kholkhov and Olga Zelzbergare from Bryansk, Russia, and have partici-pated in Jewish activities in the former SovietUnion, the United States, and Israel – includ-ing a summer at the Brandeis Bardin Institutein Simi Valley, CA, and a year at the Roth-berg International School at HebrewUniversity in Jerusalem. They chose to attendHUC-JIR to gain the skills and resources tosucceed as outstanding Jewish educators.Upon completing their degrees at the NewYork School of Education, they plan to returnto the Former Soviet Union and take strongleadership roles in the Jewish community.

Joe Schwartz, a second-career rabbinical stu-dent who is headed for the New York campus

next year, gave up a successful law career toenter HUC-JIR with the goal of becominga congregational rabbi. “The way of Torah isto live the best possible life we can,” he says.“A rabbi can help one lead that kind of life.Helping others to live a good life, that is agreat job description!”

Many students cite the mentorship of a re-spected rabbi, cantor, educator, or Jewishcommunal professional as pivotal in theirdecision to enter HUC-JIR “I hope that Iwill inspire others to continue in Jewish lifein the ways I’ve been inspired by the ReformMovement,” says Ariel Boxman, a native ofCincinnati, alumna of Camp Eisner andNFTY-NE, and the daughter of Rabbi BraddBoxman, C ’86. The Year-In-Israel class in-cludes other offspring of alumni, includingJoshua Franklin, whose father is RabbiStephen Franklin, C ’69.

“My vision is to be on the cutting edge ofeducational techniques,” adds Brad Cohen,an education student, who recalls the HUC-JIR high school weekend program that heattended in Cincinnati as a teenager. Bradchose HUC-JIR because “it’s the completepackage – Israel is an important part ofJewish education and hard to grasp if onehas not spent significant time here.”

David Gerber, a second-career rabbinical stu-dent who will attend the Cincinnati campusnext year, believes that his prior professionalexperience in finance will be valuable in hisrabbinate, pointing to “the work ethic anddiscipline, as well as the idea of leading andbeing part of a team.” This is David’s firsttime in Israel.

“I realized about two years ago that it wassomething that was inside of me from thebeginning” shared Julia Rubin-Cadrain, acantorial student, who was raised in Con-necticut and attended the New EnglandConservatory in Boston. “I went to RoshHashanah services and observed the cantor’sbeautiful voice and how she related to thecongregation.” Julia looks forward to herrole as a cantor, saying “I hope to find newways to connect people to Judaism.”

Jorg Ahrens, a rabbinical student from Abra-ham Geiger College in Berlin, who madealiyah a year before beginning the program,

Israeli folk dancing at the Shabbat dinner for students and alumni,sponsored by Rabbi David Posner, C ’73 and Temple Emanu-El, New York.

2007 ISSUE 70 �7

previously was a sales and marketingexecutive for international companiesin the United Kingdom, Switzer-land, the Czech Republic, andLatvia. He has witnessed the manyways people from different culturesexpress their Judaism. After ordina-tion, Jorg plans “to build communityby being a German rabbi in Ger-many, to continue the tradition wehad before the Shoah, and create anew German Jewish thought.” Ac-cording to Jorg, today there are about20 - 30 rabbis in Germany with approximately120 synagogues, asserting “The need is great!”

Mentoring the first-year students during thesummer were three fifth-year rabbinical stu-dents, Daniel Mikelberg, L ’08, Kate Speizer,L ’08, and Nicki Greninger, N ’08, NYSOE’08. As part of their last summer before ordi-nation, they worked closely with the facultyto design and implement an orientation thatwould successfully prepare the new studentsfor their experience in Israel and continuingstudies stateside at the College-Institute.“Seeing these students beginning their HUC-JIR studies has helped me to reflect on mypersonal HUC-JIR experience as it is nearingto a close with ordination next May – it hasbeen a journey of growth, study, exploration,and holiness,” says Mikelberg. “We’ve sharedmemorable experiences with the first-yearclass, ranging from watching a sunrise concertat Masada with leading Israeli singer DavidBroza to exploring God's role in our sacredjourneys. This is a special group of studentsand it has been an honor to work with them.”

“It has been a tremendous beginning of anew academic year for us in Jerusalem, a fit-ting response to the challenges of the previousyear, when Israel was shaken by war and con-flict,” notes Dr. Michael Marmur, Dean ofHUC-JIR/Jerusalem. “We were delighted tosee the range and quality of the activities tak-ing place, and to greet a new cohort ofstudents, particularly the students from oursister institutions attending our program forthe first time this year.” Marmur points toexciting new developments at the Jerusalemcampus, where he is in the final planningstages of a brand new M.A. program in Jew-ish Education for Israelis to be run with theMelton Center at the Hebrew University.

The Year-In-Israel students had a unique ex-perience shortly before the High Holy Days,when the Jerusalem campus welcomed some700 residents from the western Negev whohave been under almost constant rocketbombardment from the nearby Gaza Strip.The evening included Kabbalat Shabbatservices, a festive dinner, and a concert by

some of Israel's finest entertain-ers, co-sponsored with the WorldUnion for Progressive Judaism(WUPJ) and the Israel Move-ment for Progressive Judaism(IMPJ), with the support ofWashington Hebrew Congrega-tion, Washington, DC.

“It was hard not to be movedby their inner strength and re-solve,” Rabbi Uri Regev, WUPJPresident, said of the guests.“For many this was the first

Shabbat in a long time in which there wasno need to run to security rooms and shel-ters. We felt privileged to offer this respite.”

This was just one more example of the manyways in which HUC-JIR’s Year-In-Israelstudents come face-to-face with the realitiesof life in Israel – both its challenges and itscapacity for hope. As they witness the ReformMovement advancing religious pluralism andJewish values in Israel, they are gaining in-valuable knowledge and understanding thatwill enrich their professional lives for decadesto come. Through their studies, communityservice, and being an active part of the Israelicommunity for a year, they are helping Israelfulfill the promise of the Torah. As Regevsays, “It will be due not to divine interven-tion, but to the determination of the value-driven groups in Israeli society that you andwe represent, groups that seek to change ourreality, renew the Zionist–Jewish vision, andstrive for a more just, progressive and peace-seeking society.” �

ALUMNI SEMINAR AT HUC-JIR/JERUSALEM

A lumni from throughout the United States participated in HUC-JIR/Jerusalem’s annual Alumni Seminar, which this year focused on the theme ofDemocracy and Judaism. They expressed their pleasure at reuniting with former classmates, taking part in a stimulating week of study with outstanding

faculty members, and grappling with contemporary issues with the input and guidance of Israeli community leaders. “Becoming acquainted with many ofthe first-year students, some of whom were their confirmation students, was a meaningful by-product of the program,” notes Dr. Michael Marmur, Dean ofHUC-JIR/Jerusalem, who hopes to see this program grow in the coming years, with alumni from all of HUC-JIR’s programs in attendance.

Sherri Morr, SJCS ’77,Western States Director of the Jewish National Fund, reports that “it was great to be on the Jerusalem campus for the first time. Thepresenters at the conference were inspiring. The topic of Democracy and Judaism could not have been more apt – it surely comes up in my work. Studyingwith the rabbis and educators was a wonderful educational opportunity and a pleasurable social one as well. No cell phones, no meetings, just time tolearn.What a treat!”

Rabbi John Bush, C ’98, Senior Rabbi at Temple Anshe Hesed in Erie, PA, says “Reconnecting with the HUC-JIR/Jerusalem faculty, staff, and classmates fromour Year-In-Israel in 1993-94, celebrating Kabbalat Shabbat with the first-year students and listening to their hopes and dreams, we were again reminded ofwhy we had decided to become the Jewish professionals that we are and of how blessed we have been.”

A study group overlooking the Old City.

8 � THE CHRONICLE

In July of this year, the Jerusalem campusof Hebrew Union College-Jewish Instituteof Religion opened its doors to embrace

the international scope of the Progressivemovement. For the first time, first-yearrabbinical students at Leo Baeck Collegein London and Abraham Geiger Collegein Potsdam, Germany joined their NorthAmerican counterparts at HUC-JIR for ayear of study based in the heart of Jerusalem.

Through this collaborative endeavor, thethree partnering seminaries will ensure thatall Reform/Progressive rabbinical students re-ceive the transformational experience of a firstyear of study in Israel, and will foster a newcurrent of exchange and collaboration amongthe Progressive leaders of the future. “Ourmission to prepare leaders for the ReformMovement who share a strong commitmentto the people and land of Israel and an identi-fication with Jewish peoplehood worldwide isstrengthened by this historic agreement,” saidRabbi David Ellenson, HUC-JIR President.

The agreement was reached after lengthydiscussions between the leaders and admin-istration of the three sister institutions. RabbiEllenson, Dr. Michael Marmur, Dean of theJerusalem School, and Rabbi Naamah Kel-man, Director of HUC-JIR’s Year-In-IsraelProgram, conversed at length with RabbiMarc Saperstein, Principal of Leo BaeckCollege, and met in Jerusalem with Professor

Dr. Sabine Kunst, President of the Universityof Potsdam. The agreement was announcedby Rabbi Ellenson, together with the Princi-pals of the sister institutions, Rabbi ProfessorSaperstein and Rabbi Professor Dr. WalterHomolka, at the World Union for ProgressiveJudaism conference in Jerusalem last Marchduring a panel discussion on “The Futureof Rabbinic Training.”

The arrangement stipulates that all rabbinicalstudents at Leo Baeck College and the Abra-ham Geiger College will spend the first yearof their rabbinical studies in Israel, learningalongside their colleagues in the HUC-JIRYear-in-Israel program and in close contactwith HUC-JIR's Israeli rabbinical students.HUC-JIR's stateside rabbinical, cantorial,and education students are required to fulfilltheir first year of study at HUC-JIR's

Jerusalem campus.

“Having American students working togetherduring their first year with European studentsfrom Leo Baeck College and Abraham GeigerCollege will strengthen their sense of Pro-gressive Judaism as a world Movement, notlimited just to the United States and Israel,”said Rabbi Saperstein. Students from theUnited Kingdom will also benefit academi-cally, as “having the immersion experienceof intensive Hebrew study in a Hebrew-speaking environment during the first yearwill raise the level of instruction in the firstcourses taken by Leo Baeck students.”

The agreement with Abraham Geiger Collegealso outlines other areas for potential cooper-ation beyond first-year study, including jointgraduate-level and exchange programs. Thefirst such exchange began this past spring,when Professor Samuel Joseph of HUC-JIR/Cincinnati taught as a Fellow at GeigerCollege. In the 2007-2008 academic year,

LEADERSHIP AND JEWISH PEOPLEHOODNorth American and European RabbinicalStudents Join Together at HUC-JIR/JerusalemKim Zeitman

First-year students studying at HUC-JIR/Jerusalem.

Dr. Michael Marmur, Dean of HUC-JIR’sJerusalem School, Dr. Sabine Kunst, Presidentof the University of Potsdam, and Dr. AdmielKosman, Academic Director of AbrahamGeiger College and Director of the Instituteof Jewish Studies at the University of Potsdam,signing the agreement to bring together rab-binical students for a first year of study at theHUC-JIR campus in Jerusalem.

2007 ISSUE 70 �9

Rabbi Dalia Marx of HUC-JIR/Jerusalemis in Potsdam serving as a DAAD (GermanAcademic Exchange Service) Visiting Profes-sor. Dr. Marx will teach three courses: JewishWomen Piety, From Cradle to Grave - JewishLife Cycle Events, and an advanced course incontemporary Hebrew. Her courses will ex-plore women's historical Jewish rituals, theway various streams of Judaism observe lifecycle events, and conversational and literaryaspects of the Hebrew language.

This endeavor represents an unprecedentedventure among the seminaries affiliated withthe World Union for Progressive Judaism tocoordinate their curricula in such a way as tobuild lifelong connections and cooperationamong the members of each new generationof rabbis on a global basis. “As our NorthAmerican and Israeli rabbinical students atHUC-JIR study side-by-side at our Jerusalemcampus with their colleagues from the Abra-ham Geiger College and Leo Baeck College,they are forging permanent bonds of friend-ship and partnership in the service of theJewish people,” said Rabbi Ellenson. “Theiryear in Israel connects them to the millenialheritage of our faith, history, and values aswell as the realities and challenges facing con-temporary Jewish identity in Israel, NorthAmerica, Europe, and around the globe. To-gether, they are embarking on charting newdirections and a new vision for the Jewishfuture – with a shared sense of responsibilitythat transcends geography to assert the over-arching unity of the Jewish people.”

Seminary leaders expressed the hope that allof the Reform and Progressive rabbinical stu-dents will share their unique experiences from

home and gain a deeper understanding of thedepth and breadth of Progressive Judaismthroughout the world. “It is fantastic that Eu-ropean students will be able to sharewith their colleagues from the U.S. an insightinto slightly different ways of Reform Judaismand also the roots of American Reform,” saidRabbi Homolka. “The cultural exchange willwork both ways and raise the awareness foreach other while being immersed in the expe-rience of Israel. It will contribute towardsmaking the international Progressive Move-ment an even stronger option for Jews globally.And it will help to shape an internationalProgressive rabbinate where colleagues arefriends because once they were classmates.”

The experience of studying together in Israelis clearly having the impact that seminaryleaders are seeking. Less than one weekafter his arrival in Israel, Paul Strasko, a first-year rabbinical student from Abraham GeigerCollege, said in his blog that “Already the

mere existence of this joining of programshas built amazing good will.” Strasko relatesinstances that demonstrate the value oflearning from one another. “Other studentshave already specifically said to me such thingsas, ‘I never wanted to have anything to dowith Germany, but now I know I want to visitand see what the Progressive Movement isabout.’” The students are also clearly awareof the significance of this endeavor for the fu-ture of Progressive Judaism, as one Americanstudent told Paul, “‘It is hard to see the de-tails of an event when you are at the beginningof it, but this seems like something that we’llall look back on in 20 years and say, we wereall there when it started.’”

The introduction of cooperative rabbinicaltraining among these three institutions will,in the words of Rabbi Saperstein, “foster asense of solidarity in a new generation ofProgressive rabbis throughout the world.” �

Abraham Geiger College, Potsdam, is the first liberal rabbinicalseminary founded in Continental Europe since the Shoah. It wasfounded in 1999, admitted its first students in 2001, and held itsfirst ordination in September 2006, when it ordained the first threerabbis to be ordained in Germany since the Holocaust. Its missionis the education of rabbis for Jewish communities in Centraland Eastern Europe. Rabbinical studies are integrated into theextensive curriculum of the College for Jewish Studies at theUniversity of Potsdam, providing the ambience and resourcesof a large, secular state university. This in turn helps promoteunderstanding of Judaism within a pluralistic context.

Leo Baeck College, London, founded in 1956, is a premier center forProgressive Jewish learning, training rabbis, leaders, and teachersto develop Progressive Jewish congregations and communitiesthroughout the United Kingdom and in many other countries.The Col-lege reaches out to support the growth of today’s Jewish communitiesacross Europe and beyond. It is the first College in Europe to trainrabbis from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe – who arethen able to return to lead their home communities. Throughits Department of Education and Professional Development, it ishelping to establish a new cadre of professionals for synagogues,youth movements, schools, and other organizations.

LEO BAECK COLLEGEABRAHAM GEIGER COLLEGE

Students in the Year-In-Israel program during a discussion group.

In the words of HUC-JIR President RabbiDavid Ellenson, “Judaism is a religionof social responsibility at its very heart.”

With this in mind, HUC-JIR has movedto expand and enhance the incorporationof social responsibility into the rabbinicalcurriculum, as part of the institution’sbroader leadership vision.

The Rabbi Jerome K. Davidson Chairin Social ResponsibilityThe Jerome K. Davidson Chair in Social Re-sponsibility was created to facilitate the newcurricular focus on social responsibility acrossall four campuses. The Chair will ensure“unity without uniformity,” helping achievethe institution’s overarching aim while assist-ing each campus as it implements the socialresponsibility focus based on its own resourcesand goals. “Our aim is to help students shapea vision of social responsibility in their rab-binate, and provide them with the skills andexperience to make it happen,” says Dr. Nor-man J. Cohen, Provost of HUC-JIR.

Rabbi Davidson is passionate about increasingstudents’ exposure to social responsibility dur-ing their education at the College-Institute.“The goal of the social responsibility focus isto awaken in students an awareness of injus-

tices in the world that are not beyond ourability to make a difference,” says RabbiDavidson. “By creating a congregationalsense of the import of hands-on work in thecommunity to help the needy, vulnerable,and weak, and by encouraging the commu-nity to be advocates of public policy that theworld needs, rabbis can, in their role as con-gregational and communal leaders, inspirechanges in our society and in the world.”

Several families from Rabbi Davidson’s syna-gogue, Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, fundedthis programmatic Chair in his name, anaffirmation of his lifelong commitment tosocial responsibility through his rabbinate.Program funds were provided by a generoussupporter of the College-Institute. RabbiDavidson says that “it is my hope that allstudents will be moved by their exposure tosocial action at HUC-JIR, and will chooseto make it part of their rabbinate as well.”

Since his retirement fromTemple Beth-El,Rabbi Davidson has begun to work withProvost Norman Cohen and part-time leader-ship program coordinators on each campus:

Rabbi Ken Kanter, Director of the RabbinicProgram in Cincinnati, Rabbi Suzanne Singerin Los Angeles, and Rabbi Darcie Crystal inNew York.

Social Responsibility EducationHUC-JIR has always placed a high valueon educating its students in social responsi-bility, and courses that involve elements ofsocial justice have been available on allcampuses for years.

In New York, Rabbi Jerome K. Davidson andAlbert Vorspan, a founder of the Commissionon Social Action of Reform Judaism and theReligious Action Center, have helped studentsexplore the role of the rabbi as a social andpolitical agent for change in their course,Tough Choices, Social Action in the Community.In Los Angeles, Rabbi William Cutter andDr. Aryeh Cohen recently taught The Seedsfor Economic Justice: Jewish Tradition and theSearch for Realistic Goals, which broughtstudents from HUC-JIR and the AmericaJewish University together with businessleaders to explore whether Jewish traditioncan have legitimate practical application to

in the HUC-JIR Curriculum

If we are going to fulfill the prophetic mandate of outreach to the disenfranchised inour society, we must be much better trained in effecting change.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITYLearning to Lead:

Rabbi Charles Kroloff, Vice President for Special Projects

Kim Zeitman

10 � THE CHRONICLE

Rabbi Jerome K. Davidson and Albert Vorspan teaching their social responsibility course,“Tough Choices, Social Action in the Community,” with guest lecturer Ruth Messinger,President, American JewishWorld Service..

real-life ethical dilemmas and social problemsin the marketplace and business community(see page 12).

The Cincinnati campus offers a fourth-yearcourse in Leadership and OrganizationalDynamics with Rabbi Sam Joseph, who in-corporates social responsibility into his classby bringing in speakers from the nationally-oriented Religious Action Center as well aslocal rabbis and communal leaders who areheavily involved in social action.

In the past, these opportunities were generallyoffered only as electives. However, HUC- JIRadministrators and faculty felt that those stu-dents who opted not to take such courses weremissing a key element of their rabbinical edu-cation. “All rabbis will be confronted in theirlocal communities with issues of social justice,and they need to know how to handle them,”says Al Vorspan. Adds Rabbi Charles Kroloff,HUC-JIR’s Vice President for Special Projects,“Successful strategies for effecting communitychange have emerged, but without systematicstudy and supervised field work, most newly-minted rabbis will never acquire the skills tofunction most effectively in those areas.”

The new curricular focus on social responsi-bility will demonstrate to students that socialjustice is an authentic and essential part ofJudaism, going hand-in-hand with the aca-demic and spiritual elements of their education.Students will learn how they can best serve asagents for change in their congregations andcommunities.

Starting in the Fall of 2007, social responsi-bility will be a required and an importantcomponent of the HUC-JIR rabbinical cur-riculum throughout all five years of study, aspart of the new program in leadership prepa-ration. First-year students in Israel engage in amandatory service project with a local agencyor organization, with opportunities for self-reflection, including a culminatingself-reflective writing assignment, built intothe experience. Students in their second yearare required to take a Professional Develop-ment course, now redesigned with an added

focus on Reform Judaism’s emphasis on out-reach and social responsibility. Third-yearstudent pulpits will include an institutionalchange project focused in their congregation,enabling hands-on experience in leading so-cial action in a congregational setting.

The fourth year brings a professional develop-ment course in leadership, focused in part onthe skills to mobilize congregations and insti-tutions to effect social justice-oriented change.Through this course in New York, titled“Rabbinical Leadership and Social Responsi-bility,” Rabbi Davidson and Professor Vorspanwill show students that social responsibility isa mandate of rabbinical leadership. Studentswill read Biblical and rabbinic texts to gain amore nuanced understanding of the Jewishobligation to promote a fair and just society.In the application of this obligation, discus-sions will focus on such topics as civil rights,immigration, environmental issues, poverty,housing, healthcare, workers’ rights, homelessrights, church/state boundaries, civil liberties,gender issues, anti-Semitism, racism, and in-terfaith relations. The class will also addresshow congregations can be organized for effec-

tive social action; the leadership techniques,tactics, and strategies congregations can use tosupport their positions; coalition building andpublic advocacy; theories of organizing; andeffective conflict management. According toAl Vorspan, “This is not just a practical course,but an indispensable course.” With guidancefrom the instructors, students will also beexpected to integrate some aspect of theircoursework into their fieldwork experience.

Following this course, the fifth year’s profes-sional development requirement will includea focus on pressing issues of social responsibil-ity along with outreach. HUC-JIR admini-strators are also developing a list of social re-sponsibility-oriented off-campus trainingexperiences, such as a summer seminar at theReligious Action Center, the Jewish Funds forJustice Leadership Training Program, and thePanim Retreat entitled Spirituality, Social Jus-tice and the Rabbinate. These experiences will

include a mechanism for ongoing personalreflection, such as journaling, essay-writing,or regular dialogue with faculty, classmates, ora mentor. Students will be required to partici-pate in one of these programs during theirtenure at the College-Institute.

The Hebrew Union College-University ofCincinnati Center for the Study of Ethicsand Contemporary Moral Problems (HUC-UC Ethics Center) also plays a significantrole in the social justice education of HUC-JIR students in Cincinnati. The EthicsCenter organizes and hosts a range of confer-ences on topics such as violence againstwomen, housing and homelessness, and theimplications of poverty and welfare on familystructures, gender roles, and social institu-tions. In partnership with the GraduateCollege of Union Institute & University, theEthics Center hosted its third annual sympo-sium on Poverty, Welfare, and Religion inMay 2007. The symposium attracted dozensof leading scholars on these issues from theUnited States and Europe, and HUC-JIRstudents received course credit for participa-tion in the program.

Al Vorspan provides some insight into justhow far HUC-JIR has come in the past half-century with regard to social responsibilityin the curriculum: “Fifty years ago, there wasno real curriculum, no course, no program,no training in social justice for our rabbinicalstudents. The College-Institute has gone frombeing uninvolved to a very active participantin the social justice training of the rabbinate.As a result, today’s rabbis are some of the mostresponsible and involved in social issues in anydenomination in the country, of any religion.”

Yet there is no doubt as to the need tocontinue and expand social responsibilityeducation for Reform rabbis. “The commu-nities we work in today and the issues westruggle with are far more complex than everbefore,” says Rabbi Kroloff. “The time hascome for us to focus on social responsibilityas we prepare the leaders for the Jewish worldof the 21st century.” �

2007 ISSUE 70 �11

Congregation members get a great deal of spiritual uplift from social action work.Rabbi Jerome K. Davidson

Can Jewish study influence economicjustice? This was the question for aclass composed of people who have

not normally studied together: eight studentsfrom two rabbinical seminaries – HUC-JIRand the American Jewish University – andeight prominent business leaders from theLos Angeles community.

The Seeds for Economic Justice was an effort tofind common ground between those whostudy the principles of ethical living from clas-sic Jewish texts, and those who live the ethicaldilemmas on a daily basis. The course beganas an effort to discover from the business com-munity whether Jewish tradition could havelegitimate practical application to the situa-tions that confront people in practice, and thebelief of the two instructors that students wholearn classic values ought to confront the real-ities of business decisions, balance sheet values,and the need to meet a payroll.

Here are some of the dilemmasexplored by the class:

Darchei ShalomThe Barenbaums (a fictional name) owna small chain of profitable stores in westernPennsylvania. Each year they hire nearlya hundred local citizens to supplement theirsales staff for Easter and recreational business.Heavy rains have created a business shortfallover the winter, and the three owners of thebusiness (grandfather, son, and grandson) feelthey may not be able to afford the extra hir-ing this year. (Of course there are plenty ofassets, but we are considering this year’s busi-ness.) Grandson, freshly out of WhartonSchool of the University of Pennsylvania, isthe most cautious, but grandfather has main-tained this tradition for 47 years, and iswilling to take the loss in the interest ofDarchei Shalom (the Barenbaum family’sstatus in the community and community re-lations). What should they do? Would such

a family really consult with their rabbi – notabout the economics of the decision, but aboutthe effect on community spirit? From whatprinciples might the rabbi draw his/her advice?

The Customs of the PlaceThe conscience of a Jewish manufacturer istroubled because she can outsource some ofthe work of her factory to a firm that probablyhires undocumented workers. The customs ofthis industry are quite literally not to askquestions. Should she ‘ask questions?’ or fol-low the customs of the locale in which herbusiness operates? What is the standing of‘The Customs of the Place’? Can she justifythis outsourcing on the grounds that at leastsome workers will make a steady income?The Mishnah addresses the hiring of workersfrom a town that has more relaxed workerstandards than the town in which the workerswill be hired to work.

When do you pay morethan you absolutely have to?Do Jewish workers have a rightto strike? An obligation to doso? Shall they protect the workof the less efficient or produc-tive fellow workers? Shallowners of very profitable busi-nesses be encouraged to paysalaries that exceed the “goingrate” in like industries in one’sregion? And what of the fore-

THESEEDSFORECONOMICJUSTICE:

JEWISHTRADITIONANDTHE SEARCHFOR REALISTICGOALS

Dr.William CutterProfessor Emeritusof Education andHebrew Languageand Literature,HUC-JIR/Los Angeles


Dr. Aryeh Cohen (center) andthe community of learners

(opposite page:) Dr. WilliamCutter (left) listens as a pointis strongly argued by businessleader Arthur Stern

Dr. Aryeh CohenAssociate Professor ofRabbinic Literature, ZieglerSchool of Rabbinic Studies,American Jewish University

2007 ISSUE 70 �13

man who isdelegated to hire on behalf of the owner? TheMishnah and Talmud deal in some detail withthe obligations of the delegated employer.

What are the obligations upon boardsto pay for benefits?Some public institutions have cut back onbenefits for employees on the grounds thatthe economy is tight, and many businesseshave reduced their benefit packages.Mr. Schwartz of the Jewish FamilyService believes that the board is obli-gated to maintain a high standard ofbenefit payments; the other trustees ofFamily Service claim that he is beingunrealistic, and the current climate is agood one in which to save the institutionmoney.What are the issues one facesfrom a Jewish perspective? Is asset-basedmanagement justified when it is certainlypossible for the board to raise moremoney? The Mishnah, Mishneh Torah,and Talmud are quite clear about protectingthe financial stability of private business;what would the tradition say about publicinstitutions?

These questions and more were amongthose examined in the seminar taught byProfessors Aryeh Cohen and William Cut-ter. The students met weekly to considerJewish texts and literary and rabbinic theoryin depth and in Hebrew. They met onceeach month in plenary session with businessleaders for a consideration of selected textsin English from the Mishnah, MishnehTorah, and Responsa.

Sometimes, among the business people them-selves, a dispute rang out: Does this ancientmaterial really have any use for us today? Ofcourse, it does; after all we are always in needof reminders of a tradition’s highest values. Dowe have ideals that supercede (or trump) ac-cepted practice? How do I as a rabbinical leaderinvoke the tradition among people who willsay that ‘I don’t know how the world really op-erates?’ What does one say to a businessperson who contends that theory is simply tooabstract to respond to contemporary situationsin the heat of themoment? Do lawyers approacha problem differently than business people?

For their final assignments, the students tookon two tasks: attendance at a union meeting

and interviews with workers in regard to theplace of the union in their lives; and a finalpaper that was to be a grant application fora social justice program within a synagogue.

The students arrived at a number of conclu-sions, including that law is not the soledomain of the state, but an attempt by com-munities to articulate and live out storiesabout who we are as a society. Their socialjustice proposals for synagogues were diverse:

• a program in which the New Year (RoshHaShanah) helps a city council to focus ontheir notions of an ideal city;

• a program that demonstrates that mistreat-ment of day workers, who are increasinglybeing abused, will result in a general re-duction in services and quality of life foreveryone;

• a program focusing on the dilemma thatsome congregational members are (fairly)openly taking advantage of certain statutesto underpay workers, and proposing astudy group in which business peoplewould openly discuss their business prac-tices with each other.

In the final class, one of the business leadersurged those concerned with workers beingunderpaid to be bold, to stand up to peopleengaging in questionable business practices,and a debate ensued. But the discussionended when Rabbi Leonard Beerman, whoattended the sessions and inspired the con-cept of the course along with Clergy andLaity United for Economic Justice, spokefor twenty minutes about his anguish in try-ing to harmonize his values with the realitiesof the marketplace in which his congregantshave worked. “I live in a very nice home,”he said, “but, unfortunately, it has windowsand so I see the thorns and thistles that existoutside my neighborhood.”

After the meeting with the union and itsindividual members, a student came to therealization of “what the fight was about. Itisn’t a fight for salary or benefits, it is a fightto be treated with dignity.”

Another student pointed to a memorablestatement by a classmate that involved theamounts of money large corporations spendon legal fees in order not to treat workersjustly. “It is disturbing to see how easily we

forget that we are talking about real hu-man beings and not a nice theory orinteresting idea. The instructors remindthe students of the relevance of a famouslaw review article for that distinction be-tween theory and real human beings.”

Is Jewish tradition subversive to modernbusiness practice?We learned in this coursethat aspects of our tradition are actuallyquite protective, encouraging the en-durance of ownership on safe grounds asa way of insuring the stability of society –

one of the early meanings of tikkun olam, therepairing of our world. We learned that manyvery hard-headed business people – citizensof prominence and possessors of great mate-rial comfort – have strived to make theirworkplaces more just and dignified for theworker whose voice is not so easy to hear.

At the final session, the group reflectedon the fact that the course was premisedon a democratic pedagogy in which expert-ise was respected but was not given a veto.As a result, people who had no backgroundin classical Jewish text study were able toactively participate in and contribute toa conversation with people who had yearsof study experience. Similarly those withno experience of day to day business realitieswere able to engage CEOs in discussionsof business ethics. The groups were notneatly drawn: Some of the business peoplehad extensive text background and someof the rabbinical students had experiencein business or with organized labor. Thedemocratic classroom is a model that canalso be implemented in other situationswhere different communities of learnerswant to sit together. As the Rabbis said(Mishnah Avot 3:2), when a group ofpeople sit to study Torah together, theDivine Presence is amongst them. �


On March 17, 1998, onthe 75th anniversary ofStephen Samuel Wise’s

founding of the Jewish Instituteof Religion, Rabbi Martin A.Cohen, Ph.D., Professor ofJewish History at HUC-JIR/New York, delivered theFounder’s Day Address to theNew York campus community.He invoked the memory ofbiblical builders Bezalel andOholiab, the architects of theMishkan – the holy sanctuaryin the desert, to inspire stu-dents to meet the challengesthat face them:

What faith it must have takenfor Bezalel and Oholiab to buildtheir sanctuary, tabernacle, arkand all the rest – for unborn gen-erations, for uncharted territory,and for unknown challenges! Andwhat courage it must have takenso to innovate amidst their sur-rounding disorientation! …Yetthey drove on. They drove on…adamantly determined to complywith God’s directive, “Let themmake Me a sanctuary…”

Cohen didn’t know then thattwo years later, he and Dr. LewisBarth, Professor of Midrashand Related Literature and for-mer Dean of HUC-JIR/LosAngeles, Dr. Mark Kligman,Professor of Jewish Musicology,

and other members of the HUC-JIR faculty would embark on amonumental project that de-manded just such determination,ingenuity, and optimism.

In 2000, Barth was approachedby Sam Tarica, a member of theboard of directors of the MauriceAmado Foundation, and askedto address the lack of inclusionof Sephardic Jewry in mainstreamJewish education. With a multi-year grant from the AmadoFoundation, the team devel-oped a program to supportgreater inclusion of SephardicStudies in the core curriculumof HUC-JIR, transformingthe way rabbinical studentsencounter Sephardic history.

Cohen points out that theSephardic heritage has all alongbeen at the heart of the corecurriculum, although studentsare not always cognizant of itspresence. Its poets, whose gemswe recite in our prayers; itscommentators, who enlightenour Sacred Scriptures; itsphilosophers, culminating inMaimonides; its legists, whopaved the way for the SephardicShulhan Arukh – consideredthe most definitive book ofJewish law since the Talmud –laid the foundation for muchof what is central in Judaism

BEYOND THE GOLDENAGE:INNOVATIONS IN SEPHARDICSTUDIES AT HUC-JIR Leah Kaplan Robins

“Dos penitenciados con el sambenito” from the cover ofConfessions of Andres Gonzales by Jonathan Ben Nahoom,a novel about the Spanish Inquisition, donated to the Frances-Henry Library at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles by Dr. Moshe Lazar.The illustration depicts two heretics convicted by the Churchof crimes indicated by the color and design of the vests theywere forced to wear as a form of punishment and publicshame, ranging from short periods of time or until theydied or were executed.

2007 ISSUE 70 �15

today. Yet the Sephardic char-acter of these icons is largelyinvisible to most students.“While we’ve been teachingit all along,” Cohen says,“we have not been sensitizingour students to the Sephardicdimension of the Jewish experi-ence. They have not seen thatmuch of what Ashkenazic cul-ture has incorporated wasgenerated in the Iberian Penin-sula and in the lands of theSephardic dispersion.”

Furthermore, the Sephardichistory that most students doimbibe is often narrowly limitedto those figures and themesfrom the Golden Age of Iberia(often referred to as the “GoldenAge of Spain”). Kligman notes

that “in academia the representa-tion of Sephardic communitiespost-15th century and theGolden Age of Iberia is sporadic,though we now know that themodel of this age as a “utopia”of interaction is a somewhatflawed notion developed by theGerman Wissenschaft scholarsof the nineteenth century.”

Cohen points out that this out-dated model gives students acultural handicap in their un-derstanding of Sephardica.“The so-called Golden Ageof Sephardic achievement islimited to Muslim Iberia, whileChristian Iberia developed a re-lated, but distinctive, Jewishculture, which I, along withothers have called the ‘SilverAge.’ Nor does the representa-tion of Sephardic culture inacademia include the wider con-tributions of Sephardic Jewry inAmsterdam, Safed, the OttomanEmpire, and Israel in later peri-ods.” Kligman explains that “itis only in the last 50 years thatscholars have investigated non-Ashkenazic communities in aserious and systematic way.”

The Sephardic CurriculumProject is a major step to reversethe marginalization of Sephardicstudies in academia. RabbiDavid Ellenson finds tremen-dous need for such a program,because “to ignore the Sephardicheritage is to deny a major partof our patrimony,” he says.“Furthermore, the Sephardic

experience, in many ways, ismore germane to our own real-ity today than the Ashkenazicexperience has been. After all,great figures such as Maimonidesand Nahmanides had to tra-verse and mediate amongJewish and non-Jewish culturalworlds, just as we do today incontemporary America. In thissense, the Sephardic experiencehas a great deal to teach us aswe are in the same position andconfront the same challenges inmodern day America that ourSephardic ancestors faced withinthe orbit of medieval Islam andChristianity a millennium ago.For these reasons, and preciselybecause ignorance of the richSephardic heritage impover-ishes our Judaism so verymuch, this project is crucialto the education of our futurereligious, communal, andeducational leaders.”

The project, now seven yearsold, is well underway to meet-ing its goals. Its website,www.huc. edu/sephardic, waslaunched in 2007 with readingsand course guides, an indexof Sephardic liturgical music,annotated Internet resources,reviews of academic studies,and a library research guide.Sephardic material is now bet-ter integrated into core courses,and funding from the MauriceAmado Foundation grant hasaided faculty projects and pub-lications on Sephardic topics.Several noted scholars, includ-ing Professor Aron Rodriguefrom Stanford University andProfessor Norman Stillmanfrom the University of Okla-homa, have visited the College-Institute as guest lecturers. InNovember 2008, our facultywill host a conference, togetherwith the UCLA Jewish Studies

Maurice AmadoFOUNDATIONwww.mauriceamadofdn.org

Maurice Amado, who estab-lished the foundation in 1961,was a descendant of SephardicJews who settled in the OttomanEmpire after their expulsion fromSpain in 1492. He immigratedto New York from Izmir, Turkey in1903 and moved to Los Angelesin 1940.A successful financier,he was committed to sharinghis wealth with the Jewish com-munity. During his lifetime, Mr.Amado supported organizationsthat perpetuated Sephardicheritage and culture. Since hisdeath in 1968, Mr. Amado’snieces, nephews and their de-scendants have carried on hischaritable work. Three genera-tions of the Amado familycurrently direct the Foundation’sactivities.

A major focus of the MauriceAmado Foundation is to ensurethat Sephardic heritage is woveninto the fabric of American Jewry.The Foundation has a special in-terest in integrating informationabout the religious life and cul-ture of Sephardic Jews, whoseancestors originated in the IberianPeninsula, into the education ofall American Jews, with a specialemphasis on reaching leaders,both present and future, ofAmerican Jewry.The heritage ofSephardic Jews includes the his-tory and contributions to Jewishthought of the Spanish Jews be-fore the Inquisition; the effectsof the Inquisition on Jewish reli-gious, cultural and intellectuallife; the history of the Sephardimin the lands of their dispersionafter the Expulsion; and modernSephardic cultural and religiouscontributions to Jewish life.

Dr. Mark Kligman demonstrating interactive media for SephardicStudies at the HUC-JIR Faculty Retreat, June 2006.


Program and USC CasdenInstitute, on the Integrationof Sephardic Studies in cur-riculum and new research inthe field.

The backbone of the project’smany activities is an electroniclibrary of Sephardic texts, amassive database involvingover three hundred and fiftycategories of Sephardic interest,and a comprehensive curricu-lum outline being compiledby Cohen. Over the past fouryears he has recovered andcompiled thousands of data,culled from his years of researchin the archives and attics of uni-versity and public libraries inmany lands, and from his own

extensive world-class collectionof original sources ofSephardica from Roman timesuntil today. His collection in-cludes, among many otherthings, every source related toSephardic studies cited in theentire Encyclopaedia Judaica,where he served as editor forthree of its departments per-taining to Sephardica. He saysthat “you’d be surprised byhow much necessary stuff westill do not have, but once thisproject has been completed, itwill make available the wholeSephardic world to our students.”

Cohen has compiled a 1700page reader of original texts thathe has organized into 18

themes. He is nearing comple-tion of the first three of 18curriculum units, each of whichcontains a 30-page outline ofthe field, an appendix of mapsand charts, 2-3 pages of topicsand questions for masters anddoctoral dissertations, followedby an approximately 200-entrybibliography. Some 500 pagesof Cohen’s 1700 page readerhave already been digitized,and the entire reader and cur-riculum will soon be availableon the project’s website. Cohenhas been assisted by SheidaHakimian and Anita Rogers,whose contributions he consid-ers “indispensable to thesuccess of the project.”

Cohen estimates that his cur-riculum will be completed by2014, assuming that fundingand support continue past June2008, when the Maurice AmadoFoundation will conclude itsgrant. Rabbi Ellenson pledgesto continue the project, be-cause he “believes that itsexistence will enrich our stu-dents immeasurably by grantingthem access to the treasuresof the Sephardic heritage.Not only will their intellectualhorizons be expanded, buttheir ability to draw upon agreat host of customs and cere-monies as they seek to facilitatereligious and spiritual journeysfor those whose lives they willtouch will be greatly deepened.”

Kligman has noticed a markedchange at the College-Institutesince the inception of the proj-ect. “Faculty and students aremore aware of a wider variety ofJewish texts. They have becomeaware of writings of rabbis in the

Ottoman era and in Israel thataddress interesting issues ofmodernity that help gain alarger view of Judaism. We findthat issues where Reform Judaismis often at odds with Ashke-nazic Orthodoxy – women’srights, tolerance, and accept-ance of the non-Jewish world –are addressed with a more openspirit among Sephardic rabbis.Our students now have greaterexposure to these ideas and torecent scholarship.”

The Maurice Amado Founda-tion grant has made possiblethe annual offering of an elec-tive in Sephardica thatpreviously was only offered in-termittently, but now enjoys animpressive annual enrollment.Rabbi Ellenson applauds thechange, saying “it will put ourstudents in closer touch withthe cultural and religious realitythat informs half if not more ofthe world’s Jews today.”

Throughout the years, Cohenhas served as the advisor forcountless students seeking towrite theses on Sephardic andmizrahi (Jews of the MiddleEast and North Africa) themes,but since the project began, hefinds more students than everthirsty for knowledge on thesubject. Rabbi Allison Berry,N ’07, whom Cohen recentlyadvised on her thesis on thematriarchs and the Me-amLo’ez, a Sephardic Bible com-mentary from Turkey, says thather teacher inspired her “towant to learn about a littlestudied period of Jewish his-tory – the Jews living inOttoman Turkey. TheSephardic project is about

Professor Moshe Lazar’s GiftIn 2006, the Frances-Henry Library at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles receivedthe gift of a sizeable Sephardica collection from Professor MosheLazar, Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of South-ern California. The collection includes 1,200 items, in Hebrew,Ladino, English, Spanish, French, and Yiddish.

On December 3, 2006 a reception was held to honor ProfessorLazar and to raise funds for the library. The event, which featured apresentation by Dr. Mark Kligman, entitled Sephardic History andCulture - Its Meaning for the 21st Century, was attended by nearly100 people from the HUC-JIR and Sephardic communities, andraised more than $17,000.

ALABOROFLOVE:

When asked how long hehas been working on the

Sephardic Curriculum Proj-ect, Dr. Martin Cohenanswered, “68 years.”

“It reminds me of when I wasjust getting started in rabbini-cal school and ready to go outto my first High Holy Daypulpit,” he said. “All of themembers of our class wereassembled in synagogue inCincinnati, and they broughtDr. Nathan Perilman, a rabbiat Temple Emanu-El, to giveus a pep talk. He said ‘Peopleask me, how long did it takeyou to write your sermon lastweek? I always say five hoursand 50 years.’”

So in these terms, Dr. Cohenhas been preparing to writethe definitive curriculum onSephardic Jewry for four years

and nearly seven decades.He began at age 11 when hemet his first Spanish teacher,Richard D. Abraham, a west-ern Sephardic Jew born andraised in Philadelphia, whoattended the same Reformsynagogue as members of hisfamily. “Dr. Abraham sawthat I had an interest andaptitude, and gave me booksto read and suggestions forstudy, and I got interested!”

Cohen inherited his zestfor education from hisfamily, who, with severalgenerations of rabbis, wereactive in Orthodox, Conserva-tive, and Reform synagoguesin Philadelphia. He receivedhis Hebrew education throughprivate tutoring under the eye

of his parents, who alsohome schooled himin secular subjectsbefore he was ofkindergartenage.

Although Co-hen’s familypreferred thathe study medi-cine or law, he

was on a naturaltrajectory toward

academia, pursuinghis interest in Spanish liter-

ature and the Jews known asNew Christians. Upon hisgraduation from the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania at ageeighteen, he started a doctoralprogram at that university

2007 ISSUE 70 �17

DR.MARTIN

COHEN

AND

SEVEN

DECADES

OF

SEPHARDICALeah Kaplan Robins

opening doors to a part ofour heritage many of us haveforgotten but that shaped ahuge portion of Jewish thoughtand ethics as we know themtoday. Dr. Cohen’s goal is toprovide useable tools for futurescholars and students in orderto study this important genreof Jewish history.” Her class-mate and another of Cohen’sstudents, Rabbi Lawrence Ser-novitz, N ’07, notes that theSephardica project “is incredi-bly important, not only forhistorians, but also for all Jewswho care deeply about the sur-vival and continuity of theJewish people.”

In the spring of 2004, Kligmanwas asked to present on thediversity of Sephardic liturgicalmusic at a board meeting of theMaurice Amado Foundation.“After the presentation, aboard member of the founda-tion came up to me and askedwhat I wanted the impact ofthis project to be on HUC-JIRstudents,” he relates. “I toldhim I wanted students to seethe unique and diverse Jewishworld of the Sephardic com-munity. He responded bysaying that as Americans weidentify with colonial Americanhistory even though many ofour direct ancestors were notin America. Given the values,lives, and fortitude of thesepioneers, we are beholden totheir experiences. Likewise, itwas his hope that HUC-JIRstudents will identify withSephardic Jewry as a part oftheir own Jewish history. Irealized from this conversationhow this important goal isour model.” �

and was appointed to teachRomance Languages. Hetaught at Penn concurrentlywith his graduate studies forfour years before he receivedan appointment at RutgersUniversity. Given his back-ground, he was naturallydrawn to the investigationof the Jewish contribution toIberian civilization, and afterreceiving his master’s degreeand completing his doctoral

courses, he began, with theencouragement of his profes-sor, the distinguished MiguelRomera-Navarro, a thesis onreligion in the work of Cer-vantes, who is known to havebeen favorably disposed tothe descendants of New Chris-tians. In the meantime, withthe help of a friend, RabbiTheodore Gordon z”l, C ’33,his family persuaded him toturn to the rabbinate.

Cohen enlisted in the Air Forceduring the Korean War, andspent much of his spare timepreparing for advanced stand-ing at HUC-JIR. “I even tookmy psychological exams andmy psychiatric exam for HUC-JIR while I was in themilitary.”

Cohen met his wife, Dr.Shelby Ruth Cohen (néeBrenner), at the Universityof Pennsylvania’s InternationalHouse in 1948. They weremarried five years later, justbefore Cohen’s discharge fromthe Air Force. Dr. Shelby Co-hen is Professor of AppliedPsychology at Kean Univer-sity, where she is now in herthirty-eighth year of teaching.

Immediately following the Ko-rean War, Cohen entered theCollege as a second-year student,and by March of his first yearin residence in Cincinnati, Co-hen recalls, “I was told that theCollege wanted me for its fac-ulty.” Though he wanted tocomplete his dissertation at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, theadministration urged him toobtain his doctorate at HUC-JIR instead, with a concentrat-ion in Sephardic Hebrew texts.

Cohen came of age in thisniche at HUC-JIR and hasbeen for more than half acentury a part of the College

Institute’s history. He hasknown five of its presidents:Julian Morgenstern (President,1921-1947) was PresidentEmeritus when Cohen arrivedat HUC-JIR, and taught acourse that Cohen took;Nelson Glueck (1947-1971)was his teacher in the rabbini-cal program and broughthim onto the faculty; AlfredGottschalk (1971-1995) washis classmate; SheldonZimmerman (1996-2002)and David Ellenson (2002-present) were his students.

Cohen is recognized as oneof the foremost scholars in hisfield. He has published fivebooks on Sephardic themes,covering the cultural historyand accomplishments of con-versos, Jews in Spain andPortugal, and the history ofthe Sephardic experience. Hiswell-known book, The Martyr:The Story of a Secret Jew andthe Mexican Inquisition in theSixteenth Century has beenprinted in two editions andadapted as an opera, El Con-quistador. He has pennedhundreds of articles and re-views, and presented papersthroughout the United Statesand Latin America. He is theonly Reform and AshkenazicJew ever to serve as Presidentof the American Society ofSephardic Studies, and in


Dr. Martin Cohen (at right, third from top) among his classmates atOrdination at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati in 1957.

Dr. Martin Cohen’s MadridNational Library card.

1998 he gave the keynote addressat Santangel ’98, an internationalconference on Sephardic studiessponsored by the DominicanUniversity.

Cohen’s passion for this oeuvreis transmitted to his students.Rabbi Larry Sernovitz, N ’07observes, “Dr. Cohen has in-vested incredible time and effortinto uncovering the history andbeauty of Sephardic Judaism.He cares deeply about producinga comprehensive history ofSephardic Judaism and all itsnuances for people to study andhonor for decades to come.”

Since joining the faculty, Cohenhas taught courses, now two peryear, on the development of earlyrabbinic Judaism and Christian-ity, and also writes and lectureson Bible and modern Jewishhistory when he is not teachingor writing on Sephardica. Whileworking on the SephardicCurriculum Project, Cohenhas completed another bookon Sephardica, scheduled forpublication by the Universityof Nebraska Press, and has beenapproached to write a college texton the Sephardic experience.He hopes some day to finisha 450-page book based on his

tract, Two Sister Faiths: Introduc-tion to a Typological Approach toEarly Rabbinic Judaism and EarlyChristianity.

Alongside this active academiccareer, Cohen has always lovedthe human side of his chosenprofession. “Even when I startedteaching,” he remembers, “theadministration knew that myinterest in going into the rab-binate was primarily to be acongregational rabbi. I love therabbinate. I just love it.” Cohenspeaks fondly of his years asrabbi of various congregations,including his assistantship atAdath Israel in Louisville, Ken-

tucky and his senior interim po-sition at the Stephen Wise FreeSynagogue in Manhattan.

Nowadays, however, his scholarlypursuits prevent him from servingin a rabbinical role. “My audiencesdon’t like me to preach. They allwant me to lecture. I love topreach. I miss that part. But Iget vicarious enjoyment frommy students, watching them de-velop and seeing where they go.”

In many cases, his relationshipswith students have lasted fordecades. He is the kind ofteacher thought of by many whocross his path as a mentor, notmerely an instructor. Sernovitzshares: “He is not only a truechacham, a true scholar, but heis an extremely gifted teacherand inspirational rabbi. He hashad deep and profound impacton me both professionally andpersonally. As I was studyingSephardic Judaism with himas well as writing my thesis, hewas patient, caring, insightful,and challenged me to producehigh quality work in a risk-free

environment, one where hesupported me entirely along theway.” Rabbi Allison Berry, N ’07adds, “His gentle manner inspiredme to work harder and to trulylove what I learned from him.”

Rabbi David Ellenson under-stands why generations ofstudents feel this closeness.“As a teacher and mentor, noone has been more caring. Hisclasses have always been filledwith exceptional depth and realintellectual excitement.”

Cohen has advised more than100 theses, most of them inSephardica, in his half centuryof teaching at HUC-JIR, andhe shows no sign of slowing down.A man of tremendous energy, herecalls that “when I was an assis-tant rabbi in Kentucky, I used tocommute back and forth fromto Cincinnati to Louisville. Inthose days my energy level wasso high I could get by with twohours sleep. As Confucius said,‘Choose a job you love, and youwill never have to work a day inyour life.’” �

Dr. Martin Cohen teaching at HUC-JIR/New York.

2007 ISSUE 70 �19

Dr. Martin Cohen has been a beloved teacher andmentor to students for over fifty years.


If we were in a theater waiting for a per-formance instead of listening to a lecture,the curtain would be closed and you

would have a printed program, where Iwould be able to thank the institution –this amazing place – and my studentswho gave me an incredible ride last Fall.

Then you might get a kind of prologue forthis theater experience: Last year I was askedto come before the American Bankers Associ-ation to do a session on creativity. Over 40bankers showed up, and I asked them whatthey think about creativity. It turns out thattheir idea of creativity is really narrow. Tothem, it means wild abandonment, total un-control, everything going berserk. I left themwith a list of my ideas about creativity, a littleless narrow than their definition.

Rattle around in other people’s universes.Embrace paradox. Hold two ideas in yourhead at once, and find something to respectat both ends of the spectrum. Don’t confuseoriginality with creativity. Creativity is thou-

sands and thousands of variations and is atthe tip of our fingers every single second.I can’t say the same about originality. Learnhow to frame things really big and how toframe things really small. Frame things bigand you can get out of the personal andyour problems. You can find amazing waysto connect. And frame things small, becausenothing is too small to notice.

Finally, turn discomfort into inquiry. I’mjust finishing a project working with geneti-cists. At one point I spent an hour with EricWieschaus, who is a Nobel Laureate, lookingat flies through his microscope. I asked him,“How do you come up with the questionthat you want to spend the next bunch ofyears of your life on?” And he said, “I amfueled by my ignorance.” Isn’t that beautiful?Because there are many ways to deal withignorance, one of which is to feel humiliatedand to go about trying to chase away thatfeeling. Whereas there’s another way, whichis to use it as fuel for what you want tocome to understand.

So, that’s the prologue, the amazing potentialin creativity.

Next, the curtain would open, and if I weregiving you a dance and not a lecture, youwould see three pools of light on the stage,and three little stories going at the same time.And you could be picking up images fromeach story. You would be able to stir themup yourself just by watching, and you wouldbe able to make something of it. Try to imag-ine the possibility that the stories that I willtell you are all simultaneous.

Here is the first pool of light: I just got backfrom Japan, where I met with one of the chiefcorporate funders of Japanese art. After wesaid hello and exchanged our cards, he just lit

DAILY ACTS OF CREATION:

Excerpts of the Laurie Lecture

presented on March 22, 2007

at HUC-JIR/New York, with

the support of The Blanche and

Irving Laurie Foundation and

theWomen’s Rabbinic Network,

in honor of the Rabbi Sally J.

Priesand Visiting Professorship

in JewishWomen’s Studies

Rabbi Sally J. Priesand and Liz Lerman

Art, Imagination, and Hope in the 21st CenturyLiz Lerman, Rabbi Sally J. Priesand Visiting Professor, HUC-JIR/New York

2007 ISSUE 70 �21

into me: “We do not want American artistshere. Go away. We do not want to be influ-enced by you.” Well, because of years ofworking on negative feedback in the art world,I have learned to listen for the question I wishhe’d asked me and respond with that. So Isaid back to him, “What an interesting ques-tion, the issue of influence.” And then I saidto him, “I’m Jewish. The thing about theJewish people is that we have allowed our-selves to be influenced for thousands of years.We understand the hyphen better than any-body. We know how to take in gloriouspieces of information and beauty from othercultures. But we also know when to halt, puta stop to it and say, no, that’s far enough.”

It led me to a very long and still involvedmeditation on what does it mean to beinfluenced. And what does it mean to beinfluential, and what of my own tools doI want to impart, and when is it too much?That’s one pool of light on stage.

The second pool of light: When I left forcollege in 1965, I left Milwaukee, Wisconsin,and a beautiful tree-lined street with the elmsarching gracefully over the center. One yearwhen I came back for winter break, all thetrees were gone. Dutch elm disease had rav-ished the Midwest. That spring, my mothertold me over the phone that Milwaukee PublicWorks had planted a city full of new trees - allmaple. She said, “What do they think is goingto happen in 25 years? There’s going to be amaple disease, and all the trees are going to go.When are they going to understand diversity?”

The third pool of light: I spent ten yearsteaching dance in a retirement home a coupleof miles from my house. One day, early on,there was a little lady sitting in the back whoalways had on a big, big coat, no matter howwarm it was, and the place was often over-heated. I was just getting to know the place,so I went up to her and said, “You know, it’s

really hot in here. Why don’t you just takeyour coat off?” And she started to take it off,but the nurse who was nearby said, “Oh, no,no, she never takes her coat off,” at which thewoman immediately put the coat back on.The nurse felt terrible. I mean the minute itwas out of her mouth, she knew she’d lost agreat opportunity. I was struck by the role ofthe outsider in this scenario. I didn’t knowthis woman. I had no idea what her patternswere, and sometimes that’s really good. It’s re-ally good to have outsiders in your midst.

I’ll bring the power of the outsider a littlecloser to home. Through my work withSynagogue 2000, I was able to make somewonderful visits to synagogues. One day I wasa guest at a synagogue in Boston, where I wasleading a group of traditional scholars. Wewere sitting in the little library, and the grouphad just finished praying, and when it was myturn to begin, I said, “Well, let’s put our prayerbooks on the floor so we can start moving.”

“The books on the floor?” (Telling the lady“take your coat off” is fine. But “put thebooks on the floor?” Not so fine.) But I didn’tknow that that was a bad thing to do then, sothey explained to me that you can’t put God’sname on the floor. I said, “Well, you know,I’m a dancer. And when I teach, I always starteverybody on the floor. And I always say tothem, ‘Let the floor support you. Let theearth come up under you and hold you. Justlet go for a minute and feel that support.’” SoI said to the group, “Don’t you think Godwould like that just for a minute?” And thenI gave them the choice. An interesting mo-ment around innovation and tradition.

So, in our dance so far, we have three pools oflight. And we have three stories laid out. Andwe have three ideas. As the choreographer, I’llstart pulling these together.

To do so I’m drawn to yet another story. Iwas in Hawaii to do a project, and I met a

woman who is a Kuma Hula, a hula master.I went to her school so that we could teach aclass together. She started chanting in this in-credible language and this beautiful voice.And what she said was “bring your ancestors.Bring all your ancestors. Bring them into theroom. Bring them, all of them, everyone thatyou’ve ever loved or who’s loved you, bringthem all.” It was incredible. I had the roomfilled with my Jewish ancestors. I had theroom filled with all those old pictures frommy wall at home, family members I hadnever met. And then she said, “You’re notalone. You never were.” Isn’t that beautiful?

My grandfather left Russia, walked across thecountry, and ended up in Milwaukee. He leftRussia because he wanted to avoid the pogroms,and by then he’d also already been a revolu-tionary in the first revolution of 1904-5. Myfather was the embodiment of a great Jewishspirit. He lived his Jewish commitment on adaily basis, and he made sure we knew that.We spent a Christmas day, which is my birth-day, marching with Father Groppi (perhapsthat’s a name some of you remember), one ofthe great civil rights organizers from the Mid-west, in the freezing cold of Milwaukee. Andmy father turned to me and said, “This iswhat it means to be Jewish.” This is what Imean by the embodiment. It was action, do-ing. My mother used to tell me everyday, “Ifyou want to be an artist, you better learn tostand up for yourself. You better discover yourown voice.” This is in contrast to my father:“You want to be a good Jew, you serve theworld.” So with those two influences you cansee why I’m standing here.

So far on our stage, we’ve had three stories,and then we pulled them together. Webrought in the ancestors so the dance cameto the center. Now we get to the meat of thedance. Spending the semester at this campus,two things came up a lot that I wanted to re-flect upon with you. One is the nature of our


identity. We must not base our identity onthe fact that bad things have happened to us.It simply doesn’t work. It’s very powerful tobe in opposition, you build up good muscles,but the minute the source of opposition isgone, the weaknesses show up. I don’t seehow we’re going to build our identity onsomething other than opposition unless weengage in artistic practices and do good in theworld.

The second is the idea of innovation in themidst of tradition. When I came here, Ithought I was coming to teach three things:how to use the body as a ritual object, whererabbis, cantors, and teachers become vessels;how to explore text through movement; andhow to use ensemble and improvisationaltechniques from dance and theater to helpbuild congregational life. We did all thosethings. This is a grand set of post-moderntools that I’ve spent 33 years building in mychoreographic world. I love these tools, andit’s so much fun to share them. But what wetalked about most was dealing with change.What happens when you bring new thingsinto tradition, and all of the discomfort,fear, and particularly loss that accompaniessuch innovation.

My rabbi, Danny Zemel, once said to me,“I think that God is most Godlike when Godis creating. So, if people are created in God’simage, then do you suppose people are mostGodlike when they’re creating?” I liked that,and it made me go back and reread some ofthe texts on creation. When we first meetGod in the Bible, there’s all that chaos. I liketo wonder how long God was in that chaosbefore God decided to organize it, becausea lot of us, like me, enjoy chaos. And thenGod begins creating by making distinctions.I think it means that making distinctions isa very creative act. It’s also a deadly politicalact, an act of enormous power. You knowhow when you pick up something and itbelongs in two files, and you wonder whatto do with it? Just look at Genesis. Day is

not night, that’s clear; but where would youput dawn and dusk, really?

Once you make distinctions between things,for example between ballet and modern dance;between being an artist and being an educator,then you put walls up between the distinc-tions. Then you build institutions around thewalls that you put up around those distinc-tions. And pretty soon, you can’t get betweenthem. At the college level studying dance, ifyou want to be a choreographer and an edu-cator, you can’t. There’s probably not a singleinstitution in this country that would trainany artist in education. You have to choosebetween being an educator and being a maker.We are so bereft because of that. Each field isweakened, because choreographers are goingto be much better choreographers if they’realso teaching. And believe me, teachers willbe much better teachers if they’re still intouch with that element of making.

So I began to talk of, instead of distinctions,permeable membranes. This allows me, forexample, to be involved in a communityproject in which I can demand incredibleartistic rigor from people who may not haveever danced before. And at the same time bein touch with the fact that there may be somehealing going on. I can move between thoseworlds. I have to move between those worlds.I want to move between those worlds.

The second problem of making distinctionsis we didn’t just put the distinctions downsideways. We actually piled them hierarchi-cally. When we say, for example, ballet ismore important than modern, concert formsare more important than folk forms, rabbisare more important than cantors, we’re mak-ing hierarchical distinctions. I really don’t likethat very much, because it’s just not true. It’snot the truth of my experience. In my world,I find it easy teaching dance to old peoplewhile at the same time, my company may beperforming at the Kennedy Center. I don’twant anybody to tell me that the Kennedy

Center is more important than teachingdance to old people. I want to live in a worldwhere I can move between these things. Notjust because they’re permeable, but becausethe value and importance of both things mat-ter to me.

This matters to Jews and Jewish leaders. Be-cause if you’re going to deal with innovationand tradition, you have to come to a place ofunderstanding. It is not “here’s tradition” and“here’s innovation.” And it is not all about in-novation to the detriment of tradition. Youhave to be able to hold the two ideas at thesame time.

We also discussed performance. My studentsseemed concerned about being able to pray atthe same time they’re leading prayer. Thatseemed like such an interesting, curious prob-lem to me. I think if you asked performersof all kinds, you would find many variationsto that question from inside the art world.I think what the question really demands is areexamination of what everybody thinks theymean by praying. My suspicion is that by fa-cilitating the prayer of others, one is in deepprayer, deep. It just doesn’t feel the same.

I sense that often Jews are afraid to get intotheir bodies during prayer because they thinkif they get into their bodies, they’ll loose theirminds. It’s not exactly wrong because a lotof sacred dance forms are about reachingan ecstatic state. But my experience and whatI’m interested in is hardly about losing yourmind, but rather some deep connection,where the link between our minds and ourbodies is so fast, and the learning is so huge,and the imagination is so animated. That’swhat I think is really possible.

Let the curtain come down. �

DAILY ACTS OF CREATION:Art, Imagination, and Hope in the 21st Century(continued)

T he Leadership Institute forCongregational School Ed-ucators (LICSE), initiated

three years ago with a $1.8 milliongrant from UJA-Federation ofNew York, has enhanced the lead-ership capacity of the inauguralcohort of 52 educators of Reform,Conservative, Reconstructionist,and Orthodox synagogue schools.With a second grant of $1.9 millionfrom UJA-Federation of NewYork, this transdenominationalprogram, co-sponsored by HUC-JIR and the Jewish TheologicalSeminary (JTS), is recruiting asecond group of synagogue edu-cators from the tri-state New Yorkarea for training that will begin inJanuary 2008.

“This historic initiative allowsthe seminaries of the Reformand Conservative Movementsto work together to further theprofessional skills, Judaic knowl-edge, and vision for leadership ofcongregational school educatorsinfluencing the Jewish educationand identity formation of over30,000 children in this region,”explained Dr. Evie Rotstein,LICSE Project Director. “We areso grateful to UJA-Federation ofNew York for their visionary com-mitment to congregational schooleducation through a grant thattranslates to $50,000 per educator.”

Rabbi Steven Brown, Ed.D., ofJTS, said, “The LICSE is a pio-neering and most successful effortto raise the self image and profes-sional leadership skills of synagogueschool educators. It has raised thebar on what synagogue schoolleadership should be and energizeda deepening commitment to theexcellence of synagogue schoolson the part of the participantsand their superb mentors.”

LEADERSHIP,JUDAIC KNOWLEDGE,AND PEDAGOGY:THE LEADERSHIPINSTITUTE FORCONGREGATIONALSCHOOL EDUCATORSElizabeth McNamara Mueller

Congregational school educatorsinvolved in an activity to exploreboth personal and professionalconnections to Israel.

2007 ISSUE 70 �23


“UJA-Federation has demon-strated a strong commitment tosupporting and strengtheningcongregational religious schools.Partnering with HUC-JIR andJTS to create the Leadership In-stitute for Congregational SchoolEducators was a natural fit forus,” said Alisa Rubin Kurshan,Senior Vice President for Strate-gic Planning and OrganizationalResources at UJA-Federation ofNew York. “This initiative givescongregational school leaders inour area an opportunity to focuson vision, leadership, and peda-gogy, and to deepen their ownJewish knowledge. This in turnwill empower participants to im-

plement constructive change andmaximize the potential of theirsynagogue schools.”

Guided by the vision of HUC-JIR’s New York School ofEducation and JTS’s WilliamDavidson Graduate School ofJewish Education, the LICSEstands on “three pillars” – lead-ership, Judaic knowledge andpedagogy – which serve as theorganizing principles for each ofthe Leadership Institute’s profes-sional development experiences.

The leadership component isdesigned to strengthen each

participant’s skills and identityas a Jewish leader as well as intro-duce participants to research oneffective educational practices.The Judaic knowledge compo-nent enables participants tostudy text on a regular basis andto incorporate these texts intotheir work with faculty and fami-lies. The pedagogic track helpseducators strengthen their teach-ing skills and communicateabout Jewish learning effectively.

Over the next two-and-a-halfyear period, the next LICSE co-hort of educators will participatein two ten-day intensive Summer

Seminars, eleven one- or two-daysymposia, and a ten-day IsraelSeminar. A personal mentor isassigned to guide and superviseeach educator, culminating inthe design of an Action ResearchProject. Grants of $2,000 areprovided to facilitate the imple-mentation of these projects inthe congregational schools. Smallgrants are also available for partic-ipants to create an IndividualizedLearning Plan with their men-tors. All New York seminars andsymposia take place on theHUC-JIR and JTS campuses.

THE LEADERSHIPINSTITUTE FORCONGREGATIONALSCHOOL EDUCATORS(continued)

The LICSE cohort at Leo Baeck High School in Haifa, Israel, during their ten-day Israel Seminar.

2007 ISSUE 70 �25

The inaugural cohort completedits two-year program in April2007. An evaluation report bythe Jewish Educational Servicesof North America (JESNAReport, November 2006)highlighted the program’sachievements and the opportu-nities for those who will join thesecond cohort. It noted substan-tive growth in the participants’professional skills and knowl-edge, as well as their confidence,self-image, and leadership capac-ity. The report described howthe LICSE enabled participantsto create a shared language andframework for addressing Jewisheducational issues and how thevarious workshops enabledthem to develop new strategiesfor professional developmentfor staff, including text study,curriculum design, and denomi-national learning.

Participants from the first cohortattest to the personal and profes-sional transformations thatoccurred. Educator Judy Jaffe,of Congregation Shomrei Emu-nah in Montclair, NJ, said,“Two years after being selectedto participate in the LeadershipInstitute, I am not the same per-son. The Institute transformedmy practices and outlook. Ilearned from the best in thefields of education and Judaismas well as from my colleagues,who I now call my friends. Thiswas the most outstandinglearning I have done in myprofessional life.”

Sara Losch, from Barnert Tem-ple in Franklin Lakes, NJ,

added, “The Leadership Insti-tute rounded out the roughedges of professional insecurity,softened the lines of confusion,and strengthened my areas ofweakness. The outcome wasboth fun and fulfilling.”

The JESNA report praised theIsrael Seminar – a period of in-tensive study in Israel about theapplication of Israel studies intotheir curricula – as well as thepreparations and follow-up forthis Seminar. This experience en-abled participants to enhancetheir personal and professionalconnection to Israel and stimu-late their thinking about theirvision for Israel education andtheir role as Israel educators.

The evaluation pointed to men-torship as a significant aspect ofthe program, whereby the educa-tors were given valued supportfor problem-solving and reflec-tive practice. Each participantmet monthly with a personalmentor, drawn from the LICSE’scadre of mentors from the fieldof Jewish education, to work ontheir Individualized LearningPlan and Action Research Proj-ect, which implemented achange project within theirschool, and for guidance regard-ing any issues that arose in theirschool. The report noted that theLeadership Institute also rein-forced and expanded thementors’ mentoring skills andprofessional knowledge andstrengthened their performancein the areas emphasized by theLeadership Institute, particularlywith regard to reflective practice,

improving communication skills,articulating Jewish educationalvision, and engaging in collabo-rative decision-making.

Cathy Deutchman, a partici-pant from the CommunitySynagogue of Rye in Westch-ester, NY, explained that “theLeadership Institute helped mepersonally and professionally.I was able to have a wonderfulmentor to support and encour-age me and an entire group ofprofessional educators to learnfrom. I literally would not bewhere I am today without havinggone through this experience.”

Mentors, like Ira Wise fromCongregation B’nai Israel inBridgeport, CT, also gainedfrom the program. Wise said,“The Leadership Institute hasprovided me with the mostsignificant professional growthsince I finished graduate school.The teachers, participants, andmentors form a communityof praxis that will continuefor many years.”

Lisa Pressman, of Temple Shalomin Chevy Chase, MD, notedthat “the quality of the work-shops and experiences wereexceptional and touched upona vast array of issues pertinentto my work as an educationdirector. The diversity of ourlecturers and our cohort allowedfor the sharing of ideas acrossa broad spectrum of Jewish life.All this was done within a car-ing framework that created acommunity of learners andfriends that will last for years.”

Jo Kay, Director of HUC-JIR’sNew York School of Education,echoed the importance of rela-tionships developed throughLICSE – relationships that con-tinue among participants andmentors across denominationallines. “It became clear quiteearly in the program that therewas much to be learned, notonly from the faculty teachingat the Institute, but from oneanother. Regional principalgroups, which are organizedby denominational Movement,now meet together several timesa year. This openness and mu-tual respect might not havedeveloped if not for the oppor-tunity to study together overa significant period of time.”

Kay is optimistic that the secondcohort will have equal success.“I look forward to working with,and getting to know, the partici-pants in the second cohort of theLISCE. It has been a rewardingand enriching experience foreveryone involved.”

To qualify, educators must haveat least two full years of experi-ence leading a congregationalschool and must also demonstratesupport from their congregation’sRabbi, Board President, andEducation Chair. �

Further information is availableat www.leader-institute.org or bycontacting Dr. Evie Rotstein, Proj-ect Director, at (212) 824-2248or [email protected].


According to the 2000-2001 United Jewish Communities’ Na-tional Jewish Population Study, fewer than half of AmericanJews belong to a synagogue, and the affiliated number further

drops when studying single Jews in their twenties and thirties. Statisti-cally there is a ‘twenty year gap’ between b’nai mitzvah and a return toorganized Judaism – these Jews often only return to synagogue lifewhen they themselves become parents. And with Jews having fewerchildren and waiting longer to have them, Jews in their twenties andthirties may remain uninvolved in synagogues or Jewish organizationsfor years. Traditional Jewish institutions frequently hold little appealor relevance to Generation X and Y Jews.

However, studies also show that younger Jews are connecting to theirreligion and heritage in their own ways and on their own terms.While they may not feel attached to institutionalized Judaism, theyoften are inclined to participate in their religion if it is made pertinentto their lifestyles. Dr. Steven M. Cohen, Research Professor of JewishSocial Policy at HUC-JIR, recently completed a study with Dr. AriKelman from the University of California - Davis. The study, “TheContinuity of Discontinuity,” found “young Jews, who remain singlelater in life, comprise a population for which traditional ‘family-ori-ented’ institutions have little appeal.” But they “are inventing newcommunal outlets and projects that reflect their individuality.”

During their years at the Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and New Yorkcampuses of HUC-JIR, future rabbis and cantors take on studentpulpits that allow them to prepare for the leadership roles they willassume after ordination and investiture. Outreach is a primary issuethat all HUC-JIR students reflect upon in their classes, when workingwith mentors, and through innovative programs and curricula. Stu-dents participate in ‘Adventure Rabbi’ training to create spiritualexperiences in the outdoors, and in the Gerecht Family Institute forOutreach and Conversion program. The Gerecht program, run withthe Union for Reform Judaism’s Outreach Department, helps rab-binical and cantorial students learn how to create a welcomingcommunity for those interested in learning about Jewish life. HUC-JIR students also have had the opportunity to participate in four-dayintensive programs at Congregation Emanuel in Denver and TempleIsrael in Boston to learn about those synagogues’ great and tangiblesuccesses through strategic outreach.

Most HUC-JIR alumni face the problem of the ‘twenty year gap’wherever their pulpit or organization, and many are drawing fromtheir leadership training at HUC-JIR to develop new outreach strate-gies. Young alumni are making it their mission to reach out to

Generations X and Y on new terms, while still retaining core ReformJewish values and traditions. HUC-JIR alumni are pursuing connectionsto unaffiliated young Jews and are engaging them through innovativecultural, spiritual, and educational programs, groups, and activities.

Rabbi Andy Bachman, N ’96, foundedBrooklyn Jews in 2003 along with hiswife, attorney Rachel Altstein. BrooklynJews’ core beliefs include “forging a mean-ingful connection to Jewish life throughspirituality and community.” They reachout to unaffiliated Jews through social jus-tice activities, classes, ‘indie-minyans,’ and‘Jewltide’ – their annual Christmas Eveparty. Often, these events are situated insettings like art galleries, parks, and winebars, away from the traditional synagogueor community center.

A year ago, Rabbi Bachman took on the position of Senior Rabbi atCongregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, a formerly aging congrega-tion that he has helped revitalize by reaching out to the changingBrooklyn community and through his connections from BrooklynJews. The synagogue has seen a significant increase in membershipand activity since Rabbi Bachman joined.

Rabbi Darren Levine, N ’03, is ExecutiveDirector of Manhattan’s Jewish Commu-nity Project Downtown (JCP), whosecommunity is “as diverse as this city: indi-viduals, families, kids, adults, Reform,Conservative, Orthodox, observant, secular,straight, GLBTQ, spiritually connected,single-faith, multifaith, interfaith, journey-ing, searching, and everything in between.”Rabbi Levine says, “JCP community

Congregation BethElohim’s Shabbat Picnicled by Rabbi AndyBachman, ProspectPark, Brooklyn, NY

Dave

Frie

dman

Rabbi Darren Levine, Executive Director,Jewish Community Project Downtown, New York, NY

WITHIN AND BEYOND THES Y N A G O G U E

.

.

2007 ISSUE 70 �27

members come from all backgrounds and have one thing in common:we want to create a Jewish experience that is meaningful and relevantto our lives and the lives of our families.” JCP founded the first Jewishpreschool below Canal Street to serve families living in downtownManhattan neighborhoods and 70 children currently attend. JCP re-cently opened a 10,000 square foot space in TriBeCa that holdsShabbat potlucks, holiday celebrations, lectures, the preschool, and

adult education classes. This year, RabbiLevine brought Rabbi Erica Greenbaum,N ’07, on staff as the inaugural Directorof Jewish Life. Rabbi Greenbaum, whoalso earned her Master of Arts in Reli-gious Education, NYSOE ‘03, sees“Jewish learning as its own access pointfor a rapidly changing population.” JCPoffers adult education classes that includeHebrew, ‘Judaism 101’, and Rosh Chodeshgroups, all designed to encourage adults to“re-embrace Judaism from a more sophis-ticated place.”

Like Rabbi Bachman’s neighborhood-centric model that made Brooklyn Jews a success, Rabbi Levine is “abig believer in foot-traffic Judaism.” He sees JCP’s success in “engag-ing people where they are currently in their lives.” He says, “Peoplewant to take charge of their Jewish lives. We engage them in leader-ship and have a deep volunteer structure. A traditional spoon-fed styleof Jewish life creates a lay leadership vacuum.”

JCP’s new building, on a busy downtown Manhattan street, allowsthem to attract a diverse group of Jews. One enters the building intothe café and the space can hold many different types of programs andevents. The building is open for families to drop by to have coffeewith other adults and to let their children socialize in the play-area.JCP also holds more formal worship events and their inaugural HighHoly Day services drew a sell-out crowd of 300.

Rabbi Levine asks, “How do unaffiliated Jews connect with a Jewishcommunity today and at the same time how do we give people whoare already engaged in Jewish life the feeling that what’s going on inthis space is really deeply meaningful?” He says, “That tension is whatwe think about all the time in terms of how we program.We have mu-sic classes and intense Jewish study for children, so we will get familieswho are interested in Jewish culture and also families who want seri-ous Jewish training for their child. You have many entry points.”

HUC-JIR alumni are facing “a population of young Jews who are verysophisticated,” according to Rabbi Levine. “They’re not going to thesynagogue first so we need to meet people where they are.”

Rabbi Howard Goldsmith, N ’07, serves as the Assistant Rabbi at Tem-ple Emanu- El in Manhattan and hasbeen charged with reinvigorating theyounger Jewish population in the area.He also believes younger Jews are urbaneand do not respond to traditional insti-tutions. Rabbi Goldsmith says,“Generation X distrusts institutions andGeneration Y sees institutions as com-pletely irrelevant. They are differentfrom the Baby Boomers in that theydon’t get everything they want from one

place – especially the synagogue.” He believes that this demographiccraves authenticity and does not want to feel that an institution is dic-tating religion. He says, “People in this group have a spiritual yearningbut they are currently unaffiliated.” His target group includes Jews intheir twenties and thirties, interfaith partners, the GLBTQ commu-nity, singles, and couples. He thinks the customary ‘Jewish singlesgroup’ that synagogues often offer is not inclusive enough or relevantto this group.

These younger adult Jews are looking for a community and RabbiGoldsmith is in the planning stages of how to engage them. He is or-ganizing study sessions in homes, Shabbat services in a park, a monthlyparticipatory service, and other activities that, he says, “have a lowrisk and only ask people to commit to one night.” He believes that“people in this group have a spiritual yearning, they have a calling forsomething greater, but they do not have the tools. If your last Jewishexperience was your bar or bat mitzvah, you are like a lawyer practic-ing with the Social Studies education of an eighth grader.”

Another group in development is atTemple Chai in Phoenix, Arizona.Rabbi Evon Yakar, C ’07, is responsiblefor developing a “twenties and thirtiesgroup of single, committed, married,and married-with-young-childrenJews.” The staff at Temple Chai sees thedevelopment of this group as the “gate-way to synagogue life for this

Rabbi Howard Goldsmith,Temple Emanu- El, NewYork, New York

Rabbi Erica Greenbaum,Director of Jewish Life,Jewish CommunityProject Downtown,New York, NY

Rabbi Evon Yakar, TempleChai, Phoenix, Arizona

REACHING OUT TO A NEWGENERATION OF JEWS Elizabeth

McNamaraMueller


community.” Yakar says, “Our vision is that this community is aboutrelationships built on many and varied ongoing conversations.”

Sarah Cohen, SJCS ’02, interned atStephen S. Wise Temple during her yearsat HUC-JIR and, after receiving her Mas-ter's in Jewish Communal Service, washired as the Director of Membershipthere. She was the coordinator of theirtwenties and thirties ‘W Group’ and, atthe 2005 biennial, was awarded URJ’sBelin Award for her programming work.

Cohen brings her experience to her current position as MembershipDirector of Temple Chai, where she is “concentrating on recruitingand integrating new members and evaluating and creating new commu-nity-building programs.” Cohen is working with Yakar to develop thetwenties and thirties group and they hope to help younger commu-nity members “engage, or in some cases, re-engage, with Judaism, allin a fun, warm, welcoming, low-key environment.”

HUC-JIR alumni who are developing young adults groups in syna-gogues can look to the successes at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas. Afterhis ordination, Rabbi Oren Hayon, C ‘04, joined the clergy there.With a membership of over 2,700 families, each of Emanu-El’s fourrabbis acts as liaison to specific demographic groups. Rabbi Hayonworks with the young adults group – congregants aged 21 through39 who are married, single, with or without children. Prior to RabbiHayon’s tenure, the congregation had been an aging one, with a smallnumber of unaffiliated young adults only occasionally attendingservices or the ‘singles’ and ‘married’ young adult groups. With en-couragement from the Board of Trustees, Rabbi Hayon beganexpanding programming and running aggressive marketing campaignstargeting this group. TheTemple used age-appropriate advertising inStarbucks, local gyms, and independent movie theaters. There was anearly positive response to edgier activities and the merging of singlesand married young adult groups. Rabbi Hayon led a Jewish poetrystudy session in a beer garden, a study of the Scroll of Esther in a Mexi-can restaurant, and multimedia comparisons of rock and roll and hiphop’s relationships to scripture. These outside access points attractedhundreds of young Jews from the Dallas community.

Since the early events, the congregation has hired a part time YoungAdults Coordinator and has introduced a significant dues reductionfor this group. Jews aged 21 through 39 are now the fastest-growing de-mographic at the temple. Rabbi Hayon says, “The Board of Trusteeswas very supportive and willing to be really bold to invest so much inthis group. The young adults group has acted as an escalator to movepeople back into congregational life.”

Rabbi Hayon credits the early targeted marketing, creative and relevantprogramming, and electronic communication with much of thesuccess. “If you have a friend of a friend who is Jewish, it’s so easy toforward on the materials. We put a lot of time and energy into elec-

tronic marketing and have reached many new members this way.”The synagouge has added podcasts of its rabbis’ sermons, available ontheir website for current and prospective members.

The young adults group has expanded and now draws over 400 peopleto its annual Rosh Hashanah service, which is followed by an ‘applemartini and honey cake’ reception. Members also attend social justiceprograms, service activities, and monthly themed Shabbat dinners. Sub-groups, such as young adults with children, business networkinggroups, and chavurot have also stemmed from the group.

“Generation X and Y don’t build relationships with organizations, webuild them with people,” says Rabbi Hayon. “Our programs are rele-vant, cool, and interesting, and attendees stick around and realize thebenefit of Temple membership. We have lowered the barriers to entry.”

HUC-JIR continues to work with current students on outreach and isimplementing a comprehensive leadership preparation program intothe curriculum. This program will help students continue to envisiontheir post-graduation, ordination, and investiture leadership posi-tions, and to consider their great potential for outreach, within andbeyond the synagogue. �

REACHING OUT TO A NEW GENERATION OF JEWS (continued)

Sarah Cohen, TempleChai, Phoenix, Arizona

Rabbi Oren Hayon andyoung adults group mem-bers at Rosh Hashanah‘apple martini and honeycake’ reception, TempleEmanu-El, Dallas, Texas

Electronic marketing materials for‘Burgers and Beer,’ young adultsgroup membership cultivation event,Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas

Temple Chai’s twenties and thirties group, Phoenix, Arizona

Forty years ago, the Six Day War of June1967 sparked the Soviet Jewry movement –a Jewish awakening and the beginning oforganized activities by individuals and smallgroups in the Soviet Union that led to public,large-scale activism throughout the USSRand around the world.

Many members of the HUC-JIR communityparticipated in this historic struggle to advo-cate for human rights: the right to renew Jewishidentity and heritage, the right to immigrateto Israel, and the right to nurture Jewish cul-ture, language, and religion in the USSR.

For those who came of age during the 1960sthrough the 1980s, the Soviet Jewry movementwas a decisive experience in their formationas Jewish leaders. Furthermore, their activismon behalf of this cause was part of a largerJewish and societal era of political ferment,ranging from demonstrations against the warin Vietnam and activism on behalf of civilrights and women’s rights, to advocacy for theState of Israel and the Middle East peaceprocess, among other causes.

HUC-JIR is grateful for the contribu-tion of personal anecdotes, archivaldocuments, and other materials bymembers of the HUC-JIR community,of which selections appear here. Pleaseadd your memories to this collection,which will be preserved by the AmericanJewish Archives at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati.Contact: Kevin Proffitt, AmericanJewish Archives, 3101 Clifton Avenue,Cincinnati, OH 45220-2488 [email protected]

The Osipov Balalaika Russian Balletwas coming to perform at the Michigan

State University Auditorium. Since the localJewish organizations were doing nothingabout this performance and only the JewishDefense League was protesting, I decidedthat I would join forces with them. The localgroup in East Lansing was not as radicalor violent as Rabbi Meir Kahane's group inBrooklyn, I had learned. To assure myselfthat the protest would be peaceful, I wentto meet them before the demonstration.Somehow, my involvement as well as myapplication to HUC-JIR got back to thecampus Hillel rabbi. He called me to hisoffice one day and threatened me. “Wehave built a harmonious and peaceful co-existence between Jews and Gentiles here.This demonstration threatens that. It'sjust a cultural event –nothing more, nothingless. If you lend yourname to this, and youparticipate in this, I willpersonally call HUC-JIR and tell them notto admit you into theirrabbinical program.”

His tirade had thecomplete oppositeeffect on me. I wentahead and did partici-pate. Not longafterward, I receivedthe letter inviting me toHUC-JIR in Cincinnati, Ohio for my admis-sions interview. The rest, as they say, is history.

Soon after the collapse of the SovietUnion, Alaska became a popular stop for

Russians and Russian Jews learning to be freeand to work in a non-Communist society.The night before Rosh Hashanah, I was intro-duced to the Governor of Birobidzhan, theRussian Jewish Autonomous State establishedby Stalin near the Chinese-Russian border,who was leading a delegation to Alaska tolearn about oil and gas development. In thecourse of the conversation he revealed thatwhile he had been going to Yiddish theaterhis whole life he had never been to a syna-gogue. I invited him to attend Erev RoshHashanah services the next night.

With no Federation or other Jewish agenciesin Alaska, Congregation Beth Sholom becamethe resettlement agency for Russian Jews in

Alaska. We formeda partnership withCatholic SocialServices as wellas several immigra-tion attorneys tohelp us with theresettlement work,and were able tosettle severalRussian Jewishfamilies in thelast frontier.

Rabbi Harry L. Rosenfeld, C ’81Rabbi Harold F. Caminker, C ’78

LET MY PEOPLEGO:Jean Bloch Rosensaft

THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THESTRUGGLE FOR SOVIET JEWRY

Rabbi Rosenfeld and the Governorof Birobidzhan in Alaska on RoshHashanah 5751.

2007 ISSUE 69 �29

When I arrived in Phoenix, Arizona,in 1968, no one seemed to be aware

of the situation in the Soviet Union. Theorganized Jewish community (i.e. Federation)seemed unwilling to become involved in the

situation. Since there was no community pro-gram, I decided to start one. I called for arally on the steps of the State Capitol, sentout invitations to the Governor, elected offi-cials, and to the Jewish community at large.It was a candlelight vigil, and to my amaze-ment nearly 1,000 people came, includingthe Governor, who made a grand entrancewith a police escort, lights flashing. We creat-ed the Phoenix Council for Soviet Jewry andfocused on Simchat Torah, the occasionthroughout the Soviet Union when Jewscame out to assert their Jewish identity, asthe time for our annual communal gatheringin support of Soviet Jewry. Within five years,we numbered 2,000 marchers – rabbis fromevery stream of Jewish expression, carryingTorah scrolls – marching through the streetsof Phoenix.

The young men andwomen of SWFTY,now known as NFTY-Southwest, for yearsremained the backboneof protests and socialactivism. They becameteachers to the adultJewish community, forg-ing a strong cadre ofactive adults, especially in the realm of overseasphone calls. National Soviet Jewry organiza-tions alerted us to the status of refuseniksalong with their phone numbers in the SovietUnion. Following a certain procedure, wewould call these folks to strengthen theirresolve and allow them to know that therewere thousands of their fellow Jews aroundthe world who cared for them, and whostruggled for their freedom. These calls weremade in private homes and public gatherings,wired so that all could hear. Our NFTY teensran all these calling sessions – hundreds ofthem – bringing a deeper understanding ofthe situation to the greater Jewish community.

In 1976 I was offered the job of directingthe Commission on Soviet Jewry for the

Community Relations Committee of theJewish Federation Council of Greater LosAngeles. The first post-Holocaust challengeto save Jewish lives was both an awesomeopportunity and responsibility.

By far the most dramatic public demonstra-tion was a counter exhibition we mountedon the occasion of the Soviet Union’sL.A.-based, three week-long trade showcelebrating the 60th anniversary of theUSSR. They called their trade show “TheSoviet Union: Six Decades of Progress,” and

rented the groundfloor of the massiveL.A. ConventionCenter. We discov-ered that the Sovietshad rented only theground floor of theL.A. ConventionCenter, and decidedthat we would try

to rent the upper floor of the ConventionCenter to mount our own exhibition, whichwe would entitle “Soviet Jewry: Six Decadesof Oppression.”

When we approached the City of L.A., theCity said that they could not rent the upperfloor to us since the Soviets had threatenedto cancel their show if we were awardedspace simultaneously to their Trade Show.Our Commission then approached BurtPines, then L.A. City Attorney and a SovietJewry activist, as well as Zev Yaroslavsky, theoriginal L.A.-based Union of Councils SovietJewry activist, who had just left his SovietJewry job when he was elected to the L.A.City Council. With their support, we threat-ened the City of L.A. with a taxpayer’s lawsuitif they persisted in their refusal to rent spaceto our Commission. With loads of press cov-erage, the City relented and rented us theupper floor consistent with our request.

In November 1977, as people stood in lineoutside the L.A. Convention Center forwhat they thought was a Soviet Trade Show,they were actually exposed to a photographicexhibition on the oppression of Soviet Jewry.During the three weeks of the Trade Show,more than 250,000 people visited our exhi-bition, as did every national, international,and local news media.

Judith M. Kamenir-Reznik, SJCS ’75

Rabbi B. Charles Herring, C ’65


Melissa Cohavi, NYSOE ’06, at the 1987rally for Soviet Jewry in Washington, DC.

Temple bulletins throughout North Americaadvanced the struggle for Soviet Jewry.

LET MY PE O

2007 ISSUE 69 �31

During the fall of 1977, the SupremeSoviet was visiting L.A. The Student

Struggle for Soviet Jewry organized anaction held outside the Ambassador Hotel.We arrived in large rented U-Haul trucksfrom many campuses. At the appointedtime, out poured hundreds of studentsdressed in prison uniforms, carrying plac-ards that read ‘Free Soviet Jews.’ We carriedaloft a coffin with the words ‘Soviet Jewry’painted on its sides, and demanded to meetwith the Soviet representatives. All themedia outlets in Los Angeles captured theevent for the nightly news.

Terry and I traveled to the Soviet Unionin the winter of 1983 under the aus-

pices of the National Conference on SovietJewry. Our travel partners were Leonard andFreda Posnock of our community, whoowned the Shofar brand of kosher bologna,salami, and hot dogs. Leonard arranged fordozens of pounds of kosher meat to bepacked in ‘plain wrappers’ with no Jewishmarkings. We were prepared to tell theauthorities on landing that they were for ourpersonal dietary requirements and that theabundance of medicines we carried were forour multiple illnesses.

In flight, we memorized the names, address-es, and telephone numbers of the refusenikswhom we planned to visit. During our inter-mediate stop in Helsinki, we tore our notesinto small pieces and flushed them down thetoilets at the airport.

We used only public telephones for fear ofgovernment eavesdropping and often arrangedto meet Soviet Jews in a park or at the syna-gogue. Our efforts notwithstanding, theKGB, dressed in their traditional dark suitsand long overcoats, followed us.

Since our visit coincided with Purim, weused that opportunity to teach small groupsabout the Purim story. One of our highlightswas a Purim party at a refusenik’s apartmentattended by several dozen adults and chil-dren. During the kids’ play, we heard a sharpknock at the door with ‘Open Up’ yelled inRussian. Having left the KGB at the street,we were certain it was they. It turned out tobe another refusenik playing a Purim prankon us. I can still recall how my heart jumpedinto my throat at that moment.

On May 31, 1969, John Lennon andYoko Ono had come to Montreal to

protest the Vietnam War with a ‘Bed-In’ forpeace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel downtown.Montreal was the closest major media marketto the U.S., which had barred their protestvisit. I decided to go up to John Lennon’sroom and ask for his signature on a SovietJewry petition. Chutzpah, luck, and myprotest-length long hair brought me intothe bedroom. John and Yoko gladly signedmy petition during a break in the recordingof “All we are saying is give peace a chance” –the anthem of the 1960s protest movement.

In October of 1971, Aleksei Kosygin,Premier of the Soviet Union, was coming toCanada for a state visit. We knew this wasour chance to put the issue of Soviet Jewryon the front pages of international papers.Boldly, a group of Hillel students at McGillUniversity announced that the Jewish com-

Rabbi Abie I. Ingber, C ’77

Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff, C ’60

Rabbi Misha E. Zinkow, N ’85

Rabbi Charles Kroloff addressing a marchfor Soviet Jewry in Westfield, NJ, in 1969.

OPLE GO:

Rabbi Abie Ingber and his team of activists.

LETMYPEOP

LEGO:

munity of Montreal was closed.We so intimidated the leadershipof the Canadian Jewish Congressthat they agreed to pay for 50buses to transport Montreal’sJewish community to Ottawa ona weekday. Day schools cancelledclasses, union shops packed sand-wiches for their Jewishemployees, and meeting pointswere established throughout thecity. An advance team of 30 stu-dents went to Ottawa to beginthe PR blitz.

When Kosygin’s plane landed in Ottawa, hewas greeted by long-haired Jewish studentssinging Hatikvah and shouting, “Mr. Kosygin,Let My People Go!” That welcome wasbroadcast on the evening news. 15,000 bumperstickers plastered the city of Ottawa on everypossible surface, and the media played theirrole in pestering Kosygin on the reunifica-tion and free emigration issue. On onemorning, as Kosygin and Prime MinisterPierre Elliot Trudeau were walking on thegrounds of the Parliament, a Hungarian free-dom fighter jumped from the crowd andwrestled Kosygin to the ground. IrvingSpiegel of the New York Times turned to meand boldly asked, “What did you pay him?”The demonstration in Ottawa on Tuesday,October 19th was one of the largest demon-strations ever held in Canada’s capital, and asKosygin traveled across the country, our stu-dent demonstrations dogged his every move.The following year, as our creative protestscontinued, Inspector Guy Toupinof Montreal’s police department suggested Iget a credit card to handle all the demonstra-tion permit requests that our group madeto his department.

In 1963, when serving as Rabbi ofCleveland’s Beth Israel-The West Temple,

our energetic Social Action Committeedecided to focus attention on the SovietJewry issue, and speedily formed theCleveland Committee on Soviet Anti-Semitism (CCSA), enlisting top Clevelandcivic, religious, and political leaders, includ-ing the Mayor and ranking representativesof the Catholic and Protestant communities.Our Social Action Committee had alreadybeen active in several civic action arenas,such as fair housing, voter registration,and poverty concerns.

One of the early CCSA projects in late 1963was directed towards writing to about 50prominent world leaders, requesting theirendorsement of the Soviet Jewry issue interms of universal human rights and notsolely as a parochial Jewish issue and hence,the issue needed to be elevated to a high pri-ority on the world community’s agenda. Itwas of intense personal pride to me that ourrevered Nelson Glueck, along with AlbertSchweitzer, Bertrand Russell, A.J. Heschel,among numerous other noted humanitarian,religious, and political figures, respondedimmediately, positively, enthusiastically, andcourageously. It was at the same time indeed

disappointing, shameful and dispiriting tohave also received negative or no responsesfrom a variety of ‘notables’ and institutionalleaders in and outside of the Jewish commu-nity (local, national, and international), whofearfully counseled sha shtil and worse.

In the ensuing years, the CCSA helped tospawn the Union of Councils for SovietJewry, as our grass-roots movement gradual-ly expanded more widely and more broadly,and, in time, all the major American Jewishinstitutions became engaged in the strugglethat ultimately enlisted worldwide generalsupport.

The highlight of my visit to the SovietUnion was my conducting a wedding hup-pah/tallit ceremony, in a quiet but joyfulminyan, with the happy, almost sotto vocestrains of mazal tov, siman tov hanging inthe air of that small, cramped, one-room flat.That evening, there was a party at a localrestaurant, with a klezmer band, to our sur-prise. Yet all the windows were taped withopaque wrapping paper and the doors werekept shut from the cold and dark on theoutside and from the eyes of passers-by, incontrast to the lightness and hopes in thehearts of those inside who celebrated withall the traditional songs and memories.

The refuseniks we met with were unem-ployed or underemployed in menial

jobs, although they were predominantly sci-entists and academicians, and were thereforenot a cross-sample of Soviet Jews. Their great-est frustration was that they were deniedprofessional information from the outsideworld and were forbidden to send out theirown work to be published, even when Sovietsecurity was not an issue – a vicious form ofpunishment aimed deliberately at destroyingtheir professional careers. Even more seriouswas the new criminal charge of ‘parasitism,’

Rabbi Bernard H. Bloom, C ’57

Rabbi Daniel Litt, C ’59

Rabbi Shelly M. Waldenberg, N ’62 and Boris(‘Barukh’), outside the Moscow synagogue, 1989.


part of a Communist Catch-22, where it wasa crime not to be gainfully employed. Butwhen you applied for an exit visa, you wereimmediately fired from your job.

Some were putting their spare time to con-structive uses for the Jewish community:Leonid, a cinematographer, had begun pro-ducing plays with Jewish content. Iosef, anengineer, was developing drama groups.Elena was translating basic Jewish books intoRussian to enable Soviet Jews to learn theirforgotten heritage. Many were learningHebrew to prepare for their new lives inIsrael, and to be able to read the Bible andprayer book. Vera conducted a SundaySchool in her home, where the children pre-pared holiday programs for their families andfriends and where youngsters learned aboutthe Jewish holidays, customs, and history.She told us of police harassment, and yet theclasses continued and the children came.

‘Free Alexei — College Green at Noon’– I remember plastering flyers around

campus at the University of Pennsylvaniain my senior year of college when I was co-chairperson of Student Struggle for SovietJewry (SSSJ). The rally was to raise aware-ness of the plight of refuseniks, specifically,a man named Alexei Magarik.

In 1987-1988, I was a Program Directorfor Boston’s Action for Soviet Jewry. Thatyear there was a cultural exchange withMoscow and many performances wereheld in downtown Boston. I helped prepare‘alternative playbills’ – listing the factsabout oppression of Jews in Russia – enlist-ed volunteers and together handed themout to incoming theater goers. I was alsoinvolved in a 3-day hunger strike to raiseawareness for Soviet Jewry.

In 1977 I traveled to Russia with RabbiNeil Kominsky, C ’70 – once we had

accomplished a core curriculum of survivaltechniques. We learned how to read Cyrillic.We were taught about hotel rooms that werebugged, about how to hail a taxi, about howto cover our identities as rabbis. We wereinstructed to raise several thousand dollarsand then to use that money to purchase thegoods that we had to smuggle into theUSSR: jeans that could be sold on the blackmarket by refuseniks to get cash; cigarettesthat could be used as bribes in tough situa-tions; risqué postcards that could be used byimprisoned Jews to gain favors from guards;tape recorders to help messages get out frombehind the Iron Curtain, and the like. Webought books with more white spaces thanwords, so that we could write downwith disappearing ink the names andaddresses of those who wished Israelto issue them visa approvals. We alsobrought basic cameras and film. Wewere taught how to ask others on ourflight to carry the exposed film ontothe returning flight for us. We weretaught how to challenge customsagents who wanted to examine thecontents of our suitcases.

I returned to the USSR in 1990 as adelegate to a world conference thatwas seeking to unite religious leadersfrom across the world around sharedenvironmental concerns. Resa and Ihad been in steady contact with the foundersof Congregation Hineini, the firstProgressive congregation in the land. Wewere asked to attend what was to be afounding worship occasion in a Moscowapartment an hour away from the Kremlin.Of course we agreed. The setting was in ahumble apartment in an even more humbleneighborhood. The secret police let us know

that they knew of us, but we were not in anyway hindered. Together, Resa and I conduct-ed services and led the singing of zemirot.Dinner was brought out – trays of unheatedleftover El Al food from our environmentalconference. It was obvious to us that most ofthose packed into the apartment felt thatthey were participating in a feast.

Near the end of the evening, we felt our-selves literally pinned against the wall as oneperson after the other tried to slip us a pieceof paper with a contact name in Israel or inthe United States. We were begged to helpthem get visas, to help them find ways tokeep their Judaism alive. We felt their fearand their despair as well as their hope. Nothingthat any of us did can compare with theheroic and inspirational struggles of theSoviet Jews to whom we reached out.

In 1987 I, along with Rabbi Avi Schulman,was privileged to be selected by the Mid-

West Association of Reform Rabbis to betheir shaliach to Soviet Jewry. We worked formonths with Marilyn Tallman from ChicagoAction for Soviet Jewry in preparing ourtrip. She advised us that a new watch had

Rabbi Henry Jay Karp, N ’75

Rabbi Stanley M. Davids, C ’65:

Rabbi Faith Joy Dantowitz, N ’93

Rabbi Stanley and Resa Davids at HineiniCongregation in Moscow.

2007 ISSUE 69 �33

just come on the market that might serve uswell – the Casio Data Bank. This watch hadthe capability of holding an electronic addressbook which could be locked by a password.So I went out and bought one and carefullyprogrammed the names and phone numbersof the refuseniks on our list into the watch.

No sooner did we arrive in the Soviet Unionthan I knew that those names were indeedsafe. For one of the first things that I noticedwas that the old liquid crystal quartz watcheswith the thick red glass lens were all the ragethere. In consumer technology the USSRwas so far behind us that the authoritiescould not even begin to imagine that thelittle watch on my wrist contained theimportant information programmed into it.

After my return to Iowa, there was one fami-ly in particular with whom I kept in contact– Asya and Vladimir Knokh, and theirdaughter Irena. When they finally receivedtheir exit visas, they told me that they reallywanted to come to the United States. MyJewish community decided to sponsor them.We worked closely with Senator ChuckGrassley, who was primarily responsible forarranging their entry into the U.S. I willnever forget the day our community greetedthem as they stepped off the plane in theQuad Cities Airport.

Lev Shapiro was a courageous memberof the refusnik community. He lived in

Leningrad and was caught up in the allegedhighjacking plot of 1970. Over the years hewas ostracized, his kids were kicked out ofschool, and he was sustained spiritually(and probably materially) by a stream ofvisitors from the West. When his son Israelturned 13 he was twinned with hundreds ofAmerican bar mitzvah kids. The family gotout to Israel in the early 90s. We learnedthat Lev had sent thank you notes to every

family and bar mitzvah boy who hadtwinned with his son!

When it was my time to become a barmitzvah on March 14th, 1987, my

parents suggested that I twin with a boy of13 in Russia who was denied his right toobserve his Judaism. I decided that I woulddedicate my service in his honor and sym-bolically have his bar mitzvah at HolyBlossom Temple in Toronto. His name isMark Berenfeld, and I still have a postcardaddressed to him: 6 Sudostroitelnaya, KV81, Moscow, USSR.

I invited my guests to write a birthday wishto him on pre-addresed postcards, to showhim we cared and wanted to help all Jews inRussia. I reminded people not to mentionpolitics or religion in the postcard because itwould get confiscated by the KGB. I stillhave the kiddush cup I received as a gift thatday that has my name on one side andMark's on the other. It was a small gesture,but one I never forgot.

It was the summer of 1978 and I was 16years old. My parents had decided to take

a family trip to Eastern Europe that wouldinclude the Soviet Union. But how couldany thinking, committed Jews go to theSoviet Union in those days and not try and

take some sort of a moral stand?

When we reached the border, I can stillremember the guards squeezing our tooth-paste, examining our cameras, and puttingtheir fingers into our lotions. Suddenly, ahuge commotion took place when prayerbooks were found in my father’s luggage, andbefore I knew it, we were all being whiskedoff for questioning.

I remember going with my mother to thebathroom, where she went into one of thestalls, and I heard the toilet immediatelyflush. There was a Russian guard in thebathroom so we did not talk together. LaterI found out that the type of address bookthat we were told to take was thin and madeof paper. When they frisked my parents theydid not find it and my mother flushed itdown the toilet. Hadit been found, therefuseniks in the bookwould have been ingreater trouble.

It was obvious thatwe were followed thewhole time. At theend of our week, whenwe were to leave at thePolish border, againthey searched andinterrogated us. Theytook our camerasaway for a little whileand when we gothome and developed the film, it had all beenexposed and was largely ruined.

Upon our return home, my family adopteda Russian family who was newly arrived.They had a son my age and it meant a lotto us to help this family with some of thehurdles they faced as they acclimated tothis country.

For me, the plight of the refuseniks was whatinspired me to not be complacent.

Judith E. Alban, SJCS ’86

Rabbi Stephen A.Wise, N ’05

Rabbi Samuel Z. Fishman, C ’57


LE T MY PEOPL

Israel Shapiro (center) was twinned withhundreds of American bar mitzvah kids.

Judith Alban (left) with herfamily in Russia. The poorquality of the image is due tothe film being exposed bySoviet border police.

Every year I present to the eighth gradeclass of Temple Shalom the story of

08948000, my name during the twelve daysI served at the Federal Correctional Institute(prison) in Petersburg, VA, for demonstrat-ing in front of the Soviet Embassy on May1, 1985. Five of the nineteen rabbis and oneLutheran pastor arrested that day refused topay a $50 fine and accept six months proba-tion. Four colleagues from the WashingtonBoard of Rabbis – two Conservative rabbisand two Reconstructionist rabbis – joinedme in choosing incarceration. Our trial tookplace in December 1985. We were told toreport to prison the next morning.

The reasons for choosing to serve timewere many. We believed that the law wewere violating was morally repugnant andunconstitutional on its face. It prohibitednonviolent protest within 500 feet of anembassy. The law had been passed in 1938to protect the Nazi German embassy fromconfrontation by people who objected to thatcountry's immersion in violence and hatred.

We also knew that by going to prison wewould generate more attention on therefuseniks whose lives we were trying tosave. Five of them were being threatenedwith death and by publicizing their plightwe might be performing an important actof pikuach nefesh. None of them died. Whatwe did may have helped.

We felt our confinement symbolized theimprisonment of the Jewish people in theSoviet Union. Surely that would not be loston the press and the people who the pressreached. It wasn't. We received responses ofsupport for the cause of Soviet Jewry fromall over the country and beyond. The entireSenate Judiciary Committee, headed by StromThurmund, sent two resolutions to PresidentReagan calling on him to pardon the fiverabbis. President Reagan refused.

We were sentenced to twoweeks. The day we werereleased we drove right backto the Soviet embassy anddemonstrated all over again.This time we wore our prisonuniforms. The press and lotsof supporters were there. Thepolice were there and they leftus alone.

Between that first demonstration on May 1and our trial in December, it was my privi-lege to serve as one of four members of theWashington Board of Rabbis who arrangedfor seven other arrest demonstrations. Amongthe 180 people arrested were Rabbi JackStern and Dr. Martin Gilbert. The law usedto convict us all was later overturned by a 9-0 vote by the Supreme Court.

In November 1977 we were briefed by rep-resentatives of the Mossad, to help gather

family background information needed bythe government of Israel in order to issueproper invitations to Soviet Jews who wishedto immigrate to Israel. We traveled underthe auspices of a travel agency that was aCommunist front, with a group of thirtymembers of the American Communist party,who were not friendly to us when theylearned that we were Jewish. During our har-rowing two-week journey, we made manycontacts, distributed literature (includingLeon Uris’s Exodus in Russian) anddeveloped codes for the infor-mation we gathered. Someof the apartments we visitedhad doors damaged byKGB forced entry. Mybrother-in-law Dr.Sidney Sherter

was strip-searched and interrogated. A KGBwoman operative contacted me by phone inmy hotel room for the purpose, I am sure, ofsexual entrapment, but I scheduled the meet-ing for a time just beyond our departure date.Just about everyone we contacted on ourjourney settled in Israel.

In November 1987 I traveled to the SovietUnion. Only a few months earlier some

visitors from the States had been roughed upand had to spend the night in a Moscow jail.What would I encounter?

My fears paled when compared to the strug-gles of the people I met. One of them wasIgor Chernoshwartz – 22 years old, half ahead taller than me, with deep-set eyes anda dark beard. He looked ten years older. Oneevening in Leningrad we stood speaking inthe cold night air, afraid to come too closeto the hotel where some peering eyes mightsee us. We talked about our families andwhat brought us to Jewish life.

“Where is your family from?” Igor asked.

“On my mom’s side fromGermany; on my dad's fromVilna.”

“Vilna,” Igor smiled with asadness tinged with anger,“My family, too.” Hepaused, and then asked,“So what made your

grandparents so muchsmarter than mine?”

Rabbi Irwin A. Zeplowitz, C ’84

Rabbi Harvey M. Tattelbaum, N ’60

Rabbi Bruce E. Kahn, C ’74

Rabbi Harvey M.Tattelbaum’s traveldocuments, November 1977.

2007 ISSUE 69 �35

E GO:

Rabbi Irwin Zeplowitz, C ’84, met with refuseniks preparingfor a demonstration in November 1987.

In order to get at the Yakir family, theSoviets threatened to draft their son,

Alexander (Sasha) into the Soviet military,making him ineligible for emigration for 5years. We contacted Evgeny Yakir quite fre-quently to support him, and to preventhim, Rimma, and Sasha from becomingdespondent. At the time, Senator BobDole of Kansas, who was Majority Leaderin the U. S. Senate, took a great interest inthe Yakir case, and agreed to participate ina telephone conversation from his Senateoffice with Evgeny in Moscow. I will neverforget when, during the height of the crisiswith Sasha’s possible conscription, SenatorDole said on the phone to Evgeny, “I knowthat there are others listening to this phonecall (meaning the KGB), and I promisethem that we will be watching and takingnote of everything that is done to you, andwe will respond.” I became friendly withDole's chief L.A. working on these issues. Iproposed to him that they consider tradinggrain for Jews, since the Soviet Union want-ed American grain and Kansas is the U.S.'schief wheat producer. The Soviets wanted alifting of the Jackson/Vanik Amendment.About a year later, to my amazement, I sawin the paper that the Senator had intro-duced legislation to sell grain to the Sovietsand lift Jackson/Vanik if they would easerestrictions on Jewish emigration. But thelegislation never got anywhere.

In December 1987, as a graduate studentat the University of Florida-Gainesville,

we were in the midst of finals week whenwe heard that Gorbachev, then the headof the USSR, was going to make his first-ever visit to America. We received a fax atthe Hillel House that Anatoly Sharanskyhad just arrived in America and was urging

Jews from all across the county to come toWashington to demand that Gorbachevfree Soviet Jews. In two hectic days we man-aged to sign up 40 students and rent a busfor the 18-hour journey to Washington.

On the way we made posters, learned SovietJewry protest songs, and talked all night aboutevery topic facing the Jewish people in Israel,Ethiopia, and around the world. At sunrise,we davened shacharit, standing in the aisle ofthe bus, as we drove up Route 95. We arrivedat the rally before noon. Over 100,000 Jewshad come from every state. We sang oursongs, waved our posters, and shouted ourprotest chants for about four hours. Then wehad to get back on the bus to drive another18 hours back to the University of Florida tofinish our final exams.

Six years later, as an HUC-JIR rabbinicalstudent, I made my first trip to Ukraine tofind my grandfather’s shtetl. For Shabbat Iwent to our Reform Congregation in Kiev.They told me that they did not have a rabbiand asked ‘Maybe you would like to be ourrabbi?” I responded “No. I live in America.I am just visiting.”

Two years later, I found myself serving asthe rabbi in Kiev, as my first post after ordi-nation. Now in my tenth year as a rabbi, Ilead HUC-JIR’s “FSU Rabbinical InfusionProgram,” which provides rabbis and rab-binical students to the nearly 70 Reformcongregations in Eastern Europe. As aJewish student activist in 1987, I couldnever have guessed that 20 years later Iwould be privileged to lead HUC- JIR'sefforts to deepen Reform Jewish life in theFormer Soviet Union.

Hanna and I traveled to the SovietUnion in February 1982 to visit

refuseniks, in a trip sponsored by ChicagoAction for Soviet Jewry, and saw 23 familiesin 9 days. We met Leonid and Masha K., liv-ing in a collective apartment, one kitchenand bath for three families. Leonid was justout of prison for having presented his under-ground play “Masada.” They had a new babygirl, Ruth. I gave her a Hebrew name andHanna somehow put together a naming cer-tificate for the ceremony. We five had areunion 14 years later in Jerusalem. Ruth’scertificate was on her wall.

In Leningrad, at another refusenik get-together,there were many young couples, some speak-ing Hebrew. One man sat uncomfortably ona cushion. They told us he had just been cir-cumcised in Moscow. Why? “My grandfatheralways led our seder. He died this year. NowI have to do it. But I wouldn’t feel right tak-ing his place if I didn’t have brit milah.” Whodid it for him? “There are some old-timers inMoscow who understand such things.”

Rabbi Mark S. Shapiro, C ’60:

Rabbi David Wilfond, C ’97

Rabbi Mark H. Levin,SJCS ’74, C ’76, D.H.L. ’01

Rabbi Mark S. Shapiro and theByaly family.

Rabbi David Wilfondcelebrating Shabbatat the ReformCongregation in Kiev.

LET MY


When I was rabbi of Temple B’naiJeshurun in Des Moines, Iowa, the

congregation's President, Harry Pomerantz,and I spent ten days in July 1987, secretlyvisiting refuseniks in Moscow and Leningrad.We spent Shabbat at the Great Synagogue,where we picked up a low level KGB ‘follow-er’, who spent the next few days appearing atthe hotel and offering to ‘guide’ us along ourway. We also found hidden microphones inthe hotel room. We communicated by use ofchildrens’ ‘Magic Slates.’ Each day, we visiteda different refusenik family, bringing themkosher food, vitamins, medicine, books, andelectronic goods.

We were searched by Soviet customs aswe left the country. Much to my surprise,Harry tried to smuggle out a letter from aRefusenik to a relative in the U.S. Sovietcustoms found the letter on his person andimmediately separated us. We were placedin isolation. Fortunately, I was able to tear upmy notes and flush them down the toilet.After three hours alone, all the while won-dering what the Russians were going to doto us, we were reunited on the tarmac ofLeningrad Airport.They just wanted togive us a good scare.

Our November 1988 mission was successful in that we managed to meet

with every one of the families that Action forSoviet Jewry back in Waltham, Massachusettshad arranged for us to contact. We deliveredwell over one hundred pounds of contraband:the usual stuff for the black market – cam-eras, electronic calculators, jeans; and the notso usual stuff – one hundred syringes for adiabetic living in Moscow.

To say that when Rabbi Cary Yales, z”l, C ’67,and I arrived in Leningrad the authorities gaveus a hard time is an understatement. The menwith the badges at theLeningrad airport warnedCary and me that uponleaving the country wewould have to present themen with badges at theMoscow airport with everysingle item of contrabandthey had discovered –two very long lists, indeed!As we were riding in acab from the airport tothe hotel, Cary and Iagreed that by the timewe arrived at the Moscowairport with our fourempty suitcases, all of our deliverable goodswould have been either ‘lost’ or ‘stolen.’

When I was an undergraduate atBrandeis University, where Hillel

sponsored the Student Coalition for SovietJewry, I was active in the program thatincluded, among other things, a nationalcollege student lobbying day. I played aleading role in 1987-88, and also was involvedin a telegram campaign, which resulted inthe release of a Soviet Jewish graduate stu-dent who eventually enrolled at Brandeis.

One day I received a call from ProfessorJonas Greenfield, z”l, of UCLA, who

introduced me to Professor Herbert Paper,who was then at the University of Michigan.They told me that the Soviets were going tokill an imprisoned refusenik scholar, Dr.Mikhail Zand, an expert in the languages ofthe Russian people. Through my connectionsand the help of Senator Alan Cranston ofCalifornia, we got the Voice of AmericaRussian broadcast to publicize that HUC-JIR was giving an honorary doctorate toZand for his work as a refusenik, and that hewas invited to our campuses to receive it.

The Soviets decided to let him go, ratherthan let him die of a hunger strike in prison.He chose to go to Israel with his wife andsons, but came to receive his honorary degreein Los Angeles, where 4000 people greetedhim at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills.Later, when Zand’s son wanted to serve asa Jew in the Israeli army, his self-definition asa Jew was rejected because of his non-Jewishmother. I called Golda Meir, who intervenedwith Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, and thisyoung man was accepted as a Jew. �

Rabbi Steven M. Fink, N ’79, D.Min.

Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, C ’57

Rabbi Andrew D. Vogel, N ’98

Rabbi James B. Rosenberg, N ’71:

Amy Appelman, RHSOE ’00, andCincinnati youths on the Steven E. AltmanFreedom Trip to the Washington, DC rallyfor Soviet Jewry, December 1987.

2007 ISSUE 69 �37

MY PEOPLE GO:

Dr. Mikhail Zand (at left) receivingan honorary doctorate from Dr. AlfredGottschalk, then HUC-JIR President, onOctober 17, 1971.


The Leader’s Unique SongExodus 15:1–21

Passing through the Red Sea, the Israeliteswitness God’s power. While they walk ondry land, with the waters forming walls ontheir right and left, the Egyptians are inun-dated by those very waters and obliterated.The children of Israel see (va-yar) the stronghand (yad) of God, which delivers themfrom the hand (yad) of the Egyptians, fromthe Egyptians’ power (Exodus 14:28–31).1

Though it is God who seems to act, never-theless it actually is Moses’s hand that dividesthe waters: “Then Moses held out his handover the sea and the Lord drove back the seawith a strong wind … and turned the sea intodry ground. The waters were split” (14:21).And it is Moses’s hand that destroys theEgyptians: “The Lord told Moses: ‘Hold out

your hand over the sea, that the waters maycome back over the Egyptians” (14:26).Moses is described in God-like terms: Justas God divides the waters on the second dayof creation, thereby creating the earth, nowMoses creates a new patch of dry land in themidst of the waters of the Red Sea, partner-ing with God in this moment of redemption.The creation cannot come to fruition—God’s plan for humanity fulfilled—withoutthe actions of leaders like Moses.2

So the Israelites, many of whom have doubt-ed Moses’s ability and motivation, and havebeen highly critical of him, now see him asGod’s partner in this redemptive moment:“They believed in the Lord and in Moses,

[God’s] servant” (14:31).3 He is perceivedas the faithful instrument of God’s will, andtherefore it is fitting to refer to him by thetitle Eved Adonai, God’s servant.4

To have faith in one implies the faith in theother, and, by extension, to doubt or speakagainst Moses is tantamount to speakingagainst the Divine.5

The Nature of the Song at the Sea

The Israelites witness and understandthe ramifications of the miracle God haswrought for them as they face the watersof the sea and are pursued by Pharaoh andhis Egyptian soldiers, and, as a result, theirfaith in God and in Moses, their leader, is

Moses and the Journey toLeadership: Timeless Lessons ofEffective Management fromthe Bible and Today's LeadersNorman J. Cohen, Jewish Lights Publishing, 2007

Dr. Norman J. Cohen’s new book, Moses and the Journey to Leadership: Timeless Lessons of EffectiveManagement from the Bible and Today’s Leaders, addresses the contemporary search for leaderswith vision and integrity, by focusing on a great biblical leader whose life and actions in antiquityoffer wisdom and inspiration for our own time.

Cohen explores how leaders are not simply born, but molded through life’s victories and failures, triumphs and defeats. No one exemplifies thisprocess better than Moses, the most important and celebrated character in the Hebrew Bible. Faced with great internal and external challenges,Moses was sculpted into a great leader not only by circumstance, but also by his own determination and devotion to his people.

In his powerful and probing examination of the enduring texts in the biblical tradition, Cohen assesses Moses’s journey to leadership and its lessonson the vision, action, and skills needed to be a successful leader. Cohen relives Moses’s development from lonely shepherd to founder of a nation,emphasizing key points that the reader can utilize to enrich the different leadership roles one may be called upon to play in one’s daily life, whetherin business, religion, politics, education, or other arenas.

Cohen draws from Moses’s life to provide guidance on how to articulate one’s expectations of others, as a group and as individuals; empower othersto lead more responsible, ethical lives; support co-workers and family even when they fail; and challenge others to reach their highest potential.

EXCERPTS OF NEW BOOKS BY HUC-JIR FACULTY | EXCERPTS OF NEW BOOKS BY HUC-JIR FACULTY |

2007 ISSUE 69 �39

renewed. As a reward for their faith, therabbinic tradition emphasizes that the spiritof God’s Presence rests upon them, enablingthem to sing a song ofpraise and redemption.As they read the biblicaltext, the Rabbis fre-quently point up thatcontiguous passageshave a causal relation-ship. The verse “Theybelieved in Adonai andin Moses, [God’s] ser-vant” (14:31) isimmediately followed by“Then sang Moses andthe Children of Israel”(15:1), as if the people’sability to sing was theproduct of their belief.6

Their words of song and praise, as theRabbis note, are the result of God’s HolySpirit resting on the Israelites and Moses.This meaning is underscored by a poignantwordplay: Then Moses and Israel are able tosing (yashir) the song (shirah) because God’sSpirit rests (sharta) upon them.7 God’sShechinah is the source of the song of praise,creating a powerful irony: God is both thesource and the object of the song! Their faithin both God and Moses leads to their abilityto sing, as noted by the use of the simple

word az, which canbe understood

as either “then” or “therefore.” Here we cantranslate: “Israel believed … therefore (az)Moses and the Children of Israel sang”

(14:31–15:1).8

Perhaps it is the faiththat the people have inMoses as their leaderthat enables him to singthis majestic song ofpraise to God. How is itthat Moses, whodescribes himself by say-ing, “I am not a personof words … I am slow ofspeech and slow oftongue” (4:10), suddenlyturns into Israel’s singerof God’s song?9 And notonly does he give voiceto Shirat ha-Yam, the

Song at the Sea, but some sources claim thathe composes the entire song by himself. Hefinds the words to express what all the peo-ple are experiencing and feeling.10 Even greatleaders often need the support and faith oftheir followers to find the strength to over-come obstacles, such as, in Moses’s case, aspeech impediment. Without the sense thatthe people care about them, leaders are oftenoverwhelmed by the myriad personal chal-lenges they face.

But precisely how is the song uttered? DoMoses and Israel sing while they are still inthe midst of the waters or do they praiseGod once they emerge from the Red Sea andhave witnessed the Egyptians drowning? Itis possible that the people of Israel sing prais-es to God as they are crossing the sea. If so,they utter the words of the song while stillunsure how it will all turn out. Their fearand anxiety, their sense that their fate ishanging in the balance, all suffuse the notesof the Song, as do their hope and faith.12

When Pharaoh’s chariots and soldiers enterthe sea (15:19) … then Moses and Israelsang (15:1).13 As they walk on the dry land,discovering that deliverance from the handsof Egyptians is indeed possible, Moses andIsrael begin to utter praises of God.

Most commentators assume that Israel andMoses sing this song of redemption aftertheir salvation is guaranteed. It involves aretrospective understanding and internaliza-tion of all that they have experienced andwhat it will mean for them in the future. Itencompasses a sense of the past and present,which points them toward the future, cap-tured by the initial verb in the future tense:“Then Moses sang/will sing [yashir]” (15:1).14

But not only does the future tense verbyashir indicate that this song will be sungagain in the future, as if it were a paradig-matic song to be repeated by futuregenerations, but this interpretation gains

Dr. Norman J. Cohen is Provost of Hebrew UnionCollege-Jewish Institute of Religion, where he isalso Professor of Midrash. Renowned for his

expertise in Torah study and midrash (finding contemporary meaning from ancient biblical texts), he lectures frequentlyto audiences of many faiths. Dr. Cohen was a participant in Bill Moyers’ Genesis: A Living Conversation series on PBS.

His books include Self, Struggle & Change: Family Conflict Stories in Genesis and their Healing Insights for our Lives, Voices from Genesis:Guiding us through the Stages of Life, The Way into Torah, Hineini in our Lives: Learning How to Respond to Others through 14 Biblical Textsand Personal Stories, and Moses and the Journey to Leadership: Timeless Lessons of Effective Management from the Bible and Today’sLeadership, all published by Jewish Lights.

Norman J. Cohen, Ph.D.

Many modern-day leaderssuffer from speech impedimentsand work hard to overcome them.Winston Churchill had a lisp,which he struggled to correct.And Churchill perhaps will bestbe remembered for his inspiringspeeches during the battle ofBritain. Part of what enabledhim to become such a greatcommunicator was how theBritish people responded tohis leadership initiatives.11

EXCERPTS OF NEW BOOKS BY HUC-JIR FACULTY | EXCERPTS OF NEW BOOKS BY HUC-JIR FACULTY


greater force by the use of the word az,here translated as “then.” Though az canbe taken to refer to both the past and thefuture, the tradition enumerates many ofthose verses in which az clearly points usto future events.15 In fact, the Rabbis saythat young infants, and even embryos intheir mothers’ wombs, open their mouthsand sing at the sea.16 Also indicating thatthe song will be repeated by future genera-tions is the addition of the redundant phraseva-yomru laimor, “and they said, saying,”before the song’s opening words (15:1). Inthe midrash, the Rabbis emphasize in thisregard that “We shall tell our children andour children will tell their children that theyshould recite a song such as this when Godperforms miracles for them.”17

The word for song, shir, is close to the rootshur, which means “to glimpse into thefuture.” As Moses leads Israel in this songmarking their deliverance from the hands oftheir Egyptian taskmas-ters, he enables them tosee the possibility ofultimate redemption.As Miriam demands ofthem, “Sing to theLord,” Shiru l’Adonai,we are tempted to com-plete the imperativewith the messianicphrase from Isaiah42:10, shir hadash, “anew song.” Accordingto the rabbinic tradi-tion, ten songs span allof human history, mov-ing from theredemption from Egyptto the coming of the messianic age, of whichShirat ha-Yam is one. This series culminateswith the song of redemption in Isaiah 42,which is also enunciated in Psalm 149:1.18

Who Sings the Song?

As we have already noticed, it is not clearwhether the words used at the outset of thesong refer to the past or tothe future. However, thereis an even greater lack ofclarity when it comes towho actually is singing.The verbs are both singular(yashir—he sang; ashirah—I will sing) and plural (va-yomru—they said).Therefore, we as readers areleft in the dark as to exactlyhow the Song at the Sea isperformed. When it says, “Az yashir [singu-lar] Moshe u-Venai Yisrael,” and then “ashirahl’Adonai,” does it mean that only Moses singsand the People of Israel merely listen passive-ly, or do the singular verbs somehow indicatethat both are involved in some way? Addingto the confusion as to who performs the

song is the phrase va-yomru laimor, “and theysaid, saying” (15:1). Thisconfusion, however, givesrise to several alternativeleadership models, eachof which can be instruc-tive for us.

The powerful singularverbs lead some com-mentators and midrashicsources to stress thatMoses and Israel singin unison. Inspired byGod’s miraculous deliver-ance and the presenceof the Shechinah, they

raise their voices as if one person weresinging.19 Moses and Israel are seen as beingequal, shekulim.20 This model breaks downtraditional hierarchy in leadership and cre-ates greater unity among the group.

According to one tradition, the People ofIsrael, deferring to their leader, request thatMoses begin the song, but he declines, say-

ing, “No, you shall beginfor it is a greater mark ofhonor for God to be praisedby the multitude than byone single human being.”At once, the people sing toGod. And only after theyfinish does Moses also praiseGod’s name for the signsand miracles that he hadbeen shown.22

However, the dominantrabbinic tradition holds that Moses is theone who actually begins to sing the words ofShirat ha-Yam, and the People of Israel insome way follow his lead. The song is recitedantiphonally, though the tradition is notclear as to how that works. The most preva-lent view among the Rabbis is that Israelmerely echos Moses’s words. The leader cre-ates the song alone and the people simplyrepeat what he sings. Though the teachersto whom this tradition is attributed vary, itappears very early and is repeated over thecenturies.23 Occasionally, there is a debate asto what the people repeated—is it all ofMoses’s exact words or simply the initial key-word signifiers?24 The notion that it is Moseswho sings and Israel who merely echoes hiswords and melody is a masculine model ofthe strong frontal leader who transmits avision that the people are to follow. Moses isthe “I” standing before the people, leadingthem in song.25 In this model, only theleader possesses the wisdom and insight toarticulate what they must believe and howthey must act.

However, some traditions suggest that Israeldoes not simply mimic Moses’s recitationof the song. A number of sources emphasizethat, following Moses’s singing of a particularphrase of Shirat ha-Yam, Israel repeats what

Moses and the Journey to Leadership: Timeless Lessons of EffectiveManagement from the Bible and Today's Leaders (continued)

One of the most unusual aspectsof Ernest Shackleton’s Antarcticexpeditions was the absence ofany leadership hierarchies. Heemphasized that everyone wasequal and all would share equallyin the division of labor throughoutthe voyages. Everyone did nothave equal status, but all wereequally valued and involved.On Shackleton’s boats, all handstook turns scrubbing the floorsand caring for the dogs.21

Paul Russell of PepsiCopoints out the importanceof the individual you placein front of the people astheir leader. People need“icons,” world-class peoplewhom everyone looks to asthe leader or expert and iswilling to follow.26


2007 ISSUE 69 �41

Moses has sung and then completes the line,illustrating another form of leadership. Theyfollow his lead, pick up his melody andwords, and then add their own. Moses, forexample, sings, “I will singunto the Lord, for He ishighly exalted,” and thepeople repeat after himand then finish the line,“I will sing unto the Lord,for He is highly exalted.The horse and rider Hehas thrown into the sea”(15:1).28 This is a powerfulexample of leadershipdevelopment and under-scores the nature of theleader’s mentoring role.

Miriam’s Song and Model

The notion that theIsraelites sing antiphonallyat the sea is first suggestedby Philo of Alexandria,who imagines that theyform two choruses, Mosesleading the men and his sister, Miriam,leading the women.29 Though Miriam’ssong is relegated to two verses and one lineof actual song (15:20–21), its content isexactly the same as the first line of Moses’ssong: “Sing to the Lord, for He is highly tobe praised. The Horse and rider He hasthrown into the sea” (15:21). It seems thatMiriam essentially plays the same role—leading the women, who follow her, asMoses does for the men.30

Yet, Miriam plays a unique role, even com-pared to her brother, Moses, since thebiblical text emphasizes that all the womengo out after her with their timbrels, and theypraise God through ecstatic dance and song.Miriam is here identified by name for thevery first time in the Bible and she is referredto as ha-Neviah, the Prophetess, and as the“sister of Aaron.” The tradition interprets

these titles as signifying that Miriam prophe-sies the birth of Moses (she is five years oldwhen Moses is born)for she is “only the sister of Aaron when she

utters the prophecy.”31 Yet,it is significant that at themoment of Moses’s great-est triumph Miriam is alsoidentified as a prophet,like her brother, and isthought of as Aaron’s sis-ter. We would expect herto be called “Moses’s sis-ter”!32 This stresses thespecial role Miriam plays.

Miriam’s song is clearlydifferent from Moses’ssong. Moses’s singing isdescribed by the verbyashir: He sang his songto the people, whileMiriam, by contrast, issaid to literally “respond”to [the women] (15:21).33

The word used is ta’an,which comes from the

root anah (answer). Moses sings in front ofthe congregation, but Miriam reacts to thosearound her, responding to them and theirsongs. Hers is a feminine model, one of sen-sitivity and response, through which sheencourages her sisters to sing their own song.Her empowerment of the women to singtheir song is clear from the words she utters.In contrast to Moses leading the people byhimself, Ashirah l’Adonai, I will sing to God,Miriam urges her sisters to sing themselves,Shiru l’Adonai, “Sing to God!” Miriam’smodel as a leader is clear: to enable thosearound her to find their own voices throughwhich to praise God. They need not merelyemulate or echo the leader’s song.34 Greatleaders understand that each person must beencouraged to raise his or her voice.

The tradition goes even further in positingthe uniqueness of the song of Miriam andthe women. Though it is only one line, incontrast to the nineteen lines of the songof Moses, the Rabbis stress that Miriamand her sisters actually sing an entire songby themselves, which is different fromMoses’s song.35

The women’s song is distinctive because theyutilize tuppim, drums or timbrels, to accom-pany their song and dance. According to afrequently cited tradition, the women antici-pate that God will perform miracles forthem and that even though they leave Egyptin the middle of the night, in such a rushthat they aren’t able to prepare food for thejourney, they make sure to bring along musi-cal instruments.36 Like all other righteousindividuals, they are prepared for themoment of redemption!37 The song of thewomen is echoed in the drums they carrywith them from Egypt; this is understoodas expressive of their innate faith in thefuture. As women, understanding the poten-tial of birth as a means of overcoming pastsuffering and death, they are ever attunedto possible moments of transcendence. Theyare always ready to break into song.38 Theyteach us that all leaders need to have thecapacity to celebrate the potential inherentin every new moment as well as the comingto fruition of their vision.

Drawing from the Two Leadership Models

Miriam’s entire life is associated with water.Not only does she first appear at the Nileto save Moses’s life, but her very name(Miriam—mar yam, bitter sea or water) isperhaps tied to Marah, the place of bitterwaters, mentioned, as we will shortly see,immediately after Shirat ha-Yam at the endof Exodus 15. It may also be hinted at inExodus 17, when Israel complains that thereis no water to drink when they reachRephidim, also identified as a place of strifeand bitterness (17:7). Furthermore, in recog-

Larry Bossidy, former CEOof Allied Signal, realized thatdeveloping new leaders isthe key to profitability aswell as the sustainability ofa company. Can those youlead initiate change on theirown? Protégés, such as MaryPetrovich, were encouragedby Bossidy to devise theirown methods for achievingthe company’s goals oncethey had been trained. Heunderstood that there was adifference between mentoringfuture leaders and tellingthem exactly what to do.27




nition of her song, the tradition envisions awell springing up in the desert that accom-panies the Israelites on their trek through thewilderness for most of the next forty years.It is therefore called “Miriam’s well.”39

According to the Rabbis, this well, due tothe piety of Miriam, dates back to the begin-ning of the world, having been formed onthe second day of Creation, when God sepa-rated the waters, and all the patriarchs andsubsequent leaders of the people had accessto it.40 And finally when Miriam dies atKadesh, the well and its life-giving watersdisappear (Numbers 20:2).

As the Israelites proceed on their journeythrough the desert, they carry with themboth the song of Moses, the powerful singu-lar song of the male, as well as the responsivechords of Miriam, who empowers others tosing their songs. The challenge for each ofus who are blessed to play any kind of lead-ership role is to recognize that there are twodifferent leadership models—one masculine,the other feminine—both of which we musttap. But to do so, we have to get in touchwith that other side of ourselves and striveto make it a more active part of who we areas leaders. Those of us who are men mustsearch for the softer, more open and respon-sive part of our being, so as to help usrespond better to others. This will enableus to show others that they, too, can raisetheir voices in song. Those of us who arewomen can begin to draw on the moreassertive sides of ourselves that will enableus to take a stand when necessary, share ourvision, and help us to speak our minds andhearts when necessary.41

Excerpt is from Moses and the Journey to Leadership:Timeless Lessons of Effective Management from theBible and Today's Leaders © 2007 Norman J. Cohen(Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing). $21.95 +$3.95 s/h. Order by mail or call 800-962-4544 oron-line at www.jewishlights.com. Permission grantedby Jewish Lights Publishing, P.O. Box 237, Woodstock,VT 05091.

1 They also emphasize the power signified by God’s hand in

Shirat ha-Yam, the Song at the Sea, itself: “Your right hand,

O Lord, glorious in power, Your right hand, O Lord, shat-

ters the foe” (Exodus 15:6).

2 Meier, Moses: The Prince, the Prophet, p. 107.

3 Benno Jacob’s commentary to Exodus 14:30–31 and Me’am

Lo’az to Exodus 14:31.

4 Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary to Exodus 14:31. He is called

the servant of God or some version of this over thirty times

in the Bible.

5 For example, Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Massekhta

d’Beshallah, parashah 7, Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon to Exodus

14:31; and Midrash ha-Gadol to Exodus 14:31.

6 Among many parallel traditions, see Mekhilta d’Rabbi

Ishmael, Massekhta d’Beshallah, parashah 7; Midrash

Tanhuma Buber, Beshallah 11; Midrash ha-Gadol to Exodus

14:31; and Shemot Rabbah 22:3.

7 In addition to the sources mentioned in note 6, see also

Me’am Lo’az to Exodus 15:1 and Rabbenu Bahya to Exodus

15:1.

8 Rashi and Ramban to Exodus 15:1, as well as the Or

Hayyim.

9 Meier, Moses: The Prince, the Prophet, p. 108, and Wiesel,

Messengers of God, p. 193. Wiesel reminds us that while

stutterers have difficulty speaking, they have no problems

singing.

10 See Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, vol. 1, pp. 345–346, and

Benno Jacob’s commentary to Exodus 15:1.

11 Hayward, Churchill on Leadership, pp. 98–99.

12 Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, pp. 216–17.

13 See, for example, Ramban and Sforno’s comments on this

passage. See also Me’am Lo’az to Exodus 15.

14 Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 224.

15 See, for example, the classic midrashic interpretation of

Exodus 15:1 in Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Messekhta

d’Shirta, parashah 1.

16 For example, Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Massekhta d’Shirta,

parashah; P.T. Sotah 23a; and Me’am Lo’az to Exodus 15:1.

17 Shemot Rabbah 23:12.

18 Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Massekhta d’Shirta, parashah 1,

Yalkut Shimoni, vol. 1, remazim 241–242; and Midrash ha-

Gadol and Midrash Lekah Tov to Exodus 15:1, among many

parallel traditions.

19 Or Hayyim and Me’am Lo’az to Exodus 15:1.

20 For example, Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Massekhta d’Shirta,

parashah 1; Yalkut Shimoni, vol. 1, remez 241; and Midrash

ha-Gadol to Exodus 15:1. See also Moshe Alshich’s com-

mentary to Exodus 15:1, in which he emphasizes that the

words va-yomru laimor, “they said, saying,” indicate that the

People of Israel are not passive, but rather sing along with

Moses.

21 Morrell and Capparell, Shackleton’s Way, pp. 89–91.

22 Midrash Va-Yosha. See a re-creation of this midrash in

Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, vol. 3, pp. 33–34.

23 This tradition is cited very early, in Sotah 5:4, and is repeat-

ed in Sotah 6:2–4; P.T. Sotah 23c, and B.T. Sotah 27b and

30b. It is also found in many midrashic compilations,

including Shemot Rabbah 23:9. See also Benno Jacob’s com-

mentary to Exodus 15:1.

24 See also, among several parallel traditions, Mekhilta d’Rabbi

Ishmael, Massekhta d’Shirta, parashah 1; Yalkut Shimoni, vol.

1, remez 241; and Midrash ha-Gadol to Exodus 15:1.

25 See my Self, Struggle and Change, p. 25.

26 Woolfe, Leadership Secrets in the Bible, p. 202.

27 Among many sources, see Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael,

Massekhta d’Shirta, parashah 1; Midrash Tanhuma ha-Nidpas

Beshallah 11; Midrash ha-Gadol to Exodus 15:1; and Me’am

Lo’az to Exodus 15:1.

28 Philo, De Vita Mosis, 1, 180.

29 Noel Tichy, The Leadership Engine (New York: Harper

Business, 1997), pp. 41, 85.

30 Note, for example, Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Massekhta

d’Shirta, parashah 10; the Mekhilta d’Rabbi Shimon to

Exodus 15:21; Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, chap. 42; and Midrash

ha-Gadol to Exodus 15:21. This parallelism may, in part,

stem from a literal reading of Az yashir Moshe u-Venai

Yisrael, in which Bnai Yisrael is understood not as “the

Children of Israel,” but rather as “the sons of Israel.” See

also Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 225; and

Burton L. Visotzky, The Road to Redemption (New York:

Crown Publishers, Inc., 1998), p. 138.

31 Note, among several parallel sources, B.T. Megillah 14a and

Sotah 12b–13a.

32 Visotzky, The Road to Redemption, p. 137.

33 The text actually says, ve-ta’an lehem Miriam, Miriam

responded to them, where the object is masculine, lahem.

Why it isn’t lahen, “to them”—the females—is not clear.

34 Benno Jacob’s commentary to Exodus 15:21.

35 Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary to Exodus 15:20–21, which

alludes to such traditions as found in Sa’adia Gaon’s

Commentary to Exodus 15:21; Rabbenu Bahya to Exodus

15:21; and Hizkuni to Exodus 15:21.

36 Me’am Lo’az to Exodus 15, 20–21.

37 Among many parallel citations, see Mekhilta d’Rabbi

Ishmael, Massekhta d’Shirta, parashah 10; Mekhilta d’ Rabbi

Shimon to Exodus 15:20; Pirkei d’Rabbi Elieizer, chapter 42;

Rashi to Exodus 15:20; and Yalkut Shimoni, vol. 1, remez

253.

38 Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, pp. 225–230.

39 B.T. Ta’anit 9a and Bamidbar Rabbah 1:2 and 19:23. See

also Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture, p. 232, concern-

ing this tradition.

40Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, Massekhta d’Vayassa, parashah 5.41See my Self, Struggle and Change, p. 25.

2007 ISSUE 69 �43

A utobiography, its students agree, is aproblematic genre of literature. Onecannot expect it to be a balanced and

wholly accurate representation. Rememberingand forgetting are determined not only bytemporal distance from the events described,but also by psychological factors that oftenunconsciously push certain recollectionsinto the foreground and bury others.Autobiographers are explorers of the self, butthey are also its fashioners. They configurethe tale of their personal development andcharacter in a manner that is both most easi-ly acceptable to themselves and that presentsthe self-image that they wish to convey tosucceeding generations of their family or ofa larger readership. The process begins beforethe text is produced. Frequently told tales arereshaped, embellished, and become exempla-ry for the life even as others are suppressed.In addition, literary motives play their roleas the autobiographer seeks to create a coher-

ent and intrinsically interesting narrative,omitting distractions, limiting qualifications,exaggerating importance. In a sense, thewriting of autobiography is a kind of per-formance, a dramatization of the writer’s lifefor the readers’ entertainment. Like a film orplay, its success depends on its holding theinterest of those exposed to it.

The recollections of Joachim Prinz displaythe characteristics of the autobiographicalgenre. His work is focused upon the self. Itfashions an imagined persona that must bedifferentiated from the historical person,whose character can only be determinedfrom other sources. Although there are occa-sional descriptions of milieu, especially ofhis village childhood, the autobiography isless a memoir of his times than a relation ofhis own development and activity within achanging environment. The autobiographypresents Prinz as he would like to be remem-bered: as the possessor of a meaningful and

interesting life; a breaker of taboos; a manwhose life was filled with experiences thatwere out of the ordinary. He was not, theautobiography repeatedly impresses on thereader, a mere run-of-the-mill rabbi. Thefrequent instances of self-dramatization, ofsetting the self apart from others withoutqualification, create a more powerful, if notalways historically accurate or carefully quali-fied narrative. Despite the occasional note ofself-deprecation with regard to irresponsibili-ty and insensitivity, the dominant mood isone of self-confidence and self-admiration.Although there are occasional critical reflec-tions, the autobiography gives little evidenceof inner struggle; unlike Rousseau, its moodis not confessional, but triumphant, more acelebration of self than of deeper introspec-tion. Known as an excellent raconteur, Prinzhere presents stories that must have beenoften told and hence most easily remembered,no doubt restructured and stylized in the

When, a few years ago, it was suggested to me that I have a look at a manuscript autobiographyby Joachim Prinz (1902-1988), my assumption was that, like most such writing, it would be ofinterest to family and friends, perhaps belonged in an archives, but was unlikely to attract a largerreadership. To my surprise, I found the life story of this provocative Liberal and Zionist rabbi inGermany and later in America extraordinarily fascinating, had difficulty in putting it down, and soonresolved to prepare it for publication.

Prinz dictated his autobiography to his secretary around 1977, probably very shortly after hisretirement from the rabbinate of Temple B’nai Abraham, which he had served from 1939 to 1973in Newark, and then in Livingston, New Jersey. He began his story with his birth in 1902 andcarried it forward to the death of his mentor and idol, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, in 1949. Regrettably,he did not continue the account further, into his career as a prominent leader of American Judaism,specifically to his roles as president of the American Jewish Congress and chair of the Conferenceof Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. Nor does the autobiography include his relationshipwith Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dramatic speech at the March on Washington for Jobs andFreedom on August 28, 1963. However, as Prinz indicated in his remarks on that occasion, hiswork on behalf of African Americans rested upon his experience as a rabbi in Nazi Germany, whichforms the central chapter of his autobiography. His recollections shed new light on the role of therabbinate in a community under siege, on spiritual resistance carried on in the synagogue and lec-ture hall. In addition, they provide access to the personality of an unusual individual, shaped

largely by the unshackled, exuberant Weimar culture, cheeky enough to confront Nazi authorities repeatedly, and finally able to find a leadership rolein American Judaism. Below are a few non-annotated adapted excerpts from my introduction to the autobiography.

Joachim Prinz, Rebellious RabbiMichael A. Meyer, ed., Indiana University Press, 2007



course of repeated retellings. Since the auto-biography was created shortly after hisretirement from a very successful rabbinicalcareer, producing it may have been a way ofcoping with the crisis of retirement, whichhad closed off most opportunities for publicdisplay and induced an inward focus as wellas the desire to leave a personal legacy.

––––––––––-

The effort to contextualize Prinz’s autobiog-raphy within his life and his changing milieuseems worthwhile because Joachim Prinz, thehistorical figure, was indeed a significantpresence in Jewish history both in Germanyand the United States. His reinterpretationof the role of the rabbinate had a broadinfluence and the Jewish spiritual life inwhich he participated has yet to be fullyintegrated into portrayals of German Jewryduring the Nazi period. Among GermanZionists, Prinz was the movement’s mostpopular propagandist; among rabbis, his partin the spiritual resistance to Nazism is secondonly to that of the leader of German Jewryduring the Nazi period, Rabbi Leo Baeck.His candor about his personal life is aston-ishing. Finally, in the United States, Prinzbecame one of the foremost Jewish leadersof the Civil Rights movement. Yet there hasnot been so much as a single critical articledealing with his life and achievements. Thediscovery of Joachim Prinz’s autobiographyprovides a window into a fascinating life aswell as the opportunity to assess his signifi-cance for Jewish history.

––––––––––-

Hitler’s appointment as chancellor ofGermany on January 30, 1933 unleasheda crisis within German Jewry, especiallyamong the Liberals, who had remainedoptimistic about the future of Jews inGermany. Increasingly driven out from thepublic sphere, German Jews were forced toseek psychological sustenance from within aJewish community that hitherto had been atbest peripheral to their daily lives. As theirlong-standing ideology of complete equalitywithin German society lay in ruins, they

turned to the abandoned synagogue as aplace of refuge where they could be amongtheir own. Large numbers turned to Prinz asthe rabbi who would dare to address theirconcerns the most honestly, directly, anddramatically.

Never was this more true than on Fridayevening, March 31, 1933, the night beforethe boycott of Jewish stores that by twomonths followed Hitler’s ascent to power.Prinz referred to the service he conductedthat evening as the most memorable in hislife, especially when the worshippers in apacked synagogue shouted the watchword ofthe Jewish faith, the shma yisrael, with suchfervor that it drowned out choir and organ.From the recollections of Prinz’s rabbinicalcolleague, Hans Tramer, we learn more thanwhat is contained in the autobiographyabout how he chose to dramatize the crisisfor the congregation. Tramer remembers thatearlier that day he had met with Prinz at hishome and asked his more senior colleaguewhat he should say at the services. Prinzreplied that he himself would simply read aproclamation circulated to all synagogues byRabbi Leo Baeck and add two or three sen-tences about its contents. It was, he added, atime not for speaking, but for silence. That,in fact, is exactly what Tramer did in his syn-agogue. The next day, however, he learnedwhat Prinz himself had done. This isTramer’s account: “Prinz entered the syna-gogue, called the shammes [the caretaker ofthe synagogue] and had him call up the

three oldest men in the congregation. Hethen removed the Torah scrolls from the ark.[The men] stood, two next to him and onein front of him. Then before the open ark heread [Baeck’s] letter, had the scrolls solemnlyreplaced in the ark, whereupon he spoke forforty minutes or even an hour saying: ‘WeJews will defend our Judaism; we have noweapons, for THIS is our weapon.’ Thereuponhe wheeled around and tore open the arkcontaining the Torah scrolls!” When Tramerlater asked Prinz why he hadn’t suggestedsomething similar to him, Prinz repliedinnocently: “All of that occurred to me onlyat the last minute.” He claimed to haveimprovised the performance spontaneously.

––––––––––-

As Prinz had been, after Leo Baeck, the bestknown of the German rabbis during theNazi years, so he later became one of themost prominent figures in American Jewryin the generation after Stephen Wise andAbba Hillel Silver. At a meeting of theRabbinical Assembly, Arthur Hertzberg saidof him to his fellow Conservative rabbis thatPrinz was “an astute mind and the most dis-tinguished and beloved of our colleagues,revered in the American Rabbinate, the manwho, I think, most of us would most like tobe.” Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but italso possessed some measure of truth. Thecareer of this audacious and talented Germanand American Jew is certainly one of themore significant in modern Jewish history.

Dr. Michael A. Meyer is the Adolph S. Ochs Professor of JewishHistory at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati. Recognized as the preeminenthistorian of Reform Judaism and of the religious and intellectuallife of German Jewry, Dr. Meyer’s books include Origins of theModern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture (1967),Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in

America (1988), and Judaism within Modernity (2002). He wrote the centennial historyessay for Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion at One Hundred Years (1976),and served as the editor of the four-volume German-Jewish History in Modern Times, LeoBaeck Werke, Volume 6: Briefe, Reden, Aufsätze, and Joachim Prinz, Rebellious Rabbi.

Michael A. Meyer, Ph.D.


2007 ISSUE 69 �47

Graduation/Ordination/Investiture 2007

Many years ago,when Charlie

and I were prepar-ing to get married,we faced a chal-lenge - we couldnot find a rabbiwho would marryus. My rabbi,steeped in theGerman Reformtradition, wouldnot perform a cere-mony during whichCharlie wore a kip-pah and stepped ona glass. And Charlie’s

rabbi would not marry us because I was adivorcée. Some of you may be thinking –“how odd – that would never happen today!”

Yet it would, and it does, in other forms, noless painful and no less frustrating. The sadtruth is that our community has not comefar enough in making Judaism open to all.

In the U.S. and around the world, thereare too many young Jews and other spiritualseekers who are being thwarted in theirefforts to embrace Judaism. For example,there are too many interfaith couples unableto find a rabbi who will marry them. Theyare stuck scouring the yellow pages forclergy who perform interfaith ceremonies.Many in the Reform Movement act as ifthese couples have to prove something to usabout their commitment to Judaism. Yetwe are the ones with something to prove.

My Jewish values tell me that every Jew ispart of the Jewish people and part of ourJewish family. And, if they are part of thefamily, they must all have a place aroundthe table. I believe the table will be somuch richer with their presence.

That is why we need to reach out to non-traditional families seeking places in Jewishlife as well as to the rapidly increasingnumber of Jews of color. We should active-ly encourage these families to raise theirchildren as Jews, and then provide themwith the help and support they need torealize their dreams.

We live in an era when all Jews are Jews bychoice. All of us can walk away from Judaismif we want to – but we don't. We turn toJudaism for its timeless relevance and itstranscendent message of hope. We must doeverything possible to help others make thesame choice, regardless of where they live.

The Reform Movement must be a home tothese and other seekers, and it must be a hometo all. Because I believe that if the Torahisn't for everyone, it isn't for anyone.

I believe that if we make Reform Judaisman open house, people will enter. We willfind Jews we didn't know exist. We haveonly scratched the surface of opportunity.

All over the world, young Jews like manyof you here today, are already infusing ourcommunity with creative forms of Jewishengagement. The expressive energy of thisgeneration is just beginning to be felt - andI believe it will change American Jewish lifefor generations to come. But let me add thisword of warning: If we as a communitydon't challenge this generation – your gen-eration – we will lose out as a community.You are talented and passionate, and so ourcollective responsibility is to make sureJewish life is a showcase for your genera-tion's talents and passion.

We also need to shed the divisions from whichour community has suffered for too long,one of the most obvious of which is interde-nominational competition and strife. Theleadership of the various Movements mustfind ways to work together more closely andmore often. There is room to work togeth-er – and frankly, we had better start trying.

That is why I am announcing the creationof an unprecedented interdenominationalrabbinical fellowship program. Beginning inthe fall of 2008, this project will enable eightoutstanding students – four from HUC-JIR and four from the Jewish TheologicalSeminary – to experience a collaborativerabbinical education focused on criticalneeds in the American Jewish community.

The goal of this fellowship is twofold.The first is to train transformationalrabbinical leaders capable of profoundand positive change in the communitiesthey serve. The second is to better equipthe rabbinate to address the ever-evolvingneeds of the American Jewish community,especially those of interfaith families andother Jews who find themselves on themargins of Jewish life.

This cooperative relationship, I hope, willyield benefits far beyond the campus walls,and bring congregations from the Reformand Conservative traditions together. I hope,too, that this fellowship program will inspireothers to embark upon similar collaborativeefforts to strengthen our Jewish community.For, ultimately, what has brought all of ushere today is our pride in being Jewish andour commitment to Judaism in all its glory.

And what exactly does that commitmentmean? According to Reform tradition andto me it means:

To open eyes when others close them.To hear when others do not listen.To seek understanding when othersstop learning.To strengthen the hands of the weak,and to shelter the innocent.To cry out for justice when others keepsilent.To be a Jew means to follow the exampleof Dalia Samansky and Wendy Feller(see page 48): To give hope ... and,literally, to give life.

These values have helped you reach this day –and may they always guide you as you guideour community.

New York, May 3, 2007Lynn Schusterman, Founder and Chair,

Charles and Lynn SchustermanFamily Foundation

The 2007 Dr. Bernard Heller Prize wasawarded to Dr. Judah Folkman at HUC-

JIR/Cincinnati’s Graduation. Dr. Folkman isthe Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Professor of Cell Biology atHarvard Medical School, Director of the Vascular Biology Program at Children's HospitalBoston, and the founder of the field of angiogenesis research.

In receiving the Dr. Bernard Heller Prize, Dr. Folkman evoked the legacy of his father,Rabbi Jerome D. Folkman, who was ordained at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati in 1931, and stat-ed, “You are graduating today as ‘Ministers’ – not to be served, but to enter into service.You have been attracted to your new profession, as I was to mine, through a sense of altru-ism, with a real desire to do good. But what is the definition of a profession? As a medicalstudent, my dean explained ‘A profession is a set of behaviors above the market place.’Being of service to your fellow human beings puts you exactly in that position. I wouldsay to you what my father said to me in a blessing on my confirmation day: ‘Be a creditto your people.’”

The Dr. Bernard HellerPrize is an internationalaward established by theDr. Bernard HellerFoundation and present-ed to an individual ororganization whose work,writing, or researchreflects significant con-tributions in the areasof Arts, Letters, theHumanities and Religion.


The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundationbrought together bone marrow donor

Dalia Samansky, a third-year rabbinical stu-dent at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles, and recipientWendy Feller in a moving first-time meetingduring HUC-JIR/New York’s Graduation.

“As future Jewish leaders, we will be givenmany opportunities to touch and inspirelives, but rarely are we given the opportunityto truly partner with God in helping to savea life,” said Samansky. “For many years,HUC-JIR's students, faculty and staff havesupported the Gift of Life, have held bonemarrow registration drives on each of ourfour campuses, and I and a few other class-mates have been called upon to becomedonors. Every day we train to become lead-ers of the Jewish community, but it is WendyFeller and the Gift of Life Foundation whoinspire and remind us that God is surelypresent in our lives.” Feller thanked theGift of Life and Samansky, saying, “Withoutthem, I would not be able to speak to thegraduates today and congratulate them ontheir and our futures.”

Through targeted recruitment campaigns inJewish communities, Gift of Life has greatlyimproved the chances that Jewish patientswill find genetically matched donors for life-saving bone marrow, blood stem cell andumbilical cord blood transplants, a task thathas proven difficult following the losses ofthe Holocaust, which severed bloodlines.Gift of Life was established during the highprofile donor search for Jay Feinberg, whoultimately received his transplant and nowserves as the organization’s ExecutiveDirector. Feinberg said, “We were thrilledto have the opportunity to introduce Daliato the stranger whose life she saved. Dalia'sdonation of blood stem cells offered Wendywhat no one else could – a second chanceat life.”

[From left] Rabbi David Ellenson; Jay Feinberg, Founder and Executive Director of the Gift of LifeBone Marrow Foundation; Lynn Schusterman, Founder and Chair, Charles and Lynn SchustermanFamily Foundation, recipient of the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, and GraduationSpeaker; Dalia Samansky, 3rd-year rabbinical student at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles and Gift of Lifebone marrow donor; and Wendy Feller, Gift of Life bone marrow recipient.

New York, May 3, 2007The Gift of Life

Bone Marrow Foundation Presentation

Ruth O. Freedlander, Co-trustee of the Dr. Bernard Heller Foundation, and Rabbi Ellensonpresenting the 2007 Dr. Bernard Heller Prize to Dr. Judah Folkman.

Cincinnati, June 3, 2007The 2007 Dr. Bernard Heller Prize


It was last Shabbat 66 years ago that I stoodin the chapel of what was then Hebrew

Union College with my small ordinationclass of 14 students. Ever since I received thewondrous invitation to be here with you onthis most significant day in your young lives,I have attempted to reconstruct for myselfwhat it was like when I was ordained here inCincinnati. Two emotions surfaced. One wasrelief that the six years of study (not count-ing those in Berlin) had finally come to anend and that somehow I was deemed worthyto step out and take responsibility for myselfin a manner I had never known before. Butthe other was a sense of being lost, evenafraid, for there was so much I did not know,had never experienced, that confronted me –not the least that on the day following ordina-tion I was going to get married in compliancewith the rule of the day that no HUC studentwas allowed to be married while a student atthe College, a rule that was broken by onlya couple of very daring colleagues!

What a life it was. None of us had everflown in an airplane. A long distance callwas an event and no one dreamt of an inter-national call. In the entire student body therewas one person who had a car. There werefive women on campus – two in the admin-istration as secretaries, two in the kitchen asour cooks, and the incomparable LillianWaldman, matron of our dormitory.

The 2007 Roger E. Joseph Prize wasawarded to the Whitwell Middle

School Holocaust and Paper Clip Projectand accepted by Linda Hooper, WhitwellMiddle School Principal, in a presentationby Roger E. Joseph’s grandchildren atHUC-JIR/New York’s OrdinationCeremonies. In 1998, assistant principaland football coach David Smith and princi-pal Linda Hooper launched a voluntaryafter-school 8th grade course on theHolocaust to teach tolerance within theirrural southeastern Tennessee town’s middleschool of 425 students. Inspired by thealtruism of those courageous Norwegianswho had expressed solidarity with theirJewish fellow citizens after the Nazi occupa-tion by pinning ordinary paper clips totheir lapels, the Whitwell School studentsembarked upon a project to collect onepaper clip for each of the six million Jewishvictims of the Shoah in order to demon-strate the magnitude of this genocide andthe individuality of those who perished.

Their project attracted international attention,leading to an acclaimed documentary filmand donations of eleven million paper clipsfrom around the world. The students acquireda German railcar used to transport victimsto the concentration camps during theSecond World War to serve as a permanentHolocaust memorial and museum in theirschoolyard – with each paper clip stored there

a testament to the power of memory, edu-cation, and human understanding.

In accepting the Roger E. Joseph Award,Linda Hooper said, “As I look at the lifeof Roger Joseph, I think about what heovercame and the choices that he made.At an age younger than some of you whoare becoming rabbis today, he chose notto let polio take his life away. He chose todo good and be the kind of person that hethought his God wanted him to be. Andyou today have made a choice, to go outand serve your God and serve other people.

I would just ask you today as you leavehere to think about the paper clip, a tinyinsignificant thing, and to think about yourchoices and I would ask you to join withthe students, staff and community ofWhitwell, Tennessee in creating a worldwhere acceptance and respect become therule and not the exception.”

The Roger E. Joseph Prize is an internationalaward established by Burton M. Joseph andBetty Greenberg through the JosephFoundation and presented annually to anindividual or organization, which, by virtueof religious and moral commitment, hasmade a distinctive contribution to humanity.

[From left] Rabbi Ellenson, Jesse Leopold,Linda Hooper, Thomas and Roger Joseph, andSarah Leopold.

New York, May 6, 2007The 2007 Roger E. Joseph Prize

Cincinnati, June 2, 2007Rabbi Herman E. SchaalmanRabbi Emeritus, EmanuelCongregation, Chicago, IL


(continued on next page)

2007 ISSUE 69 �49


Our life, except for the summer, was totallyconfined within the dormitory. We were fedthree times a day. We had African Americanwaiters who waited on us and cleaned ourrooms. Our laundry was taken care of. Noword of Sephardic Hebrew was spoken –we were all genuine true Ashkenazim. ThePresident’s wife each year hosted a dinnerfor the freshman class and fed us artichokesso that we would learn how to deal with thisstrange fruit. After all, we were being pre-pared to be the rabbis of the leading stratumof American Jewry. We lived in a cocoon,an unreal world.

There had not yet been a big bang. Agenome was unknown. DNA never existed.No one had heard of a quantum theory.We had heard of Einstein and Freud, butI can’t recall any major conversations. Weknew there was a war, and some of us whohad family in Europe anxiously followed thebulletins, but in a manner that is still totallyincomprehensible to me.

We lived in a world that had not yetheard of Heschel, Berkowitz, Greenberg,or Borowitz. Will Herberg had written abook that made a temporary splash, andMordechai Kaplan’s work on Jewish assimi-lation engaged us. But in a real way, welived sheltered, protected. The world out-side was only an occasional intruder. Theworld we live in today is almost unrecog-nizable in its relation to the world that Ientered at the time of my ordination.

We live in truly revolutionary times. Theexplosion of knowledge and discoveryseems to have no pause, but seems toexpand and accelerate even beyond whatwe know now. It presents a question thatis pertinent and insistent: Is there anythingout of our past that in some way canaccompany us into the present and giveus guidance or direction?

Permit me to point to one. Abraham is in amajor marketplace in the apex of the Fertile

Crescent, when all at once out of nowherethere comes a call, “Lech lecha – go.” Whereto? Destination uncertain, hidden, cryptic.Did Abraham really know who had called?How could he? He entrusts himself to anunknown future and to a God who hadnever been with him before, whose verynature, purpose, and intent must have beenpuzzling to him. It is an event of such pro-fundity that perhaps nothing thereafterequals it. His response would change all ofthe history of humanity to this very day….

God’s question, “Where are you?” stillreverberates in the vastness of time and space.

God is hoping to hear “Here am I.” As youtransition from being a student to Rabbiand teacher, you deserve and need to beblessed. But much more is hoped of you.You’re not supposed to be only the recipientsof blessing, vessels into which those caringlypoured their own knowledge and being intothe process of making you into what youwill now be.

Know in this holiest moment of your livesthat you are to be a blessing. We need you.We expect you. We hope you will be ablessing.

Approximately seven yearsago, David Irving, a man

I briefly mentioned in mybook on Holocaust denial,decided to sue me for libel forcalling him a Holocaust denier,anti-Semite, and neo-Nazi.After a legal ordeal that lastedover five years, we won anoverwhelming victory. Thejudge branded Irving aHolocaust denier, liar, anti-Semite, andracist and dismissed Irving’s versionof history as “fanciful,” “tendentious,”and riddled with “distortions.”

You too will encounter people who trampleon the rights of others, take advantage ofthe vulnerable, and use their power to harmthose under them. You may find them inthe boardroom, classroom, sanctuary, or amyriad of other settings. While you cannotfight every injustice you encounter, therewill be wrongs you simply cannot ignore.Sir Edmund Burke taught that, “the onlything necessary for the triumph of evil isfor good men to do nothing.” Doingnothing includes standing idly by asanother religious or racial group isdemeaned or lies are told about them.

Jewish tradition posits “schol-ars enhance the possibilitiesof peace in the world.” Youhave spent your years hereengaged in the enterprise ofscholarship. Today our heartsare filled with the hope thatyou will use the educationthat has been implanted withinyou to prevent the triumph ofevil and to enhance the possi-

bilities of peace. Let that be a major motif ofthe story you write.

Let us never, in our desire to heighten theidentity of our community, focus on thebad at the expense of the good. Rather thanletting what is done to Jews be what energizesus, let what Jews do be what unites us. Wemust fight the attacks on us with all ourenergies, but we must never let them becomeour raison d’être. To do so is to cede to ouroppressors control over our identity.

We hope you will do well, but we pray thatyou will do good. Ralph Waldo Emersonwrote that “to know that even one life hasbreathed easier because you have lived, thisis to have succeeded.” That is the kind ofsuccess we hope for from you.

Los Angeles. Sunday, May 14, 2007Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust

Studies and Director, Institute for Jewish Studies, Emory University

Graduation/Ordination/Investiture 2007(continued from previous page)

2007 ISSUE 69 �51

Alumni Honorary Degree RecipientsHUC-JIR honored distinguished alumni for their 25 years of

dedicated leadership and devoted service

Honorary Doctor of Divinity degree recipients

Dr. Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Professor of English and JewishStudies, Director of the Institute for Jewish Culture andthe Arts, Indiana University; Dr. Martha C. Nussbaum,Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law andEthics, The University of Chicago; and Rabbi ProfessorJonathan Magonet, Past President and Professor of BibleEmeritus, Leo Baeck College, London, England; atGraduation in Cincinnati.

Cincinnati, June 3, 2007

New York, May 3, 2007

Los Angeles, May 14, 2007

Honorary Doctor of Divinity degree recipients

Honorary Doctor of Music, Doctor of Jewish Communal Service, and Doctorof Jewish Religious Education recipients

Honorary Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Jewish Communal Service, and Doctor ofJewish Religious Education recipients

Reverend Cecil L. Murray, Rel.D., Tanzy Chair of ChristianEthics, University of Southern California, Retired Minister,First African Methodist Episcopal Church; Dr. Deborah E.Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and HolocaustStudies, Director, Institute for Jewish Studies, EmoryUniversity; and Dr. Joseph E. Aoun, President,Northeastern University; at Graduation in Los Angeles.

Burton Lehman, Past Chair, Board of Governors,HUC-JIR; Lynn Schusterman, Founder and Chair, Charlesand Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation; Dr. JudithPlaskow, Professor of Religious Studies, ManhattanCollege; Harold Tanner, Chair, Conference of Presidentsof Major American Jewish Organizations; and AaronFeuerstein, Founder, Chair, CEO, Malden Mills; atGraduation in New York.

HONORARY DOCTORSOF HUMANE LETTERSHUC-JIR recognized the distinguished communal, civic,and scholarly leadership of:

For more information: www.hucyouthprograms.org (513) 487-3232 [email protected]

Rabbi Ellenson bestowed thePresident’s Medal upon Dr.Harvey Horowitz (center),Librarian Emeritus of theFrances-Henry Library atHUC-JIR/Los Angeles, inrecognition of his decades

of distinguished service to the College-Institute, at a ceremony duringGraduation in Los Angeles, in the presence of (at left) Dr. Yaffa Weisman,his successor as Librarian of the Frances-Henry Library; Dr. StevenWindmueller, Dean, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles; and Dr. David Gilner,Director of Libraries, HUC-JIR/Cincinnati.



Graduate medallions were presented by RabbiEllenson to distinguished alumni of the School ofGraduate Studies (from left) Dr. Mary Ruth Graf,Dr. Reuben Ahroni, Dr. Ronald A. Veenker, and Dr.Rodney Eugene Cloud.

Doctor of Philosophy (far left) recipients, Cincinnati; Master of Arts (left) and Master of Philosophy (center) recipients, Cincinnati;Master of Jewish Studies (right) recipients, Los Angeles

January 18-21, 2008A Song of Freedom HUC-JIR ACADEMY

February 22-24, 2008The Ethics of Sex COLLEGE HUC-JIR COLLOQUIUM

March 14-16, 2008War: What is it good for? HUC-JIR/RAC SOCIAL JUSTICE WEEKEND

April 11-13, 2008When to lead and when to follow? HIGH SCHOOL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (HSLC)

CallingAll

HighSchool

andCollege

Students!!

HUC-JIR’s Department of Youth Programsoffers exciting opportunities for study,enrichment, and friendship. Reform youthsare encouraged to come to Cincinnati tostudy with faculty, meet our students, andexplore Judaism’s unique spiritual, ethical,and cultural heritage.

� Dr. Gerald Bubis, The Director Had aHeart Attack and the President Resigned:Board-Staff Relations for the 21st Century,revised edition (iUniverse). Essays, real-lifescenarios regarding governance, job descrip-tions, self-assessment tools, and otherscenarios focused on how to governsynagogues, churches, and NGOs.

� Dr. Steven M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman,“Beyond Distancing: Young American Jewsand Their Alienation from Israel” (The Andreaand Charles Bronfman Philanthropies). Astudy of the relationship between youngAmerican Jews and Israel.

� Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Dr.Andrea Weiss, eds., The Torah: A Women’sCommentary (URJ Press). The Women ofReform Judaism’s comprehensive commentaryaddressing women in the Bible and women’sperspectives on the Bible, incorporating newcritical approaches such as literary criticism,sociology, and feminism; new research andinformation about the biblical world; andtopics of importance in our world today. Withcontributions by current and former HUC-JIR faculty and administration, and alumniincluding Dr. Rachel Adler, Dr. Carole Balin,Rabbi Lisa Edwards, Dr. Nili Fox, Dr. Lisa

Grant, Dr. Alyssa Gray, Rabbi Naamah Kelman,Rabbi Zoe Klein, Dr. Sharon Koren, Dr. BeatriceLawrence, Dr. Adriane Leveen, Dr. Carol Ochs,Dr. Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Dr. Dvora Weisberg,Cantor Josée Wolff, and Dr. Wendy Zierler.

� Dr. Reuven Firestone, Jews, Christians,Muslims in Dialogue: A Practical Handbook,with Leonard Swidler and Khalid Duran(Twenty-Third Publications). A book aboutdialogue between the three “Abrahamic”religions, offering insight about each andsuggesting ways to engage in true dialoguewhile avoiding some of the more commonpitfalls.

� Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman,My People'sPrayer Book, Volume 10 (Jewish Lights). Thetenth volume completes the entire daily andShabbat cycle of prayers.

� Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman and DavidArnow, My People’s Haggadah, Volumes 1 and2 (Jewish Lights). HUC-JIR faculty contrib-utors to the Haggadah include Dr. CaroleBalin, Dr. Alyssa Gray, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman,and Dr. Wendy Zierler.

� Dr. Adriane Leveen, Memory and Traditionin the Book of Numbers (Cambridge

University Press, January 2008). An imagi-native re-reading of the Book of Numbersthat considers the ways in which its authorsunderstood and used memory and traditionto shape a narrative of the wilderness paston behalf of their own generation.

� Elizabeth Loentz, Let Me Continue toSpeak the Truth: Bertha Pappenheim as Authorand Activist (HUC Press). In 1953 Freudbiographer Ernest Jones revealed that thefamous hysteric Anna O. was really BerthaPappenheim (1859-1936) – the prolificauthor, German-Jewish feminist, socialactivist, and pioneering social worker. Thisstudy directs attention away from the youngwoman who arguably invented the “talkingcure” and back to Pappenheim and her post-Anna O. achievements.

� Jean Bloch Rosensaft, ed., Elements ofAlchemy: Prints by Paul Weissman (HUC-JIRMuseum), with foreword by Dr. DavidEllenson and essays by Dr. Norman J. Cohenand Laura Kruger.

� Jean Bloch Rosensaft, ed., The L.A. Story(HUC-JIR Museum), with essays by LauraKruger and Matthew Baigell.

HUC-JIR

Dr. William Cutter, “A Language for ZionistReciprocity,” in CCAR Journal, Spring 2007.

Dr. Reuven Firestone, “Women, Gender andJewish/Muslim Sources/Discourses andInteractions: 7th-20th Centuries,” in theEncyclopedia ofWomen and Islamic Cultures(Leiden: Brill, 2007), Vol. 5, 216-222.In Medieval Islamic Civilization: AnEncyclopedia (Routledge): “Tales of theProphets” (Vol. 2, 644-646); “Jihad inMedieval Islam” (Vol. 1, 418-420);“Jerusalem” (Vol. 1, 413-115); “Hajj” (Vol.1, 309-310); and “Alcohol” (Vol. 1, 26-27).

Dr. Lisa Grant, “Finding Her Right Place inthe Synagogue: The Rite of Adult BatMitzvah,” in Riv Ellen Prell, ed., WomenRemaking Judaism (Wayne State University

Press, 2007); “Israel Education in ReformJewish Congregations,” in CCAR Journal,Summer 2007; with Dr. Michael Marmur,“The Place of Israel in the Identity of ReformJews: A Perspective from Israel and theDiaspora,” in Danny Ben Moshe, ed., Israel,World Jewry, and Identity (Sussex Press, 2007).

Dr. Lawrence A. Hoffman, “Addressing theNewest Frontier,” Sh’ma, November 2007.

Dr. Joshua Holo, “Hebrew Astrology inByzantine Southern Italy,” in PaulMagdalino and Maria Mavroudi, eds.,The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (LaPomme d’or, 2006, 291-323).

Dr. Adriane Leveen, “A Tent of One’s Own:Feminist Biblical Scholarship, a Popular

Novel, and the Fate of the Biblical Text,”in Riv Ellen Prell, ed., Women RemakingJudaism (Wayne State University Press, 2007)

Dr. Steven F. Windmueller, “The Roots ofAnti-Semitism”: A Review Essay of RobertMichael’s A Concise History of AmericanAntisemitism (Rowman and Littlefield),in Virginia Commonwealth University’sMenorah Review, Summer/Fall 2007(Number 67); “Revisiting Jewish Radicalism:An Examination of the Writings of JackNusan Porter,” in Virginia CommonwealthUniversity’s Menorah Review, Winter/Spring2007 (Number 66); “The Second AmericanJewish Revolution,” in the Journal of JewishCommunal Service, Summer 2007 (Volume83, 252-260).

Recent Faculty Articles of Note

2007 ISSUE 69 �45

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS Spring2007-Winter 2008

HUC-JIR Museum/New YorkOne West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012Hours: Mon.-Thurs., 9 am - 5 pm; Fri., 9 am - 3 pm;Selected Sundays, 10 am-2 pm, October 28,November 11, December 2 and 16, January 13, 27.

Information/Guided Tours: (212) 824-2205www.huc.edu/museums/nyAdmission: Free; photo ID required for entrance.

On view through January 27, 2008:

Moshe Zabari:Scripture as SculptureSculptures and Judaicaexpress biblical texts andthemes.

Elements of Alchemy:Prints by Paul WeissmanInspired by Primo Levi’s ThePeriodic Table, reflections onhumankind’s values.

Project Kesher: Women and JewishRenaissance in UkrainePhotographs by Joan Roth

The empowermentof ordinary womencreating extraordi-nary change.Including Susan

Malloy’s drawings of a Project Kesher journey.

The L.A. StoryFounders of the JewishArts Initiative ofSouthern Californiapresent works informedby personal identity.

Peachy Levy:Threads of JudaismUnique interpretationsexpress a dialogue betweensacred texts and a personalsearch for the spiritual.

Fiorello’s Sister:Gemma La Guardia Gluck’s storyNazi persecution of the New York Mayor’ssister during the Holocaust.

On view February - June 2008:

The Yom KippurWar: Tom HeymanClose-up photographs ofIsrael’s struggle for survival,on loan from the Israeli Army,presented on Israel’s 60thanniversary.

Rosalyn Engelman: Silent ScreamInstallation evoking the Holocaust.

Cinema Judaica: The Epic Years,1949-1971Hollywood film postersreflecting Jewish experience.

Living in the Moment: Contemporary ArtistsCelebrate Jewish Time –OngoingThe sale of unique and limitededition works of innovativeJewish ceremonial art.

HUC-JIR Skirball Museum/Cincinnati3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45220Hours:Mon.-Thurs.,11 am - 4 pm; Sun., 12 - 5 pmInformation: (513) 487-3055/8Guided tours upon request. Admission: Free

An Eternal People: The Jewish Experience –OngoingThe cultural heritage of the Jewish people inthematic galleries.

The Archaeology Center at the Skirball Museum– OngoingA hands-on learning and research facility.

Mapping Our Tears – OngoingSurvivors, rescuers, and liberators recall theHolocaust.

The American Jewish Archivesat HUC-JIR/Cincinnati

3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH 45220Guided tours by appointment only.Contact: 513-487-3000

Documentation of American Jewry’s religious,organizational, cultural, and social history.

Skirball Museum of BiblicalArchaeology/Jerusalem

13 King David Street, Jerusalem, Israel 94101Hours: Sun., Tues., Thurs., 10 am – 4 pmGuided group tours upon advance request.Information: (02) 620-3333 Admission: Free

OngoingExcavations of theancient cities of Laish/Dan, Gezer, and Aroer.

HUC-JIR/Los Angeles3077 University Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90007By appointment only. Contact: 213-765-2106

On view through December 21, 2007:

Visions of Israel: Marvin RandPhotographs

evoking Israel’s antiq-uity, modernity, andenduring search forpeace.

Israeli Art from the Nancy Berman-Alan BlochCollection – Ongoing

On view Spring 2008:Jewish Graphic Novels

Cinema Judaica: The WarYears, 1939-1949

Works by Judith Margolies

HUC-JIR Skirball Cultural Center/LA2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049Hours: Tues.-Fri., 12 - 5 pm; Thurs until 9 pm(except for Noah’s Ark); Sat.-Sun., 10 am - 5 pm.Information: (310) 440-4500Tours: (310) 440-4564 Admission: Free

Noah’s Ark at theSkirball – OngoingAnimals crafted ofrecycled materialsteach the value ofcommunity.

Visions and Values: Jewish Life fromAntiquity to America – OngoingHUC-JIR’s permanent collection tracesJewish history and values over 4,000 years.

The Teri B. Ziffren Archaeology DiscoveryCenter – OngoingInteractive exhibits and Near Eastern antiquities.

On ViewOn View AT HUC-JIR


For information on bringing HUC-JIR’s TRAVELINGEXHIBITIONS TO YOUR SYNAGOGUE, MUSEUMOR CITY, please call (212) 824-2218 or visit

www.huc.edu/museums/ny

For more information: www.hucyouthprograms.org (513) 487-3232 [email protected]

Rabbi Ellenson bestowed thePresident’s Medal upon Dr.Harvey Horowitz (center),Librarian Emeritus of theFrances-Henry Library atHUC-JIR/Los Angeles, inrecognition of his decades

of distinguished service to the College-Institute, at a ceremony duringGraduation in Los Angeles, in the presence of (at left) Dr. Yaffa Weisman,his successor as Librarian of the Frances-Henry Library; Dr. StevenWindmueller, Dean, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles; and Dr. David Gilner,Director of Libraries, HUC-JIR/Cincinnati.



Graduate medallions were presented by RabbiEllenson to distinguished alumni of the School ofGraduate Studies (from left) Dr. Mary Ruth Graf,Dr. Reuben Ahroni, Dr. Ronald A. Veenker, and Dr.Rodney Eugene Cloud.

Doctor of Philosophy (far left) recipients, Cincinnati; Master of Arts (left) and Master of Philosophy (center) recipients, Cincinnati;Master of Jewish Studies (right) recipients, Los Angeles

January 18-21, 2008A Song of Freedom HUC-JIR ACADEMY

February 22-24, 2008The Ethics of Sex COLLEGE HUC-JIR COLLOQUIUM

March 14-16, 2008War: What is it good for? HUC-JIR/RAC SOCIAL JUSTICE WEEKEND

April 11-13, 2008When to lead and when to follow? HIGH SCHOOL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (HSLC)

CallingAll

HighSchool

andCollege

Students!!

HUC-JIR’s Department of Youth Programsoffers exciting opportunities for study,enrichment, and friendship. Reform youthsare encouraged to come to Cincinnati tostudy with faculty, meet our students, andexplore Judaism’s unique spiritual, ethical,and cultural heritage.

fp LB 07 program 1 - huc.eduhuc.edu/sites/default/files/chronicle/Chronicle70.pdf · 1...

Documents

Transcript of fp LB 07 program 1 - huc.eduhuc.edu/sites/default/files/chronicle/Chronicle70.pdf · 1...