It wasn’t so long ago that my Facebook Newsfeed was filled with predictions of Hurricane Sandy. Everyone on the East Coast was talking about it – how strange it was to have a hurricane set to hit so far north. When it was downgraded to a tropical storm, everyone breathed a sign of relief – and when it was labeled a hurricane again, everyone got nervous all over. People took pictures of empty shelves at the grocery store, posted statuses about weather updates with radar imaging – but all we could do from Jerusalem was watch and wait for the storm to hit. So we did. We watched as the storm tore through New Jersey and New York. We listened…
This week, I had the honor of attending the General Assembly meeting of the Jewish Federations of North America as a Wexner Graduate Fellow. My fellowship cohort is composed of 20 Jewish leaders from different denominations and career paths. We are rabbinical students attending Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and non-denominational schools; we are Jewish professionals and Ph.D students. We reflect the great diversity and complexity of the Jewish community today. The Federation “GA,” as it’s commonly called, provided a unique backdrop to highlight the pluralistic reality of both my Wexner cohort and the North American Jewish community. As a student in HUC-JIR’s rabbinical program, I was proud to be represented by URJ President, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who was selected as the…
Just a few short months ago I received my Certificate in Jewish Education for Adolescents and Emerging Adults from HUC-JIR in the mail. An entire season has passed since I completed my coursework, and life after this program is well underway. This new certificate is proudly displayed on my wall in my office at the American Hebrew Academy, an international Jewish boarding school in Greensboro, North Carolina. Founded in 1996, the Academy was established to provide an outstanding co-educational college preparatory program and Jewish secondary education to intellectually motivated and high achieving Jewish teenagers from around the world. In addition to being the Administrative Coordinator for Student and Jewish Life and a teacher in the Jewish Studies department, I have…