Spring 2006 - Dwortzan

thabv rcs|president david m. gordis
On Creating an Inclusive Jewish Community
Four years ago, we announced the
establishment of our new Rabbinical
School—which, consistent with
Hebrew College’s overall direction, serves
the entire Jewish community and replaces
the denominational affiliation characterizing
almost all other major rabbinical programs
with a transdenominational approach.
Shortly after our announcement, we were
challenged by some in the community.
If you are transdenominational, they asked,
how can you have standards?
The question is not trivial and the
challenge is not without substance. Can one
train rabbis representing a range of perspectives
in belief and practice, and at the same
time shape a community of learning and
encourage the development of clear standards
on behalf of the students who will be future
leaders of the Jewish community?
Our answer, borne out in the first three
years of operating our Rabbinical School, is a
resounding yes—both to building a pluralistic
learning community and to enabling students
to develop clear standards of belief and
practice. Increasingly, students are attracted
to the program precisely because they seek
to engage in discourse with others whose
perspectives are different from their own.
They report, and the school’s leadership
agrees, that students’ learning experience is
enhanced by the diversity to which they are
exposed. And the fact that the institution nurtures
respect for individual difference, and
that students are not forced into a narrow
range of beliefs and practices, brings about
a serious engagement with issues of Jewish
belief and practice. This, in turn, leads to
students emerging with profound commitment
to patterns of Jewish belief
and observance. What is missing
is an institutional judgment on
these diverse beliefs and practices.
Instead, faculty and community
present a range of options from
which students shape their
religious identities through
interchange and
participation.
The experience of the Rabbinical School
illustrates what we mean when we describe
Hebrew College as an “inclusive” Jewish
community. We are passionately committed
to the creative continuity and vitality of
Jewish life. But our view of the Jewish community
is of a diverse community embracing
a range of religious, ideological and behavioral
perspectives. We are not threatened by
that diversity; we are enhanced by it. Our
students and faculty range from traditionalists
to secularists; the programs of Hebrew
We are not threatened by
diversity; we are enhanced by it.
College present an array of modes of engaging
the Jewish experience that includes the
study of classical Jewish texts such as Bible
and Talmud, as well as poetry and prose
from every period of Jewish life, visual arts,
music and other forms of cultural expression.
Nothing positive in the creative output
of the Jewish people is alien to Hebrew
College. That explains how, within the halls
of this institution, you can meditate in a
morning service conducted by Rabbinical
School students, overhear a debate about
the fine points of Jewish law in an advanced
Talmud class, participate in a major conference
on secular/cultural Judaism, and
experience the way a contemporary artist
navigates his or her Jewish experience.
Does this diversity sometimes generate
tensions and dilemmas? Of course! We are
both diverse and a community. Diversity is
a reality; community implies adjusting to
others and shaping communal practice and
behavior that may not entirely coincide
with what individuals may prefer in their
private lives. But we always find ways of
navigating this diversity constructively.
For this reason, I believe it is fair to say
that no group in the Jewish community
feels unwelcome or uncomfortable at
Hebrew College. That is part of the miracle
of this unique institution and part of the
blessing we share in being able to live and
work here. HCT
HEBREW COLLEGE TODAY
The Magazine of Hebrew College
Volume 20, Number 2
Spring 2006/5766
Editor-in-Chief
Evelyn Herwitz
Senior Editor
Mark Dwortzan
Managing Editors
Jessica I. Resnick
Sarah Silberstein Swartz
Contributing Writers
Lewis Glinert
Jodi Werner Greenwald
Ruth Messinger
Shai Nathanson
Susan Plawsky
Elizabeth T. Rahaim
Or Rose
Creative Director
Joshua Meyer
Hebrew College Today is
published twice a year
by Hebrew College
160 Herrick Road
Newton Centre, MA 02459
617-559-8600
hebrewcollege.edu
Dr. David M. Gordis
President
Leslie Bornstein Stacks
Chair, Board of Trustees
Your feedback is welcome.
Please address all correspondence
to the Department of Marketing
and Communications or email
sswartz@hebrewcollege.edu.
See current and back issues of
Hebrew College Today on the Web:
hebrewcollege.edu/hct.
The magazine’s text is set in Eric Gill’s
Joanna and printed on recycled paper.
T

HEBREW COLLEGE
On the Cover Hebrew College Rabbinical Student Margie Klein leads
a discussion about water conservation at Kavod Jewish Social Justice
House in Brookline, Mass. Photo by Paula Lerner.
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volume 20, number 2 • spring 2006/5766
contents
COVER STORY
Repairing the World One Credit-Hour at a Time
Hebrew College students as social activists
by jodi werner greenwald
HC Partners with Pardes
Preparing next generation day school educators
by elizabeth t. rahaim
Opening the Student’s Soul
An interview with Nehemia Polen on Hasidic lessons
for Jewish educators
by mark dwortzan
The Heart of Jewish Education
Teaching social justice
by ruth messinger
The Challenge of Inclusion
Just how inclusive is transdenominational Jewish education?
by mark dwortzan
14 iuhmk hutr|NOTEWORTHY
14 Sharon Cohen Anisfeld named
Rabbinical School Dean,
International Summer School,
the Dartmouth Jewish Sound
Archive, and more
seun|FOCUS
17 The Florida Connection:
hc/nsu collaboration
18 ohkdgn
1
9 Hearing Women’s Voices:
Text study with Judith Kates
11 Investing in Adult Jewish
Learning: Rich Pzena hooks
Greater NY on Me’ah
13 Jewish Texts, Up Close and
Personal: Opening the Bet
Midrash
32 ,ubua|NOTES
39 ,unur,|DONATIONS
Anisfeld photo by Steve Meyer. Klein and Polen photos by Paula Lerner ©2006. Gordis photo by Justin Allardyce Knight. ODAY
hebrew college today|3

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The Deaning of Rabbi
Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
A deep empathy for students and
commitment to transdenominationalism
define Rabbi Sharon Cohen
Anisfeld—and are two of the most
important reasons why she has been
named the next Dean of Hebrew
College’s Rabbinical School.
In announcing the July 1
appointment, following a national
search, President David M. Gordis said
Anisfeld is “a compelling teacher and
writer who brings the study and
interpretation of traditional texts to
bear on contemporary questions of
personal meaning and social justice.”
The former Associate Dean for
Student Life at the Rabbinical School,
Anisfeld will work closely with Dr.
Arthur Green, Rector and founding
Dean of the Rabbinical School, to shape
and guide its growth. “I am delighted
she has accepted this position,” says
Green. “She brings to it a unique
blending of personal warmth and judicious
thinking, making her a wonderful
rabbinic model for our students.”
When Anisfeld started as a parttime
faculty member in 2003, she was
excited to find an institution committed
to transdenominational rabbinic training
and found the College a perfect fit
for her career. “The Rabbinical School
is training rabbis to creatively engage
a wide variety of Jewish populations.
We’re not interested in building
walls—we’re interested in opening
doors,” she says.
For the past 16 years,
Anisfeld has worked exclusively
in transdenominational
settings. A former Hillel rabbi
at Yale, Harvard and Tufts
Universities, she also has
served on the faculty of the
Bronfman Youth Fellowships
in Israel since 1993. Coeditor
of The Women’s Seder
Sourcebook and The Women’s
Passover Companion (Jewish
Lights, 2003), she has
authored numerous articles.
A student of Green
at the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, she
was ordained in 1990.
Anisfeld looks
forward to guiding the
Rabbinical School from
its infancy to maturity,
with a strong focus on
attracting and retaining
outstanding students and
faculty. “I’m inspired
by the quality and creativity
of our students,”
she says. “I believe
they have a significant
contribution to make
to the Jewish world.”
—ETR
Hebrew College
Fellows Aim High
Lifeless figure on the ground. Soldier
taking the streets. Shopkeeper receding
into a storefront. Through every
movement of every character, Lisa
Alpern strives to convey depth of feeling.
One of seven dancers in a piece
choreographed by Andrea Cheatham
on the Holocaust and memory,
Alpern performed in November
before a Hebrew College crowd of
nearly 200 in the trace dance program,
a benefit for hurricane
disaster relief. Cheatham,
who organized the concert
and choreographed and
performed in many of
its arrangements,
drew inspiration from
Jewish thought and history
courses in her Master of
Jewish Education curriculum.
The performance was just
one of many transformative
lessons for Cheatham and
Alpern, two of this year’s five
new Hebrew College fellows.
Targeting the nation’s top
Andrea Cheatham performing trace.
Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
students in Jewish studies and Jewish
education, the merit-based Hebrew
College Fellows Program offers several
one-year, renewable awards ranging
from $5,000 to $10,000. Since 2002,
the College has granted these fellowships
on a competitive basis to exceptional
students enrolled in its graduate
degree programs. This year’s fellows,
who have already excelled in a wide
range of disciplines, plan to use their
awards to boost their knowledge and
their impact on the Jewish community
and beyond.
Cheatham, a trained dancer who
recently taught English at a Jewish
day school in Panama City, Panama,
received the Dr. David M. Gordis
Fellowship. After gaining a better
command of classical Jewish texts in
the MJEd program, she hopes to teach
in a Jewish day high school. Alpern,
who formerly worked in development
at Jewish Federation offices in Boston
and Chicago, received the Betsy and
Dr. Martin P. Solomon Graduate
Fellowship. Also pursuing an MJEd
degree, she aims to use her experience
in Jewish communal service and new
continued on page 6
Anisfeld photo by Steve Meyer. Chaetham photo by Ben Harmon.

HC Partners with Pardes
PREPARING NEXT GENERATION DAY SCHOOL EDUCATORS
When two transdenominational institutions share
alumni, teachers and a serious commitment to
making a difference in the world of Jewish
education, it seems natural to collaborate. The Pardes
Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and Hebrew College
have done just that—partnered in creating a new Pardes
Educators Program to prepare the next generation of Jewish
day school educators.
The partnership was announced in January by President
David M. Gordis and Rabbi Daniel Landes, Director of the
Pardes Institute. The two have long valued each other’s
friendship and Jewish leadership. “David always evinced
a global concern for the Jewish world,” says Landes of
Gordis. “Frankly, I am not surprised we both assumed
leadership of klal Yisrael, tachlis-directed institutions that are
foremost concerned with answering the question: ‘What
is best for our students?’”
The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies offers men and
women of all Jewish backgrounds the authentic study of
classic Jewish texts in a bet midrash hevruta partner-learning
environment. Founded in 1972, Pardes offers a one-year
program for university graduates, as well as educators,
summer and advanced scholars’ learning programs.
The two-year Pardes Educators Program, directed by Dr.
Susan Wall, is now in its sixth year and will include Hebrew
College courses in Jewish studies and Jewish education,
advanced Hebrew text study in the Pardes Beit Midrash,
intensive Hebrew language study and mentored teaching
internships in North America. In return for generous
fellowships and living stipends provided by The avi chai
Foundation, participants make a three-year commitment to
teach Jewish studies in day schools in North America.
Pardes Educators Program courses offered by Hebrew
College will be conducted via live videoconferencing,
Web-based study, visiting professors and seminars at Hebrew
College. Upon completion of the program, graduates receive
a master’s degree in Jewish education from Hebrew College
and a Certificate of Advanced Jewish Studies from Pardes.
“Virtually all professionals in the field of Jewish
day school education can attest to the explosive growth
of Jewish day schools in America, but not the parallel
by elizabeth t. rahaim|seun
expansion of programs to train educators and leaders
in the field. Day school programs without well-trained
teachers, administrators, curriculum specialists and other
leadership risk a promising educational system failing
to meet its objectives,” says Gordis. “This program
represents a new model for training.”
Dr. David I. Bernstein, Dean of Pardes, sees the two
schools as particularly well-suited for each other, because
neither is denominationally driven—rather, both are driven
by a shared goal of leveraging advanced Jewish learning to
make an impact on the Jewish world. The institutions’
diverse locations are also integral to the students’ learning
experience. “We look forward to exposing our students to
the Jewish day school world of Boston with which
Hebrew College is so well connected,” Bernstein says.
Dr. Harvey Shapiro, Dean of the Shoolman Graduate
School of Jewish Education, played a key role in developing
the partnership through conversations with Bernstein
and other leaders at Pardes and Hebrew College. He agrees:
“This program will offer the best of an Israeli experience
and the American experience that Jewish educators need,
as their eventual work will be in a Jewish day school in
North America.”
continued on next page
hebrew college today|5

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continued from page 4
knowledge about Jewish education as a synagogue
program or educational director.
Two other fellows attend the Cantor-Educator
Program (cep). Formerly assistant editor of
MyJewishLearning.com, Michelle Mason—
recipient of the Abraham and Sadie Shapiro
Family Fellowship—intends to fine-tune her
cantorial skills and apply them in a small-scale
congregation. Sarra Spierer, a one-time Zamir
Chorale member and third-year student who
Future cantor-educator Sarra Spierer.
received the Rose Bronstein Fellowship, transferred
to the cep because of its unique offerings.
“Here there’s an emphasis on learning to be
Jewish educators and spiritual counselors and
caregivers—two areas in which cantors actually
spend most of their time,” she notes. Spierer
seeks to learn more about family education and
building cohesive synagogue communities, and
to serve as a cantor in a midsized synagogue.
Margie Klein, who received the Rose and
Morris Sokolove Rabbinical Fellowship, is a
Mekhinah (preparatory year) student. A seasoned
activist, she is learning to integrate Jewish traditional
wisdom and social justice work. “I applied
to the Rabbinical School because I felt called to
help rebuild a religious movement for social
change,” says Klein. “Progressives need leaders
to articulate how the issues they work on—
helping the poor, protecting the environment,
respecting individual rights—are deeply moral
issues at the core of our religious traditions.”
In addition to the above fellowships, the Thelma
Frisch Hoch Fellowship in Jewish Education was recently
established in loving memory of Thelma by her husband,
Harold, and sons Steven P’62 and Rand P’73. For more
information on the Hebrew College Fellows Program, please
call 617-559-8610 or email admissions@hebrewcollege.edu
—MD
6|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
continued from page 5
Pardes alumni who are now Hebrew College lay leaders,
faculty and staff applaud the partnership. Dr. Natan Margalit,
Director of the College’s Oraita Institute for Continuing Rabbinic
Education and adjunct assistant professor of rabbinics at the
Rabbinical School, studied for two years at Pardes in the 1980s
and taught there in the ’90s. He wishes such a program had
existed when he was a student. He and seven other students
were so eager for a more rigorous form of study that they
developed a teachers program in 1985—a precursor to the
Educators Program—which involved more advanced study
with particular Pardes educators.
“I always liked Pardes’ approach and thought it a shame
that their programs lasted only one year. This new program
provides more advanced learning,” says Margalit. “Hebrew
College adds the value of graduating with a master’s degree,
as well as learning from other teachers.”
Dr. Avi Bernstein-Nahar, Dean of Educational Programming
and Development, cajl, and assistant professor of
Jewish thought, attended Pardes in the late 1980s and was in
contact with the institution again in the ’90s, while his wife
was a student and he was a fellow at Hebrew University.
“I see Pardes as one of the most positive forces in the Jewish
world,” he says, pointing to it as a place of openness and
vitality for students across a wide ideological and denominational
spectrum. “One of Hebrew College’s chief objectives
—to create an educated Jewish public—is deeply shared
by Pardes, and this common terrain will create a fruitful
foundation for our collaboration in the face of our differences
in context and mission. The Educators Program promises to
be an enormously powerful venture.”
continued on page 38
The Pardes Educators Program is not the only Hebrew College/Pardes
connection. This coming academic year, students in the Rabbinical
School’s fourth year will spend their fall semester with a spring option
at Pardes in Jerusalem. Shown here, L to R: Dr. Arthur Green, Rector of
the Rabbinical School; President David Gordis; Rabbi Daniel Landes of
Pardes; Dr. Harvey Shapiro, Dean of the Shoolman Graduate School of
Jewish Education.
Pardes photo by Ben Harmon. Spierer photo by Dan Vaillancourt.

Photo courtesy NSU.
The Florida Connection
HEBREW COLLEGE AND NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY INAUGURATE COLLABORATION
Seated (L to R): Dr. David Gordis, President of Hebrew College, and Ray Ferrero, Jr.,
J.D., President of Nova Southeastern University (nsu); standing (L to R): nsu
trustee Dr. Barry Silverman; Mr. Harold Wishna, Director of Hebrew College South;
and Dr. Irving Rosenbaum, Provost of nsu Health Professions Division.
It was a photo finish. Delayed for hours at Logan by a
tenacious January snowstorm, President David M.
Gordis strode through palm-filtered sunshine into
Nova Southeastern University’s Terry Building at precisely
4:33 p.m., just in time to formally launch a long-awaited
collaboration between Hebrew College and nsu.
The fair skies over the Ft. Lauderdale-Davie campus on
January 23 provided an apt metaphor for the presidential
signing ceremony that joined Gordis and nsu President
Ray Ferrero, Jr., in an effort to create a center for Jewish
education in South Florida, the nation’s second-largest
Jewish community.
“Our partnership brings together Hebrew College’s
leadership in Jewish education and nsu’s considerable
academic resources,” said Gordis. “Building on the strengths
of both institutions, we will work together to widen access
to Jewish education for thousands of students and enhance
Jewish life in South Florida.”
Under discussion for more than a year, the new collaboration
will provide training for early-childhood Jewish education
and day school teachers, Hebrew language and Jewish
studies courses for graduate and undergraduate students, and
adult learning and other professional training programs.
The first classes offered by the two schools will begin
in the fall 2006 semester. Adult community education
programs, including Hebrew College’s nationally respected
by evelyn herwitz|seun
Me’ah program, are expected to be
offered later in the year.
“Our collaboration with Hebrew
College complements the coursework
nsu currently provides that celebrates
diversity,” said Ferrero. “We are proud
to be involved in helping to keep the rich
traditions and educational philosophies
of the Jewish religion thriving in our
community.”
Gordis said the College has already
begun working with Jewish leaders in
South Florida to create an institution
that will be guided by academics, professionals
and lay leaders to meet the needs
of the community. “We have a distinct
need for more trained teachers and
administrators for Jewish day schools
and affiliated educational entities,
including adult Jewish learning centers,”
he said. “This collaboration couldn’t
come at a better time.”
The two institutions have also joined to form the
Center for Public Policy and Religion, which held its inaugural
symposium after the signing ceremony. Gordis
shared the podium with guest speakers the Reverand Nick
Carter, President of Andover Newton Theological School,
and Dr. Sherman A. Jackson, professor of Arabic and
Islamic studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, to
discuss “The Changing Tapestry of Religion in America.”
The program was chaired by Dr. Frederick Lippman, Chancellor
of nsu’s Health Professions Division, and moderated
by Rabbi Zachary Heller, Director of the new Center.
nsu is the largest independent institution of higher
education in the Southeastern U.S. with more than 27,000
students. nsu awards associate, bachelor’s, master’s, educational
specialist, doctoral and first-professional degrees in
diverse fields. The university provides academic programs
in preschool, primary and secondary education for a wide
range of professional specializations, as well as extensive
distance-learning opportunities.
Among those working closely with the two presidents in
the creation of the collaboration are Hebrew College South
Director Harold Wishna, nsu Health Professions Division
Chancellor Frederick Lippman, nsu Health Professions
Division Vice Chancellor and Provost Irving Rosenbaum
and Rabbi Zachary Heller, Associate Director of Hebrew
College’s National Center for Jewish Policy Studies. HCT
hebrew college today|7

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College Co-Hosts International
Summer School on Religion
and Public Life
This summer a dozen Jewish, Christian and
Islamic scholars, civic and religious leaders, and
business executives will join forces for11days in a
war-torn Bosnian city, where they’ll help rebuild
mosques and other religious edifices destroyed
in ethnic conflicts of the early 1990s. Then they’ll
regroup on the adjacent campuses of Hebrew
College and Andover Newton Theological School
(ants) to reflect on their efforts.
That’s the plan for the fourth session of the
International Summer School on Religion and
Public Life (issrpl), an interreligious program
that meets for about two weeks each year at
various sites in Europe, Israel and the U.S. By
providing an international framework to explore
the intersection of religion and the public arena,
the issrpl aims to develop new strategies of
tolerance and pluralism that respect individual
commitments to tradition and religious identity.
The American leg of this year’s summer
school, held August 11–16, will be hosted by the
Interreligious Center on Public Life, a joint venture
of Hebrew College and ants. “The two colleges’
efforts and successes in cooperation and joint programming
point to the possibilities to cross
boundaries and develop new modes of civil discourse
and action that’s possible in the U.S.,” says
Dr. Adam B. Seligman, founder and Co-Director of
issrpl and professor of religion at Boston University.
“They provide an ideal venue from which to
reflect on the international project in Bosnia.”
This year’s session will explore the role of
religion in shaping civil society institutions in
Bosnia and in the United States. The program
features three academic courses and communitybuilding
across religious and ethnic identities.
Delivered in English by an international faculty,
courses will explore common ground and conflicts
between religious traditions and more secular,
modern worldviews, the intersection of religion
and civil society, and practical applications.
“The success of the school has always depended
on the wide range of people, commitments
and views presented,” says Seligman. “It is only
through the intense encounter with the truly
different that we are forced to rethink our fundamental
assessments and so break through to new
ways of knowing, thinking, feeling—and hence
acting, as well.” —MD
8|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
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,hkdbtc ohcrgu ,hrcg hcrg wvkkfnv "ipkut"c ,hrcg
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/vhfrmu vkhjev kt vhbp ,tz
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hn kf tkt rjt ut vzf h,rcj ut h,s orz tk /,jtf vkhjev
HCT /lrum ut ihhbg uk aha

Photo by Paula Lerner ©2005.
Hearing Women’s Voices
ENGAGING THE WORLD OF CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP
Dr. Judith Kates leads Kol Isha Lunchtime Study, “The Shape of a Woman’s Life.”
At 12:27 p.m. on the second Tuesday in November,
Hebrew College classrooms 106–107 buzz with the
sound of women’s voices. A mother tells classmates
about her 18-month-old son, an older woman listens while
knitting, two more carry trays of cafeteria food and find
the last seats available around a packed rectangle of tables.
When Dr. Judith Kates, professor of Jewish women’s studies
at Hebrew College, addresses the first Kol Isha Lunchtime
Study class of the semester, a hush falls over the 26 attendees
as they listen to her soft-spoken introduction to this
year’s topic: “The Shape of a Woman’s Life.”
“One of the crucial aspects of the way we make sense
of our lives is through narrative,” Kates says, then pauses
to look around. “Tell me about yourself: What is your
natural response to that question? You might say ‘I grew
up in a Jewish family in Philly, I studied at such-and-such
college, I worked here….’” The students nod as she emphasizes
the verbs, highlighting the story emerging from
them, the narrative making meaning of a life.
“One of the phenomena of women’s lives in biblical
text is the lack of a complete trajectory of a life,” Kates
continues. “Sometimes a spotlight shines on this character
and she’s a player in the drama, but then she disappears.
Our project is to make a full life for these women from the
fragments presented to us.”
by elizabeth t. rahaim|seun
Kol Isha—Hebrew
for “voice of every
woman”—Lunchtime
Study, a program of
Jewish women’s studies
within Hebrew
College’s Center for
Adult Learning, was
founded five years ago
by Kates and Gloria
Greenfield, former
director of the Adult
Learning Collaborative
at Hebrew College.
The intent was to
offer the community a
more intensive opportunity
to engage with
classical Jewish texts
and contemporary
feminist scholarship.
No knowledge of
Hebrew is required for the class, which has drawn women
of all ages and backgrounds.
An expert in Jewish women’s studies, the Bible,
midrash and biblical exegesis, Kates stresses that Kol Isha
was created with the unofficial objective to open classical
“One of the phenomena of women’s lives in
biblical text is the lack of a complete trajectory
of a life,” says Kates. “Our project is to make
a full life for these women from the fragments
presented to us.”
Jewish texts to women and give them a sense of ownership
within a tradition that until recently was primarily
shaped by men. “Classical texts are rich enough to open
themselves to a huge variety of interpretations, including
ones not heard before by women or about women as
human beings,” she says, “because such interpretations
were not listened to in the past.”
Kates’s co-teacher, Dr. Judith Rosenbaum, Director of
Education at the Jewish Women’s Archive, leads Section II
of Kol Isha, a six-class series that began in January, which
explores the shape of a woman’s life through modern
narratives. Rosenbaum’s previous two years as a Kol Isha
instructor have taught her that while her classes are
continued on next page
hebrew college today|9

iuhmk hutr|noteworthy
The Dartmouth
Jewish Sound Archive
If you’re planning on throwing out those old
Jewish LPs, think again!
Dartmouth College and Hebrew College
have joined forces in a rescue mission to save
precious Jewish recordings from oblivion.
In 2002, two Dartmouth College professors,
Lewis Glinert in Hebraic studies and Alex Hartov
in engineering, set up the Dartmouth Jewish
Sound Archive (djsa), the world’s first—and
probably still the only—online academic archive
for old Jewish recordings. djsa allows scholars
around the globe to learn about and listen to commercially
unavailable recordings. The archive has
so far remastered and digitized more than 100,000
tracks, of which 7,000 are already online, ranging
from hazzanut and Israeli folk to radio shows,
Sephardic ballads and Yiddish humor.
In 2005, Dartmouth and Hebrew College—
on the initiative of Judith Segal, Director of the
Hebrew College Library—signed an agreement
to digitize the entire Hebrew College collection
of 78s and LPs and to place them online while
making the djsa available to all Hebrew College
students and faculty. Access to the recordings is
by password and all recordings are streamed
and non-downloadable, for reasons of copyright.
Hebrew College recordings will appear in the
library catalog.
If you have Jewish LPs and 78s to donate or
loan to Hebrew College or the Dartmouth Jewish
Sound Archive, please email Lewis Glinert at
djsa@webster.dartmouth.edu to arrange a pickup.
Professor Glinert also serves on the Hebrew
College Online faculty.
To see what djsa is all about, visit
www.dartmouth.edu/~djsa.
— LG
10|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
continued from page 9
multigenerational, many of her students have not yet been exposed
to contemporary Jewish feminist scholarship. “I want to help my
students look at texts with a gender lens and a Jewish lens—to
sharpen those lenses and to understand both as valid approaches.”
Phyllis Wilner, a retired attorney and translator of Russian
and French, has returned to Kol Isha year after year to engage
in that dialogue. She remembers wondering where her place as
a woman was in Judaism, while studying at a male-dominated
Reform Hebrew school more than 50 years ago, “When I
began taking these classes, I realized a lot of other women were
wondering the same thing,” says Wilner. “Discovering this
wealth of scholarship and affirmative material about women in
the traditional texts has helped me find a legitimate and fulfilling
role as a Jewish woman.”
To begin the task of unearthing a woman’s story, Kates
turns to Tanakh and reads the passage summarizing Sarah’s lifetime.
“Not only is it the only summary statement of a woman’s
life in the Tanakh, it is a mysterious one,” she says. She refers to
Rashi’s interpretation for analysis, which suggests that her life
was all good, and waits for a reaction from the class.
“But what about her struggles?” a student immediately
protests, and others join in, citing passages from the Bible in
her defense.
“Discovering this wealth of scholarship and affirmative
material about women in the traditional texts has
helped me find a legitimate and fulfilling role as a
Jewish woman.”
“I’m with you,” Kates answers quietly. “We are told the
Torah is true, but there may be different truths when we look
back on this life.”
With only a few moments left of class, Kates directs
students to one of the earliest references to Sarah in Genesis
11:10: “Sarah was barren, she had no child.” Kates reminds
the class that nothing is redundant in the Tanakh; every detail is
there for us to learn from. “What does this teach us?” she asks.
“According to the midrash, ‘she had no child’ suggests hope
in the future for change, and translates to ‘she did not yet have
a child.’” In conclusion, Kates suggests, “We as a class can
interpret the story of Sarah, the barren woman, as a story about
pain and difficulty, but also a story about possibility.”
Beth Moskowitz Me’ah’00, Hebrew College trustee and Kol
Isha student since its beginning, attests to the high impact of
Kates’ understated teaching style: “She stays so true to the text;
she gives you an objective view by showing you the flaws and
the positive attributes of the matriarchs. She doesn’t try to make
these women into heroines—she helps us find their stories.”
As the women pack away their copies of Tanakh and their
voices fill the room again, it is clear that pure text study is not
the only draw of this course. “I feel privileged to study with a
community of such bright, articulate women,” says Nancy Wolk
Me’ah’00. “That’s what keeps me coming back each year.” HCT

Photo courtesy Rich Pzena.
by susan plawsky|ieuhs
Investing in Adult Jewish Learning
RICH PZENA HOOKS GREATER NEW YORK ON ME’AH
ITEM: In 1979, Richard Pzena takes a course in security
analysis at the Wharton School and thinks, “Who
would want to analyze stocks?”—only to end up today
as one of Wall Street’s leading lights, running his own
investment management firm and managing a four-star
mutual fund.
ITEM: In 1976, Pzena graduates from Hebrew high school
and leaves his Jewish education behind, but by 2006, he is
credited with bringing the Hebrew College Me’ah program
to his home state of New Jersey, setting off an educational
chain reaction that has reignited adult Jewish learning in
the New York metropolitan area.
“If you’re a curious person, there’s a common thread,” says
Pzena of his equal and seemingly opposite callings. “In both
cases, you’re trying to figure something out. With Me’ah, I
wanted a greater understanding of my heritage and its historical
basis. It’s no different than going to Boeing to learn
how they make airplanes, how they compete.”
Pzena is the founder and chief executive officer of
Pzena Investment Management in Manhattan, which offers
a suite of money management services and runs the John
Hancock Classic Value Fund. His rigorous research and
careful selection of deeply undervalued “bargain” funds
have paid off: As of this writing, Classic Value has posted a
three-year average annual return of 18.4 percent and has
earned Morningstar’s four-star rating. A financial celebrity
in his own right, Pzena has been profiled and quoted in The
Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and other major media outlets.
After receiving an MBA in 1980 from Wharton, he
worked for Amoco Corporation in Chicago. Still claiming
an aversion to security analysis, he was eventually persuaded
to interview at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, a
Manhattan-based brokerage and investment management
firm. He started as an oil industry analyst for the firm’s
brokerage, but finally felt the pull of investment management
and became the company’s director of U.S. equity
investments and chief research officer. In 1995, he left to
strike out on his own.
Pzena Investment Management, like Pzena himself, is
known for meticulous analysis. The firm conducts its own
research instead of buying it from third-party sources. “Rich
is very analytical and not content to read somebody else’s
assessment of something,” says Bill Lipsey, the firm’s managing
principal. “He’s driven to know and understand.”
Pzena has brought this same probing intellect and passion
for analysis to Jewish learning—certainly in his adult-
hood, if not during his formative years. Growing up in
Livingston, New Jersey, he dutifully attended Hebrew
school and Hebrew high school and then turned his
attention to college, career and family. His decades-long
Jewish-learning hiatus ended by happenstance: Lipsey hired
a rabbi to teach weekly Talmud classes at the office, and
Pzena, ever-curious, signed on. “Bill brought in the rabbi;
I volunteered the conference room and pizza,” he recalls.
The lunchtime classes, which drew about 10 employees,
gave this avid thinker plenty to ruminate about. “A
lot of ethical issues you deal with in your life—how to
treat customers and neighbors—are the same ones people
have been dealing with for thousands of years,” he
observes. “If you’re inclined to being a moral, ethical,
good person, you may not realize it, but your values
are part of the Jewish value system.”
“With Me’ah, I wanted a greater understanding of my heritage
and its historical basis. It’s no different than going to Boeing
to learn how they make airplanes, how they compete.”
Now hungry for more life lessons rooted in Jewish
wisdom, Pzena brought another rabbi to the office—this
time for private classes. When those ended, he asked the
rabbi of his synagogue (where he also served as vice president
of finance and education), Temple Sinai in Summit,
New Jersey, to lead a Jewish studies group. During that
group’s monthly gatherings, he
recalls, congregants built up
an appetite for something
more intensive.
Seeking the intellectual
stimulation
and community of his
lunchtime classes,
Pzena discovered
Me’ah through a
Boston-area college
friend. It turned out to
be just what he was
looking for. Without
missing a beat, he
secured interest from
fellow congregants and
Hebrew College, and
brought the program south.
In the fall of 2002, the
continued on next page
hebrew college today|11

iuhmk hutr|noteworthy
From Haven to Home to HC
A 1735 Hebrew grammar book—the standard
for every Harvard College student at the time; a
1863 petition protesting General Ulysses S. Grant’s
decision to expel all Jews from Kentucky and
Tennessee during the Civil War; a handwritten
version of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.”
These items are just a sampling of the more than
200 historical treasures owned by the Library of
Congress and included in From Haven to Home: 350
Years of Jewish Life in America, an exhibit sponsored
by the American Jewish Historical Society, on
display at Hebrew College this spring.
“From the original 23 refugees who landed
in America in 1654, to the diverse and important
Jewish community we know today, this exhibit is
a colorful chronicle of America’s rich Jewish history,”
says Michael Feldberg, curator and American
Jewish Historical Society Director of Research.
From Haven to Home, which was displayed at
the John J. Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston
(September 20, 2005–January 27, 2006), shows
why Jews from around the world traveled to
America, seeking refuge from persecution,
discrimination and legal barriers to their security
and advancement. The exhibition also documents
the ways in which Jews made America their new
home, and their contributions to the nation’s
developing values, cultures and institutions. Boston
Jewish history is also prominently displayed
through portraits of major Jewish donors and
views of Boston Jewish neighborhoods in the
1930s and 1940s.
Founded in 1892, the mission of the
American Jewish Historical Society is to foster
awareness and appreciation of the American
Jewish heritage and to serve as a national scholarly
resource for research through the collection,
preservation and dissemination of materials
relating to American Jewish history.
For more information, call 617-559-8880
or visit ajhs.boston.org.
—ETR
12|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
continued from page 11
synagogue provided classroom space, the College sent course
materials and recruited instructors from area universities, and
Pzena and his classmates feasted on high-caliber Jewish learning.
“There’s a big step from pediatric Judaism to academic
Judaism,” says Pzena. “The teachers were spectacular, the dialogue
was engaging and I got to know the people in my temple
well.” A true Me’ah devotee, he even opened his home for a
Taste of Me’ah—a sample class for prospective students—and
helped design a Maimonides course for Sinai’s Me’ah graduates.
Thanks in large part to Pzena’s efforts, Me’ah has since
spread throughout the Greater New York area. With seed funding
from the uja-Federation of New York, the program has
expanded to 20 classes in New Jersey and New York, and two
Me’ah Graduate Institute (mgi) courses—modeled on those
taught in the Boston area—held in Manhattan. In recognition
of a growing interest in adult Jewish learning in New Jersey,
New York City, Long Island and Westchester County, Hebrew
College established the New York region of Me’ah in 2003 and
expanded its offerings by instituting the Hebrew College New
York Office a year later.
Thanks in large part to Pzena’s efforts, Me’ah has
since spread throughout the metro-New York area,
expanding to 20 classes in New Jersey and New
York, and two Me’ah Graduate Institute courses
in Manhattan.
“Rich is not only the cornerstone of the Me’ah program
in his community,” says Greater New York Regional Director
Moshe Margolin, “he’s responsible for bringing Me’ah to New
Jersey, and mgi to the region. Me’ah, in turn, was the vehicle
for establishing a Hebrew College presence in the New York
area—the largest and most influential Jewish population center
outside of Israel.”
A generous supporter of the program, Pzena now serves
on the region’s Me’ah Advisory Committee, which works
with Margolin and Hebrew College President David Gordis
on guiding and funding Me’ah’s expansion.
When not immersing himself in Jewish values or undervalued
funds, Pzena guest lectures at the Columbia Business School,
manages the endowment fund of the uja-Federation of New
York, helps raise money for a center for children with special
needs at Montclair State University in New Jersey and spends
time with his family.
All this, while remaining humble at his core, says Peter
Langerman, a member of Pzena’s synagogue and ceo of
Franklin Mutual Advisors. “He’s one of the leading lights on
Wall Street, but he’s the antithesis of the sharp, arrogant,
Wall Street stereotype,” Langerman observes. “When you’re
successful, it’s easy to think you know better than anyone else.
Rich doesn’t.” Perhaps that’s because for Pzena, the ultimate
answers remain at large, buried in data, waiting to be extracted
and converted into something of value. HCT

Photo by Paula Lerner ©2003.
by mark dwortzan|seun
Jewish Texts, Up Close and Personal
OPENING THE BET MIDRASH
The practice dates back to the dawn
of the rabbinic tradition. Students
from diverse Jewish backgrounds
meet in a bet midrash (study house) to
encounter Jewish texts—and one another—
in hevruta pairs or small groups followed
by classroom conversations. Guided by
expert teachers, they forge personal connections
with classical Jewish texts, share
in deep conversation and gain knowledge.
And so it goes for students in Hebrew
College’s Rabbinical School, as well as for
participants in Hebrew College’s Summer
Bet Midrash sessions.
In response to positive feedback from
summer students, including requests to
hold Bet Midrash sessions in their home
communities, Hebrew College now plans
to further develop and promote the
paradigm of bet midrash learning and to
spread the benefit of its core experience
of encounter. Drawing on expert staff and
unique study guides developed at the
Rabbinical School’s Bet Midrash, the College recently
launched a new initiative, Open Bet Midrash—an ongoing
series of interactive study sessions held at Hebrew College
and beyond.
“The hallmarks of the Open Bet Midrash are effective
facilitation of textual learning, enfranchisement of intelligent
Jews as the legitimate heirs to a rich textual legacy,
open-mindedness, intellectual honesty and the relevance
of learning to mindful living in the world beyond the
Bet Midrash,” says Dr. Jonah Steinberg, an organizer of
the initiative and Director of Talmudic Studies and assistant
professor of rabbinics at Hebrew College.
Within the Bet Midrash setting, students read texts
out loud, giving voice to the sources and their reactions
to them. Expert teaching places the sources in historical,
cultural and literary context. “It is not a matter of simply
throwing a text at a group of students and asking them to
manage as best they can,” says Steinberg. “An effective
bet midrash is developed with attention to the processes of
learning—anticipating difficulties, choosing appropriate
challenges, working to enable the beginner and satisfy
the veteran learner.”
The Open Bet Midrash is “open” in its effort to
make sophisticated texts accessible to students at all
levels, to present them with no agenda in mind, and
Dr. Jonah Steinberg, Director of Talmudic Studies at Hebrew College.
The Open Bet Midrash is “open” in its effort
to make sophisticated texts accessible to
students at all levels, to present them
with no agenda in mind, and to develop
programming both within and beyond the
walls of Hebrew College.
to develop programming both within and beyond the
walls of Hebrew College. Already the initiative has
delivered Bet Midrash learning experiences to students
at Brandeis University, as well as in the Berkshires, Cape
Cod and England.
And this summer, Open Bet Midrash will organize the
third annual Summer Bet Midrash at Hebrew College, in
collaboration with avodah: The Jewish Service Corps.
Offered in two separate sessions on June 5–11 and July
17–23, the program invites college-age and older students
to explore Jewish approaches to social responsibility. Guided
by Dr. Steinberg and Rabbi Or Rose, Director of Informal
Education at the Rabbinical School, participants will study
classical and modern Jewish sources in Hebrew and English,
and meet with leading Jewish and Christian activists to
discuss their approaches to social change. Application forms
are available at hebrewcollege.edu/betmidrash. HCT
hebrew college today|13

ycn|by mark dwortzan
14|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
Opening the
Student’s Soul
NEHEMIA POLEN ON HASIDIC LESSONS FOR
ENHANCING JEWISH EDUCATION
In some ways, the office of Dr. Nehemia Polen
resembles that of a specialty travel agent. The
walls are adorned with maps of far-off lands and
a poster of a distant people, and the bookcases
overflow with guides to a foreign terrain. In Polen’s
case, his specialty is time travel: The maps show
the lands of the Bible as well as Hasidic centers
in Eastern Europe, the poster depicts generations
of Hasidic masters and the guidebooks chart the
world of Hasidic thought. And as soon as you enter
the door, the travel agent gives you a vivid taste
of that world.
Polen, professor of Jewish thought and Director
of the Hasidic Text Institute at Hebrew College,
has written widely on Hasidic subjects, including
The Rebbe’s Daughter: Memoir of a Hasidic
Childhood (Jewish Publication Society, 2002),
which garnered a National Jewish Book Award,
and Filling Words with Light: Hasidic and Mystical
Reflections on Jewish Prayer (with Lawrence
Kushner; Jewish Lights, 2004). But Polen’s
accomplishments go far beyond what can be
conveyed in print. He is also a master teacher
who embodies many of the Hasidic teachings
depicted in his writings.
This became clear from the moment I entered
his office. Long before I could get to my first prepared
question about principles of Hasidic education,
Polen fired off his own questions about my
entire life’s trajectory up to that moment. Eyeing
me intently across his cluttered desk, Polen took
the time to meet me on a personal level, effectively
initiating me into a Buberian I-Thou relationship.
Then, in a classic illustration of the Hasidic educational
principle of two souls connecting to one
another through the medium of text, he discussed
several books on topics related to my own quest
for meaning and
left me with reading
materials for
our next encounter.
During our
second meeting, I
finally asked those
prepared questions.
HCT: Does the
master-disciple
relationship in the
Hasidic world have
a secular analogue?
NP: Yes—the old
apprentice system is really
about the master-disciple
relationship. Some experts on
violin-making say that the great work
of Stradivari and others of that period
may never have been equaled, and that
the precise mode of making the varnish
has not been replicated. There’s something
about passing down very precious skills
from a master to a disciple that’s not book
learning. And I think that this is definitely
something that you see within hasidut and within
spiritual traditions in general.
I have a friend who is learning to become a blacksmith,
and this is something you have to learn from
somebody else. In Eastern martial arts, one can spend
10 to 20 years studying with a master. These are skills
not fully replicable in book learning; so much of it is in
the quality of transmission. One could argue that this is
even more true in the spiritual domain.
HCT: How does this apply to Jewish education beyond
the Hasidic realm?
NP: Again, we have to remember that it’s not just in
books. There’s a lot in Martin Buber’s tales of the

hebrew college today|15
Photo by Paula Lerner ©2006.

ycn|nehemia polen
16|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
continued from page 14
Hasidim about the quality of the master-disciple relationship,
and the disciple’s acute interest in learning from the
master. For example, there’s the disciple who says, “I didn’t
go to the master to learn about a specific text, but to learn
how he ties his shoes.” That’s a profound statement that I
think was meant to be taken literally. There are more skillful
and reverential ways of tying one’s shoes, and that’s a
reflection on one’s entire being.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel has a formulation
that we don’t need more textbooks; we need more textpeople.
There are classic books, but then there are classic
people, and there’s nothing more important than having
contact with someone who generally embodies the beauty
of a tradition. Books are wonderful, but books need to
be supplemented, and amplified and buttressed by the
foundation of a living tradition.
“Factual knowledge can be important,
but it’s equally true that if the soul
hasn’t been touched, then the question
is, what has been accomplished?”
HCT: What are the Hasidic roots of peer-to-peer
hevruta study, and what can be learned or adapted from
this practice?
NP: There is a term “dibbuk haverim,” which means the learning
that goes on within the fraternity. One locus of dibbuk
haverim is the Hasidim who went to Eretz Yisrael in 1777,
especially to Tiberias. One of the masters there was named
Abraham of Kalisk, and in his circle there’s a particular
focus on the learning that goes on, not so much between
the master and the disciples, but among the disciples
themselves.
The rebbe may be the focal point of the community,
but the vast majority of the learning goes on at
the peer-to-peer level. Because it’s all
about how you implement
the teachings. How do you
actually work it out in your
life? When you meet a challenge,
how do you overcome
it? What strategies have
worked for others, and
what problems have others
encountered? The peer-to-peer
teaching and learning within
the fraternal community is
really the most important thing within hasidut, and it has
not received that much attention within the academic world.
Hevruta clearly is a part of that story. Hevruta is never
just a dyad, but always two people and a text; so all
three are part of the conversation. This is an enormously
important model for the world as a whole. The real
model is to have a text or shared activity or some
three-pointed interrelationship that brings everyone
into the conversation.
HCT: Hevruta makes it clear that learning is not primarily
about facts, but about one neshama (soul) connecting with
another through the medium of text. How might Jewish
educators apply this principle?
NP: Factual knowledge can be important, but it’s equally
true that if the soul hasn’t been touched, then the question
is, what has been accomplished? The Hasidic teachings,
such as Kalonymus Shapira’s Esh Kodesh, always asked that
question: Has your soul been touched? Have you had an
interaction that goes beyond the intellect? The intellect is
important, but it’s only one dimension of the human psyche.
You have the physical, emotional, intellectual and
spiritual, and all of those dimensions need to be touched,
affected and eventually transformed.
HCT: How might that take place at an academic institution?
NP: Critical distance is in the Western intellectual tradition,
and it’s very valuable, but like anything else, it can be
overdone and may benefit from a corrective. Spiritual
traditions in general and Hasidism in particular are very
rich in terms of spiritual engagement. Maybe that has to
be balanced as well. Perhaps the trick is to gracefully and
skillfully bring those two approaches into a fruitful
dialogue—the dispassionate, critical approach of the
academy and the personal, engaged, involved, transformative
approach of Hasidism. Perhaps some of the
most fruitful understandings can come when those two
modalities are themselves brought
into a kind of dialogue, and one can
bring both modalities to bear in a
skillful and subtle way.
HCT: In hasidut—contrary to Western
tradition—the deepest questions are
inherently lacking in clarity. What
are the virtues of lack of clarity and
tentativeness?
NP: If you think you understand
God, then you haven’t understood

Photo by Paula Lerner ©2006.
God. That’s what all the great masters said. So all of our
understandings are tentative, provisional, subject to being
superseded by higher levels of awareness. In fact, that’s
what we should always be aiming for. We should be aiming
for transcending our deepest insights and moving to
still higher levels of comprehension and understanding.
The Hasidic masters say that the modern analogue to
the temptation of idolatry in the Bible is the temptation
to make an icon of our own understanding. When one
freezes one’s ideas in stone, or thinks that they’re
unchanging or the most perfect, then that is the moment
that one has turned those ideas into an idol. So provisionality,
tentativeness and modesty are the essence of the
religious path.
HCT: How does embracing that perspective impact how
students learn?
NP: One of the greatest barriers to learning is the sense
that it’s already been done. We know that in the history
of physics, time and again people thought that they had
worked out all problems. This occurred in the late 19th
century, just before the dawn of quantum mechanics.
So the most creative move a teacher can make is to give
students the awareness that it hasn’t all been worked
out, that it’s not frozen, that it’s not in stone. This is
a problem with textbooks as a whole. Textbooks tend
to present the final results without any sense of the
enormous labor and uncertainty that goes into the
creative process.
In The Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler makes the
point that even the greatest minds, like Copernicus,
Kepler, Galileo and Newton, didn’t necessarily have
a clear vision of their ultimate goal. They still found
a way to move forward, but it was not a linear
moving forward. And this is what we need to show
students. That it’s not linear and it’s not absolute,
and nothing is ever clear cut and we do have to
move forward, but the moving forward will be a
very laborious, painful and sometimes puzzling
process. And yet we have to persevere—that’s what in
religion we call “faith.” But faith is necessary for any
creative process. So the uncertainty and the awareness
nehemia polen|ycn
“The Hasidic masters say that the modern analogue to the temptation of idolatry in
the Bible is the temptation to make an icon of our own understanding. When one
freezes one’s ideas in stone, or thinks that they’re unchanging or the most perfect,
then that is the moment that one has turned those ideas into an idol.”
of uncertainty and the growing emphasis on lack of
clarity, even at what seem to be later stages of discovery,
is absolutely crucial.
In hasidut, there are many teachings on the virtue of
unclarity. Being in the cloud can sometimes be a very,
very valuable place to be.
HCT: What is the ultimate goal of Hasidic education,
and how might that be applied in any Jewish educational
setting?
NP: The ultimate goal, according to Kalonymous Shapira,
is to open the soul of the student. Hasidism believes that
every person has a spark of the divine, and is therefore of
infinite worth and needs the opportunity to flourish in the
deepest way. The goal is to enable the individual to unlock
his or her soul so that it sings the song that only he or she
has been brought into the world to sing. HCT
_______________________________________________
Mark Dwortzan is senior editor of Hebrew College Today and a
freelance science and environmental writer.
hebrew college today|17

Rabbinical student Margie Klein founded
Kavod Jewish Social Justice House in
Brookline, a gathering place for Jews to
explore the connection between spirituality
and progressive activism.
18|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv

Klein photo by Paula Lerner ©2006. Darfur photo by Chaim Koritzinsky.
by jodi werner greenwald|seun
Repairing
the World
One Credit-Hour at a Time
On a hot and sunny Friday in September, Margie Klein and ten
fellow students in the Hebrew College Rabbinical School hit
the streets of Newton Centre and Brookline. Joining the Greater Boston
Interfaith Organization (gbio), they collected signatures to support
legislation that would extend state health
insurance coverage to thousands of
Massachusetts residents who lack it.
Klein, former director of Project Democracy,
a national initiative that mobilized nearly
100,000 college students to vote in the 2004
U.S. presidential elections, knew firsthand how
to maximize the volunteers’ impact. Before
canvassing, she briefed them on the state of
healthcare in Massachusetts and advised them
to collect each signature in 20 seconds or
move on to the next person. With her guidance, the rabbinical students
helped gbio achieve its goal of collecting more than 100,000 signatures.
Sixteen representatives from Hebrew College attended the Save Darfur
rally in Washington, D.C. on April 30, 2006. This was the first gathering
of Jewish Seminarians for Justice, founded by Rabbi Or Rose, Director
of Informal Education at Hebrew College Rabbinical School.
hebrew college today|19

seun|repairing the world
20|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
continued from page 19
“Just like learning Talmud or Tanakh, doing justice
work involves a set of skills that are teachable,” Klein says.
“Many of these skills—recruitment, public speaking, public
outreach and grassroots organizing—are also applicable
to other areas of the rabbinate.”
Educators at Hebrew College agree. In the past year,
the College has introduced guided social and environmental
justice programs into the curriculum not only
at the Rabbinical School but also at Hebrew College’s
Prozdor High School. Students in both schools now receive
activist training and hands-on action opportunities as part
of their education.
This fall’s healthcare action is just one example of
events planned through Areivut (responsibility), the
Rabbinical School’s flagship social and environmental
justice program. By creating a place for activism on the
class schedule, Areivut reinforces Hebrew College’s mission
to train rabbis who view this work as part of their
rabbinic roles. “It is our goal to provide students with the
education, skills and experience to serve as effective agents
of change in the Jewish world and beyond,” says Rabbi
Or Rose, Director of Informal Education in the Rabbinical
School and the founder of the Areivut program.
Volunteer Rebecca Walker P’05 studies with Etgar L’Noar student Sarah
Gomolka. Etgar L’Noar is a Jewish special educational program based
at Hebrew College.
Now in its third year, the Rabbinical School has
36 students, each with his or her own opinions about
society’s fissures and which are in greatest need of repair.
This fall, in a series of Panim el Panim (face-to-face or
one-on-one) consensus-building conversations, students
selected and created three action groups (hevrot) focused
on domestic poverty, the environment and the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. “Each group works on its own ongoing
project, and also must plan a yom-iyyun (day of exploration)
around a particular holiday,” says Klein. “On the yemei
iyyun, Hebrew College gives us the whole day off to
explore the upcoming holiday through the lens of one
social justice issue, engaging ritual, education and action.”
The main challenge facing the fledgling Areivut
program is to squeeze justice work into a schedule already
packed with text study, Hebrew language and prayer.
To reach their goals in just four hours a month, rabbinical
students are encouraged to participate in existing action
initiatives, such as gbio’s canvassing efforts. “A crucial
part of the program is for students to learn how to
maximize their impact by joining forces with existing
organizations that share their values,” Rose says.
Other Areivut activities include a series of justice
activities tied to Jewish holiday celebrations, presentations
by religious and secular activists, joint initiatives with
Andover Newton Theological School and participation
in the American Jewish World Service’s rabbinical school
delegation to El Salvador.
Beyond Areivut, some rabbinical students teach for
Prozdor and design activist curricula based on social justice
teachings. For instance, second-year student Alyson
Solomon teaches at Spark, a service learning initiative
designed to connect youth to the elderly. Spark is one of
the four justice tracks of telem (moving together), a new
program that aims to get Jewish teens in Greater Boston
involved in social action. Directed by the Jewish
Community Relations Council ( jcrc) and funded by the
Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, telem
provides students with instruction and service opportunities
in the areas of hunger and homelessness, literacy,
special needs and eldercare. Prozdor joins eight area
synagogues and the Jewish Community Centers of Greater
Boston in delivering telem programs.
At Prozdor, the only telem site to offer all four
tracks, students enroll in one-hour weekly training courses
in their chosen areas and serve four to eight hours a month
at offsite agencies. This year’s venues include the Coleman
House, a senior care residence in Newton; a soup kitchen
in Cambridge; Patrick O’Hearn Elementary School in
Dorchester; and Etgar L’Noar, the special education program
based at Hebrew College. “We were really excited to help
Prozdor build their social justice program and for telem
to have a presence at a place that has helped so many teens
Photo by Justin Allardyce Knight.

Photo by Paula Lerner ©2006.
shape their Jewish identities,” says telem Director
Rebecca Sweder.
In the program’s first semester at Prozdor, nearly 80
students signed up—many drawn by the opportunity to
make a hands-on difference in areas of particular interest,
notes Staci Zemlak, Prozdor’s telem coordinator. For
instance, Jackson Davidow P’08 enrolled in the literacy
track to put his love of reading to use as a volunteer at
O’Hearn Elementary School. He brings flashcards with him
and plays word games with his assigned student, strategies
outlined for him by his telem teacher, Noam Schimmel.
“Now that I am involved with telem, I see how much
more effective and rewarding an experience can be, when
you see life through somebody else’s eyes,” says Davidow.
The spirit of tikkun olam spreads beyond the Prozdor
curriculum as well. The school’s informal/formal education
empowers students to create their own action projects
as dictated by world events. In response to Hurricane
Katrina, for example, Prozdor students collected 200 pairs
of jeans for the Myers Foundation to disperse to evacuees
in Mississippi.
Prozdor-sponsored trips have also inspired student
activism. For example, after learning about Jewish life
and visiting concentration camps in Eastern Europe last
By creating a place for activism on the class schedule,
Areivut reinforces Hebrew College’s mission to train rabbis
who view this work as part of their rabbinic roles.
(L to R) Rabbinical students Chaim Koritzinsky and Margie Klein, and Emily Schildkraut are involved in a discussion on environmental on environmental
awareness at Kavod House.
April, Josh Roll P’07, whose grandmother is a survivor of
Auschwitz, started a Jewish Student Union (jsu) group
at Framingham High School. “One of the most important
reasons for people to hang on day after day during the
Shoah was to keep the Jewish faith and religion alive,”
he says. “By starting a jsu, it keeps the dreams of the
survivors, and those who died, alive.”
Though many students like Roll participate in social
action on their own initiative, a mandatory requirement
ensures that all Prozdor students perform community
service. Before graduation, each student must complete
two projects of their choosing, including one at their
home synagogue. Additionally, the 11th-grade core class
now features a unit on global justice.
The hope, according to Prozdor Director Margie
Berkowitz, is that Prozdor graduates will contextualize
community service as a Jewish value, one that stays with
them through adulthood. “As they prepare to leave home
for college, the last piece we’re leaving them with is obligatory
service,” says Berkowitz. “As a Jew, it’s not a choice;
we’re mandated to do this.” HCT
_______________________________________________
Jodi Werner Greenwald is a freelance writer in Charlotte, N.C., where she
is directing the 2007 Charlotte Jewish Film Festival.
hebrew college today|21

ycn|by ruth messinger
22|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
The Heart of Jewish Education:
Social Justice
In a culture that too often idolizes badly behaved
athletes, musicians and politicians, Ruth Messinger
is a true role model. Since assuming leadership of
the American Jewish World Service ( ajws) in
1998, she has transformed this organization from a
small and struggling outfit into one of the most
vital Jewish institutions in the country. ajws currently
funds more than 160 development and
emergency relief projects in 30 countries in Africa,
Asia and the Americas, and 40 Jewish community
renewal and human rights projects in Russia and
Ukraine through its Jewish Community Development
Fund. Before joining ajws, Ruth served for
eight years as Manhattan borough president. She
was also the first woman to secure the Democratic
Party’s nomination for New York City mayor in 1997.
Over the past two years, I have had the good
fortune of working with Ruth in a number of different
settings. Throughout that time, I have been
most impressed with Ruth's unflagging dedication
to social justice and her ability to inspire others to
take action. Upon returning from an ajws trip to
El Salvador in January 2005—my first direct exposure
to the poverty and illness of the developing
world—I shared with her how overwhelmed I felt
by the experience. The journey left me feeling
dejected. Was there anything that I could do to
help change a world beset with such injustice?
Without hesitation, Ruth turned to me and said,
“We cannot retreat to the convenience of despair.
Yes, the task is enormous, but rather than spend
valuable time lamenting the ills of the world, we
have to get to work.” While I did not expect such a
sharp response, Ruth's message shook me from
my state of paralysis and inspired me to “get to
work.” My life has not been the same since.
—Rabbi Or Rose, Bet Midrash instructor and
Director of Informal Education at the Rabbinical
School of Hebrew College. ( Or Rose served as
scholar-in-residence for the ajws rabbinical
student delegation in January 2005 and 2006.)
The Jewish commitment to social justice and service
to the poor, the powerless and the disenfranchised
must be at the heart of the Jewish education we
offer to our children. This imperative is borne out in
our text tradition, our fundamental values and in the
social and educational realities of our children’s lives. A
commitment to social justice learning and programming
in our Jewish schools helps foster righteous living and a
spiritual connection to Judaism while transforming the
Hebrew school experience into one that fully reflects
our heritage.
Our formative moment as a Jewish people was a
teaching moment. God brought us out of Egypt and gathered
us together at Mount Sinai and taught us. And the first
words of the lesson were, “I am Adonai, your God, who
brought you out of Egypt to be your God.” This invocation
of Egypt was meant to remind us of our experience of
suffering in slavery and to instill in us a permanent sense
of obligation to work for justice. Over and over again in
the Torah, we are reminded to “remember the stranger
because we were strangers in the land of Egypt.” It is a
drumbeat of empathy: Because we have known suffering,
we identify with people who are suffering, and we know

Photo courtesy AJWS.
that we must support them in their struggle to overcome
the injustice which they face.
This lesson could not be more important for our
children to embrace. In a world that so often elevates
the wants of the individual above the needs of the community,
Jewish day and supplementary schools provide
an invaluable venue for teaching the value of empathy
and responsibility for other people.
Embracing a commitment to social justice and service
imbues people with a sense of deep compassion. Our
children will treat each other, their friends, families, future
partners, work colleagues and families with greater dignity
and respect if we instill in them this sense of profound
responsibility for the “other.”
Martin Buber describes the transformative power of
a direct relationship with other people as an “I-Thou”
encounter. Instead of perceiving others as objects—of
pity or charity—we must relate to them as subjective
human beings with inherent worth and dignity. Nowhere
is this more important than in our interactions with
people coping with poverty and oppression, because
these are the people with whom it is often most difficult
to empathize. Fostering this way of relating can and
should lead to a sense of mutuality and reciprocity that
will transform the way our children interact in the world.
At American Jewish World Service (ajws), our
service program volunteers consistently characterize their
experiences as “transformative.” They work and live among
people in the developing world who seem at first blush
radically different, but with whom they quickly discover
a sense of shared humanity that permanently alters the way
they perceive and interact with other people. This language
of transformation suggests a kind of learning that must
transcend academic discussions of Jewish ethical values. It
requires an authentic encounter with real people struggling
to overcome challenges decidedly outside our normal range
of experience.
Such encounters can begin in the classroom. In the
same way that we incorporate ritual practice into our
Jewish educational system, we must give our students
practical experience in the pursuit of justice. They should
learn to identify tzedakah, gemilut hasadim and tikkun olam as
practices as intrinsic to a Jewish life as praying, reading
Torah, lighting candles on Shabbat, donning tefillin and
fasting on Yom Kippur.
According to the rabbinic sage Rava, “The purpose
of learning is repentance and good deeds.” (Babylonian
Talmud Berakhot 17a) Another sage, Rav Huna, articulates
this sentiment even more clearly: “He who occupies
himself only with studying Torah acts as if he has no
God.” (Babylonian Talmud Avoda Zarah 17b) Far from
denigrating the study of Torah, these passages make
social justice|ycn
clear that learning must be coupled with action to have
merit and value.
We need to see action in pursuit of justice as a
Jewish imperative, as one of the obligations of Jewish
life. We frequently invoke “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof! Justice,
justice you shall pursue!” (Deuteronomy 16:20) This is
not a theoretical or academic statement. Pursuing justice
is a practice and discipline that we should teach our children
to pursue every day, like doing their homework or
brushing their teeth. It should be an intrinsic part of the
fabric of Jewish life.
Pursuing justice is a practice and discipline that we should
teach our children to pursue every day, like doing their
homework or brushing their teeth. It should be an intrinsic
part of the fabric of Jewish life.
Finally, our tradition charges us with the responsibility
to be an or l’goyim—a light unto the nations. This is not a
claim of superiority or elitism. It is a standard we must
strive to reach through the study of Torah and acts of
justice and compassion. While we have important responsibilities
to our fellow Jews, we should aspire to the very
highest commitment to justice for all people. It is in our
Hebrew schools and day schools that this message must
be articulated and modeled.
And it is not only an educational end; it is also an
educational means. Our experience at ajws with international
volunteers is that their service experiences inspire a
stronger and deeper connection to Jewish life. The practical
realization of Jewish ethics and values adds meaning to
volunteers’ lives and makes tangible what are otherwise
often abstract ideals. They are living tzedakah and tikkun olam
in a way that helps them make a sustainable commitment
to those values over the course of a lifetime.
It is for all these reasons that ajws is dedicating
significant resources to help Jewish educators bring these
values to life for their students. We are developing Jewish
educational modules on global poverty, the hiv/aids
pandemic, disaster relief and reconstruction, and women’s
empowerment. These modules provide detailed and
accessible explanations of complex global issues, introduce
relevant Jewish sources that bear on those issues and offer
sample lesson plans for use in day and supplementary
school classrooms.
Social justice curricula combined with meaningful
service experiences will transform Jewish education and
the student simultaneously. ajws wishes to work closely
with Jewish schools in raising a generation of tzaddikim
who will not only strengthen the Jewish people, but who
will also help transform the world. HCT
hebrew college today|23

seun|mark dwortzan
the challenge
24|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv

Just how inclusive is transdenominational
Jewish education? Forming klal Yisrael
learning communities takes more than
good intentions.
of inclusion
Here’s how it’s supposed to work. In a transdenominational
classroom, students of all Jewish backgrounds and beliefs
gather with their teacher—one of a diverse faculty—to
wrestle with Jewish texts and concepts, bringing their life
experiences and values to the discussion, sharpening their
perceptions through debate, refining their sense of Jewish
identity, continuing on the journey of Jewish discovery.
hebrew college today|25

seun|inclusion
continued from page 25
It’s a “big tent” ideal that is driving the growth of
community day and high schools across the country.
And it’s an ideal that defines the educational philosophy
at Hebrew College.
“Inclusiveness is the capacity to hear alternative narratives,”
says Hebrew College President David M. Gordis, “not
as a matter of convenience but of conviction.” Dr. Arthur
Green, Rector of the Rabbinical School, agrees. “Rabbis
will be better trained for having sat in classes alongside
others who disagree with them on almost every issue
imaginable,” he maintains. “If one thing characterizes our
Jewish community today, it is diversity. Where better to
learn about how to respect someone different than by sitting
across the table from one another in the bet midrash?”
That said, is the ideal real? How inclusive are transdenominational
programs?
No hard data is available to quantify an answer.
Community demographics, priorities and resources, as
well as institutional legacies, all influence the actual character
of such programs. In Greater Boston, which offers a
range of transdenominational educational institutions for
students of all ages, the mix varies along a continuum of
programs heavily weighted toward Conservative and Reform
students to those with a more significant Orthodox
population. Nationwide, some programs draw substantial
numbers of students from across the belief spectrum, while
others attract very few who identify as secular or Orthodox.
“Education is not meant to be enjoyable all the
time,” says Dr. David Starr, Dean of Me’ah. “When
your muscles are hurting, that’s when they’re
growing, and the same applies to when you’re
confronting your Jewish identity.”
26|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
“It’s very difficult to get people together from widely
different belief systems,” says Barry Kosmin, Director of the
Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture
at Trinity College in Connecticut. “It might be alright for a
peace conference, but not for a Jewish education.”
And therein lies the challenge—how to ensure that
the ideal of building and sustaining a diverse yet cohesive
learning community is realized. To meet that challenge,
prospective consumers of transdenominational programs
must overcome reservations about getting along with other
Jews who don’t share their approach, as well as open
themselves to an encounter that may expand their own
Jewish self-concept. At the same time, these programs
need to integrate manifold students and faculty, while
honoring their individual beliefs and practices.
Facing the Other
At the core of the transdenominational conundrum is a
basic conflict: how to stay true to your belief system while
accepting and respecting others’ views that may be in
direct opposition. Typically, transdenominational programs
try to defuse this conflict from the start by setting clear
ground rules. “The key values at all our community day
schools are klal Yisrael (the unity of the Jewish people)
and dereh eretz (civil discourse),” says Dr. Marc N. Kramer,
Executive Director of ravsak: The Jewish Community
Day School Network. “When these are your core values,
there’s room for everybody. How many different kinds of
Jews can you have within a Jewish community day school?
All, as long as they agree that they’re willing to have other
types of Jews in there with them.”
Many families are not only willing to agree, but eager.
For some parents, exposing their children to a diverse
Jewish community in a safe, supportive setting is the key
attraction—a way to grow in a “real world” Jewish environment
where their Jewish beliefs and practices may not
be mainstream. Yael Niv, Assistant Head of School at
Boston’s Jewish Community Day School and parent of a
jcds graduate, wants her daughter to gain respect for
alternative approaches to being Jewish. “I want her to
learn this not from books,” she says, “but from personal
experience of constant contact with different people with
diverse observances and beliefs.”
For others, the appeal is intellectual. “Why do students
come to Hebrew College?” asks David Gordis. “On
several occasions because they want a pluralistic institution,
so they can share and reflect with people of varying
points of view.” Hannah Gershon, a third-year Hebrew
College Rabbinical School student who identifies as
Orthodox, chose the program partly for that reason,
and partly for its nonrestrictive worldview. “It is the
only serious rabbinical program that I know will accept
Photo by Justin Allardyce Knight.

Photo by Justin Allardyce Knight.
“One of the most lauded aspects of Prozdor education is students
grappling with their beliefs and practices on their own,” says
Prozdor Director Margie Berkowitz, whose staff includes
Orthodox rabbis and non-Orthodox women who wear kippot.
women and does not force us into any particular theology,
ideology or praxis,” she says.
Some students choose transdenominational programs
because they have questions that no single denomination
can address completely. “No one movement has all the
answers,” says Cantor Jeff Klepper, an instructor in
Hebrew College’s Cantor-Educator Program. “At Hebrew
College, those coming from the more liberal side of the
Jewish spectrum may dig more deeply into traditional
Jewish study and practice, and those coming from more
traditional backgrounds become exposed to alternative
approaches to Jewish community life.”
While these benefits alone are enough to draw significant
numbers of prospective students and their parents into
the transdenominational world, many others—especially
those who strongly identify with particular movements or
beliefs—require a lot more assurance that their perspectives
will be represented and respected before they’ll sign
the dotted line on an application.
For one thing, some prospective consumers hesitate
to consider institutions that have historically attracted
minute numbers of students reflecting their denomination
or belief system. “This is a question of critical mass,” says
Cobi Weissbach, Admissions Director of Gann Academythe
New Jewish High School of Greater Boston. “Orthodox
parents want to ensure that there are enough Orthodox
kids in the school so their kids don’t feel too marginalized.”
Secular parents who embrace Jewish ethics, history
and culture from a nontheistic perspective, such as Steven
Ostrow, a member of the Boston Workmen’s Circle,
express similar concerns. Before sending his son to Gann,
Ostrow worried that he might suffer from being part of
a tiny minority that didn’t wish to participate in prayer
services and other religious activities.
An Issue of Trust
Parents and students also need to feel that they can trust
transdenominational program administrators and educators
to respect their viewpoint. “Earning the trust of those with
a traditional background can be one of the most difficult
challenges,” says David Ingber, rabbi-in-residence at the
transdenominational Elat Chayyim Retreat Center, who
attended Orthodox yeshivot in his youth. “They might
assume the educator has a nontraditional agenda, is not
learned enough and lacks a certain cultural context and
language necessary to gain access to the text.”
In some cases, parents
seek assurance that their
children will be empowered
to live their beliefs, free from coercion by any influential
faculty members who may hold a vastly different outlook
on Judaism. “One of the most lauded aspects of Prozdor
education is students grappling with their beliefs and
practices on their own,” says Prozdor Director Margie
Berkowitz P’61, MJEd’88, whose staff includes Orthodox
rabbis and non-Orthodox women who wear kippot. But
because that grappling takes place in a transdenominational
marketplace of ideas, some parents have raised concerns.
Berkowitz recalls that in past years some traditional
parents worried about their child being taught by teachers
with liberal views, while other parents expressed alarm
at the potential influence of a traditional faculty member
and questioned why, during the school’s communitywide
Shabbaton, their nonobservant children must strictly
observe Shabbat. “We look at it as an educational experience,”
she explains. “We want the kids to understand what
traditional Jewish law is. Before you criticize something,
you need to impart the love of it.”
In Barry Kosmin’s secularist view, however, requiring
prayer and other religious practices amounts to
“imposed socialization” through behavioral modeling.
“Much of what’s called Jewish education is an attempt
to socialize people,” he argues. “It’s often about learning
how to daven and holding the lulav and etrog in the right
way, rather than intellectual engagement or imparting
factual knowledge.” Transdenominational educators
counter that, by definition, a pluralistic institution is
highly unlikely to be a breeding ground for imposed
socialization or indoctrination. “From my experience on
staff at the Keshet School in Jerusalem, which has about
50 percent Orthodox and 50 percent secular students,”
notes jcds’s Yael Niv, “I found out that pluralistic
schools not only rarely change children’s way of behaving
or their level of observance, but actually sharpen and
clarify their own family traditions while opening their
minds to other traditions.”
At Hebrew College and other transdenominational
educational institutions, facing and engaging “the other”
is widely viewed as an opportunity for self-reflection.
“Being here pushes us to think out of the box,” says Dr.
David Starr, Dean of Me’ah. “We’re not trying to convert
continued on next page
hebrew college today|27

seun|inclusion
“Rabbis will be better trained for having sat
in classes alongside others who disagree
with them on almost every issue imaginable,”
says Dr. Arthur Green, Rector of the
Rabbinical School.
28|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
continued from page 27
people or deprogram them; on the contrary, we’re trying
to get them to think more critically about Jewish life and
their commitment. It’s always good to be self-aware and
self-critical about one’s positions and assumptions.”
Facing the Self
This speaks to the deeper challenge of the transdenominational
setting: the degree to which the experience prods you
to recast your values within a broader context of beliefs.
Sarra Spierer, a third-year student in the Cantor-
Educator Program who initially identified strongly with
the Conservative movement, has found Hebrew College a
safe place to reexamine her Jewish identity. “At first, I
thought of practices outside of the Conservative ‘way’ as
the ‘other,’” she recalls. “Many of the students, and especially
the professors at Hebrew College, have been models
for me in understanding and accepting the differences in
people’s chosen beliefs and practices. At Hebrew College,
I have room to explore and stretch, and I do not feel
judged as I learn.”
For Hannah Gershon, this stretching has not come
easily. Among other things, Gershon has had to make
peace with the egalitarian aspect of optional student-led
morning services in the Rabbinical School. “The big problem
for Orthodox students in this program is, of course,
that it is uncompromisingly gender-egalitarian,” she says.
“The presence and active participation of women together
with men is a halakhic ‘deal breaker’ for Orthodox students.”
Despite her willingness to participate, Gershon says
she spent the first two years of the program in a state of
extreme culture shock. At the same time, this conflict
inspired Gershon to deepen her own sense of prayer. “I
find the differences in each of our prayer orientations a
source of learning, and I feel my own prayer experience
is becoming richer because of this,” she says.
As Rabbinical School Rector Arthur Green sees it,
Gershon’s experience exemplifies the double-edged sword
of transdenominational learning. “You have to be willing
to be exposed to points of view and practices that will
challenge you,” he stresses, noting that the program’s
optional egalitarian services and mandatory coed classes
reflect a commitment to egalitarianism expressed by
a majority of its staff and students. “We look at such
conflicts as learning opportunities.” Green adds that
more liberal students have had to make compromises
as well. During a recent Shabbaton that accommodated
the needs of traditional students, some participants
wanted to use musical instruments for certain morning
prayers. So they conducted their own separate Shaharit
service with drums and guitars and rejoined the others
for the Torah reading.
Me’ah students are also invited to push beyond their
comfort zones. For some participants from liberal Jewish
backgrounds, that may mean becoming conversant with
rabbinic literature and culture; for others from more traditional
backgrounds, it may entail studying texts from an
academic, critical perspective. “Their discomfort is a good
thing,” insists David Starr. “Education is not meant to be
enjoyable all the time; when your muscles are hurting,
that’s when they’re growing, and the same applies to
when you’re confronting your Jewish identity.”
Finding Common Ground
To achieve a truly klal Yisrael community, transdenominational
Jewish educational programs not only open their
doors to Jews from diverse backgrounds, but also provide
programming that actually knits them together. At the
very least, that means finding common ground.
Toward that end, Hebrew College and many other transdenominational
institutions emphasize Jewish text study and
Hebrew language literacy. “Jewish texts and the Hebrew
language are the grand unifiers of the Jewish people,” says
Harvey Shapiro, Dean of the Shoolman Graduate School of
Jewish Education. “Our interpretations may divide us, but
the texts themselves are a great source of connection. The
task for our faculty is to demonstrate respect for different
perspectives while articulating personal vision.”
That emphasis on Hebrew language literacy as the
shared key to Jewish texts and civilization has guided
Hebrew College since its founding in 1921 at the forefront
of the American Hebraist movement. “Hebrew College
Photo by Paula Lerner ©2003.

Photo by Rob Carlin.
was created not on religious grounds, but as culturalist,
Hebraist and Zionist,” says David Gordis. “I see us as consistently
and intentionally trying to shape our programs to
welcome and address the interests and needs of the broad
spectrum of the Jewish community.”
Gordis notes that many College offerings center on
Jewish arts and culture, Israel and other topics of universal
interest. It’s an approach also taken by community day
and high schools, says ravsak’s Marc Kramer. “What our
schools do well is help convey to prospective families the
notion of Jewish peoplehood—it’s as much about culture,
language, arts, history and Israel as it is about text, prayer
and tradition,” he argues, stressing that often these themes
are intertwined. “You might do it through klezmer, but
you have to understand Hasidism. It all ties back.”
Another bonding element that transcends denominational
boundaries is community service, particularly when
directed at the broader Jewish community. “One of the
most rewarding things about teaching at Hebrew College
is the ongoing contact with a student body and staff who
are dedicating their lives to the Jewish community as a
whole,” says Provost Barry Mesch. “It’s tremendously
powerful not to have to impose an ideology on students,
but rather to ask them what they want to pursue and to
help them move in that direction and ultimately serve the
community in different ways.”
“What’s important is the language we
use,” says Rabbi Eva Goldfinger MAJS’05.
“Teachers need to say ‘Some Jews
believe that…others believe that…many
believe…’ and to explain why people
choose different ways to be Jewish.”
Each Individual Counts
In that spirit, transdenominational educational communities
that approach the klal Yisrael ideal respect the needs and
beliefs of each individual as essential to the community as
a whole.
In 2000, when jcds parent Paul Weiss convened a
planning committee to organize tefillot for the school’s first
annual community-wide Shabbaton, one faction wanted to
hold an egalitarian minyan, while another sought a traditional
minyan with a mehitzah. But the community lacked
enough Torah readers and prayer leaders to support two
separate minyanim. Eventually the committee arrived at a
compromise solution: two separate areas for women and
men to sit on their own and a mixed area in the center. They
decided to allow women to lead (except during kaddish or
prayers requiring a minyan) and to hold an egalitarian
Torah service. “We relied on liberal opinions indicating
that the prohibition for women to read Torah was weaker
than the need to lead davening,” Weiss recalls.
Navigating through conflicting opinions is integral
to Jewish community, says Rabbi Carol Glass, head of
the Rabbinical School’s Hadracha Ruchanit (Spiritual
Directions) program. “In the Talmud, midrash and other
classic Jewish texts, Judaism preserves conflicting opinions
on the halakhic position at a given moment,” she says.
“Likewise, Hebrew College’s rabbinical students are
encouraged to make their own ship seaworthy and safe,
and a model for others, and not to knock the other
boats out of the sea. At the same time, everyone in the
Rabbinical School is working for the strength and rich
future of the Jewish community as a whole.”
To integrate discordant perspectives of individual
students and families into the greater community, jcds
not only encourages everyone’s involvement in planning
community-wide events but also places special emphasis
on cultivating empathic listening and respect for individual
beliefs, states Arnee Winshall P’68, the school’s founding
chair. Toward that end, jcds trains its staff to ask pertinent
questions about members’ ritual practices. “People don’t
take for granted that the person next to you will have a
sukkah or kosher meal,” says Dr. Rahel Wasserfall, a jcds
parent and anthropologist who completed an academic study
on pluralistic education at the school. “By asking, you give
them the space to be who they are at that moment.”
In addition to asking thoughtful questions, transdenominational
educators also strive to use inclusive language when
they offer answers about Jewish beliefs and practices.
“What’s important is the language we use in addition
to teaching about all the movements, not just Reform,
Conservative and Orthodox,” stresses Rabbi Eva Goldfinger
MAJS’05, a leader in the Secular Humanistic Judaism
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continued from page 29
movement. “Teachers need to say ‘Some Jews believe
that…others believe that…many believe...’ and to explain
why people choose different ways to be Jewish.”
Successful educators also promote respectful student
behavior toward individuals whose cultural norms and
practices differ from those of the majority. For example,
at Hebrew College’s Camp Yavneh, most, but not all,
campers go about in shorts and tee shirts. “My daughter,
fully covered with long sleeves and a skirt, feels completely
at home there,” says Marilyn Zenilman, who has sent three
children to the camp. “We also don’t swim on Shabbos,
but my kids aren’t made to feel bad about it. They teach
everyone to respect other camper’s practices.” As
Zenilman’s daughter Ariela puts it, “You can march to
the beat of your own drummer there.”
Individual preferences regarding kashrut and kippot also
merit serious consideration. While transdenominational
programs routinely uphold Jewish dietary laws, they often
find ways to accommodate those who don’t at home. “Our
dining hall is kosher,” states Susie Tanchel, Associate Head
of School at Gann Academy. “You can bring dairy products
from home, but can’t swap lunches. We don’t check kids.”
Likewise, Arthur Green recalls a recent Rabbinical School
Shabbaton at which students set up two dining tables, one
for hekhshered foods and the other for dairy foods prepared
at homes that may or may not uphold kashrut.
For some transdenominational programs, kippot spark
debate. A case in point is Metrowest Jewish Day School,
which requires its students and faculty, male and female,
to abide by head covering for prayer, eating and study.
“In my first few months, I asked: To kippah or not to kippah,
that is the question,” says Head of School Carolyn Keller,
who also teaches at Hebrew College. “Some parents have
been put off, but I wanted to give their kids exposure to
being a Jew in different ways.” Other schools leave the kippah
decision up to the individual. “We don’t require a kippah for
“I find the differences
in each of our prayer
orientations a source
of learning, and I feel
my own prayer experience
is becoming
richer because of
this,” says rabbinical
student Hannah
Gershon.
anyone,” says jcds’s Arnee Winshall. “Instead we support
the family’s personal practice, and it becomes their choice.”
The Greatest Test of Inclusion
Worship may represent the greatest challenge for transdenominational
programs seeking to respect individual beliefs
and practices. Gann Academy’s solution is multiple choice.
“We’ve always had a variety of morning prayer options,”
says Susie Tanchel, “mehitza, traditional egalitarian, liberal or
Jewish meditation minyanim, as well as the option to participate
in one of several discussion groups on topics ranging
from Israeli current events to teen self-esteem.”
Other programs provide fewer individual choices,
but still expose students to alternative approaches to
prayer. “Every week in every class, you’ll find a Shabbat
celebration, and some classroom rituals include havdalah,”
says Early Childhood Education Services Director Sherry
Grossman MAJS’02, who heads preschool programs for the
Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston. “Through
our words and actions, we don’t say this is the only way
to do it; instead we say there are Jews who do it this way,
while others choose to do it a different way.” At Camp
Yavneh, Shabbat offerings consist of a communitywide
traditional Friday night service followed by a choice of a
traditional mehitza or egalitarian minyan on Saturday morning.
And at the Hebrew College Rabbinical School, daily
minyanim rotate in liturgy depending on which rabbinical
student is leading services.
Some programs, however, stress individual exploration
through meditation as well as personal and group
prayer. A case in point is the Harvard Hillel-based Netivot
leadership development program. “Each morning during
our retreats, we have a group meditation in a circle and
then a 45-minute period in which group members can
pursue their own practice,” says Program Director Dr.
Bernard Steinberg.
Photo by Paula Lerner ©2003.

The curriculum itself must also recognize the wide
spectrum of Jewish belief. While Orthodox Jews like
Jennifer Bittner, a Prozdor parent, wish to see students in
transdenominational programs learn more, for example,
about Orthodox practices such as observance of lesserknown
fast days in the Jewish calendar, secular Jews seek
additional courses in Yiddish, Zionism, Jewish labor
history, and secular Jewish philosophy and literature.
For Myrna Baron, Executive Director of The Center for
Cultural Judaism, the proof of inclusion is in the “putting.”
“I would ask,” she says, “is Philip Roth in there equally,
along with ancient Jewish literature?”
In the Me’ah program, Avi Bernstein-Nahar, Dean of
Educational Planning and Development at Hebrew College,
has taken this principle to heart. After organizing a conference
on secular Jewishness last June, he revised his own
curriculum. “In the last segment of my Me’ah class on the
modern Jewish experience, I added a section on the history
of Soviet Jewry—a Jewry that underwent a powerful
process of secularization,” he says. “This enhanced the
course considerably, adding a dimension of Yiddishkeit and
left-wing politics that would otherwise have been absent,
and indeed missing, from the modern Jewish story.”
Inclusive transdenominational programs represent
diverse outlooks, not only in the curriculum, but also in
the faculty mix. “We hire great teachers—more than 75
currently—regardless of their denomination, with the
hope that over the course of the students’ four years at
Prozdor, they will be exposed to a wide range of Jewish
religious and political viewpoints,” says Prozdor’s Margie
Berkowitz. Though free to share what they personally
believe, faculty members are expected to refrain from prescribing
a particular interpretation of Jewish text. At Gann
Academy, answers about what text means are also presented
from different perspectives, states Susie Tanchel. “This
conversation is important because this is our shared Jewish
past. There’s no right answer.”
The Me’ah program offers 100 hours of serious text
study, but no single answer. The biblical interpretation
menu includes not only the commentary of mainstream
movements, but also the voices of historical scholars who
question the Bible’s divine authorship and historical accuracy.
Like those who teach Me’ah courses, Harvard Hillel
Campus Rabbi Avi Poupko leaves it up to the individual to
ascertain his or her own answers. “A pluralistic approach
must be pure, asking, what is this text saying to me? What
are these rabbis trying to say?”
Finally, to achieve a more diverse student body, some
programs may need to do some targeted marketing. As
Nehemia Polen, professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew
College, argues, “If a school desires to increase the level of
Orthodox participation, it needs programs and initiatives
that reach out to the Orthodox community and indicate that
their voices will be heard and their religious convictions
will be honored.”
Taking the Ideal to the Next Level
Ultimately, the concept of inclusiveness goes beyond
denominational identity—especially these days. “We’re
in a period of great experimentation and divisiveness and
hybridization,” observes Avi Bernstein-Nahar. “Today
we see that we don’t see; we’re in a period where it’s
extremely hard to anticipate a vision with certitude that
this is the way for Judaism to go. We see that each of the
denominational options has valuable insights to offer.
The best we can do is inquire, experiment, return to the
sources and keep the conversation going.”
One fast-growing cohort of Jews who defy denominational
categorization—and whose educational needs may
be difficult to pin down—is the “just Jewish”—about 25
percent of Jewish adults, according to the 2001 National
Jewish Population Survey. Many are unaffiliated with any
institution in the organized Jewish world; attracting them to
transdenominational programs requires significant outreach.
Still others are deeply involved in developing new synagogues,
minyanim and havurot, but eschew denominational
labels. In Greater Boston, a fair number send their children
to jcds, where nearly a third of families belong to independent
congregations. “The idea that pluralist schools like
Gann and jcds would thrive in the Boston area, alongside
Temple Beth Zion, the Tremont Street Shul and the Newton
Centre Minyan (all independent), reflects a growing population
that does not identify with particular labels nor relate
to denominational constructs,” says jcds’s Arnee Winshall.
The fact is, many families lead complex, multidenominational
lives. ravsak’s Dr. Marc Kramer notes that Jews
today increasingly identify themselves more by behavior
(“I’m shomer Shabbat and eat dairy out” or “I belong to
Chabad and park around the corner from the shul”) than
by affiliation. All the more reason for inclusive educational
programs to treat prospective students and their families
as individuals, including a rising number whose unconventional
status may challenge some administrators’ ideas
about Jewish identity. In community day schools, for
example, Kramer observes an increase in students who
are adopted or are the product of interfaith marriages or
gay or lesbian partnerships—or are gay or lesbian themselves.
“These things are making the schools more diverse
and aware of what it means to be a broadly accepting
community,” he says.
“The families that defy expectations are having a
positive impact on our schools and empowering others
to engage in their own uniqueness.” HCT
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Steve Copeland
32|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
Faculty
Dr. Avi Bernstein-Nahar is Dean of
Educational Planning and Development,
cajl, and Assistant Professor of Jewish
Thought. His essay, “In the Name of a
Narrative Education: Hermann Cohen
and Historicism Reconsidered” will
appear in the Journal of Jewish Thought and
Philosophy (Volume 13). It will also
appear in an edited book on Hermann
Cohen’s moral philosophy to be published
by Brill in 2006.
Dr. Steve Copeland, Assistant Professor
of Jewish Thought and Education,
joined colleagues Carole Fontaine of
Andover Newton Theological School
and Ali Asani of Harvard in August
2005 for a weekend series of textual
studies and conversations on “Confronting
Fundamentalism From
Within: Voices from Three Traditions.”
The program was held at
Adelynrood in Byfield, Mass.
Adelynrood is a retreat and conference
center of The Society of the
Companions of the Holy Cross, an
Episcopal community of women.
On November 20, Dr. Copeland
visited Congregation Chizuk Amuno
in Baltimore to teach a collage of
texts—from his own translation of the
Genesis creation drama to a midrashic
passage to Gerald Stern’s poem
“Behaving Like a Jew”—all in relation
to the key role dynamic process,
distinction-/difference-making and
the challenge of what the incomplete
character of self and society requires
of our own active participation. This
was the second meeting of a study
group held in people’s homes.
Nathan Ehrlich, Dean of Hebrew
College Online, participated in a
panel presentation, “Case Studies in
Online Language Learning,” at the
BbWorld ’06 conference, on February
28, 2006, in San Diego, Calif.
Dr. David M. Gordis, President of
Hebrew College and Professor of
Rabbinics, participated in the Jewish
Press Association Interdenominational
Education Forum sponsored by the
Jewish Journal of the North Shore on June
22, 2005. In August, he performed
the wedding of National Board Chair,
Ambassador Alfred Moses to Fern
Schad. Dr. Gordis attended a private
luncheon and meeting with the King
of Jordan in Washington, D.C., in
September. In October, he participated
on whdh-tv’s Urban Update
television program and presented
at the Wealth and Giving Forum in
Greenbrier, W.Va. A speaker at the
Chautauqua Interfaith Conference at
the Ismaili Centre in London, as well
as the International Conference on
Religion and Civil Society, Dr. Gordis
also participated in a briefing with
the national press following the
Chautauqua conference in November.
That month, he served as a guest
speaker at the Milk and Honey event
of the Jewish Community Services of
South Florida, as well.
In January 2006, Dr. Gordis,
with Nova Southeastern University
President Ray Ferrero Jr., signed an
agreement of collaboration between
Hebrew College and nsu to create a
major center for Jewish learning in
South Florida. The two schools
formed the Center for Public Policy
and Religion, and Dr. Gordis participated
in its inaugural symposium,
“The Changing Tapestry of Religion
in America.” He also served as a
scholar-in-residence at a Shabbaton
focusing on Jewish Law at Congregation
Beth Ami, Boca Raton, Fla.
As part of the Herzl-Ner Tamid
Conservative Congregation 100th
anniversary signature lecture series,
Dr. Gordis spoke on “Thinking
Outside the Box: The Changing Face
of the American Synagogue,” on
March 1 in Mercer Island, Wash.
Dr. Joshua R. Jacobson, Visiting
Professor of Jewish Music and Director
of the Zamir Chorale, recently
published Chanting the Hebrew Bible:
Student Edition (Jewish Publication
Society, 2005). The book was rated
“must read” (the highest rating) by
Today’s Books—Book Register (November
2005). He also wrote an essayreview,
“The Cantor’s Tale,” which
was published in the 2005 Boston
Jewish Film Festival program book.
In summer 2005, Jacobson served
as guest faculty at Brandeis University
Summer Institute for Israel Studies; at
The North American Jewish Choral
Festival in Kerhonken, N.Y.; and at the
Berkshire Institute for Music and Art
(bima) in Williamstown, Mass. From
May 12 to 14, 2005, Jacobson served
as scholar-in-residence at Temple
Avodah (Oceanside, N.Y.). He also
was scholar-in-residence in late January
2006 at Temple Chai in Phoenix, Ariz.
Jacobson is the founder and artistic
director of the Zamir Chorale of Boston
and served as conductor on the group’s
recently released cd, Zamir: Greatest Hits
(HaZamir Recordings, 2005). The cd
was released in commemoration of the
Zamir Chorale’s 36th anniversary.
In the second half of 2005,
Jacobson conducted multiple concerts
of note with Zamir, including the
September 18 ceremony marking the
10th anniversary of the New England
Holocaust Memorial; the biennial
Photo by Dan Vaillancourt.

Mayer photo by Dan Vaillancourt. Kates photo by Paula Lerner ©2003.
convention of the United Synagogue
of Conservative Judaism (December
7); and the premiere of “Prophetic
Visions of Remembrance” by Cantor
Charles Osborne at Temple Emanuel,
Newton (December 24). On January
27, 2006, the Chorale performed (with
Jacobson conducting) at the United
Nations General Assembly in New York
to mark the first International Day of
Commemoration in memory of the
victims of the Holocaust.
In December 2005, The Boston
Pops performed Jacobson’s arrangements
of “Chanukah Candle Blessings”
and “Drey Dreydele.”
Dr. Judith A. Kates, Professor of Jewish
Women’s Studies, taught text study of
the Book of Ruth in May 2005 for
Keshet, Boston’s advocacy and educational
organization for gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgendered Jews; she
also serves on Keshet’s Advisory Board.
In June, Kates taught a session on the
Book of Ruth for the tikkun leil Shavuot
sponsored by the Washington Square
Minyan and Temple Beth Zion in
Brookline. She was also an instructor
this fall for Hebrew College’s Center
for Adult Jewish Learning’s “Kol Isha:
The Shape of a Woman’s Life.” The
course, offered as a lunchtime study,
discussed narratives of women’s
lives in classical Jewish sources. In
November, Kates taught a session for
the Open Bet Midrash offered by the
Rabbinical School of Hebrew College
at Brandeis University; her presentation
focused on “Feminist Readings of
Biblical Narrative.”
Judith Kates
Her recent publications include a
chapter, “Michal,” in Praise Her Works:
Conversations with Biblical Women, edited by
Penina Adelman (Jewish Publication
Society, 2005) and a review of The
Jewish Study Bible (Adele Berlin, Marc Zvi
Brettler and Michael Fishbane, editors)
published in Nashim:A Journal of Jewish
Women’s Studies and Gender Issues, Fall 2005.
Dr. Mark Leuchter, Adjunct Assistant
Professor of Bible, presented his
paper, “The Identity of the Blasphemer
in Leviticus 24,” at the April
2005 New England regional meeting
for the Society of Biblical Literature
( sbl). In November, he presented
(“The Levite in Your Gates: The
Deuteronomic Redefinition of Levitical
Authority”) at the November 2005
annual sbl meeting in Philadelphia.
He has been invited to present two
other papers (“The Pen of Scribes:
Jeremiah 26–45 and the Polemics of
Exile” and “The Cult at Kiriath Yearim:
Implications from the Biblical Record”)
at the July 2006 International sbl
meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. He
has also been asked to present (“The
Political Purpose of Genesis 38”) at
the 2007 International sbl meeting.
Leuchter’s article, “Jeroboam
the Ephratite,” was accepted for
publication in the Journal of Biblical
Literature, and he has completed the
manuscript for his second book,
The Pen of Scribes: Jeremiah 26–45 and the
Polemics of Exile. He has also recently
completed production of a short
film, Road to Nowhere.
Brian Mayer
Cantor Brian Mayer, Adjunct Associate
Professor of Jewish Music, presented
a paper last May at the Cantors
Assembly Convention, titled “The
Foundations of the Nusah Tradition
in Rabbinic Sources.”
Dr. Nehemia Polen, Professor of
Jewish Thought and Director of
the Hasidic Text Institute at Hebrew
College, recently published “God’s
Memory,” in Obliged By Memory:
Literature, Religion, Ethics (Steven T. Katz
and Alan Rosen, editors; Syracuse
University, 2005). On June 12–14,
2005, at the Kehilat Hadar Shavuot
Retreat at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires,
Polen conducted teaching
sessions on “Early Hasidic Texts
on the 10 Commandments,”
“Revelation at Mount Sinai” and
“The Jewish Mystical Tradition.”
On June 19–21, 2005, he served as
a moderator during session three of
the Posen Conference on Secular
Jewishness at Hebrew College,
“Secular Jewishness in Context: Literary
Legacies,” with Ilan Stavans, Jeremy
Dauber and Judith Friedlander. Polen
presented “Spiritual Mindfulness and
the Baal Shem Tov” with Rabbi Natan
Greenberg on July 8–9 at the Bat Avin
Leadership Retreat, Young Israel of
Sharon, Mass. On July 10–14, he
spoke on “Prayer as Spiritual Practice;
Prayer as Embodied Theology” at
the Institute for Jewish Spirituality,
Rabbinic Retreat, Trinity Conference
Center, West Cornwall, Conn.
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,ubua|notes
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In August, at the Synagogue Council
of Massachusetts Unity Shabbaton in
Chelmsford, Mass., Polen spoke on
rabbinic faculty with Rabbi Toba
Spitzer and Rabbi Sara Zacharia.
On September 21, he spoke with
Dr. Jonathan Palmer for an Evening of
Dialogue with Dr. Jonathan Palmer: Prayer
Paintings at Hebrew College. Polen
presented “Charisma, Miracles and
Leadership in Chabad Hasidism”
on November 7 at the New York
University Conference, “Reaching
for the Infinite: The Lubavitcher
Rebbe: Life, Teachings and Impact.”
At the 2nd International Carlebach
Conference at the Manhattan Jewish
Community Center (November 20),
he presented “Music and Melody in
the Hasidic Path of Rabbi Kalonymos
Shapiro.” Polen presented “No
Secrets: Derashah as Performative
Exegesis” at the Association for
Jewish Studies Annual Conference
in Washington, D.C., last December.
During the Institute for Jewish
Spirituality, January 22–26, 2006,
at the Brandeis-Bardin Conference
Center, he served as a faculty member
for the Cantorial Leadership Program.
Rabbi Or N. Rose, Bet Midrash
Instructor, is also Director of Informal
Education at the Rabbinical School of
Hebrew College. In October 2005,
Rose was a speaker at a stand
Or Rose
Sol Schimmel
(Students Taking Action Now:
Darfur) rally at Boston City Hall.
Later that month, he served as a
scholar-in-residence at Congregation
Kehillath Israel, Brookline, and also
at the Inter-Seminary Retreat on the
Future of the American Synagogue
(held at the Isabella Freedman Jewish
Retreat Center in Connecticut,
October 27–30).
In November, Rose was scholarin-residence
at Temple Beth-El and
Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham,
Alabama. That same month, Tikkun
magazine published his article
“Journalism as Activism: Nicholas D.
Kristof and the Genocide in Darfur.”
Rose was a presenter at the Hillel
Professional Staff Conference in late
December and, in early January 2006,
he served as the scholar-in-residence
for the American Jewish World
Service (ajws) rabbinical student
delegation to El Salvador. Shortly after
his return to the U.S., Rose presented
at Limmud nyc in Monticello, N.Y.
( January 13–15).
Dr. Sol Schimmel, Professor of Jewish
Education and Psychology, participated
in several August 2005 radio and
television interviews on New Zealand
national radio and TV to discuss the
psychology of religious fundamentalism.
In mid-August, he spoke in a
public lecture sponsored by the Bnai
Brith Anti-Defamation Commission of
Melbourne, Australia, titled “Justice and
Reconciliation in the Middle East: Is
There a Meeting Point for Judaism and
Islam?” During the same visit, he also
took the time to climb New Zealand’s
Franz Josef Glacier.
In October, Schimmel was a
featured guest on the New York cable
TV program The God Squad, where the
show’s theme was “forgiveness.” The
following month, Schimmel presented
a lecture to the Hebrew College and
Prozdor Alumni Association, “Faith
and Loss of Faith of Holocaust Victims
and Survivors.”
During the 2005 High Holidays,
Schimmel was a guest of Brandeis
Hillel and lectured and taught on
themes related to Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur.
In the second half of 2005,
Schimmel published several pieces,
including “Revenge, Justice and
Forgiveness in Jewish Thought,”
(published on the website of Bar-
Ilan University’s Program on Conflict
Management and Negotiation),
and “Developing an Internet-Based
Trialogue on ‘Peace and Reconciliation
in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic
Thought,’” which appears in a
special edition of JISMOR ( Journal
for the Interdisciplinary Study of the
Monotheistic Religions), published by
Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan.
This spring, he is taking several
trips to Hebrew College South to
teach a post-Me’ah class in Boca
Raton on American Judaism.
Rose photo by Ben Harmon. Schimmel photo courtesy Doshisha University.

Finkelstein photo by Justin Allardyce Knight. Golden photo by Paula Lerner ©2003.
Dr. Judith Segal, Professor of Library
Science, presented a workshop on
poetry writing at last November’s
Boston Jewish Book Fair. She was also
recently accepted as a reviewer for
American Reference Books Annual [arba].
Dr. David B. Starr, Dean of Me’ah and
Assistant Professor of Jewish History,
participated last November in the
Lunchtime Lecture series, part of the
American Jewish Historical Society’s
“From Haven To Home: 350 Years of
Jewish Life in America.” The lecture,
which took place at the Moakley
Courthouse in Boston, was titled
“Creative Betrayal: The Denominations
in Modern Jewish Life.”
This past fall, Starr’s article,
“Continuity and Change in Contemporary
Jewish Life: The Case of
Me’ah,” was published in the Winter
2005/5766 issue of Jewish Education
News (Volume 27, Number 1). Other
pieces in recent publications include
“‘A World Within a World’: The
Synagogue in Historical Perspective,”
in The Synagogue in Jewish Life, edited by
Zachary Heller (National Center for
Jewish Policy Studies, 2005) and
“An Unusable Past? Martin Buber
on Zionism,” in Tikkun magazine.
His piece “Love and Hatred: The
Satiric Origins of Neo-Hasidism,”
co-authored with Yohanan Petrovsky-
Shtern, has been accepted for
publication in Jewish History.
Starr was in Longboat Key, Fla.,
in early 2006, delivering a three-part
series on Judaism in America. He also
presented at an April 2006 Bentley
College symposium on Jonathan Sarna’s
American Judaism (the first symposium
devoted to the book). In June, he will
be participating in an American Jewish
history scholars conference, “The
Origins of Conservative Judaism in
the American South” (Charleston,
S.C.), and will be presenting a paper
that same month, “Teaching Israel,”
at the annual conference of The
Network for Research in Jewish
Education (N.Y.).
Alumni
Cheryl Aronson P’80 was selected as
one of 25 men and women throughout
North America for the Mandel
Executive Development Program, a
two-year program that trains outstanding
candidates for the chief
professional position in the top 40
Jewish federations throughout North
America. This May, Aronson will be
given the Synagogue Council of
Massachusetts’ K’lal Yisrael Award.
The award recognizes those who have
promoted unity among all factions of
Judaism. She is Director of cjp’s
Commission on Jewish Continuity
and Education, as well as Director of
Israel Programs. Aronson attended
Camp Yavneh for many years.
Golda Carpenter Dockser P’58, BJEd’62,
MJEd’73, MHL’78, the former chair of the
school committee and the religious
committee at Temple Emunah,
Lexington, received the Keter Torah
award from the Bureau of Jewish
Education in May 2005. She founded
and coordinates a program, Ivrit Lakol,
for adult learners to encourage Hebrew
literacy. It has just begun its ninth
year, and is now a collaborative
between Temple Emunah, Lexington;
Temple Isaiah, Lexington; and Beth El
Temple Center, Belmont. Dockser and
her husband, Bob, have two daughters,
Amy P’83 and Lynne, both alumnae of
Camp Yavneh, and two grandchildren.
Norman H. Finkelstein, chair of the
Prozdor History Department, has been
named series editor of the jps Guides
series of nonfiction books published
by the Jewish Publication Society. He is
co-chair of the Exhibits Committee for
the upcoming annual
convention of the
Association of
Jewish Libraries to
be held in Boston
in June. In
December
2005, he
spoke on “Writing Us In: Jewish
History for Young Readers” at the
Jewish Book Fair in Deal, N.J. In
January 2006, he was a visiting author
at the William Lincoln School in
Brookline. In February, he was a
featured speaker at the Western
Regional Jewish Children’s Literature
Conference in Los Angeles. In March,
he spoke at Brookline’s Congregation
Kahal B’raira and moderated a panel
for teachers and librarians on biography
and poetry at the John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library. He also recently
spoke to children’s literature classes
at Suffolk University, Framingham
and Worcester State Colleges. His
latest biography, Ariel Sharon (a&e
Biography, 2005), has created much
interest lately. His forthcoming book,
The JPS Guide to American Jewish History, is
scheduled for release in early 2007.
Jonathan Golden P’90, MJEd’97 was
selected for the 2003-2004 edition
of Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. A
1995 graduate of Princeton University,
he is working toward a PhD in
American Jewish history at Brandeis
University. His doctoral thesis is about
the Synagogue Council of America. He
chairs the history department at Gann
Academy in Waltham. Jonathan is a
Yavneh alumnus ( Kerem ’89).
Terry Greenstein Me’ah’98, MAJS’00 of
Sharon, was installed as the rabbi at
Klal Yisrael, Sharon, on June 4, 2005.
Ordained in May 2005 as a rabbi by
notes|,ubua
hebrew college today|35

,ubua|notes
36|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
the Academy for Jewish Religion in
New York, she left a career in 1997
with Abt Associates in Cambridge
and began a spiritual process that
included Me’ah, a master’s degree
at Hebrew College and teaching at
Temple Sinai in Sharon and Temple
Beth David in Canton. At Klal Yisrael,
Greenstein served as the student rabbi,
spiritual leader, teacher and director
of education. She and her husband
Dr. Daniel Greenstein, a dentist, have
two children: Michael P’02, president
of Kesher at Hillel in Binghamton,
N.Y., and Miriam, a sophomore at
Vassar, who also attended Prozdor.
Faith B. Douglas Rubin BJEd’62, MJEd’75,
a Wall of Honor donor, was honored
in November 2005 at a tribute brunch
in recognition of her 25 years as
Educational Director of Temple Sinai,
Dresher, Penn. The featured speaker
was Rabbi Laureate Harold S. Kushner
of Temple Israel, Natick, a longtime
friend. In recognition of her contributions,
Temple Sinai created the Faith
Rubin Scholarship fund. Rubin was
also presented with a trip to Israel, a
personalized serigraph by the artist
Mordechai Rosenstein, and a quilted
hand-stitched bag created from squares
of fabric fashioned with personal
messages by each class in the religious
school. In 1985, Rubin received the
Sidney Hillson Award from Hebrew
College for achievement in Jewish
education. She is the proud mother of
three sons—David, Jon and Seth—and
grandmother of eight.
Rabbi Joey Wolf, P’69, Rabbi of
Havurah Shalom, a Reconstructionist
congregation in Portland, Oregon,
received the Doctor of Divinity degree
from jts on November 17, 2005.
He received ordination from jts in
1979. He and his wife, Lisa Rackner,
an attorney, are the parents of Simeon
and Sarah Garon-Wolf and Amelia and
Gavriella Wolf. Wolf’s mother Ruth,
former president of the Women’s
Association, is a member of the
President’s Council; his father, Melvin
Wolf, is a member of the Board of
Overseers. Wolf is also an alumnus
of Camp Yavneh (Kerem’67).
Dvorah Yanow P’67 was appointed
Strategic Chair of Meaning and Method
in the Department of Culture, Organization
and Management at the Vrije
University, Amsterdam, in October
2005, marking the start of a five-year
endowed chair appointment. A 1971
graduate of Brandeis University, Yanow
received a master’s degree in education
from the Harvard Graduate School
of Education in 1976 and a PhD from
mit in planning, policy and organizational
studies in 1982. She has served
the Department of Public Administration
at Cal State East Bay (formerly
Hayward) since 1989. She was previously
head of the adult education and
community organization departments
at the Mirelman Community Center in
Or Akiva (Caesaria), Israel.
In Memoriam
Nettie Kamens of Canton, formerly of
Chelsea and Hull, died on August 14,
2006. A graduate of Chelsea High
School, she attended the New England
Conservatory of Music.
Kamens was an officer in the
Sisterhood of Temple Emmanuel of
Chelsea and held leadership positions
with the Chelsea Hebrew School
Ladies Auxiliary and the Parents
League of Hebrew College, raising
funds for the cafeteria as well as the
transportation needs of the students.
She and her late husband Dr. Israel M.
Kamens, a respected physician, were
devoted to Israel and Jewish causes; a
wing of the Chelsea Jewish Nursing
Home was named in their honor. In
addition, Kamens dedicated a room at
Hebrew SeniorLife in memory of her
late husband.
All four of the Kamens’s children
attended Prozdor and Hebrew College.
Later in life, Nettie Kamens dedicated a
classroom at the Newton campus of
Hebrew College in memory of her
late husband. While in ill health, she
visited the campus with her daughter
Sharlene, the College’s alumni relations
coordinator. She took great pleasure in
seeing students studying in the Kamens
family classroom.
Kamens is survived by her
children, Sharlene P’60, BJEd’64 and
Dr. Richard Finkel of Waban; Michael,
who attended Camp Yavneh, and
Marsha Kamens of North Easton;
Carolann P’66, BJEd’70, who also attended
Yavneh, and Dr. Robert Wiznia of
Woodbridge, Conn.; and Toby P’69,
BJEd’74 (also a Yavneh alumna) and
Dr. Dean Rodman of Bethesda, Md.
Affectionately called “super bubbie”
by her grandchildren, three of whom
are Prozdor graduates and Yavneh
alumni, she leaves Robert P’86 and
Sherene Finkel; Dr. Steven P’89 and
Nicole Finkel; Deborah P’91 (Robert,
Steven and Deborah all attended Camp
Yavneh) and Ron Elitzer; Todd and
Wendy Kamens; Julie Kamens; Marc,
Daniel, and Lauren Wiznia; Leonard
and Elana Rodman. She is also survived
by six great-grandchildren: Joshua
and Leora Finkel; Shayna Finkel; and
Noah, Sophie, and Adin Kamens.
Kamens leaves her sister and brotherin-law,
Rosalyn ( Honey) and Richard
Sorkin of Chelsea, and numerous
nieces and nephews, many of whom
she influenced to attend Prozdor and
Camp Yavneh. The daughter of the
late Ethel and Harry Shapiro, Kamens
was predeceased by her brothers
Joseph and Mitchell Shapiro.
Donations in Nettie Kamens’s memory
may be made to Hebrew College.

Krentzman photo by Justin Allardyce Knight.
Harvey “Chet” Krentzman of Newton,
philanthropist, mentor and civic
leader, died on December 23, 2005,
at age 79. Krentzman, born in Chelsea,
started college classes while still in
high school, but left college to serve
in the army at Fort Belvoir, Va. He
received a BS in mechanical engineering
from Northeastern University in
1949 and later earned both an MA and
MS from Harvard University. Years
later, Krentzman also received an
honorary doctorate from Northeastern
University. Today, an outdoor space
at Northeastern is known as the
Krentzman Quadrangle.
In the mid-1950s, he founded
Advanced Management Associates to
help small companies and non-core
units of large companies achieve their
full potential. He also founded score
(Service Corps of Retired Executives)
and published Managing for Profits for the
U.S. Small Business Administration.
Krentzman was a trustee and key
advisor with multiple philanthropic
organizations, including the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. At the bso,
Krentzman initiated the creation of the
“Presidents at Pops” and “Company
Christmas at Pops” benefit events,
which raised more than $50 million
over the years, much of which went
to the organization’s educational
outreach efforts.
A Hebrew College adviser,
Krentzman had numerous involvements
with the College and nurtured a close
relationship with President David
Morton S. Grossman of Chestnut
Hill, former president and chair
of The Grossman Companies, died
on November 30, 2005, at age 82.
The grandson of the founder of
the legendary L. Grossman and
Sons Lumber Company, Morton
Grossman was known as much for
expanding the building materials
business and launching a real estate
company as he was for his creative
mind and philanthropic endeavors.
Grossman served as an army
anti-aircraft sergeant in Europe for
three years during World War II.
After the war and an honorable
discharge, he completed his degree
at Brown University in 1948. He
entered the family lumber business
as a yard laborer and salesman
before becoming manager of six
stores. Later he served as credit
manager and in 1960 became vice
president. Louis Grossman said
his father also loved the banking
business—an outgrowth of the
building supply business.
Grossman was a life member
of the naacp and was an ardent
early supporter of civil rights.
Family generosity made possible
the jcc’s Jacob and Rose Grossman
Camp. He was also active with
Combined Jewish Philanthropies—
in 1980, he chaired a one-day
phone-a-thon that raised more
than $1 million.
He was a trustee and committee
member at numerous educational
Gordis. In 1999, through a planned
gift in the form of a charitable remainder
trust, he and his wife, Farla, joined
Charlotte and Lou Kaitz in naming the
Kaitz-Krentzman Lobby at the entrance
to the Rae and Joseph Gann Library.
Longtime members of the President’s
Circle, the Krentzmans chaired the
very successful Lown Dinner event in
1999, when the Kaitzes were honored.
They also chaired a 2003 celebration
and philanthropic organizations.
At Hebrew College, he served as
Vice President of the College and as
President of Camp Yavneh, which
he was instrumental in helping to
fund. In 2000, Grossman received
the Lown Medal of Honor from
Hebrew College.
Morton Grossman leaves his
wife, Beverly (Stallman Smith);
son Louis and his wife, Patti; three
daughters, Amy MJEd’93, BJEd’96 and
her husband, Rick Sands; Linda and
her husband Kenneth Polivy; and
Rachel and her husband, Bryan
Koplow; two stepchildren, Jamie
and Andrew Smith; and16 grandchildren,
including Prozdor graduates
Sara Narva P’94, Shoshana Narva
P’97, Gabriel Sands P’04, Daniel
Polivy P’97, Emily Polivy P’03 and
Elana Polivy, who will be graduating
Prozdor in 2006. Grossman was
predeceased by his late wife of 49
years, Sylvia (Kaplan).
Donations in Morton Grossman’s
memory may be made to Hebrew College.
in honor of David Gordis’10th year
as president.
Son of the late Samuel and Sarah,
Harvey Krentzman is survived by his
wife of 53 years, Farla (Blumer); two
sons, Scott and wife, Diane, of Newton,
and Mark and his wife, Caroline, of
New York City; a sister, Dolly Tushman
of Medford; and seven grandchildren,
Amanda, Hilary, Robert, Jack, Samuel,
Jennifer and Joshua.
notes|,ubua
hebrew college today|37

seun|focus
Inaugurating the Irving S. Brudnick
Chair in Philosophy and Religion
October 23, 2005
A festive dinner was held at Hebrew College honoring trustee Betty
Brudnick P’46 for establishing The Irving S. Brudnick Chair in
Philosophy and Religion. Over 80 people gathered to hear the inauguration
speech by the first Chair, Dr. Arthur Green, Rector of
Hebrew College’s Rabbinical School. Green’s topic was “Jewish
Studies, Jewish Faith, Jewish Future: Personal Reflections.”
L to R: Hebrew College President Dr. David Gordis, Betty Brudnick,
Hebrew College Provost Barry Mesch and Arthur Green.
Betty Brudnick surrounded by her children and grandchildren.
Beverly Bavly and Betty
Brudnick.
38|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
Trustee Joe Michelson (L) and
Development Committee
Co-chair, Leo Karas Me’ah’00.
Pardes Educators
continued from page 6
The venture is also unique. “It is a true partnership,”
says Landes. “Both institutions are attempting to create
something new, both a program as a whole and classes in
particular.” The program’s graduates, he expects, will be
exceptional. “We seek to create a highly prepared teacher
with a wealth of knowledge and skills who can be flexible
in confronting new challenges and excitedly creative in
finding new solutions. Our students will be teachers who
are smart, able to think on their feet, fun to be with,
learned and, above all, empathetic to their own students.”
The Pardes Educators Program was developed with
and is funded by The avi chai Foundation, which
also funds Hebrew College’s neta Hebrew language
teacher professional development and training program.
The two schools are particularly wellsuited
for each other, because neither is
denominationally driven—rather, both are
driven by a shared goal of leveraging
advanced Jewish learning to make an
impact on the Jewish world.
Dr. Barry Mesch, Provost of Hebrew College and
Stone/Teplow Families’ Professor of Jewish Thought,
notes that, “In bringing together the two institutions,
avi chai is helping develop a new cadre of Jewish
educators—as well as a network of alumni serving as
day school educators throughout North America—who
will have the formative Israeli experience as well as a
solid academic background from Hebrew College.”
Gordis agrees that graduates of the program will
become an elite corps of Jewish day school educators,
yet he envisions the scope of their influence reaching
beyond the classroom. He describes “the multiplier
effect” of this program within educational environments
where graduates teach, influencing not only their
students but also their fellow teachers.
“What excites me most about the partnership,”
says Landes, “is that we are not asking what is best for
our respective institutions, but the more relevant question,
‘What is best for our shared students?’ and taking
it a step further to ask, ‘What will be best for our students’
students?’ Both Hebrew College and Pardes wish
to respond to the challenge together.” HCT
For more information, please contact Kate Nachman, Admissions and
Recruitment Manager of Academic Programs, at 617-559-8610 or
admissions@hebrewcollege.edu, or visit hebrewcollege.edu/pardes.
Photos by Justin Allardyce Knight.

Photos by Justin Allardyce Knight.
The Fund for Hebrew College
The Fund for Hebrew College was established in 2001 as the principal source of revenue
for the College’s capital, operational and strategic planning initiatives. Through the
extraordinary generosity of the individuals, foundations and corporations listed below, the
College today provides unparalleled educational opportunities for students of every age
and background whose common goal is Jewish renewal. Donations to Hebrew College’s
endowment funds will be published in our next issue. To our donors, we extend our
heartfelt thanks.
$4,000,000+
Joseph and Rae Gann
Charitable Foundation
$2,000,000 to $3,999,999
Mark Atkins P’65
Charlotte Me’ah’95 and
Theodore H. Teplow
BJEd’96, HD’99
$1,000,000 to $1,999,999
Anonymous
Betty P’46 and Irving
Brudnick, z’l
Roberta and Irwin Chafetz
Joan and Ted Cutler
Michael Gould
Charlotte and Louis Kaitz
Eleanor and Mort
Lowenthal
Rabb, Goldberg, Cahners-
Kaplan Families
$500,000 to $999,999
Theodore S. and Cynthia L.
Berenson and Family;
T.W. and E.G. Berenson
Charitable Foundation
Elaine Me’ah’03 and Gerald
Elovitz
Charlotte and Leonard
Florence
The Oran Family
Abraham Shapiro Charity
Fund; Valya and Robert
Shapiro
Ruth and Sylvia Shogam
Trust
$250,000 to $499,999
Roberta and Maxwell
Burstein
Lois and Mickey Cail
Me’ah’03
Annebelle Me’ah’04 and
Arnold Cohen Me’ah’04
Emma Me’ah’04 and
Leonard Gould Me’ah’02
Barbara and Leo Karas
Me’ah’00
Beth and Seth Klarman
Farla and Harvey
Krentzman, z’l
Ambassador Alfred Moses
Suzanne Me’ah’96 and
Andrew Offit
$100,000 to $249,999
Anonymous
Estate of Leon Brock
David Casty, z’l
Columbia Construction
Company
Margot Me’ah’02 and
Jonathan Davis
Feldberg Family Foundation
Miriam Me’ah’04 and Paul
Gilman P’58
Rita and Monte Goldman
Joyce and Mark Goldweitz
Lillian Me’ah’03 and Richard
Gray
Harold Grinspoon
Foundation
Beverly and Morton
Grossman, z’l
Tobee and Leonard Kaplan
Frances Katz
Carol and Gershon Kekst
The Krupp Family
Charna Larkin and Family
Leventhal-Sidman Family
Nancy Lurie Marks Family
Foundation
Lillian Newman
Bernice Nollman, z’l
Todd Patkin
Richard Pzena Me’ah’04
Marcia Me’ah’04 and Morton
Ruderman Me’ah’04
Gilda Me’ah’03 and Alfred
Slifka
Susan and Richard Smith
Betsy and Martin Solomon
Leslie Bornstein Stacks P’62
and Robert Stacks
Theodore Steinberg BJEd’31
Judith and Herman Swartz
Carol and Norman Tasgal
Me’ah’01
Eileen and A. Raymond Tye
Irving and Edyth S. Usen
Family Charitable
Foundation
Arlene and Howard
Weintraub Me’ah’04
$50,000 to $99,999
Rachel P’60 and Michael
Albert
Carol and Alan Bernon
Ellen Harder Me’ah’04 and
Edward Bloom Me’ah’04
Judy Me’ah ‘03 and Jason
Chudnofsky
Rosalie and Marshall Dana
Eastern Charitable
Foundation
Robert Feingold P’58
Judith and Gerald Feldman
Me’ah’00
Linda Me’ah’00 and Michael
Frieze Me’ah’00
Marilyn and A. Leon
Goldman
Ellen Sulkin and Mike
Grossman, z’l
Barbara and Steven
Grossman
Edward Guzovsky
Evelyn and Harold
Hindman, z’l
Vivienne and Albert
Kalman, z’l
Mrs. Israel M. Kamens, z’l
Sylvia Me’ah’01 and Sol
Kaufman Me’ah’01
Reta Kornfeld, z’l
Marcia and Alan Leifer
Me’ah’02
Estate of Pauline Mason
BJEd’32
Sonia and Joseph
Michelson
Beth Me’ah’00 and Michael
Moskowitz
Leon Satenstein P’34, BJEd’38
Claire and Norton Sherman
Morton Waldfogel
donations|,unur,
Inaugurating the Irving S. Brudnick
Chair in Philosophy and Religion
October 23, 2005
L to R: Arthur Green, rabbinical student Suzanne Offit,
Andrew Offit, Dr. David Gordis, Kathy Green and
trustee Mickey Cail.
L to R: Joe Michelson, Sonia Michelson, Board of
Trustees Chair Leslie Bornstein Stacks P’62, and
Dr. Robert Stacks.
L to R: Trustee and honored guest Betty Brudnick with
Chet Krentzman, z’l, Farla Krentzman.
hebrew college today|39

,unur,|donations
Inaugurating the Irving S. Brudnick
Chair in Philosophy and Religion
October 23, 2005
L to R: Kathy and Arthur Green and Development
Committee Co-chair Barbara Karas Me’ah’00.
Shirley and David Berg
P’49.
Trustee Norman Tasgal
Me’ah’01.
40|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
Marcia Me’ah’04 and
Mort Ruderman
Me’ah’04.
Trustee Beth
Moskowitz Me’ah’00.
L to R: Member of the Board of Overseers Richard
Gray Me’ah’03, Burt Adelman and Lillian Gray
Me’ah’03, Cert’05.
$25,000 to $49,999
Aaron Albert P’85
Geila P’58 BJEd’62 and
Martin Aronson
Evelyn Berman
Irma Me’ah’03 and Arnold
Bloom Me’ah’03
Joan Eliachar, z’l
Sherri Ades and Kenneth
Falchuk
Joseph F. and Clara Ford
Foundation
Connie and Lester Gilson, z’l
Israel and Matilda Goldberg
Family Foundation
Paula and James Gould
Rosalind and Mervin Gray
Allan Green Me’ah’03
Judith and Malcolm
Hindin
Florence and John
Lawrence
Mary Mackenzie
Frank Melito
George C. and Evelyn R.
Reisman Charitable Trust
Annual Giving
$100,000+
Anonymous
$50,000 to $99,999
Anonymous
Michael Gould
Estate of Bernice Nollman
$25,000 to $49,999
Bloomingdale’s Fund
of the Federated
Department Stores
Edith Everett
Jacobson Family
Foundation
Myra Me’ah’01 and Robert
Kraft P’58
Andrew Petitti
Theodore Steinberg BJEd’31
Charlotte and Theodore
Teplow BJEd’96
$10,000 to $24,999
Biogen Foundation
Lois and Mickey Cail
Me’ah’03
Roberta and Irwin Chafetz
Carol and Julian Cohen
Sylvia Rothchild
Phyllis and Clifford Seresky
Enid Me’ah’04 and Melvin
Shapiro
Ruth and Robert Shapiro
Susan Lewis and Alan
Solomont P’65
Brenda and Alexander
Tanger
Wendy and David Teplow
Marjorie Tichnor Me’ah’04
Nicole Zatlyn and Jason
Weiner Me’ah’96
$10,000 to $24,999
Susan Me’ah’02 and Aron Ain
Trude Beck, z’l
Carole and Henry Berman
Jeannette P’33, BJEd’37 and
Harry Bloom
Julie Shumofsky Chivo and
David Chivo
Hinda and Peter Drotch
Patricia and Joel Dunsky
Maurice Epstein
Fidelity Foundation
Marcy Me’ah’05 and Richard
Curtis P’65, BJED’69
Joan and Ted Cutler
Joanne Me’ah’99 and Paul
Egerman Me’ah’99
Joseph F. and Clara Ford
Foundation
Carol Me’ah’03 and Avram
Goldberg
Joyce and Mark Goldweitz
Nehemias Gorin Charitable
Foundation
Allan Kane
Stephanie and Herbert
Neuman
Lydia Rogers and Burt
Adelman
Neil Rolde
Robert Shillman and Mao
Shillman
Alan Slifka Foundation
Sam Spiegel Foundation
Leslie P’62 and Robert Stacks
Diane Troderman and
Harold Grinspoon
$5,000 to $9,999
Susan Me’ah’02 and Aron Ain
Renee Me’ah’00 and Steven
Finn Me’ah’04
Paula Me’ah’99 and Ralph
Gilbert BJEd’92, Me’ah’99
Patricia Me’ah’00 and Louis
Grossman Me’ah’00
Linda and Jonah Jacob
Cynthia and William Marcus
Betty Ann MJEd’05, Me’ah’99
and Daniel Miller Me’ah’99
Renee Rapaporte Me’ah’03
Richard Rosenbloom
Jane Stiles Me’ah’97 and
Mitchell Shames Me’ah’97
Cynthia and Leon Shulman
Me’ah’01
Judith P’64 Me’ah’03 and
Jeffrey Siegel
Ruth and Norman Spack
P’60
Irma and Aaron Spencer
David Weltman
Nancy and Joseph
Wertheim Me’ah’01
Leslie Me’ah’01 and Kenneth
Zises
President’s Circle amenities are available to all donors who have made a minimum
gift of $1,800 in Fiscal Year 2006 ( July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006).
Mimi Me’ah’03 and Barry
Alperin
Herbert J. Berman Trust
Terrie and Bradley Bloom
Rachel and Laurence Chafetz
Claire Cohen Me’ah’03
Stewart Cohen
Albert Effrat
Fidelity Investments
Linda Me’ah’00 and Michael
Frieze Me’ah’00
Miriam Me’ah’04 and Paul
Gilman P’58
Marilyn and A. Leon
Goldman
Barbara and E. Robert
Goodkind
Felice and David Gordis
David Kanter
Barbara and Leo Karas
Me’ah’00
Samuel Klagsbrun
Benjamin Kreitman
Farla and Harvey Krentzman
Judith Me’ah’99 and
Douglas Krupp Me’ah’99
Lizbeth Me’ah’99 and
George Krupp
Photos by Justin Allardyce Knight

Chug Ivri and Palmer photos by Ben Harmon. Amy Dockser Marcus photo by David Chivo.
Lenore and Harold Larkin
Zelman Lederman BJEd’83
Jonathan Lee
Susan Lewis and Alan
Solomont P’65
Bette Ann Libby Me’ah’01 and
David Begelfer Me’ah’01
Herman and Frieda L.
Miller Foundation
Gilda and Marshall Oran
Irving Rabb
Terry Rosenberg Me’ah’99
Leon Satenstein P’34, BJEd’38
Rosalyn and Richard Slifka
Susan Me’ah’02 and James
Snider
Nicole Zatlyn and Jason
Weiner Me’ah’96
$3,600 to $4,999
Wilma and Howard
Friedman
Patricia Me’ah’00 and Louis
Grossman Me’ah’00
$1,800 to $3,599
The Lassor & Fanny Agoos
Charity Fund
Lillian Ain Me’ah’02
Rachel P’60 and Michael
Albert
Aronson Foundation, Inc.
Lenore and Norman Asher
Sylvia Bell P’36
Ronda and E. Berkman
Lynne and William Bermont
Martin Braver
Betty Brudnick P’46
Bureau of Jewish Education
Claire and Daniel Caine
Lucille Cline and Murray
Altsher
Veronica and Enrique
Darer
Eva and Daniel Deykin
Me’ah’99
Beth and Richard Fentin
Gloria Adelson Field
Gloria and Irving Fox
Me’ah’99
Bea and Melvin Fraiman
Lori Me’ah’02 and Michael
Gilman Me’ah’02
Connie Gilson
Eve and Brett Goldberg P’76
Avis and Harold Goldstein
Me’ah’98
Rechelle and J. Bruce
Gordon
Rosalind and Mervin Gray
Beth Me’ah’01 and Lawrence
Greenberg
Lisa and Richard Greene
Jennifer Haynes and
Jonathan Bornstein
Ellen Jawitz Me’ah’05 and
Robert Leikind
Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan
Family Foundation
Judi and Joseph Karas
Sylvia Me’ah’01 and Sol
Kaufman Me’ah’01
Carolyn and Jack Kline
Roselyn L. and Edwin
Kolodny
Carol Me’ah’00 and Leonard
Kopelman
Marie and Robert Krausz
Alice and Nahum Lainer
Ruth Langer and Jonathan
Sarna P’70, BHL’74
Clare and Richard Lesser
Martha MJEd’91 and Adolf
Lichtenstein
Fred and Sarah Lipsky
Foundation
Eleanor and Mort Lowenthal
Elizabeth and Melvin Mark
Vivian Merrin
Yael Miller and Stuart Cole
Susan Miron MJEd’90 and
Burton Fine
Golda and Michael Och
BJEd’52
Suzanne and Norman
Priebatsch
Progressive Chavurah, Inc.
Nancy Me’ah’03 and Gale
Raphael
Elyse Me’ah’97 and Howard
Rubin Me’ah’99
Marcia Me’ah’04 and Morton
Ruderman Me’ah’04
Lois and Leonard Sharzer
P’60
Cynthia and Leon Shulman
Me’ah’01
Judith P’64, Me’ah’03 and
Jeffrey Siegel
Vivian P’46, BJEd’50 and
Morton Sigel
Burton Silberstein
Rose Sklare
Rob Small
Ruth P’59, BJEd’64 and
Howard Smith
Arlette Snyder
Myra MJEd’01, Me’ah’97 and
Robert Snyder P’63
Ruth and Norman Spack P’60
Fredric Spar
Shirley Spero
Karin Me’ah’05 and Leo
Sprecher Me’ah’01
Michael Strauss
Marjorie Tichnor Me’ah’04
Suzanne and Herbert Tobin
Suzanne and Edward
Waxman Me’ah’04
Clare and David Weinstein
Harriet Winer and
Ronald Ayola
Arnee P’68 and Walter
Winshall
Genevieve and Justin
Wyner
$1,000 to $1,799
Anonymous
Sherri Ades and Kenneth
Falchuk
Willi and Arthur Aeder
Judith and Gordon Alpert
P’61
Franne and Barry Alter P’63
Susan Ansin Me’ah’03
Lorraine and Leo Arnfeld
BJEd’61
Madeleine Arnow
Chelsea Hebrew School
Endowment
Judy and Jonathan Chiel
Stephen Cohen
Corning Incorporated
Foundation
Council for Jewish
Education, Inc.
Cynthia and Harvey Creem
Alice Me’ah’05 and Stephen
Cutler Me’ah’05
Deer Polymer
Rachel and Brent Dibner
Judy and Allan Drachman
P’53, Me’ah’01
Raya Dreben
Jane and Jay Fialkow
Me’ah’02
Helen Tager-Flusberg
Me’ah’01 and Martin
Flusberg Me’ah’01
Barbara and Irving Franklin
Lillian Freedman
David Friedman
Laurel Me’ah’03 and Orrie
Friedman
Pat and Bob Gage
Goldberg Family
Foundation
Melvin Golden P’53, BJEd’57
Rita and Monte Goldman
donations|,unur,
Hebrew College Chug Ivri
December 2005: (seated, L to R) President of Hebrew
College Dr. David Gordis; Leader of Chug Rose Bronstein;
Director of Development David Chivo; (second row, L to
R) Daniel Cohen, Helaine Saperstein; (third row, L to R)
Miriam Behar, Rosalyn Lefkowith, Mildred Levitt, Mildred
Kravitz, Marion Feldman, Harriet Sandberg, Rosalyn
Smith; (fourth row, L to R) Sheryl L. Schwartz, Eda
Rabinovitz, Carolyn Levens; (fifth row, L to R) Harris
Traiger, Malka Romanoff, Alumni Relations Coordinator
Sharlene K. Finkel.
Prayer Paintings: Jonathan Palmer
September 21, 2005 (L to R): Hebrew College Provost
Barry Mesch, Dr. Nehemiah Polen, Board of Trustees
Chair Leslie B. Stacks and artist Jonathan Palmer
President’s Circle with
Amy Dockser Marcus
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Amy Dockser Marcus
P’83 spoke to the President’s Circle on December 4,
2005. Seated: Barbara and Leo Karas, Development
Committee Co-chairs; standing, L to R: Leslie Bornstein
Stacks P’62, Amy Dockser Marcus P’83, rabbinical
student Minna Bromberg, President David Gordis, and
hosts Sonia and Joseph Michelson (trustee).
hebrew college today|41

,unur,|donations
ProzBowl Kickoff with Myra Kraft
ProzBowl host Myra Kraft Me’ah’01 joined Director of High School,
Prozdor, Bil Zarch, Prozdor Director Margie Tarmy Berkowitz,
President David M. Gordis and Prozdor students in December 2005
to kick off the ProzBowl celebration.
An Evening with Brett Goldberg
Brett Goldberg P’76, founder of Ahava U.S.A., discussed his book A
Psalm in Jenin with alumni from the 70s and 90s at the home of
Carol and David Lintz. Seated (L to R) Laura Kaufman P’72, BJEd’79
and hostess Carol Lintz. Standing (L to R) Carey Goldberg P’77, Leah
Gartner HC’97, co-chairs Brett P’76 and Eve Goldberg, and host David
Lintz P’74.
The Dr. Gila Ramras-Rauch
Memorial Lecture Series
Noted Israeli author Savyon Liebrecht (R) is pictured above with
her good friend Dr. Gila Ramras-Rauch, z’l, in 2002. On November 22,
2005, Liebrecht returned to Hebrew College to inaugurate The Dr.
Gila Ramras-Rauch Memorial Lecture Series. At the event, Liebrecht
talked about her new book, A Good Place for the Night: Stories.
42|ouhv ,hrcgv vkkfnv
Janet and Mark
Gottesman Me’ah’00
Melissa and Jon Hirschtick
Jackson and Irene Golden
Charitable Trust
Susan Jaffe
Faith and Bernard Kaplan
Harriett and Ralph Kaplan
Ruth and Daniel Kaufman
Amy Klein Me’ah’99 and
Brian Lefsky
Suzette and Harold Kushner
Ellen and Harry Leikind
Natalie P’35, BJEd’39 and
Reevan Levine P’35, BJEd’39
Carol and David Lintz P’74
Anne Me’ah’04 and Marc
Lowenthal
Judith and Moshe Margolin
Taren and Ralph Metson
Nesha and Burton Miller
Nancy and Joseph Morgart
Michael Morris
G. Daniel Mostow BJEd’42
Ellen MJEd’99 and Martin Pildis
Me’ah’03
Ina and Gerald Regosin
Barbara and Frank Resnek
Charles Ritz Me’ah’99
Joan Me’ah’01 and David
Rosenberg Me’ah’01
Marlene Rosenthal and
Eugene Reilly
Nitza and Henry Rosovsky
Deborah and Jeffrey Saunders
Susan and Robert Schechter
Me’ah’01
Judith Segal
Enid Me’ah’04 and Melvin
Shapiro
Susan and L. Shapiro
Miriam P’38, BJEd’42 and Philip
Shore, z’l, P’36, BJEd’42
Leslie and Joel Silver
Leonard Singer Me’ah’02
Mary Ann and Stanley Snider
Betsy and Martin Solomon
Richard Usen
Nancy and Christopher Winship
Dale and Arnold Zaff Me’ah’01
Randi and David Zussman
$500 to $999
Elaine P’49, BJEd’53 and Allan
Abrahams P’52, BJEd’53
Nina Arnfeld P’84
Cynthia and Theodore
Berenson
Evelyn Berman
Sybil and Alan Edelstein
Frances Me’ah’00 and David
Elovitz Me’ah’00
Sabina Me’ah’05 and Richard
Feczko Me’ah’03
Brenda Me’ah’97 and Harvey
Freishtat
Jennifer Gallop P’82 and
David Starr
Phyllis and Gerald Gelles
Ruth Anne and Donald Glotzer
Harry Goldman
Liz and Gerry Goldman
R. Goldman
Geraldine and Lionel Hantman
Carl Hershfield
Elizabeth and Daniel Jick
Todd Jick and Rose Zoltek-Jick
Julian LeCraw & Co.
Ronna and Thomas Klein
Eric Kobren
Shirley Kolack
Sally and Stuart Lesser
Caryl Me’ah’00 and Lewis Levine
Sharon Levine P’63
Eliot Levinson
Ariela and David Lipton
Irving London P’34, BJEd’38
Louise and Bernard Lown
Anne and Arthur Matzkin
Betty Morningstar
Eleanor Rabb
Ina BJEd’80 and Ernest
Rabinowicz
Robin Richman Me’ah’03 and
Bruce Auerbach
Arthur Rosenbloom
Vivian Schaar
Phyllis and Clifford Seresky
Betty and R. Peter Shapiro
Me’ah’03
Edward Shapiro
Honey and Sidney Sherter
Joel Siner
Marvin Sparrow
Emma and Allen Swartz
Judith and Herman Swartz
Abigail Ostow Telegen Me’ah’01
and Arthur Telegen Me’ah’01
Robert Temkin Me’ah’01
Karen Me’ah’97 and Michael
Tichnor Me’ah’99
Lyle Warner Me’ah’99
Joseph Weinstein MJEd’82
Our apologies for any inadvertent
errors or omissions. Please inform
the Development Department at
617-559-8726 so that we may
thank you properly and update
our records.
ProzBowl photo by Justin Allardyce Knight. Goldberg photo by David Chivo. Liebrecht photo by Randy Goodman.

Me’ah New York photos by Steve Meyer.
Boards of Hebrew College
Board of Trustees
Leslie B. Stacks, Chair
Beth Moskowitz,
Secretary
Norman Tasgal, Treasurer
Mark Atkins
Betty Brudnick
Mickey Cail
Ted Cutler
Carol Goldberg
Mark Goldweitz
David M. Gordis
Malcolm E. Hindin
Louis Kaitz
Mort Lowenthal
Joseph Michelson
Joseph Morgart
Alfred Moses
Gary Orren
Terry Rosenberg
Cynthia Shulman
Theodore H. Teplow
Diane Troderman
National Board
Alfred Moses, Chair
Shoshana Cardin
Ted Cutler
Will Danoff
Stuart Eizenstat
James O. Freedman*
Howard I. Friedman
Abner Goldstine
Michael Gould
Tom Lantos
Neil Rolde
Henry Rosovsky
Elie Wiesel
Leon Wieseltier
Ruth Wisse
President’s Council
Sol Kaufman, Chair
Evelyn A. Berman
Arnold Bloom
Edward M. Bloom
Martin D. Braver
Howard Breslau
Irwin Chafetz
Joel Dunsky
Alan M. Edelstein
Robert Feingold
Adena Geller
Ralph M. Gilbert
Paul Gilman
Louis Grossman
Edward Guzovsky
Barbara Karas
Frances Kopelman
Evelyn Naigles
Suzanne Offit
Melvin Shapiro
Ruth B. Smith
Norman Spack
Jamie Stolper
Norman Tasgal
Howard Weintraub
Ruth Wolf
Board of Overseers
Louis Kaitz, Chair
Alan Ades
Susan Ain
Rachel F. Albert
Paula Apsell
Leo Arnfeld
Lawrence Bacow
David Begelfer
Theodore Berenson
Charles Berlin
Hadassah Blocker
Kathryn Bloom
Michael J. Bohnen
Rose Bronstein
Maxwell Burstein
Nancy Cahners
Larry Chafetz
Jonathan Chiel
Carl Chudnofsky
Annebelle Cohen
Arnold Cohen
Ralph S. Cohen
Steven P. Cohen
Richard Curtis
Marjorie Ross Decter
Daniel Deykin
Allan W. Drachman
Gerald Elovitz
Maurice Epstein
Sherri Ades Falchuk
Ruth Fein
Deborah Feinstein
Gerald Feldman
Jay Fialkow
Susan L. Fish-Richardson
Melvin Fraiman
Richard Frankel
Michael Frieze
Jesse Geller
Connie Gilson
Mollie Glanz
Evelyn Glickman
Brett Goldberg
A. Leon Goldman
Monte Goldman
Harold Goldstein
David Goodtree
Emma Gould
Leonard Gould
Johanna Grad
Richard Gray
Allan Green
Leon Green
Louis Grossman
Judy Herzig-Marx
Eileen Houben
Charles Housman
Bernard Hyatt
Jonah Jacob
Nathan Kaitz
Trudy Karger
Evelyn Katz
Sylvia Kaufman
Amy Klein
Edwin H. Kolodny
Leonard Kopelman
Benjamin Kreitman
Scott Krentzman
Jeffrey Kurinsky
Frederick Lawrence
Sid Lejfer
Eliot Levinson
Mildred Levitt
Simon Levy
Geoffrey Lewis
Michael Libenson
David Lintz
Irving London
Elizabeth Mark
Taren Metson
Bruce Micley
Rebecca Milikowsky
Betty Ann Miller
Susan Miron
Andrew Offit
Gerald M. Perlow
Ellen Pildis
Suzanne Priebatsch
Irving Rabb
Nitza Rosovsky
Howard Rubin
Michael B. Rukin
Leon Satenstein
Sara Schafler-Kelman
Sheryl Levitt Schwartz
William Schwartz
Clifford Seresky
Mitchell Shames
Enid Shapiro
Valya Shapiro
Norton L. Sherman
Judith Chused Siegel
Gilda Slifka
Myra Snyder
Bernard Solomon
Martin Solomon
David Solomont
Marvin Sparrow
Leo Sprecher
Theodore Steinberg
Michael Strauss
A. Raymond Tye
Richard Usen
Jerry Wagner
Jason Weiner
David Weinstein
Joseph Wertheim
Lewis Whitman
Arnee Winshall
Christopher Winship
David Wolf
Melvin Wolf
Justin Wyner
Heather Zacker
Arnold Zaff
Arnold Zaltas
Kenneth Zises
*Deceased
L to R: Mimi and Barry
Alperin with Moshe
Margolin.
donations|,unur,
Me’ah takes Manhattan
In November 2005, Mimi Me’ah’03 and Barry
Alperin hosted the first Me’ah event in the
Greater New York region. Jonathan Sarna P’70,
BHL’74 lectured to a group of 60 at the event,
which was attended by President David Gordis
and Dr. David Starr, Dean of Me’ah. Moshe
Margolin Me’ah’06, Regional Director, joined
alumni, current students and members of the
College’s Board of Trustees and the local Me’ah
Advisory Committee to celebrate the success of
Me’ah in the Greater New York region.
Host Mimi Alperin Me’ah’03 and Jonathan Sarna
P’70, BHL’74, featured speaker
L to R: President Gordis,
Herb Neuman, Regional
Director Moshe Margolin
Me’ah’06.
Hebrew College Trustee
Ted Cutler.
Hebrew College
Trustee Mort
Lowenthal.
David Starr, Dean
of Me’ah.
Stephanie and Herb
Neuman, Me’ah
Advisory Committee.
hebrew college today|43

160 HERRICK ROAD
NEWTON CENTRE, MA 02459
hebrewcollege.edu
A beneficiary of
Combined Jewish Philanthropies
of Greater Boston
Becoming a Jewish educator is a
tall order. It requires rigorous classical and contemporary text study,
a solid grounding in pedagogy, a deep desire
to share Jewish knowledge and insights.
And respect for diverse student needs
and beliefs.
You’ll find all this and more at the Shoolman
Graduate School of Jewish Education at Hebrew
College. Our transdenominational program offers outstanding
professional preparation for Jewish day schools, supplementary
schools, early childhood, special education, adult education,
family education and informal educational settings.
And our graduate placement rate is 100 percent.
Jewish education isn’t just a career— it’s a calling.
Call 617-559-8610 or email admissions@hebrewcollege.edu.
Join the dialogue.
hebrewcollege.edu/shoolman
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