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Tag: Wexner Foundation

Hear from Wexner scholars

photo - Sefaria’s Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld speaks Dec. 15 and Jan. 12, as part of Our Story, Our Heritage: A Speaker Series with Wexner Scholars
Sefaria’s Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld speaks Dec. 15 and Jan. 12, as part of Our Story, Our Heritage: A Speaker Series with Wexner Scholars. (photo from facebook.com/thejewishnetwork)

Our Story, Our Heritage: A Speaker Series with Wexner Scholars launched here in September. It features top Jewish educators from across North America who teach in the two-year Wexner Heritage Program, which focuses on Jewish learning and leadership training. While in Vancouver, the scholars give a talk that is open to the public, and also hold learning sessions with the local Wexner cohort, a diverse group of young local community members set to steer the community. 

The speaker series began Sept. 22 with Yonatan Cohen, the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley, Calif., and a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. His talk, titled Our Texts in Tense Times, offered insights into Jewish texts that help frame recent experiences, particularly as the first anniversary of Oct. 7 approached. 

Cohen spoke again on Nov. 17, giving a lecture called Agree to Disagree: The Seeds of Jewish Pluralism Revealed in Talmudic Debate. In it, using classic cases from the Talmud that elucidate the rabbinic approach to makhloket (debate or dispute), he considered how the rabbinic tradition distinguishes between “ultimate truth” and “public policy,” and how ancient texts might help guide the way one operates in a contemporary pluralistic Jewish community.

Next up on the Wexner speaker circuit is Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld, chief learning officer at Sefaria, the free online library of Jewish texts, on Dec. 15. Her topic will investigate how ancient wisdom might offer insights into navigating the realities of social media. Wolkenfeld will return on Jan. 12 to examine tikkun olam, repair of the world, what it means and why it is important.

An alumna of the David Hartman Centre at the Hartman Institute of North America, Wolkenfeld also serves as scholar-in-residence at Ohev Sholom Congregation in Washington, DC. Her current research and writing focus is on the intersection between Jewish ethics and technological advancements. 

photo - Dr. David Shyovitz, a professor of history and Jewish studies at Northwestern University, gives online talks Feb. 9 and March 2
Dr. David Shyovitz, a professor of history and Jewish studies at Northwestern University, gives online talks Feb. 9 and March 2. (photo from from davidshyovitz.com)

Dr. David Shyovitz, a professor of history and Jewish studies at Northwestern University, will talk on Feb. 9 and March 2. His first lecture will look at Jews and Muslims from an historical perspective. His second asks, “Has there ever been a ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition?” and digs into what the registration page for the talk describes as “an uneasy alliance.”

“Obviously, these are both very big and complex topics, so there is no way we will do either of them justice fully,” Shyovitz told the Independent. “But they are also topics about which many people have limited knowledge or dramatically oversimplified assumptions, so the goal will be to share some interesting ideas and sources and give participants a glimpse of the rich and nuanced history of inter-religious relations.”

Rabbi Dr. Tali Zelkowicz, director of curriculum and research at the Wexner Foundation, is slated to speak on March 16. She will revisit a debate in Jewish education.

photo - The Wexner Foundation’s Rabbi Dr. Tali Zelkowicz, speaks on Jewish education on March 16
The Wexner Foundation’s Rabbi Dr. Tali Zelkowicz, speaks on Jewish education on March 16. (photo from Wexner Foundation)

“It has become a widely accepted fact that, across every age and stage, the field of Jewish education has split between the sub-fields of so-called ‘formal’ versus ‘informal’ (also known as ‘experiential’ education) or, alternatively, between ‘education’ versus ‘engagement,’” Zelkowicz said. “But how did we get to this default assumption, and is it helping us?”

By taking a closer look at assumptions about how learning works in Jewish life, Zelkowicz hopes to show how we are mired in what she sees as a “nonsensical debate” around which kind of learning setting is most needed or effective in Jewish life while avoiding the much more important question, what counts as great learning? 

Devin E. Naar, a professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Washington, winds up the series with lectures on March 30 and June 2. His first will study the formation of Sephardi Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire.

“This lecture traces the trans-Mediterranean journey of the exiled Spanish Jews to the sultan’s realm and the cultural and political dynamics that shaped the communities they created and developed over the subsequent centuries. In short, it explores how the descendants of Spanish Jews eventually became Ottoman Jews, and the implications of those transformations today,” Naar told the Independent.

photo - Devin E. Naar of the University of Washington winds up the Wexner series with lectures on March 30 and June 2
Devin E. Naar of the University of Washington winds up the Wexner series with lectures on March 30 and June 2. (photo from University of Washington)

Naar’s second session will probe how the history of Middle East Jews might change the perception of Israel.

“This talk moves beyond polemics to delve into the history of the long-standing Jewish presence in the geography that now forms the state of Israel,” he said.

“The talk situates Jewish experiences within the broader framework of the Ottoman Empire (which ruled from 1517-1917) during which Ladino – not Hebrew, Arabic or Yiddish – largely remained the primary Jewish language of Jerusalem,” Naar continued. “The talk also introduces some of the key challenges that Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews confronted with the establishment of the state of Israel. What are the lingering effects of those transformations today?”

The Wexner Heritage Program has returned to Vancouver after a 24-year absence thanks to the support of the Diamond Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver and alumni of the first local cohort.

“It was a transformative experience for me. Because of Wexner, I became a better Jewish leader,” said Jonathan Berkowitz, a member of the original cohort, and a former Vancouver Federation president and chair of Federation’s annual campaign. He was an instrumental figure in rebooting the program in Vancouver.

To register for any of the lectures, go to jewishvancouver.com/wexner-speaker-series. 

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Posted on December 13, 2024December 11, 2024Author Sam MargolisCategories LocalTags David Shyovitz, Devin E. Naar, education, history, Jonathan Berkowitz, Judaism, Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld, speakers, Tali Zelkowicz, Wexner Foundation, Wexner Heritage Program
Making discourse civil

Making discourse civil

Rabbi Jay Henry Moses will speak at FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from Rabbi Jay Henry Moses)

While hate groups and their opponents across North America rally, and sometimes brawl, proponents of civil discourse are teaching people to communicate effectively across divides.

However, Rabbi Jay Henry Moses, who will speak in Vancouver this month, admits that those at the extremes may not be fertile soil for seeding civil discussion. It’s the vast majority in the middle of the bell curve he is interested in, the great number of people of goodwill who wish to debate agreeably but sometimes lack the skills to do so.

Moses is vice-president of the Wexner Foundation, which was founded by Ohio philanthropist Les Wexner in the 1980s to focus on the development of Jewish professional and volunteer leaders in North America, and public leaders in Israel. Moses will visit here as one of five speakers at FEDtalks, the opening event of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual campaign, on Sept. 13.

The Wexner Foundation has an upcoming summit on civil discourse and the topic permeates everything the organization does.

“The topic is of particular interest to us because, built into the fabric of all the programs that we run for leaders is the element of diversity,” he told the Independent in a telephone interview. “We have, since the very beginning of our work, always been very clear that we serve the entire Jewish people and the entire state of Israel and that the leaders who go through the programs that we run will be stronger and better leaders for having encountered those with different viewpoints, and learn from them. It’s actually long been part of the secret sauce of what makes our program successful … that we’ve managed to be able to bring together people who disagree with each other about important things but who share a common mission of one type or another. We’ve been able to bring them together and have the resulting cohorts be greater than the sum of their parts precisely because of that diversity.”

Nurturing an openness to diversity of opinion, particularly in the frequently contentious realm of Jewish and Israeli leadership, allows alumni of Wexner’s varied programs to bring some of that wisdom to the other circles of influence they occupy, he explained.

Inside and outside of the Jewish world, there are challenges and opportunities around civil discourse, Moses said.

“I am optimistic in the long run but realizing in the short run the hill that we have to climb is pretty steep,” he said. In the aftermath of Charlottesville and other conflicts, the chasm between the ideal and the real is evident.

“The ideal may be that everybody will be able to participate in conversations with people they disagree with and do so in the spirit of openness and learning and growth and not necessarily agree, but at least be able to occupy the same space and have the spirit of open-mindedness in their conversations and maybe get to better solutions because of talking with people who are speaking differently and so on,” he said. “That’s the ideal that we are working towards. The reality is that we have extremes on both ends. We have people whose adherence to their worldview and ideology is so extreme and so rigid that they have no interest in, nor ability to, engage in conversation – civil conversation – with people they disagree with.”

Focusing on these extremes is not a recipe for success, said Moses.

“We have to start by not focusing on them, [and] actually focus on those in the middle of the bell curve who may be on one side or another of any given ideological divide, but who are not closed off entirely to engaging with people they disagree [with],” he said. “I think the vast majority of North American Jews, if you want to talk about the universe that we are mostly influencing, are mostly in the middle of that bell curve somewhere. They are not extremists and [are] candidates for the kind of experiences that can enrich them, and enrich our community, by bringing people together who disagree in the right way.”

Providing people with the tools to express themselves and to listen to those with whom they disagree is an art, not a science, and Moses acknowledges he doesn’t have the silver bullet. But working toward civil discourse may be more urgent now, in the age of social media.

“When conversation is left to its own devices, especially in an era of social media, we often lead with less than our best selves,” said Moses, dryly. “So, having a structure within which to safely and carefully and slowly approach sensitive topics is really important. Letting it unfold organically, as it often does in social media is, in many cases, a recipe for miscommunication and breakdown of civil discourse.”

Bad experiences on social media, Moses fears, have actually made people more wary of having potentially difficult conversations in person.

“They are more hesitant to have conversations in person because they’ve seen online how quickly it can devolve into personal attacks or other really uncomfortable and difficult situations,” he said. “I think we are encountering people we disagree with all the time but I feel like we’re actually talking to them less because we feel we have nothing to talk about. We don’t know how to start those conversations, or we have had them end badly. We’ve had personal relationships damaged and much of that damage has happened online because things happen more quickly and at a greater distance. So, face-to-face conversation is suffering as a result.”

The essence of his message to the Vancouver audience will be that struggling to communicate civilly is not a new phenomenon, but it is made more urgent by contemporary developments.

“This problem is not new – it’s been part of our community’s challenge for centuries,” he said. “At the same time, we are in a moment where, because of a combination of a lot of these factors, it’s a crisis, you have a level of urgency that it may not have had before. I want to make the point that, although unhealthy disagreement has a long history in Jewish life, we also have baked into the fabric of our tradition amazing resources and a time-tested recipe for creating a culture of dissent that allows us to engage in a healthy way as a community. I’d like to address some of the ways we can use those principles from our tradition and from our history, sort of repurpose them for the 21st century, and create a new model for how we can rebuild that culture of healthy dissent using our own DNA and adapting it to our day.”

Before becoming vice-president of the Wexner Foundation, Moses was head of the Wexner Heritage Program. Originally created as a stand-alone foundation, and now based within the larger foundation, the Wexner Heritage Program’s mission is “to expand the vision of Jewish volunteer leaders, deepen their Jewish knowledge and confidence, and inspire them to exercise transformative leadership in the Jewish community.”

“As the director of that program for many years,” he said, “I worked with Jewish communities across North America to identify and then train volunteer leaders – high potential, promising, up-and-coming volunteer Jewish leaders who engage in a two-year program of study of Jewish history and Jewish thought and also of Jewish leadership. We basically are investing in these leaders to give them knowledge and inspiration to go back to their Jewish communal volunteer work with broader vision, more confidence, a deeper network and a sort of bolder vision of what the Jewish future can be and their own sense of responsibility for bringing us toward that future.”

There are several connections between the Wexner Foundation and other speakers at FEDtalks, Moses noted. Also at the Chan Centre podium will be Eric Fingerhut, president of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, of which the Wexner family has been very supportive. He also noted that Ruth Wasserman Lande, another speaker (profiled in the Independent Aug. 18), is a Wexner alumna.

Moses has a request for the Vancouver audience: “Judge me kindly if I’m sharing the stage with Ruth, who is an extraordinarily impressive and charming person.”

For the full speaker list and to purchase tickets, visit jewishvancouver.com.

Format ImagePosted on September 1, 2017August 30, 2017Author Pat Johnson and Rebecca ShapiroCategories LocalTags annual campaign, education, FEDtalks, Jay Henry Moses, Jewish Federation, Wexner Foundation
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