2009
ISSUE 72 |
17
Rosenbaum, Director of the Jewish Museum in New York. They
learned about the Riverway Project that has pioneered engagement of
Jews in their 20s and 30s with the founder of that program, Rabbi Je-
remy Morrison at Temple Israel in Boston.
From exploring the importance of mission and vision to exam-
ining the management issues of budgeting, fundraising, and
administering a staff, the Tisch Fellows enhance their leadership ca-
pacity. Students also spend several hours each month working with a
coach to aid their personal introspection and professional growth, and
are asked to reflect on their development as leaders. They receive tu-
ition for three years and an annual living stipend, which allows them
more time to delve into their academics.
The diversity of the 13 Tisch Fellows to date reflects the broad
reach that they will have as rabbinical leaders. Some are invested in a
concern for the environment, as reflected in a senior sermon where
Joseph Skloot
,
N’10, (see page 42) noted, “Our current ecological,
social, and physiological situation demands action to redress the im-
balance of ordinary and extraordinary in our lives.” Others, like
Matthew Soffer
,
N’10, are motivated by a strong commitment to so-
cial justice as seen in his interviews with great Jewish leaders of the
20
th century (see page 19).
Nicole Roberts
,
C’12, entered HUC-JIR
with a track record of attracting Jews in their 20s and 30s to congre-
gational life (see page 46), while
Yaron Kapitulnik
,
N’10, (see page
35)
is pioneering ways in which to affiliate the hundreds of thousands
of Israelis living in the U.S., a project that he successfully coordinated
at the 92nd Street Y in New York last year. “Being a Tisch Fellow,” says
Rachel Joseph
,
L’12 (see page 42), “means that I will have the op-
portunity to be an agent for change in other people’s lives and lead
them towards a vision of living a rich and full Jewish life.”
This August, the Tisch Fellows spent three days concentrated on
their personal theology at the first ever Tisch Shabbaton. Through
study with Dr. Steven Cohen, Dr. Lawrence Hoffman, and Rabbi De-
bra Hachen, prayer services planned and facilitated by the students,
and numerous opportunities for focus on personal spirituality, the Fel-
lows returned to the new academic year with renewed excitement and
commitment to becoming visionary rabbis and leaders.
Everything I have learned as a Mandel Fellow over the
past two years is going to make me a better rabbi,” says
Rena
Polonsky
,
N ’10. “As an educator and a rabbi, I can educate,
effect change, and help others transform and realize their own visions
for Jewish life.” Polonsky is one of HUC-JIR’s 23 Mandel Fellows to
date – 15 based in Los Angeles and 8 in New York.
Now inaugurating its third cohort, the HUC-JIR Mandel Fel-
lows program is enhancing the educational leadership capacity of
selected rabbinical students who seek degrees in Jewish Education in
a one-year intensive program in addition to their five-year rabbinical
program. This initiative, created and sustained by Morton Mandel
and the Mandel Foundation, is grounded in the assumption that vi-
brant synagogue communities are vital to Jewish life and that they
require inspiring rabbinical leadership anchored in a vision for Jewish
learning.
Professor Sara S. Lee serves as leader for this program, which in-
cludes three intensive seminars in California, Boston, and Israel that
offer learning with faculty, presentations by guest scholars and practi-
tioners, site visits to vision-guided institutions and encounters with
innovative rabbis, and guided reflection on these experiences. She
points to the outcomes of the Mandel Fellows Program, beginning
with “the systematic, thoughtful inquiry into what Jewish life at its
best might look like, and the encounter with visionary people and
compelling institutions that offer proof to counter assumptions and ar-
guments that suggest that the task is too complex and idealistic.” Lee
explains that Mandel Fellows benefit from “the mentored develop-
ment of personal stances about Judaism and Jewish life that are
grounded in Jewish ideas and beliefs, and come to view all aspects of
congregational growth as sites of substantive individual and commu-
nal Jewish growth.”
Melissa Zalkin Stollman
,
N ’1
0
,
extols the program, saying,
“
We challenge one another to be more thoughtful, creative,
and passionate about what we care about.” She brings the Mandel
Fellows’ perspectives back to her rabbinical classes, as well, explain-
ing, “I find that I now pose the bigger, underlying questions rather
than jumping immediately to find an answer.” Furthermore, educa-
tional theory strengthens her work with multiple generations in her
student internships.
Polonsky values the guidance by mentors who are “committed to
my development as a Jew, a leader, and as a change agent.” She recalls
the unexpected insights gained by a visit to the mega church Grace
Chapel, which “pushed me outside my comfort zone and presented a
model that forced me to completely rethink the congregational
model.”
The Mandel Fellows focus on four key areas in their seminars:
•
Shaping a vision that guides a Jewish community’s decisions, policies
and programs;
•
Discerning educational experiences that contribute to individual and
THE
MANDEL
FEL LOWS
PROGRAM MANDATE
“
SCHOOL OF SACRED MUSIC LEADERSHIP FELLOWS PROGRAM
Beginning in the Fall of 2009, cantorial students will be eligible for
the School of Sacred Music Fellows Program. This new Program, made
possible through a generous endowment of $1.5 million by an anony-
mous donor, will provide full tuition and a living stipend for up to three
students’ third and fourth years of study. The SSM Leadership Fellows
will integrate into the programming of the Tisch Leadership Fellowship
Program, including seminars on congregational leadership, advanced text
study, mentorship, visits to innovative venues of Jewish life, and presen-
tations by leading scholars and practitioners.
