Israel Seminar for Jewish Communal Service Students

Twenty-one HUC-JIR Jewish communal service students will join Dr. Steven Windmueller, Director of the School of Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, this coming week in Jerusalem as part of the School's 16th Israel Seminar. Entitled "Israel: A Prism of Contemporary Jewish Life", this 22-day program will introduce its participants to four core themes: the Palestinian-Israel conflict, Israeli collective identity, competing Jewish voices in contemporary Israel, and Jewish peoplehood-caring for the Jewish world.
The program will bring together for the first time in history the two oldest training centers for communal professionals in North America, as HUC students will be joined this year by 10 students from Brandeis University's Hornstein Program.

During the program, the communal service students from the LA campus will join all the HUC-JIR first year rabbinic, education, and cantorial students who are studying at HUC-JIR/Jerusalem. This joint study program (scheduled for Wednesday, December 25th) represents a special opportunity when students training for Jewish professional careers have the opportunity to study and work together.

The Seminar, which includes over 50 sesssions, will introduce future Jewish communal professionals to the intellectual, cultural, religious and political leaders of Israel. In addition, students will have the occasion to "shadow" their professional Israeli counter parts who manage programs and services operated as part of the Tel Aviv-Los Angeles Partnership. Students will be examining such issues as the impact of terrorism on the lives of Israelis, how the conflict between Arabs and Jews is dealt with in Israeli and Palestinian schools, and how the media covers events in the Middle East.

While in Israel Dr. Steven Windmueller, the Director of the School of Jewish Communal Service, is scheduled to deliver a series of lectures and presentations. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Tuesday, December 24th at 10:00 am at 13 Tel Hai Street) will sponsor one of his presentations, entitled: "Changes in American Jewish Attitudes, After 9/11".