The Latest From The Foundation

Dispatches from the network and updates from the Foundation.

Yitz and Blu Greenberg capturing what may be their first selfie at one of the many Wexner Heritage Summer Institutes they have attended over the last 30 years. I’m guessing that few people in this world just happen to write a book while in the process of writing another book.  But as our teacher, Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, says, this book basically wrote itself, emerging from a lifetime of teaching

We met when we were both in the Wexner Heritage Program and became friends when our daughters attended the same Jewish day school.  Since we’re both actively involved in Jewish life, we had a deep understanding that Judaism embodies rich content for how to live a meaningful and holy life and how to raise children with a deep sense of values and purpose.  We wanted to share that rich content

The Wexner Foundation has always focused on developing talented leaders. In the last few years we have expanded our reach, launching Wexner Senior Leaders, for Israel’s most influential senior leaders in the public sector, and Wexner Summits: the Network in Action, allowing our alumni from all programs to work together to tackle major problems in the Jewish world.  We have also piloted an important program to support emerging young professionals working

Some of the Montreal Wexner Heritage alumni recently brought Rabbi Jonathan Sacks to town for several teaching engagements that were shared with the greater Jewish community.  Additionally, we were fortunate enough to get to study in an intimate group with him over breakfast. Rabbi Sacks shared with us a very empowering message that he had learned as a child from his father.  He would ask many questions about Judaism, and

A year ago, we embarked on a new project in Toronto to model the power of interdenominational conversations and to facilitate a wide spectrum of Jews talking to each other about big ideas. Could four rabbis — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist — sit together and discuss substantive issues of modern Jewish life in a public forum?  The result was “Young Rabbis Speak,” a four-part series focusing on Jewish Text

Link to photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/48256970@N00/sets/72157663753137944

Mar 2016

Call Me Bubbe

It sounds simple enough, but at a deeper level it can actually be emotionally complex.  Or, maybe I simply overthink these matters.  But, the reality is, I have a say in what the next generation will call me….forever.  I take that very seriously.  I also have an opportunity to rebrand my vision of what a Bubbe is – an older, slightly overweight, kitchen bound, loving grandmother.  I am none of

I spent the afternoon in Hebron today with ‪#‎CCAR16. It was a powerful, holy, agonizing day. On the bus ride up, we were stopped at Gush Etzion where a stabbing had just taken place. To see the soldiers, the murdered army reservist, the workers cleaning up the blood on the side walk, was a horror. In Hebron, we met Yishai Fleisher, a settler who offered a potent perspective on the

Reprinted with permission from The Jewish Week.          Growing up in Israel in the 1950s as a child of Yemenite émigrés, I learned the standard Zionist Israeli narrative. It was of the great sacrifices made by Ashkenazi European Jews — settling and cultivating the land, building kibbutzim and the city of Tel Aviv out of the sand. All of this, decades before the State of Israel won independence