August 14, 2019
13 Av 5779

Dear HUC Community,

In April at the start of my service as President of HUC-JIR, I made a number of promises to you – our students, faculty, staff, lay leadership, and supporters. The most important was to listen and learn.

My promise was based on my own recognized need to understand the experience of HUC from the inside. And so, having sprinted through an April and May of graduations and ordinations on our stateside campuses, and using June to move from St. Louis to New York City, I am spending my first four months of the new academic year on each of our four campuses, listening and learning.

July in Jerusalem. August in New York. September in Los Angeles. And October back to where our institution began, the historic Cincinnati Campus in time for our inauguration celebration at the end of October.

I am now back from my first visit to HUC in Jerusalem, flourishing under the leadership of Dean Rabbi Naamah Kelman and just brimming with excitement about the strength of the students, faculty, and staff, and of our Taube Family Campus. As the new academic year gets underway at HUC, I want to share with you some initial impressions of what I have learned, and some key takeaways for us to consider as an institution.

Key Learnings

Year-In-Israel Program

Year-In-Israel Program’s rabbinical, cantorial, and education students

A significant focus of my learning was in structured meetings with our North American Year-in-Israel (YII) Program students and staff, including a memorable tour of Har Herzl with the impressive Dr. David Mendelsson, Director of the YII program. One memorable takeaway with the students was the suggestion that the activity that defines our mission should include not just “teaching” and “learning” but “curating:” that we are curating the future of the Jewish People one leader at a time. We had open discussions about why our students chose rabbinical, cantorial, and education programs. The students had the opportunity to share their stories and raise their concerns, including about our admissions policy regarding interfaith relationships.

I heard consistent interest in exploring ways to provide our students with more multi-day trips during their year to experience Israeli life first-hand. I came away confident that our students are advancing their Hebrew skills and developing strong personal connections to Israel and a deeper understanding of the importance of Israel and Jewish Peoplehood to Jewish communities around the world.

Israeli Rabbinical Program and Alumni

Israeli rabbinical alumni at Leo Baeck Education Center, Haifa;
Dean Rabbi Naamah Kelman is at my right.

I met with the faculty of our Israeli Rabbinical Program, including its director, Rabbi Talia Avnon-Benveniste. The program has now ordained 108 Israeli rabbis, at a rate that is increasing during the last decade, with seven more to be ordained in November. One memorable learning from my conversations is that our alumni are interested in having HUC serve them where they are, primarily outside of Jerusalem. The Israeli Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (IMPJ) now has 45 Reform congregations throughout Israel, with concentrations in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and, of course, Jerusalem. The interest and desire of our Israeli alumni for continued learning from HUC spoke to the esteem with which they hold our faculty and our potential to shape liberal Jewish learning and religious experience throughout the country.

Rabbi Talia Avnon-Benveniste,
Director, Israeli Rabbinical Program

Rabbi Ofek Meir, Headmaster and Managing Director,
Leo Baeck Education Center, Haifa

Of special note were my meetings with alumni. I am grateful in particular to Rabbi Meir Azari, the staff at Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv, and Rabbi Ofek Meir and the staff at Leo Baeck Education Center in Haifa for hosting gatherings of dozens of our alumni to meet with me. Finally, I was inspired to see the strength of community and inspired leadership at Congregation Yozma in Modi’in where Rabbi Nir Barkin has mobilized and built a sustainable liberal Jewish congregation and school in little over a decade, building on the foundation of Rabbi Kinneret Shiryon.

Jewish Pluralism and Shared Society

Dr. Asher Cohen, President,
The Hebrew University

Rikma students, faculty, graduates, and
Director Dr. Michal Muszkat-Barkan (front, right)

In addition to our Year-In-Israel Program and Israeli Rabbinical Program, I spent time learning about HUC’s two very important Israeli educational programs that advance our commitment to Jewish pluralism and Palestinian-Israel coexistence. On the Jewish pluralism front, I spent time with current and former students of Rikma, our joint degree program with the Hebrew University directed by Professor Michal Muszkat-Barkan. This specialized, two-year M.A. program focuses on educational leadership with an emphasis on pluralism and community; it increases students’ capacity to teach and learn about Jewish and Israeli culture in innovative ways, celebrates diversity within Israeli society in Jewish and non-Jewish settings, while enriching tolerance education, and deepens ties to the Jewish people across geographical and denominational boundaries.

The Teachers’ Lounge Jewish, Muslim, and Christian participants

I also learned about the transformative work of our Teachers’ Lounge, which brings together Palestinian and Jewish Israeli teachers who work in separate schools (over 38 by now), to learn with one another about their narratives and experiences. I saw the work that Ulpan Milah, an independent program sharing our campus, is doing on our campus, bringing Palestinians and Jewish Israelis together to learn Hebrew.

Dr. Ruhama Weiss, Director,
Blaustein Center for Pastoral Care

Finally, I had the opportunity to sit in a culminating session of Sugiyot Chaim, an innovative certification program directed by HUC faculty member Dr. Ruhama Weiss, Director of the Blaustein Center for Pastoral Care, who has pioneered the concept of pastoral care in Israel and offers an innovative approach to spiritual and psychological resilience through interpretive textual analysis and more.

With Rabbi Gilad Kariv,
Executive Director, IMPJ

Anat Hoffman, IRAC Executive Director,
and Rabbi Noa Sattath, IRAC Director

Our ability to support Jewish pluralism and shared society depends on strong relationships with our partners, and I was grateful for meetings with the leadership of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) – Anat Hoffman (Executive Director) and Rabbi Noa Sattath (Director) – as well as Gilad Kariv, Executive Director of the IMPJ. And it was gratifying to see Rabbi Josh Weinberg, URJ Vice President convene alumni to emphasize the need for significant participation in the upcoming World Zionist Organization elections.

Alumni

Ivrit B’yachad alumni participants with
Provost Rabbi Andrea Weiss, Ph.D. (middle row, center)

In July, Jerusalem becomes a relatively small place in which a significant portion of the North American Jewish community convenes for learning and hafsaka (summer break)! This year, under the leadership of our Provost, Rabbi Andrea Weiss, we launched the first year of an alumni Ulpan, “Ivrit B’yachad,” a five-day immersive Hebrew language experience focused on conversational Hebrew for Reform religious leaders. The reviews have been uniformly positive, and we intend to repeat this program next summer.

Rabbi Dalia Marx, Ph.D.,
Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Liturgy and Midrash

Speaking at the Hartman Institute

Thanks to the efforts of HUC’s Chief Engagement Officer Rabbi Elliott Kleinman, our annual Alumni Day featured the installation of Rabbi Dr. Dalia Marx as the Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Liturgy and Midrash at the Taube Family Campus. She gave a compelling talk weaving texts that honored the memory of Aaron, z”l, and inspired the kahal (community). After lunch, I held a listening session with over 70 of our alumni about the future of HUC. And I was honored to address many of our alumni and others studying at the Shalom Hartman Institute, presenting on the topic of Zionism and American liberal Judaism on a panel with Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Director of T’ruah.

External Stakeholders

Meeting with President Reuven Rivlin

All educational institutions have an obligation to make a positive contribution to the external communities in which they operate. During my time, I was able to meet with a number of key external partners in the area, each of whom operates at different levels of Israeli society.

With President Reuven Rivlin

Most significant to me (particularly as a political scientist) was meeting with President Reuven Rivlin. President Rivlin is an important figure in Israeli society who, like most of Israel’s presidents, has been able to transcend partisan politics and use his largely ceremonial role for the good of all. Joining me in the meeting were Yaron Horovitz, HUC Governor and Chair of our Israel Board of Overseers, and our Taube Family Campus Dean, Rabbi Naamah Kelman. We spoke about his “four (or five) tribes” that in his view define Israeli society. And we discussed the role that HUC plays in bringing together all residents of Jerusalem to celebrate Jewish life and shared society in all of their colors.

With Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion

At a local level, our team also met with the new Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion, to discuss our continued progress toward creating a warmer, more welcoming, and open campus to take advantage of our unique location on King David Street between the David Citadel and King David Hotels. Mayor Lion struck me as committed more to the model of former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek than anything else. Less interested in using the position as a springboard to national politics, the Mayor appears interested in creating his legacy based on making Jerusalem more beautiful and attracting young people back to the city. I believe HUC, located literally just up the street from City Hall, can and will be a close partner in achieving Mayor Lion’s vision.

With Jewish Agency's Bougie Herzog

Finally, we explored ways to continue and strengthen our work on behalf of the Jewish People in a meeting with Isaac “Bougie” Herzog, Executive Director of the Jewish Agency, the international nongovernmental body that works to invigorate the relationship between Israel and Jewish communities worldwide, advancing the State of Israel and the cause of Jewish peoplehood.

I also had the opportunity to meet with Israeli journalists to talk about HUC’s purpose, Reform Judaism, and Israel-Diaspora relations and discuss HUC’s mission in Israel and its role in advancing pluralism.

Campus

In some ways, the real star of my three weeks in Jerusalem was the Taube Family Campus itself. Thanks to the investment of the Taube Philanthropies, the beautiful design of architect Moshe Safdie has been renewed and revitalized over the last three years, due to the impressive efforts of our campus COO Dganit Timor Jenshil, Vice President Liz Squadron, and Dean Kelman.

Skirball Museum

In addition to serving as the home for the programs described above, it also houses our Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archeology, with its Skirball Museum highlighting our important excavations at Tel Dan, Gezer, and Aroer, and our spectacular Zalman and Ayala Abramov Library. Physical space is meant to inspire, and the space now serves as the most appropriate canvas upon which our work educating our future leaders for academic, spiritual, and communal excellence plays out. I can do no better than share the photos that capture the splendor of the space, and express my deepest thanks to the Taube Philanthropies, whose naming investment, along with additional support from HUC Governor Marty Cohen, has made our campus truly sing.

Key Takeaways

The overview above represents only a partial report of my meetings and learnings while I was there. One important takeaway that I will be ruminating on in the months ahead is this: We are One-HUC operating on four campuses but we operate in two very different ecosystems of North America and Israel. As much as we are one people, and one HUC, it is also clear to me that we must be sensitive to context. While HUC has been and will continue to be a place to develop what Jewish Peoplehood is and means, particularly for liberal, progressive, and Reform Jews, we need to recognize some significant differences in three key areas.

First, students who study in our Israeli programs tend to be older and more likely to be pursuing second careers with families than our students generally on our stateside campuses. That means institution-wide questions of recruitment and admissions, curriculum, and support, along with whether or how to inspire new students to join our work will be inverted from our stateside programs, where our students are more likely to be pursuing a first career. How, for example, do we think about the opportunities and barriers to study for older students in our stateside programs? How do we think about seeding interest in Israelis to think about the rabbinate as a first career? The inversion of our two programs in terms of who they are serving provides an opportunity to learn from each to strengthen our whole.

Second, reflecting Israeli society, our Israeli students are more likely to be learning for themselves what a liberal approach to Jewish life looks like having been raised in a society where religious life is bifurcated between “Halachic” and “Israeli-Secular” approaches. They are thus both personally and professionally creating new structures in ways that challenge and inspire differently than for our stateside students and programs. Again, this is a place that we can look to learn from each other even as we have to respect the significant societal differences of training leadership against these different ecosystems.

Finally, and as anyone who has operated in the non-profit space in Israel knows, Israel is only in the beginning stages of developing philanthropic and volunteer leadership. That means new opportunities, but also challenges, in learning how to find meaningful on-ramps into our work within an ecosystem that is not used to providing such support.

Here I’d like to thank our own Governor Yaron Horovitz, whose partnership in a number of key meetings while I was in Israel and as Chair of our Israel Board of Overseers is making a significant difference. And of special note is the extensive commitment made by Rabbi Amy Perlin, member of our Board of Governors and Chair of our Israel Committee. These challenges will mean not only working with Yaron and others to seek pathways for Israeli lay leadership to learn and help us grow. Equally important is how we train and set expectations for our own staff in identifying partners who can work with them to bring professional and other skills to deepen and strengthen our work. I am certain that our own Zelikow School of Jewish Nonprofit Management can be a partner in developing the training, systems, and processes to strengthen our entire organization, and look forward to exploring this in the months ahead!

This is a long report and (believe it or not!) only scratches the surface. I conclude with a personal thank you to Dean Naamah Kelman and her excellent administrative team and program directors, who were critical in supporting my visit and making it such a success. Having HUC’s Chief Financial Officer Barbara Telek, Vice President of Business and Program Development Liz Squadron, and our Provost, Rabbi Andrea Weiss, there with me allowed me to more quickly integrate what I was seeing into my understanding of our College-Institute. I now have returned to the United States with a renewed excitement and energy about the potential of our programs in Israel to strengthen and deepen HUC as a singular institution. No other seminary, let alone institution of Jewish Professional Education in North America, operates such an extensive campus, with a diversity of programs, in Israel.

As I begin my residency here in New York in August, I continue to honor my promise to you as our key stakeholders in the College-Institute: to listen and learn, to explore and understand. For I know this much is true: we, more than any other institution in the world, have the network of alumni and the sheer resources to educate, train, and deepen professional Jewish education to strengthen our Jewish public sphere. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D.
President

PS: If you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, please feel free to contact me directly at arehfeld@huc.edu.