How Am I Spending My Summer?, part 1: June 2014
A question I frequently receive is “What are you up to for the summer?” As it turns out, it is not time off. Yes, school is out, so there is no programming, per se, with university (or high school) students. However, there are occasional Shabbat dinners with Beach Hillel, meetingsContinue Reading
Profiled in this Month’s Issue of “Long Beach Jewish Life”
It’s been a while since I’ve been profiled in a Jewish news medium, which is why I’m glad to share that I was profiled in this month’s issue of Long Beach Jewish Life (pages 6-9). The writer, Jon Strum, kicks off his article “To date, our Meet the Rabbi series hasContinue Reading
Convening on Post-Birthright Israel trip Engagement
Last week, I attended a Birthright Israel NEXT Western Regional NEXTwork Convening in Southern California, designed for Jewish communal professionals who work with young adults. The convening, which took place at The Ranch of the Leichtag Foundation in Encinitas on 16-17 June, focussed on engaging post-Taglit-Birthright Israel participants and encouragingContinue Reading
Back from “Birthright”: Follow-Up from our Taglit-Birthright Israel Trip Begins
A week and a half ago, I returned from Israel, having – for my first time – led a Taglit Birthright Israel trip. It was quite a trip and there is much to say about it! Look for future posts about the trip on this blog 🙂 One thing thatContinue Reading
Leading a Taglit-Birthright Israel Trip
I will be serving as one of two leaders on an upcoming Taglit-Birthright Israel trip and I’m very excited, as it will be my first time ever going as a trip leader (I went 13+ years ago on a trip as a participant). The trip provider with whom we willContinue Reading
Leading Discussions with SoCal Hillels this Spring
As the spring semester is wrapping up, I wanted to share which discussions I have led at which campuses here in Southern California, through my current position as rabbi of Southern California Jewish Student Services. I will start off with my two discussions at California State University, Fullerton with theContinue Reading
“Bourbons & Boundaries”: Discussion on Intermarriage in Classical Jewish Texts
The other night, I led an in-depth textual exploration of the prohibition of intermarriage in Judaism. It was the fourth and final event in a series to combine a spirits-tasting alongside a deep textual exploration of a topic in Jewish tradition in the 2013-2014 (5774) year. One of the moreContinue Reading
Celebrating a Bar Mitzvah
Last week, I joined with a family (and their friends and family) to celebrate their son becoming a bar mitzvah. A question I got frequently was, “Where is the Torah-reading?” When this family initially reached out to me in the summer of 2012, they indicated that they wanted to doContinue Reading
Young Adult Jewish Communal Professionals Conference?
One of my takeaways from having attended TribeFest last month is that many young adult Jewish communal professionals are really looking for something [that is not yet being offered to them] (when speaking about young adults, for the context of the organized Jewish community these days are 20s-30s (for some,Continue Reading
Experimenting with Different Teaching Modalities
Recently, I came to the realization that I was approaching each and every teaching opportunity as an experiment. As opposed to a set way of leading a discussion, I needed to different styles at each and every opportunity. I think I had come to the realization that the style to whichContinue Reading