HUC-JIR Students to Lead Passover Seders in Former Soviet Union
For the sixth consecutive year, the HUC-JIR Pesach Project will bring 16 HUC-JIR students to the Former Soviet Union, where they will visit and conduct seders in 28 cities. The Pesach Project is coordinated by HUC-JIR students Jordan Helfman and Amy Goodman and supervised by Rabbi David Wilfond. The rabbinical and cantorial students, who are all spending their first year of study at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem, will be visiting the following communities in Russia: Chelyabinsk-Tyumen, Lipetsk-Moscow, JEEPS (Jewish English Speaking Expats), and St. Petersburg-Tver; in Belarus: Mogilev-Bobruisk-Vitebsk, Gomel, Baranovichi, and the Minsk cantorial festival; and in Ukraine: Poltava, Lvov, Odessa, Cherkass, Simferopil, Yevpatoria, and either Kerch or Feodosia. Last year, nearly 6,300 people attended the different seders held in Reform communities in the FSU.
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Dr. Arno Motulsky to Receive 2009 Dr. Bernard Heller Prize at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Graduation Ceremonies in Cincinnati
Rabbi David Ellenson, Ph.D., President of the HUC-JIR, has announced that the 2009 Dr. Bernard Heller Prize will be awarded to Dr. Arno Motulsky, Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Medicine and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Arno Motulsky escaped Nazi Europe as a teenager and is the "Father of Pharmacogenomics," the role of genetic variation in the response to drugs. The presentation will take place at Graduation Ceremonies at Isaac M. Wise Temple in Cincinnati on June 7, 2009 at 1 p.m.
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Helen Lieberman, Founder/Honorary President of Ikamva Labantu - Future of Our Nation - South Africa's Largest Community-based NGO Facilitating Positive Social Change To be Awarded Joseph Prize by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
HUC-JIR will bestow the 2009 Roger E. Joseph Prize upon Helen Lieberman, Founder and Honorary President of Ikamva Labantu - Future of Our Nation, in recognition of her exemplary work in providing programs and hope for the future for youth, the homeless, blind, aged, and disabled in South Africa. With more than 1,000 current projects assisting more than 70,000 people of all ages, including 45,000 children, Ikamva Labantu is the largest community-based, non-profit, non-governmental organization of its kind in South Africa. The presentation will be made at Ordination and Investiture Ceremonies at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York on May 3, 2009 at 9 a.m.
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Dr. Susan Einbinder Named NYPL Cullman Fellow
Rabbi Susan L. Einbinder, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew Literature at HUC-JIR, was awarded a fellowship from the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library (NYPL). Dr. Einbinder will spend the 2009-2010 academic year at the NYPL researching medieval Jewish physicians and the literature they wrote.
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Upcoming Events at HUC-JIR
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National Invitation to Graduation, Investiture, and Ordination
Rabbi David Ellenson, Ph.D., President of HUC-JIR, has announced the class of 2009, who will be ordained, invested, and graduated this spring in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, and New York. He said, "The Class of 2009 emerges from the College-Institute imbued with leadership skills, steeped in knowledge, strengthened by a commitment to service, and dedicated to bringing hope and healing to our troubled world. As they touch the lives of others through their sacred work as rabbis, cantors, educators, communal professionals, scholars, and pastoral care-givers throughout North America and around the world, they will be a source of inspiration and guidance." Rabbi Ellenson announced the Roger E. Joseph Prize, the 2009 Dr. Bernard Heller Prize, and recipients of the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa. HUC-JIR alumni will be awarded honorary Doctorates of Divinity, Music, Jewish Religious Education, and Jewish Communal Service, as well as the Founders' Medallion, in recognition of their 25 years of distinguished professional service.
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Study: Ethnic identification on the wane, spirituality rising among Jews - JTA
Younger Jews are more spiritually inclined than their forbears and are closing the "spiritual gap" between Jews and other religions, according to a new study from researchers at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. "Simply asking Jews about raising money to give money to Israel or Jewish causes and expecting they'll do it just because they're Jewish is yesterday's thinking," said Lawrence Hoffman, a professor at HUC-JIR who co-authored the report with the sociologist Steven Cohen. "Instead, they'll have to see some transcendent purpose of the Jewish people."
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Can Jewish Tradition Shed Light On The Financial Crisis? - The Jewish Week
Rabbi Michael Chernick, professor of Jewish jurisprudence and social justice at HUC-JIR/NY, and others discussed "Jewish Values and the Financial Crisis" in a panel on March 22 at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning, an arm of Temple Emanu-El.
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Wise writings can be viewed on new site - Cincinnati Enquirer
Wise, the 19th-century rabbi who was the founder of Hebrew Union College and one of the fathers of American Reform Judaism, wrote about conversations with Abraham Lincoln and exchanged letters with Harriet Beecher Stowe during his tenure in Cincinnati. Those documents are only a few available in the new digital archives at www.americanjewisharchives.org/wise. The collection includes about 20,000 original Wise documents and 19 of his books. Users can search for correspondence or photographs and can search by selected dates. There is an electronic discussion forum.
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New Economic Challenges, New Opportunities: The Unfolding of the Third American Jewish Revolution - eJewish Philanthropy
Professor Steven F. Windmueller discusses economic challenges and the impact of the economy on the American Jewish community.
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Concert is Homecoming for Cantor - St. Louis Jewish Light
Cantor Rosalie Will Boxt will perform with Cantor Susan Bortnick, Cantor Steven Weiss, and Rabbi Cantor Alison Wissot in April 5th St. Louis concert organized by Cantor Seth Warner.
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Spotlight on HUC-JIR's Programs and
Research Resources
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Faculty Lectures
Dr. Amira Amir has been lecturing in Italy for the past two years. In March 2009, she gave the lecture "Tamar Er's Wife An Accidental Heroine or Pioneer Feminist" at Centro di Studi Ebraici, ''L'Orientale" Universita degli Studi di Napoli and The Biblical Personnage of Tamar at Dipartimento di filosofia, Universita degli Studi di Torino. In December 2008, she lectured on "The sacrifice of Isaac as a test of Abraham - The power of emun" at La Sapienza Universita, Rome.
On February 20-22, Dr. Richard Sarason served as Scholar-in-Residence at Temple Beth El in Charlotte, NC, speaking about "Whither Reform Worship?" and "Mishkan T'filah in the Context of Reform Liturgies" On February 27, he gave a lecture for the Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University on "The (Not Quite) First Reform Prayer Book: Hamburg, 1819" Also, on March 26, both Richard Levy and Dr. Sarason taught in a conference call for Reform rabbis on "The Mahzor: Challange and Change" about Unetaneh tokef.
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Founded in 1875, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the nation's oldest institution of
higher Jewish education and the academic, spiritual, and professional development center of Reform Judaism.
HUC-JIR educates men and women for service to American and world Jewry as rabbis, cantors, educators, and
communal service professionals and offers graduate and post-graduate degree programs for scholars of all faiths.
With campuses in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, New York, and Jerusalem, HUC-JIR's scholarly resources comprise
renowned library, archive, and museum collections, the American Jewish Archives, biblical archaeology
excavations, research centers and institutes, and academic publications. HUC-JIR invites the community to an array
of cultural and educational programs that illuminate Jewish history, culture, and contemporary creativity, and
foster interfaith and multi-ethnic understanding.
Visit us at
www.huc.edu.
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