By Gabrielle Ariella Kaplan-Mayer Chief Program Officer, Jewish Learning Venture   On Wednesday, February 1st, our inaugural cohort of Venture Israel Fellows arrived in Tel Aviv to begin a week of learning about and experiencing contemporary Israel through the eyes of artists, scholars, activists, and poets. The Venture Israel Fellowship, a new partnership funded by Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and facilitated with Jewish Learning Venture, aims to nurture a diverse network of Jewish professionals eager to create robust and engaging programming that brings evolving Jewish identity into dialogue with the dynamic complexity of today’s Israel. Along with JLV’s Chief [...]

by Rabbi Eric Yanoff To kick off Jewish Disability Awareness and Inclusion Month this year, at Adath Israel, we hosted a Lunch n’ Learn on Shabbat, at which someone asked a challenging question: “Where have we fallen short? Where are we deficient?” It was an important question – but I chose to answer in the opposite, more hopeful, direction: Where should we be striving? I’ve been thinking about this idea, of STRIVING. The act of striving – seeking something more – that, itself, the IDEAL we need to seek. Sometimes, we assume there is some “final, concrete” ideal out there [...]