Rabbinic and Professional Leadership Programs

CLAL is training a cadre of North American rabbis and professionals to embody the principles of pluralism and become facilitators of cultural transmission and change. Learning the CLAL method, they act as catalysts, provoking their communities to move towards openness, pluralism and creativity, and to support other institutions in their Jewish experimentation.

Rabbinic and professional education programs reinforce a set of common objectives:

	Heightening participants' sensitivity to the Jewish significance of ostensibly secular areas of life
	Introducing the principles and methods of pluralist conversation and text study
	Increasing participants' awareness of the Jewish significance of communal institutions beyond the synagogue
	Enhancing each participant's ability to creatively use inherited rituals in deepening important personal life experiences

To learn more about our professional education programs, click on any of the following links:

• CLAL Graduate/Rabbinical Student Internship Program

• CLAL Postgraduate Fellowship Program

• CLAL Rabbinic Community Online
  

Graduate/Rabbinical Student Internship Program

CLAL's Student Internship Program brings together rabbinic students from across the denominational spectrum with doctoral students pursuing degrees in any field for weekly sessions of study and dialogue. The program’s purpose is to create a forum for interdisciplinary discussions exploring the range of identities, experiences, and institutions that constitute contemporary American Jewish life.

Over the course of the academic year, participants meet in groups of nine, together with CLAL faculty. The work of the program includes readings in historical and sociological scholarship, onsite explorations of cultural, educational and commercial venues around New York City, and collaborative projects and presentations. Issues participants examine include: What are considered defining markers of "Jewish identity"? What are the religious, cultural, and political stakes in defining Jewish or other identities and communities in particular terms? How are the ways and places people are making meaning in their lives-from Internet chat rooms to corporate "public spaces" to storefront churches-changing or staying the same? How do younger generations understand history, art, consumerism and media in new ways? How will educators, rabbis, and communal leaders have to reckon with these questions in years to come?

Each group will include two doctoral students. Other participants will include rabbinical students from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform), Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative), Academy for Jewish Religion (non-denominational), Yeshiva University (Orthodox), and Hovevei Torah (Orthodox). Students from Drisha, a women's yeshiva, also participate.

There are weekly two-hour sessions, held at CLAL's office, that run from 4:00-6:00 p.m. on either Monday or Wednesday. In addition to these sessions, interns are expected to spend approximately two hours each week on preparation, meetings with CLAL faculty advisors, and related projects. Interns will also meet five times each semester with a study partner who represents a different denominational or disciplinary perspective.

"The CLAL Student Internship gave me a chance to see firsthand the beauty and struggles that each one of us faces in our movements. Each afternoon reinforced in me the tremendous need for dialogue, in conjunction with action, among Jews in order to better the Jewish world." —Rabbi Sherre Zwelling, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, NY

Three times per year, participants in the CLAL Rabbinic Internship Program invite their fellow graduate and seminary students to a Student Chevra, an evening of study and conversation. Chevra programs each draw an average of 60 rabbinic and graduate students, representing all of the major East Coast seminaries and the Drisha Institute. The Chevra program gives rabbinic and graduate students what may be their only opportunity to have dialogue with their counterparts from other denominations and disciplines.

These experiences provide an inspiring example for the entire Jewish community of how future leaders may embrace an open, generous, and appreciative vision of Jewish community, its history, its leadership, and its future challenges.

Applications are typically due before the end of May.

For more information and application materials, contact Tsvi Blanchard.

The CLAL Post-Graduate Fellowship Program

The Rabbi Irving S. Greenberg CLAL Post-Graduate Fellowship Program selects outstanding rabbis, academics and professionals for an immersion year of study with CLAL faculty in Jewish culture and theology and the CLAL teaching method. Graduates of this program, now in its twelth year, have assumed major rabbinic and communal positions throughout North America (including Rabbi Irwin Kula, the first alumnus of the program and CLAL's President). In 1998 the program was named for Rabbi Irving Greenberg, CLAL's Founding President, who continues to teach the Fellows every week.

"The CLAL Fellowship helped me to deepen my teaching and writing by fusing the best of western secular thought with a meaningful Jewish philosophy." —Rabbi Daniel Brenner, Steinhardt Fellow, 1997-1998, New York, NY

CLAL Post-Graduate Fellows are rabbis, academics or professionals, early in their careers, who have achieved success or demonstrated particular promise. The CLAL Post-Graduate Fellowship is a one-year faculty position, running from September 1st to August 31st of the following year, with the possibility of a full-time position at CLAL on completion of the Fellowship. In addition to their studies, Fellows are each assigned a project and teaching assignments that reflect their experience and training. The Fellowships offer a substantial stipend.

"Jewish communities are hungering for language with which to connect to Judaism. As a CLAL Fellow I learned the 'grammar' necessary to make a meaningful language." —Rabbi Benay Lappe, Spielberg Fellow, 1997-1998, New York, NY

As a result of their studies and their work experience, CLAL Fellows acquire:

	Mastery of, and the ability to train others in, methods of facilitating mutually respectful and pluralist conversations
	The ability to evaluate the implications of contemporary socio-economic and cultural trends for the future of Judaism
	The ability to employ inherited Jewish texts and traditions to address the core concerns of North American Jews
	The ability to show the Jewish significance of apparently secular areas of life
	A deep understanding of the narrative quality of individual and community identity
	A positive attitude towards Jewish diversity
	Respect for the special contribution of each movement within Judaism and the ability to communicate critiques of movements in a positive and respectful fashion
	A deep understanding of the structure of Jewish institutional life and the range of contemporary expressions of Jewishness in North America

For more information, contact Tsvi Blanchard.

CLAL Rabbinic Leadership Retreat

At CLAL Rabbinic Leadership Retreats, rabbis from across North America share visions, explore the impact of modernity on Jewish life and develop new tools for strengthening community within and beyond the synagogue. The Rabbinic Leadership Retreat is a remarkable setting for cooperation, dialogue and transformation among North America's Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal and post-denominational rabbis. The more than 350 retreat alumni are in the vanguard of inter-denominational cooperation and Jewish creativity.

"The CLAL Rabbinic Retreat allows us to all sit at a table, away from defensiveness, animosity, and any preconceived notions we may have had one toward the other, and share on a deep intimate level our feelings about our movements, the good, the bad, and the ugly. For a moment in time, we all create a world where we would view each other not as Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Reconstructionist Jews. Rather we would look at each other as Jews created in the image of God—Jews who simply had 'conflicting truths' in our approaches to Judaism. A powerful lesson indeed." —Rabbi Stephen Kahn, Temple Sinai, Denver, CO

Rabbis gather for four-and-a-half days of stimulating and often emotional dialogue and study. CLAL faculty lead the participants in workshops and study sessions intended to explore and appreciate the variety of views rabbis hold about Judaism and the future of the Jewish people. Through these conversations, the rabbis discovered new and more expansive possibilities for understanding Jewish identity in the contemporary age. Alumni/ae of CLAL rabbinic programs join an extensive network for which CLAL provides regular renewal retreats and on-line discussions and study on the CLAL Web site.