Leading Through Innovation

For Leaders

Leading Through Innovation

Equipping Emerging Jewish Leaders for Our Changing Religious Landscape

Leading Through Innovation (LTI) is Clal’s seminary course for rabbinical and cantorial students training for Jewish communal leadership.

Context

Today’s graduating clergy and Jewish professionals face a religious landscape unknown to their predecessors: changing demographics, shifting patterns of affiliation, and increasingly complex forms of spiritual identities, to which traditional religious communities have struggled to adapt. The result is a significant gap between the world for which their schools trained them and the one that they encounter upon graduation.

Content

LTI’s curriculum and student experience were developed in collaboration with 14 seminaries and leaders from throughout the Jewish world. We approach the above context in four main ways:

Cutting-edge Curriculum: The curriculum explores the sociology of 21st century North American religion, and tools from social innovation, user-centered design, and social impact changemaking.
Pluralism: The class is cross-seminary, containing perspectives from the full breadth of denominations (and beyond). Conversations yield a more diverse set of ideas, which prepares students to navigate an increasingly diverse spiritual landscape.
Practical Application: Students research and develop an innovative spiritual project from scratch. This project-based approach gives students hands-on experience with the tools and techniques of innovation and user-centered design. Students can dream big and let their imagination flourish.
Leadership Training: We offer frameworks and real-life models of leadership for this changing time, thereby addressing burnout, struggling communal institutions, and mission drift. We also teach core mindsets and adaptive leadership skills, and explore the connection between students’ faith, identity, and the change they want to bring into the world.

Logistics

The course has been taught for five years as a 13-week, for-credit, pass-fail course, plus a sixth year of a one-week winter intensive. Students enroll and pay tuition through their seminary. Dates and times are selected based on seminary schedules.

Impact

Over 140 leaders from 14 seminaries have taken Leading Through Innovation since 2020, many of whom have since graduated and are bringing their innovative approaches to Jewish community to congregations, institutions, and start-ups across the Jewish world. Explore some of the successful projects that have come out of the course below.

To learn more about Leading Through Innovation, contact Rabbi Julia Appel, Senior Director of Programs, julia@clal.org.

We’re grateful to partner with these seminaries:

At a Glance

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Students

Seminars

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Reported LTI gave them tools and language to better serve their community

Testimonials

From Participants

“Of all the classes I’ve taken, this one really gets it!”

“So often in seminary, we don’t learn the practical skills of leadership, and this class will be one of the most helpful classes for my career. I think that every rabbinical, cantorial, and M.A. student across the seminaries should either be really encouraged to take this course or it should be mandatory.”

“I now view my constituents as the center of gravity of my work. Their stories, experiences, and need teach me how to better serve the community. My role is not to be the teacher, but rather to be their student.”

For Leaders