Designed to expand Clal’s intellectual reach while strengthening our teaching bench, the fellowship creates a space for generative learning and shared leadership across denominational and professional lines. In keeping with Clal’s belief that leadership begins with listening and flourishes in relationship, Fellows gather six times over the course of the year at Clal’s Manhattan office for intensive study and practical leadership skill-building. Alongside Clal faculty, Fellows both learn and teach, bringing their own Torah and lived expertise into dialogue with Jewish tradition and contemporary thought. Fellows also extend this learning outward, through their public writing and application in their own communities and institutions.

Each year, the fellowship centers on a core theme that responds to the pressing needs of Jewish leadership today. This year’s focus is trust—what it is, why it is fraying in our culture, and how Jewish wisdom can help us repair and renew it. Fellows are exploring trust in the context of grief and grievance, vulnerability, and communal rupture. The fellowship equips rabbis to lead through complexity, strengthening their capacity to guide communities in an anxious and polarized moment.