In recognition of the crucial role that campus professionals play in the development of the next generation of Jews and Jewish leaders, the Hartman Institute has created a new framework for ongoing study, enrichment, and intellectual leadership training, in partnership with Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. The Hartman Fellowship for Campus Professionals – launching in July 2012 – will cultivate a select cohort of early- and mid-career senior Hillel professionals as thought-leaders in their local communities and for college-age students across the continent, focusing in particular on the complexity and challenges of the North American relationship with Israel and on other major issues facing the Jewish people.
The core curriculum of the Fellowship will be drawn from the Hartman Institute’s Engaging Israel Project. College-aged youth often feel alienated from Israel and question its relevance to their lives. More than any other constituency, younger Jews are less convinced or motivated by the crisis narratives in which the traditional relationship with Israel was grounded. The Fellowship will train a select group of campus leaders to think in more sophisticated terms about Israel as a core element of Jewish life and to then cultivate substantive and compelling conversations about and relationships with Israel in the college communities they serve, connecting students to a deeper understanding of themselves as Jews and as members of the Jewish people.
The Director of the Hartman Fellowship for Campus Professionals is Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, who has served as the Executive Director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA for 36 years and is also a faculty member of the Hartman Institute. Fellows will gather for an opening one-week seminar at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem in Summer 2012 and a closing one-week seminar in Jerusalem in Summer 2013. In between, they will have two in-person seminars in the U.S. and will also meet biweekly by video conference to study with Hartman faculty.
We are pleased to announce the members of the inaugural cohort of the Hartman Fellowship for Campus Professionals, 2012-2013:
Rabbi Benjamin Berger, Ohio State University Hillel, Senior Jewish Educator
Ms. Jennifer Chestnut, Hillel at Kent State, Executive Director
Rabbi Serena Eisenberg, Hillel at Stanford, Executive Director
Ms. Robyn Fisher, University of Miami Hillel, Assistant Director
Mr. Michael Jeser, University of Southern California Hillel, Executive Director
Ms. Stephanie Krasman, Hillel of Greater Toronto, Assistant Executive Director
Mr. Daniel Libenson, Institute for the Next Jewish Future, President
Ms. Carly Maisel, Embassy of Israel, London, Public Affairs Manager
Rabbi Adam Naftalin-Kelman, Berkeley Hillel, Executive Director
Rabbi Esther Reed, Rutgers Hillel, Senior Associate Director
Rabbi Julie Roth, Center for Jewish Life – Hillel at Princeton University, Executive Director
Ms. Beverley Shimansky, Hillel Montreal, Director of Jewish Student Life
Ms. Clara Silver, Hillel at Eastern Michigan University, Executive Director
Mr. Michael Simon, Northwestern Hillel, Executive Director
Rabbi Michael Uram, Penn Hillel, Director and Campus Rabbi
