About the Courageous Leadership Canada Initiative

The Courageous Leadership Canada Initiative aims to strengthen the pipeline for Jewish leadership by providing a high-level study experience rooted in Jewish texts that address the key challenges of Jewish life in small and mid-sized Canadian communities.

Jewish life across Canada is rich, vibrant, and diverse. Canada’s smaller centres of Jewish life each hold their own unique history and share similar challenges and opportunities. The Courageous Leadership Canada Initiative invites a select group of leaders from communities including Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and beyond to consider some of the major questions facing Jewish life through study and cross communal conversation.

The Initiative includes two cohorts, one of lay and professional leaders who will learn together throughout the year and one of professionals who will participate in an Israel-intensive experience in summer 2025. Through convening both virtually and in-person, hosting guided conversations, and by providing access to ideas and frameworks offered by leading scholars from the Shalom Hartman Institute, the program equips leaders with elevated values-based Jewish learning that will help them to:

• Identify and grapple with some of the most pressing Jewish questions and issues of today
• Bring Jewish values and ideas into the heart of their leadership
• Adopt a mindset that inspires them to be confident and courageous in their leadership
• Deepen their opportunities for engagement with leaders leaders from across communities
• Engage with others across a diverse range of perspectives
• Strengthen the convening power of smaller Canadian Jewish communities and develop a shared vision for vibrant Jewish life for the future