In State of the University Address, President Joel Recounts Progress, Outlines Challenges and Articulates Renewed Vision for the Future
In his first State of the University address, Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel announced on September 12 that he would accept the Board of Trustees’ offer to extend his term until June 2018 for a planned 15 years in office and outlined his vision for a united and prosperous University, both as an academic and as a communal institution.
“It is here, in this complex and special space, that we can see our future,” said the president before hundreds of alumni, students, faculty and staff in the Gottesman Library Heights Lounge on the Wilf Campus. Hundreds more watched the streaming broadcast of the address online. “If I listen carefully, I hear the murmurings of a consecrated conversation taking place here—a conversation between Torah and the world, between tradition and modernity, between the sacred contents of this beautiful bastion of wisdom and the wide world around it so desperately yearning for the dissemination of those contents.” Read the rest of this entry…
Founded in 2005, the CJF– among other activities–now educates hundreds of ordained rabbis through its Rabbinic Training Placement and Continuing Education program; sends 1,000 students every year to help communities around the world through its Experiential Education and Service Learning program; makes 60,000 shiurim of YU rabbis and others available online through YUTorah.org; helps YU students and alumni find their intended through YUConnects.org; and sets up kollelim around the country through its Community Initiatives program.
This summer, the CJF ran day camps in five Israeli development towns: Dimona, Arad, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, and Beersheba. Staffed by 60 YU students, the camps serviced over 350 Israeli children.
The Jewish Press recently spoke with Rabbi Kenneth Brander, David Mitzner Dean of the CJF, about the summer camps.Read the rest of this entry…
Hundreds of Community Leaders Gather to Address Challenges Facing Orthodoxy
For four days in August, Orlando, FL, was the epicenter of a series of nationwide conversations in Orthodox communities across North America. The Seventh Annual ChampionsGate National Leadership Conference convened more than 450 rabbinic, educational and lay leaders from 92 locales across North America to address their most pressing communal challenges. The theme of the conference was “Shmitta: Reflection, Celebration, Renewal.”
“ChampionsGate 2012 was a profound celebration of a vision of Jewish values and community,” said Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel. “Together with community leaders we demonstrated how we partner together and create a tremendous resource to help build and advance community.” Read the rest of this entry…
Yeshiva University Scholars Reflect on the Daf Yomi Phenomenon
Last night some 90,000 people gathered at the MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey for a ceremony celebrating the 12th completion of the daily reading of the Talmud (Siyum ha-Shas). The event followed similar ceremonies, in Jerusalem,Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, London, Melbourne, and other cities and communities around the world, in which thousands more participated in person or via closed-circuit TV.
Tens of thousands celebrated the conclusion of the a seven-and-a-half-year Daf Yomi cycle on August 1.
These events honor the conclusion and re-commencement of a seven-and-a-half-year cycle in which people—individually, with partners, or in groups—learn a folio page (two facing pages) of the Babylonian Talmud each day in a tradition known as daf yomi, “a page a day.”
The tradition was established by Rabbi Meir Shapiro, the Hasidic rebbe of Lublin. Rabbi Shapiro proposed the idea to the Agudath Israel convention in Vienna in August, 1923, and the enterprise was launched with much fanfare the following Rosh Hashanah. Over the course of the 12 cycles completed thus far, the number of learners has burgeoned to many tens of thousands around the world.
To mark the occasion, Jewish Ideas Daily invited several prominent thinkers, including Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter and Moshe Sokolow to reflect on the phenomenon of daf yomi and their own engagement with the practice. Read the rest of this entry…
YU Certificate Program Professionalizes Field of Experiential Jewish Education
They work for Hillel, NCSY, Maimonides, Birthright and other Jewish organizations. They range in education and background experience from recent college graduates to seasoned non-profit veterans. Between them, they have accompanied hundreds of people of all ages on Jewish journeys across the globe, engaging in volunteer work and teambuilding exercises, reflecting on issues of Jewish identity and community, and inspiring others to live meaningful lives centered on Jewish values.
Using their iPads, program participants learn about multi-disciplinary engagement and technology integration.
“The field of experiential Jewish education is still in its early stages, with significant opportunities for improvement and important lessons to be learned,” said Dawne Bear Novicoff, senior program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation. “YU’s Certificate Program is an excellent new training model for the field and will help share best practices that educators can apply directly to their work.” Read the rest of this entry…
CJF Summer Missions Explore Jewish Identity and Global Responsibility in Haiti, Germany
Yeshiva University students grappled with complex questions of Jewish identity and responsibility in a global context as they traveled to Haiti and Germany this summer on two concurrent programs run by YU’s Center for the Jewish Future.
Jonathan Adler, left, and Yaniv Lautman, right, run educational programming for children in a school located in Bel Air, Haiti.
From June 10-17, in partnership with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and with support from the Repair the World Foundation, 16 students participated in a disaster relief mission to Haiti, a developing country still reeling from the impact of a massive January 2010 earthquake. There, they worked with other aid organizations to run educational programming for children, restore homes and renovate community facilities, including an impoverished medical center and a damaged soccer field, and met with local leaders to learn more about Haitian history and the crises the country now faces. Read the rest of this entry…
Film Produced by Orthodox Union and Center for the Jewish Future to be Screened at Synagogues Worldwide on July 29
Thousands of Jews in more than 100 communities around the world will join together this Tisha B’Av to view an inspirational video presented by Yeshiva University and the Orthodox Union (OU). The video, titled “Making Tisha B’Av Meaningful to Us Today,” is a project of YU’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) and the OU, and will be screened in some 250 synagogues across the U.S. and internationally in Australia, Canada, Israel, Poland, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Read the rest of this entry…
YU Israeli Summer Camp Service Learning Initiative to Serve 300 Underprivileged Campers
The Yeshiva University Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) announced today that its Counterpoint Israel Program, a month-long service-learning initiative that aims to empower the next generation of Israeli youth via an exciting, Jewish values-driven summer camp experience, has tripled in size with the addition of three new camps in Beer Sheva, Kiryat Gat and Kiryat Malachi.
With the program returning to the communities of Arad and Dimona as well, Counterpoint Israel will serve 300 Israeli campers from varied socio-economic backgrounds in five student-run camps from July 3 – August 5.
CJF Program Emphasizes Professional and Religious Leadership in Communities Across the Country
This summer Yeshiva University will once again host an assortment of learning and internship programs in cities across the country. Presented by YU’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) and Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) in partnership with local Jewish communities, the YU Summer Learning and Internship Series will feature adult and youth programming, shiurim [lectures] and Torah and Talmud study for both men and women.
Some 45 YU students, kollel members and faculty will oversee the programs taking place in Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Los Angeles, California; South Bend, Indiana and Stamford, Connecticut. Read the rest of this entry…
On Brink of Professional and Academic Careers, New Graduates Reflect on Undergraduate Experience
They are art historians, human capital consultants and biotechnologists. They come from Jerusalem, Montreal and Miami. They’ll be pursuing cutting-edge graduate work at first-class institutions like Harvard and New York University. They’ll build their own businesses from the ground up. And they’ll also be giving back by teaching at schools for children with special needs and developing innovative educational programs about world issues.
They’re the Yeshiva University Class of 2012.
On May 24, more than 750 students will march across the Izod Center stage at Yeshiva University’s 81st Commencement Exercises, as they celebrate the completion of their undergraduate careers. However, these new alumni know their education is far from over.
As they begin the next chapter of their lives, members of the graduating class reflected on the good times, the defining moments and the takeaways of their unique YU experiences. Read the rest of this entry…
