Announcements #091: Rabbis Without Borders Fellowship

Announcement of CLAL Rabbis Without Borders Fellowship

Rabbis Without Borders is a new initiative of CLAL -The National Center for Learning and Leadership. A leader in religious pluralism, CLAL uses wisdom to deepen people’s civic and spiritual participation in American life. The mission of Rabbis Without Borders (RWB) is to nurture and develop a network of rabbis and rabbinical students who have a common vision to make Jewish wisdom an accessible resource to help people across religious and cultural borders enrich their lives. Given the current openness in American life, the time is ripe for rabbis to take a more active role in developing and disseminating Jewish wisdom to anyone who wants to enhance his or her life.

To help rabbis to lead the way in bringing Jewish ideas to the widest possible audiences, Rabbis Without Borders (RWB) is inviting applications for its first Rabbinic Fellowship Program. The Fellowship Program will bring together rabbis from across the country and across the ideological spectrum to study with leading thinkers, authors, and influential people working in the fields of media, politics, public policy, American religion, and contemporary spirituality. (*See below of a list of possible presenters.) These are the experts who spot the trends and identify the modalities through which Americans make meaning in their lives and use their religious/spiritual/ethnic identities to do so. By learning with these experts, rabbis will be better able to appreciate and contribute to the American religious landscape, especially beyond the borders of their respective denominations, institutions and communities.

Click here to read moreThe Rabbinic Fellows will gather six times in New York City over the course of one year beginning in June 2009 for a daylong seminar, which will include a presentation by a leading thinker, interactive discussion among the participants, text study in light of the topic presented, and time to network. Participants will also be expected to read selections in order to prepare for the seminars and interact between seminars by continuing conversations online. Attention will be devoted to concrete measures of how to incorporate our study into your work.

All travel costs will be covered, and participants will receive a stipend of $300, per visit, to offset any other costs.

To apply to be a RWB Fellow please expresses why you would like to participate in this program. Responses should be no longer than one page, double spaced type. Please include your name, current position, address, and email address. Applications should be sent to Rabbi Rebecca W. Sirbu at rsirbu@clal.org no later than May 1, 2009. Space is limited.

*The list of possible presenters: Newsweek editor John Meacham, Steven Waldman, the Editor-in-Chief, President and Co-Founder of Beliefnet, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America.



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