College Commons

Are Jews white? Join Rachel Laser in a challenging discussion on white privilege and being a minority in America. Rachel Laser is currently working as a consultant on bridging racial and cultural divides. She advises, runs workshops, gives speeches, facilitates conversations and guest lectures about implicit bias, and also racism and privilege at nonprofits, law firms, government entities, universities, public and parochial schools, houses of worship, and community centers. She has also written about white privilege and racism, including Uncovering My White Privilege on Yom Kippur, Flawed But Determined: Becoming a White Supporter of Racial Justice, and her most recent piece Why I am Atoning for Racism. She has spent much of her career finding paths forward on divisive culture issues. Laser recently served as the Deputy Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC), the Reform Jewish Movement's Washington, DC office. From the RAC, she ran interfaith campaigns on a number of social jus

What is the relationship between science and Judaism? Rabbi Mitelman argues that you can value science and religion without rejecting either. Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the scientific and religious worlds, and is being incubated at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. His work has been supported by the John Templeton Foundation, Emanuel J. Friedman Philanthropies, and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, and his writings about the intersection of religion and science have appeared on the homepages of several sites, including The Huffington Post, Nautilus, Science and Religion Today, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and My Jewish Learning. He has been an adjunct professor at both the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and the Academy for Jewish Religion, and is a sought-out teacher, presenter, and scholar-in-residence throughout the country.

Here are the voices of HUC-JIR scholars and students, reflecting on Charlottesville - giving context to our shared experience. Included are: Rabbi Rachel Adler, Ph.D. Rabbi Adam Allenberg Meir Bargeron Dr. Sharon Gillerman Rabbi Richard Levy Rabbi Michael Marmur. Ph.D. Rabbi Aaron Panken, Ph.D. Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi, Ph.D. Sheryl Stahl Rabbi Dvora Weisberg, Ph.D. Dr. Yaffa Weisman Henry Wudl Dr. Sivan Zakai

Rabbi Jonah Pesner discusses the history and work of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the pressing social issues they address. Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner serves as the Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. He has led the Religious Action Center since 2015. Rabbi Pesner also serves as Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism, a position to which he was appointed to in 2011. Named one of the most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek magazine, he is an inspirational leader, creative entrepreneur and tireless advocate for social justice. Rabbi Pesner’s experience as a community organizer guides his pursuit of social justice. He has been a principal architect in transforming the URJ and guiding the Reform Movement to become even more impactful as the largest Jewish denomination in the world. Among other initiatives, he is a founder of the Campaign for Youth Engagement, a bold strategy to mobilize tens of thousands of young people in the Jewish community.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are Alice Greenwald's most moving and challenging projects. Join us for a probing discussion on the complexities of memorializing tragic events. As the chief executive, Alice Greenwald is responsible for the overall vision, financial well-being, management, and long-term sustainability and relevance of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. From 2006-2016, Ms. Greenwald served as Executive Vice President for Exhibitions, Collections, and Education and Director of the Memorial Museum. In this role, she oversaw the articulation and implementation of a founding vision for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, managing its programming, collecting, exhibition, and educational initiatives. Ms. Greenwald previously served as Associate Museum Director, Museum Programs, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Her 19-year affiliation with USHMM began in 1986, when she served as a member of the “Design Team” for the Permanent Exhibition.

Rabbi Scheinerman draws from a wide range of interests as she discusses the needs of the dying, interfaith work and her love of halakha. Rabbi Amy Scheinerman received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University, has studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Princeton Theological Seminary, and was ordained in 1984 at HUC-JIR/New York. She has served Conservative, Reform, and unaffiliated congregations, and has taught in a wide variety of venues. Rabbi Scheinerman has been involved in Jewish education across the spectrum, from preschool programming and family education, through education for the elderly and also those beset by Alzheimer’s. She maintains a popular website at scheinerman.net/judaism, which serves as an educational vehicle without borders, a Talmud blog at http://tenminutesoftalmud.blogspot.org, and a Torah blog at http://taste-of-torah.blogspot.com. Rabbi Scheinerman has served as a volunteer chaplain for the Howard County Police and hospice chaplain in a variety of venues. She is invo

Professor Walton discusses the challenges of interfaith worship, feminist theology's long journey and hierarchies in religious institutions.  Professor Janet Walton graduated from Catholic University with the B.M. in 1967, received the M.M. from Indiana University in 1971 and the Ed.D. from Columbia University in 1979. She is a Past President of the North American Academy of Liturgy(1995-97), a Henry Luce Fellow in Theology and the Arts (1998), the recipient of a Henry Luce Travel/Research grant (1988), the 2003 recipient of the AAR Excellence in Teaching award (2003) and the 2009 recipient of the Berakah Award, a lifetime award for distinctive work in worship given by the North American Academy of Liturgy. Professor Walton is a Roman Catholic and a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names, a congregation of catholic women. Her publications include four books, Worship and Art: A Vital Connection, Sacred Sound and Social Change, co-edited with Lawrence Hoffman, Women at Worship: Interpretations of North Amer

As a poet and translator, Dr. Back, discusses how her own poetic sensibility enables her to inhabit and translate the work of Israeli poet, Tuvia Ruebner. Rachel Tzvia Back is a poet, a translator of Hebrew poetry, a scholar and an educator. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a PEN Translation grant, a Dora Maar Brown Foundation Fellowship, and a Hadassah-Brandeis Research grant. In addition to five volumes of her own poetry (English) and a study of the poetics of the American poet Susan Howe (1999), Back has published important collections of Israeli poetry in translation. Her collection In the Illuminated Dark: Selected Poems of Tuvia Ruebner (Hebrew Union College Press and University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014) won the triennial Risa Domb/Porjes Prize in 2016, and was a finalist for both the National Translation Award in Poetry and the Jewish Book Council Award in Poetry in 2015. Her new translation collection On the Surface of Silence: The Last Poems of Lea Goldberg is for

In a probing exploration, Matan Koch, disability expert, leads us through a thoughtful discussion on how we language disability and the inadvertent benefits of privilege.  Matan A. Koch is a speaker, educator, and consultant, sharing ideas and strategies to promote the universal inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of society, using strategies that benefit everyone. His lifelong history of disability advocacy began at age four with a presentation to several hundred young people, continued with a term as the president of Yale University's student disabilities community, and reached its most recent high point with his appointment by President Barack Obama to the National Council on Disability, for a term which concluded in 2014.

Dr. Neil Levin discusses the history and the musical creativity and life of American Jewry. Artistic Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Milken Archive for Jewish Music since 1993, Neil W Levin has devoted his professional and academic life to the scholarly study of the music of Jewish experience from historical, musicological, ethnological, Judaic, and cross-cultural perspectives. While he has lectured, written, and taught courses on a diverse array of Jewish and Judaically related musical subjects spanning a broad spectrum of traditions, his particular areas of focus embrace comparative considerations of eastern and western spheres of Ashkenazi Jewry in terms of their sacred, secular art, theatrical, and folk music; and the musical creativity and life of American Jewry. As a professor of Jewish music on the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York since 1982, he has taught graduate courses on the history, development, graduate courses on the history, development, and repertoire

Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, HIAS vice president for Community Engagement, provides an overview of the immigration crisis and HIAS' role in helping the stranger. Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Vice President for Community Engagement, is mobilizing the Jewish community to advance HIAS’ work with refugees in the United States and around the world. Prior to coming to HIAS, Jennie played a catalytic role in building the Jewish social justice movement and the field of Jewish service as the director of the Jewish Life and Values Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She developed innovative initiatives such as the Selah Leadership Training Program and the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. Under Jennie’s leadership, the Jewish Life and Values Program also worked to amplify a progressive religious voice in America, advance American engagement in the Middle East peace process, and cultivate the environmental movement and women as agents of change in Israel.

Alana Newhouse, founder and editor-in-chief of Tablet Magazine, takes us on a thoughtful tour of Jewish journalism, identity and culture. Alana Newhouse is the editor-in-chief of Tablet Magazine, which she founded in 2009. Before that, she spent five years as culture editor of the Forward, where she supervised coverage of books, films, dance, music, art, and ideas. She also started a line of Forward-branded books with W.W. Norton and edited its maiden publication, "A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward." A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, Alana has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Slate, and others.

Erwin Chemerinsky, founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, discusses the immigration ban, states' rights issues, and the emoluments suit against the President. Erwin Chemerinsky is the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Prior to assuming this position in 2008, he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and before that was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School from 1983-2004, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He also has taught at DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School. He is the author of ten books, including The Case Against the Supreme Court, published by Viking in 2014, and two books to be published by Yale University Press in

In this first Bully Pulpit podcast produced for a live audience, Rabbi Marmur discusses Heschel's legacy and the possibility for community leadership. Rabbi Dr. Michael Marmur is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Previously, he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. In recent years he has taught courses in Theology, Homiletics, and Pluralistic Jewish Education.Born and raised in England, Rabbi Marmur completed a BA Degree in Modern History at the University of Oxford before moving to Israel in 1984.

Join Dr. Mann for a wide-ranging discussion on the influence of Jewish craftsmen in the Medieval period to how Jewish art engages with contemporary art. Professor Vivian Mann is Professor Emerita of Jewish Art and Visual Culture at The Jewish Theological Seminary. For many years Dr. Mann was Morris and Eva Feld Chair of Judaica at The Jewish Museum, where she created numerous exhibitions and their catalogs, among them Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy; Convivencia: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Spain; and, most recently, Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land. In 2010, Prof. Mann curated the exhibition Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians and Altarpieces in Medieval Spain at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA).

Rabbi Ellenson examines the tensions of Jews as they moved from seclusion in the pre-modern Jewish world to assimilation and the evolution of Reform Judaism. Rabbi David Ellenson, Ph.D., is Chancellor Emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies (Brandeis University), as well as Visiting Professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis. He served as President of HUC-JIR from 2001-2013. Ellenson is a prolific scholar of modern Jewish thought and history with a particular expertise in the emergence and development of Orthodox Judaism in 19th c. Europe. He has also written on Orthodox legal rulings on conversion in modernity, religion and state in Israel, contemporary Jewish movements, Jewish ethics, and emerging trends in Jewish life in North America. His writings include seven solo-authored or edited books and hundreds of articles and reviews, including peer-reviewed pieces and writings for the general public

Rabbi Gottlieb discusses contemporary technologies for the transformation and extension of pathways for Jewish learning. Rabbi Owen Gottlieb, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Interactive Games and Media at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is the founder and lead researcher of the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at the RIT MAGIC Center, the Institute’s state of the art research laboratory and game studio. In 2010, Rabbi Gottlieb founded ConverJent: Jewish Games for Learning. Gottlieb’s mobile augmented reality game Jewish Time Jump: New York was nominated for Most Innovative Game by the 10th Annual Games for Change Festival in 2013. Current projects include a strategy card-to-mobile game to teach medieval religious legal codes, beginning with Maimonides Mishneh Torah. The digital prototype of the game is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Rabbi Gottlieb and William Braniff (University of Maryland) also recently presented on Video Games and Countering Violent Extremism (C

Worship and prayer are at the center of Jewish life. Cantor Sacks explores how we can continue to create meaningful and transformative worship experiences through music and song. Cantor Sacks serves as the Senior Cantor of Temple Emanuel in Denver, Colorado. Raised in New York, Cantor Sacks was ordained as a cantor in 2007 from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR). She was a recipient of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship in Jewish communal leadership and earned several awards as a cantorial student for Traditional Hazzanut, Talmud, and Midrash. Cantor Sacks holds a B.A. in Jewish Studies and Music from Harvard University where she was active in Harvard Hillel and music community service programs. From 2007-2012, Cantor Sacks served as the Associate Cantor at Central Synagogue in New York, where she focused on worship, education and young professional engagement. Cantor Sacks was also a faculty member at Mechon Hadar, an educational institute that empowers Jews to create and sustain

Law professor and author, Eric Segall, investigates central myths about the Supreme Court and its judges. Eric J. Segall is Kathy and Lawrence Ashe Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law. Prior to his joining the College of Law faculty, he clerked for the Honorable Charles A. Moye, Jr. (1983-1985) and the Honorable Albert J. Henderson, Jr. (1985-1987), after which he engaged first in private practice with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (1986-1987) and subsequently in public service at the United States Department of Justice (Federal Programs Branch, Civil Division, 1987-1991). Segall is a scholar of constitutional law. He has published "Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is Not a Court and Its Justices Are Not Judges" (Praeger, 2012), over thirty articles and reviews in law reviews, and numerous editorials, essays, and blog posts on pressing issues of legal and constitutional concern.

American and Israeli Jews diverge in ways fundamental to their native soil. Join Alan Cooperman in a discussion of the light it shines on the Jewish American experience. Alan Cooperman is director of religion research at Pew Research Center. He is an expert on religion’s role in U.S. politics and has reported on religion in Russia, the Middle East and Europe. He plays a central role in planning the project’s research agenda and writing its reports. Before joining Pew Research Center, he was a national reporter and editor at The Washington Post and a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press and U.S. News & World Report. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1982 and started in journalism at the Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass. He is an author of Mormons in America, Muslim Americans, the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey, “Nones” on the Rise and A Portrait of Jewish Americans. He also was the primary editor of Global Christianity and Global Restrictions on Religion. He has appeared on