The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture is now accepting applications for the North American mini-Nahum Goldmann Fellowship, which will take place at the Minto Suite Hotel in Ottawa, Canada. The Nahum Goldmann Fellowship, sponsored by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, provides an intensive experience in Jewish living, learning and leadership for young men and women from around the world between the ages of 25-40 who show serious interest in Jewish culture and demonstrate a potential for individual growth and communal leadership.

The Memorial Foundation has organized twenty-two international Fellowships since 1987 in Western and Eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union, Australia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, South America and Israel.  Faculty at these Fellowships have included some of the most distinguished academics and scholars from around the Jewish world.  Following each of the past Fellowships, Fellows returned and assumed leadership positions in their communities.  In recent years we have expanded our international fellowship model to also include mini fellowships for specific countries and geographic regions.  The most recent one organized in South Africa proved to be immensely successful.  We are therefore accelerating the organization of these minis in several parts of the world during the next two years. 

Attached is a schedule and program for the mini-Nahum Goldmann Fellowship in North America, our first organized effort on this continent.  The theme, Redefining and Reconfiguring our Normative Connections, we believe is both timely and provocative.  The faculty chosen — Prof. Jack Wertheimer, Prof. of Jewish History, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and  Prof. Saul Berman, Adjunct Professor, Columbia University School of Law, are among the outstanding veteran teachers at past Nahum Goldmann Fellowships; and Prof. Irving Abella, formerly the Schiff Professor of Canadian Jewish Studies at York University in Toronto, and now Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Vered Jewish Canadian Studies Program at the University of Ottawa.  Prof. Abella has also served as past President of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
 
For more information and to obtain an application form, please contact The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture: phone: (212) 425-6606; fax: (212)425-6602; email: [email protected]; or by mail: 50 Broadway, 34th floor, New York, NY 10004, USA.

The Mini-Nahum Goldmann Fellowship Schedule

Redefining and Reconfiguring Our Normative Connections

Sunday, March 27, 2011
1:00 pm               Check In and Registration
3:00 pm               Orientation
3:30-5:30 pm      Workshop: What Can We Learn From Each Other 
6:00 pm               Dinner
7:00-10:00 pm   Opening Plenary Session:  Contemporary Jewish Society in North America : 
                              A Canadian Perspective – Prof. Irving Abella
                              An American Perspective- Prof. Jack Wertheimer

Monday, March 28, 2011
8:00 am               Breakfast
9:00 am               Second Plenary Session:  Redefining and Reconfiguring our Normative Connections:  
                              Between Contemporary Jewish Society and Our Covenantal Community Prof. Saul Berman
12:00 pm             Lunch
1:30 pm               Discussion Groups: Redefining and Reconfiguring our Normative Connections:  
                              Between Contemporary Jewish Society and Our Covenantal Community
4:30 pm               Coffee Break & Recreation
6:00 pm               Dinner
7:00 pm               Third Plenary Session:  Redefining & Reconfiguring our Normative Connections:  Between the Jewish People and the Land of Israel

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
8:00 am              Breakfast
9:00 am              Discussion Groups:  Redefining & Reconfiguring our Normative Connections:  Between the Jewish People and the Land of Israel
11:00 am           Concluding Plenary Session
                            Where Do We Go From Here?