THE 19th INTERNATIONAL NAHUM GOLDMANN FELLOWSHIP

SITE                    Kinneret, Israel

DATE                  June 2007


Nahum Goldmann Fellowship XIX, held on the shores of the Kinneret from June 4-12, was a first for the Foundation on several accounts: the first fellowship to be held in Israel, the first international reunion of alumni of the fellowship, and the first time the leadership of the Foundation met face to face with fellows from Jewish communities on six continents. The program was a resounding success on all of the above scores.

The first international reunion in the two decade history of the Fellowship meeting was planned as more than a chance to meet and greet old friends. It was intended to select fellows from among the more than 600 alumni of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship who have amply demonstrated deep commitment to the intensification of Jewish culture in their communities and provide them with an opportunity to both upgrade their skills, contacts and motivation, and contemplate achieving a higher level of cultural and communal leadership in their community.

In the rich program we organized there were many highlights and special moments. The academic lectures were of the highest level from the most distinguished faculty we have ever assembled.

View group photo enlarged

The Israel Connection
What was most unique about the Fellowship is that it is the first time that we have organized a Fellowship in Israel. All the 18 past seminars were held in the Diaspora, aimed primarily at building leadership in Diaspora Jewish communities.

The most compelling reason for organizing the meeting in Israel was ideological. Although most of the Fellows in the past had positive feelings and/or experiences in Israel and were committed in some degree to Zionism, it was absolutely clear to us over the last decade that most of them did not possess a real, meaningful comprehension of the connection between the Jewish people and the land and State of Israel philosophically, historically and culturally. In our judgment, it is impossible for anyone to be a leader in the Diaspora today without fully understanding that connection. This connection was one of the central themes in the Kinneret seminar.

The lectures chosen for this theme, Eretz Yisrael and the State of Israel: The Historical Encounter, Eretz Yisrael and the State of Israel: The Philosophic Encounter and The Future of Zionism presented by Professors Eliezer Schweid and Anita Shapira and Gen. Moshe Yaalon respectively were all superb. Some of the fellows also heard a presentation by Justice Elyakim Rubinstein of the Supreme Court in a post-seminar program during a visit to the Supreme Court of Israel, on “The Challenge of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State”?.

In addition to the lectures, the Israeli fellows, selected from the elite sector of Israeli society, and who were completely integrated into the fellowship from its outset, provided authentic examples and effective interpretation of that connection. The Israeli fellows were an enormous asset in the success of this aspect of the program, even taking into account the intense discussion and debate about the “style of life”? and ideational differences between Israel and the Diaspora.

Most difficult to articulate, but impossible to discount, was the beautiful site of our meeting on the southern tip of the Kinneret, with the Golan Heights ranged on the opposite side of the sea, providing us with a stunning landscape for the fellowship. Together with our tours to Tsfat and Jerusalem, the land itself undoubtedly impacted on the consciousness of the fellows.

If our past experience at previous seminars can serve as a guide, the full impact of the Israel connection, as well as other facets of this fellowship, will be absorbed only after the fellows return home and have the opportunity to assimilate their intense experience at the Israeli fellowship. The rousing rendition of the Hatikva at the concluding session of the seminar, at the fellows' initiative, was already evidence of their incipient bonding with Israel.

In addition to the serious learning that was such a prominent and successful part of the Israel Nahum Goldmann Fellowship, more attention than in past seminars was devoted in the Israel seminar to the enlargement of programmatic initiatives and innovations.

The discussion groups in Israel were devoted, not to political or welfare issues, but to achieving Jewish cultural distinctiveness, a concern that we believe needs to be at the core of leadership efforts in the revitalization and intensification of Jewish culture in their communities. The results of the discussion groups, both for the fellows and their encounter with members of the Executive Committee, organized and undertaken under the total aegis of the Fellows' leadership, were certainly one of the major highlights of the Israeli Nahum Goldmann Fellowship.

The Spirit of Klal Yisrael
Everyone who was present at the 19th Nahum Goldmann Fellowship - faculty, Foundation staff, Executive Committee members and the fellows themselves would readily testify that the most outstanding feature of the Israeli program was the intense bonding that occurred among the Fellows. It cut across all geographic, ideological, religious and age lines. More remarkable yet is that it took only one to two days for the connections to be established.

Some would classify that phenomenon as a quasi-family or community. I believe it more appropriately defined as a “Klal Yisrael” moment, because that spirit of solidarity and fellowship grew out of a unique recognition achieved and acknowledged by the fellows. Despite the deeply held beliefs and ideologies they represented to which they were firmly committed and which were very intensely discussed and debated at the Fellowship, albeit respectfully and civilly, they also came to recognize and accept that the bonds that united them personally had no less transcendental value than the different beliefs and values they held so strongly. These bonds were heavily fortified in the cascade of talk among the Fellows - after the lectures and workshops, during meals, coffee breaks, and the “schmoozing”? very late into the night on the beach, campus, and in their rooms. It was also substantially strengthened by the “fun”? they were experiencing together, a powerful bonding component at the fellowship, during the swimming in the Kinneret, the bonfires at night, and just being together and enjoying the company and companionship of the other fellows.

Our Sabbath experience together - a tapestry of happenings woven by the Fellows - consolidated the multitude of contemporary tribes of the Jewish people that were represented at the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship, from Minsk to Mumbai. It transformed the fellowship into an authentic community and living microcosm of the Jewish people that captured and expressed the essence and spirit of Klal Yisrael totally.

The Sabbath began with a lovely candle lighting ceremony in which all the women participated, swaying together, softly humming a lovely Chassidic melody, led by an Israeli fellow, Lishai Mishali, from a secular background who had never before lit Sabbath candles, and Jeni Friedman, a conservative Rabbi from the United States. The Friday night service followed on the rooftop terrace of the dining room, with an unobstructed view of the Kinneret from all sides. Watching the sun descend behind the pink-shrouded Golan Heights, all of us were enveloped in a rare spiritual tranquility. Although attendance at prayers was optional, everyone was present that night at the Carlebachian service, led by an Australian fellow, Ronny Schnapp from Canberra, the capital city of Australia with only several hundred Jews. The “Lecha Dodi”? greeting of the Sabbath Queen and a moving communal dance in which all joined, were truly magical moments, held about thirty miles from Tsfat which we had visited earlier that Friday and where the welcoming of the Sabbath Queen was introduced into the Jewish liturgy. Five centuries later, representatives of entirely different Jewish civilizations from all around the world experienced together the scent of that historic moment. That spirit infused the rest of the Sabbath day and its meals, until the beautiful Havdallah service on the beach of the Kinneret that night.

It was not only the bonding of the fellows that constituted the spirit of Klal Yisrael at the fellowship. It was also the blending of the diverse legacies of our people.
Indeed, the Kinneret could serve as a metaphor of what we sought to accomplish at the 19th Nahum Goldmann Fellowship. The Kinneret region includes two important eras and places in Jewish history - Tiberias, which represents the great legacy of Jewish learning and scholarship, especially in the Talmudic era; and the surrounding areas, the sites of the first Jewish settlements in Palestine, where the earliest articulation of Zionist ideology and the beginnings of the expressions of modern Hebrew poetry by Racquel and others took place.

If it is not possible to fully integrate these two distinct phases in Jewish history, we were successful at the Israeli Nahum Goldmann Fellowship of, at least, striving to bring them into closer harmony with one another.

In this sense, the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship may be a harbinger of hope for a divided and sometimes divisive Jewish community in the Diaspora and Israel.

For eight days at the Kinneret, The Nahum Goldmann Fellowship proved that Jewish solidarity and the spirit of Klal Yisrael are not beyond our reach.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP? Tel: (212) 425-6606 Fax: (212) 425-6602 Email: office@mfjc.org Mailing address: Nahum Goldmann Fellowship Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture 50 Broadway, 34th Floor New York, NY 10004