Thelma Reese, Ed.D., is the author of How Seniors Are Saving the World: Retirement Activism to the Rescue!, and co-founder of the blog, ElderChicks.com. She joins Rabbi Address on this episode of the Seekers of Meaning Podcast to discuss her work in mobilizing and engaging seniors in activism.

You can watch the conversation in the video player below.

You can also listen to an audio podcast of the conversation in this player.

About the Guest

Thelma Reese, Ed. D., retired professor of English and of Education, created the Advisory Council for Hooked on Phonics and was its spokesperson in the ’90’s. In that role, and as director of the Mayor’s Commission on Literacy for the City of Philadelphia, she appeared frequently on television and hosted a cable show in Philadelphia. She was a founder of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, chaired the Board of Children’s Literacy Initiative, and organized the World Symposium on Family Literacy at UNESCO in Paris in 1994. She is co-author, with Barbara M. Fleisher, of The New Senior Woman: Reinventing the Years Beyond Mid-Life (Rowman & Littlefield) in 2013 and The New Senior Man: Exploring New Horizons, New Opportunities (Rowman & Littlefield) in 2017. They created the blog www.ElderChicks.com in 2012.

Thelma lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Harvey Reese, the author of several books, including How to License Your Million Dollar Idea (John Wiley, publisher), and an artist.

Lauren Rudin, Support Services Navigator for the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey, a woman of color and a Jew by choice, is this week’s guest on the Seekers of Meaning Podcast.

You can watch the video interview in this player:

You can also listen to an audio version of the interview in this player.

About the Guest

Lauren Rudin was born and raised in Burlington County, New Jersey.  She is a proud graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work.  She has worked with individuals with special needs and their families for over 20 years.  She has experience working in preschool, youth and family counseling, foster care, and Jewish education.  Specifically, Rudin has worked as a child study team school social worker for 11 years.  In an effort to be more available to her family, Rudin made the decision to work closer to home.  Rudin is passionate about leveling the playing field for everyone, regardless of their ability level.  As a lifelong resident of Southern New Jersey, Rudin is excited to be working with our community’s most vulnerable populations.  Rudin’s vision for the position is to continue to focus on supporting individuals and families within Jewish organizations while creating an inclusive and supportive community for older adults and those with different abilities. Rudin currently lives in Cherry Hill with her amazing husband and stepchildren.

Rabbi Oren Hayon, senior rabbi at Congregation Emanu El in Houston, Texas, and editor of the newly released Inscribed: Encounters with the Ten Commandments, discusses the book with Rabbi Address in this episode of the Seekers of Meaning Podcast and TV show.

According to Amazon.com, “This anthology gives voice to the many diverse and contemporary perspectives about each of the Ten Commandments. Written by an impressive collection of rabbis and scholars, the volume allots multiple chapters for each of the commandments in order to engage with the ways in which these timeless utterances have inspired contemporary laws, ethics, and moral guidelines.”

Video interviews with experts and a study guide for the book are available at the website of its publisher, CCAR Press.

You can watch the interview in the player below..

You can listen to the podcast in this player, or download it wherever you get your podcasts.

About the Guest

Rabbi Oren J. Hayon grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and received his B.A. in English from Rice University. Following his graduation, Rabbi Hayon worked in management consulting and in the Los Angeles entertainment industry. After several years of work on studio and independent film projects, he began his rabbinical studies in Jerusalem. Rabbi Hayon received his M.A.H.L. and rabbinical ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Following his ordination, Rabbi Hayon served Temple Emanu-El in Dallas and worked as the Greenstein Family Executive Director and rabbi at the Hillel at the University of Washington.

Rabbi Hayon has held a number of leadership roles in the Reform Movement, serving as a Vice President of the Board of Trustees of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and as an editor, translator and contributor of Hebrew texts and poetry for a number of publications by the CCAR Press, including Mishkan HaNefesh, the High Holy Day machzor, and LaKol Eit, a Rabbi’s Manual for Reform rabbis.

Rabbi Hayon happily makes his home in Houston with his wife Julie and their two daughters.

 

 

Rabbi Lynnda Targan, author of the newly published memoir, Funny, You Don’t Look Like A Rabbi, is the guest on this episode of the Seekers of Meaning Podcast. Rabbi Targan, who serves the Philadelphia Jewish community, became a rabbi later in life and discusses her spiritual journey.

You can watch the interview in this player.

The interview is also available as a podcast in the player below, or wherever you get your podcasts.

About the Guest

Rabbi Lynnda Targan was ordained in May, 2003 at The Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR) in Riverdale, New York, the only pluralistic seminary that trains rabbis and cantors for ordination in the spirit of Klal Yisrael. She entered the Rabbinate after a successful career as a communications expert: journalist, oral historian, writer, poet, storyteller and owner of her own public relations business. In preparation for the rabbinate she earned an MA in Jewish Liberal Studies in 1996 (Summa Cum Laude) and an MA in Jewish Communal Studies in 1998 (Summa Cum Laude) from Gratz College. She distinguished herself by winning the Nettie R. Ginsburg and Nathaniel I. S. Goldman Prize for Highest Academic Standing and the Arnold R. Ginsburg Prize for “Constructive Leadership and Promoting Communal Democracy,” and by delivering the Valedictory address at graduation. In addition, she was twice awarded the I. Bernard Rabinowitz Memorial Award for unique leadership, commitment and service to Jewish institutions.

While a student at AJR, she was an active participant in the community, serving as treasurer for three years, founder and editor of the community newspaper, Gesher l’Kesher, chair of a number of programs and committees and eventually president of the student body. She was also awarded a CLAL internship (Center for Learning and Leadership), and trained as a chaplain at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital in New York. She was the recipient of The Heschel Matt Creative Liturgy Award for her curriculum on adult B’not Mitzvah entitled Recipes for Jewish Living and she received the Rabbi Chana Timoner Creative Liturgy Award for her project, A Guide for Clergy to Understand Recovery of Family Members, Friends and Co-Dependents of People with Addictions. She also received the Student Association Leadership Award for years of dedicated service.

Known for her compassionate mentoring and inclusive facilitative style, for many years Rabbi Targan was on the faculty of the 92nd St. Y as a teacher of Derekh Torah, and teaches graduate courses in the Florence Melton Adult-Mini School of Gratz College. She is a member of the Executive Board of Women of Vision. She also serves as a public speaker for various organizations, inspiring people to develop their own spirituality and unique purpose and mission in the world. Simultaneously, she continues to write healing services, meditations and other creative works which have been published widely. She also officiates at a number of services and conducts many lifecycle events.

Rabbi Targan is the recipient of various academic and community service awards and is listed in Who’s Who in Professional and Executive Women and Who’s Who in American Women. Her hobbies include reading, art, theater, bicycling, cooking and traveling. She is a member of the Lions of Judah of the Women’s Philanthropy division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia and a Women of Vision, as well as a supporter of a variety of other political, cultural, and philanthropic organizations. She is a member of both the Philadelphia Board of Rabbis and the New York Board ...

This week, Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the advocacy arm of Reform Judaism, explains the Religious Action Center’s activities and how Jewish teachings inspire its work.

You can also listen to the conversation in podcast form in the player below, or wherever you get your podcasts.

About the Guest

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 and tireless advocate for social justice.

Rabbi Pesner’s work has focused on encouraging Jewish communities to reach across lines of race, class, and faith in campaigns for social justice. In 2006, he founded Just Congregations (now incorporated into the Religious Action Center), which engaged clergy, professional, and volunteer leaders in interfaith efforts in pursuit of social justice. Rabbi Pesner was a primary leader in the successful Massachusetts campaign for health care access that has provided health care coverage to hundreds of thousands and which became a nationwide model for reform. Over the course of his career, he has also led and supported campaigns for racial justice, economic opportunity, immigration reform, LGBTQ equality, human rights, and a variety of other causes. He is dedicated to building bridges to collectively confront anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate and bigotry.

Rabbi Pesner has trained and mentored students on all four campuses of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and gives speeches in interfaith and secular venues all over the world. Rabbi Pesner serves as a board member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, JOIN for Justice, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, and the New England Center for Children. He is a member of the Leadership Team for the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. He has served as a scholar for the Wexner Foundation, American Jewish World Service, the Nexus USA Summit, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies, among others.

Prof. Ari Y. Kelman, the Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies at the Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, visits the Seekers of Meaning Podcast and TV show to discuss Beyond Jewish Identity: Rethinking Concepts and Imagining Alternatives, which he co-edited with Jon A. Levisohn, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Associate Professor of Jewish Educational Thought at Brandeis University.

Watch the TV show in the video player below.

Listen to the podcast in the podcast player below or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

From the book’s page on Amazon.com:

There is something deeply problematic about the ways that Jews, particularly in America, talk about “Jewish identity” as a desired outcome of Jewish education. For many, the idea that the purpose of Jewish education is to strengthen Jewish identity is so obvious that it hardly seems worth disputing—and the only important question is which kinds of Jewish education do that work more effectively or more efficiently. But what does it mean to “strengthen Jewish identity”? Why do Jewish educators, policy-makers and philanthropists talk that way? What do they assume, about Jewish education or about Jewish identity, when they use formulations like “strengthen Jewish identity”? And what are the costs of doing so?

This volume, the first collection to examine critically the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish identity, makes two important interventions. First, it offers a critical assessment of the relationship between education and identity, arguing that the reification of identity has hampered much educational creativity in the pursuit of this goal, and that the nearly ubiquitous employment of the term obscures significant questions about what Jewish education is and ought to be. Second, this volume offers thoughtful responses that are not merely synonymous replacements for “identity,” suggesting new possibilities for how to think about the purposes and desired outcomes of Jewish education, potentially contributing to any number of new conversations about the relationship between Jewish education and Jewish life.

About the Guest

Professor Kelman’s research focuses on the forms and practices of religious knowledge transmission. His work emerges at the intersection of sociocultural learning theory and scholarly/critical studies of religion. Methodologically, he draws on social scientific and historical approaches to the study of these phenomena.

His interests have drawn him to research phenomena as diverse as Yiddish radio, Evangelical worship music, Jewish online learning, release time programs, religious dictionaries, Jewish identity, ritual, Google algorithms about religion, Jewish students and antisemitism, citational research networks, campus chaplaincy, and the educational dimensions of the ongoing tension between church, state, and schooling. All of these organize around the question of how religious knowledge is constructed, encoded, transmitted, understood, and practiced.

At present, he as work on a handful of projects ranging from a synthetic work about Jewish education, the study of religious education in the post-war period, studies of Google’s algorithmic definitions of religion, and intersections between AI and religion.

Rabbi Denise L. Eger, editor of Mishkan Ga’avah, a new collection of LGBTQ prayers, poems, liturgy, and rituals, and founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami, West Hollywood, California, is this week’s guest on the Seekers of Meaning Podcast and television show.

You can watch Rabbi Address’s conversation with Rabbi Eger in the video player below.

You can listen to an audio podcast of the conversation in this player.

About the Guest (Read her complete bio here.)

Denise L. Eger was raised in Memphis, TN.  She graduated with honors from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor’s Degree in Religion in 1982.  She received her Master’s Degree from Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in 1985 and was ordained as Rabbi in 1988 at the New York campus of HUC. Rabbi Eger is a Sr. Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute and received her Doctor of Divinity from Hebrew Union College in 2013.

Rabbi Eger has served pulpits in Canada, New York and Los Angeles.  Following ordination, she served Congregation Beth Chayim Chadashim for four years as its first full-time rabbi. She is the founding rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami, West Hollywood’s Reform Synagogue.

Rabbi Eger is the editor of the groundbreaking book: Mishkan Ga’avah: Where Pride Dwells: A Celebration of LGBTQ Jewish Life and Ritual. She is the co-editor of Gender & Religious Leadership: Women Rabbis, Pastors and Ministers by Lexington Press

Rabbi Eger believes that activism is an important part of her rabbinate.  She has worked extensively with people with AIDS. She served as co-chair of the Community Advisory Board of the Shanti Foundation and is a past Chair of the Spiritual Advisory Committee of AIDS Project Los Angeles.  She is past Co-Chair of the Institutional Review Board for Search Alliance, an AIDS drug research organization.  Rabbi Eger continues to facilitate Kol Ami’s Jewish HIV+ support group monthly.

In June 2008 Rabbi Eger had the honor of officiating at the first legal wedding for a lesbian couple in California. Rabbi Eger is married to Rabbi Eleanor Steinman and has an adult son living in Texas.

 

Prof. Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., who became the 10th president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in April 2019, is this week’s guest on the Seekers of Meaning Podcast and TV show.

A leading political scientist and distinguished Jewish communal leader, Dr. Rehfeld’s career has bridged both the academic and professional worlds as Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University (2001 to 2019) and as President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis (2012 to 2019). Elected on December 18, 2018 by the HUC-JIR Board of Governors after a national search, he began his tenure on April 1, 2019, and was inaugurated on October 27, 2019, at Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati.  He succeeds Rabbi Aaron Panken, Ph.D., z”l, HUC-JIR’s previous President (2014-2018).

You can watch Rabbi Address’s conversation with Prof. Rehfeld in the video player below. You can also listen to a podcast in the podcast player below, or subscribe to the Seekers of Meaning Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

About the Guest

A leading political scientist and distinguished Jewish communal leader, Dr. Andrew Rehfeld’s career has bridged both the academic and professional worlds as Associate Professor of Political Science at Washington University (2001 to present) and as President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis (2012 to present).  The academic values of thinking, writing, and teaching are the core of his identity, coupled with a passionate commitment to building communities based on the Jewish values that are central to his life.  He is an advocate for pluralism, inclusion, and racial and social justice, and an activist in combatting antisemitism, advancing peace and security for the state of Israel, and strengthening the ties binding Jews worldwide.

Dr. Rehfeld brings to HUC-JIR his extensive expertise in academic and nonprofit administration, fund raising, strategic planning, and community leadership. He was recruited in 2012 from his tenured faculty position at Washington University to lead the Jewish Federation of St. Louis. Over the past six years, he galvanized the St. Louis Federation by implementing a “bottom up” community-focused engagement approach.  He led a team that raised $15- $20 million annually, and allocated $14 million per year to support, educate, and connect thousands of individuals in St. Louis, Israel, and globally, while overseeing an annual operating budget of $6.5 million and a $130 million endowment.

His first book, The Concept of Constituency (Cambridge University Press, 2005), provided a conceptual, historical, and normative analysis of territorial redistricting. His next book project, A General Theory of Representation, is under contract with Cambridge University Press. He has published numerous articles on topics in political philosophy, redistricting, and the use of the Hebrew Bible for political purposes in a range of scholarly journals. In 2011, Dr. Rehfeld was appointed as Co-Editor of NOMOS, the yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, and he served on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Politics. He also served on the Governance Committee for the Association for Political Theory and as Secretary of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.

A product of the Reform Movement, Dr. Rehfeld was involved in the Reform camping movement for over 35 years as a camper and song leader at Kutz Camp and more recently as faculty of the URJ Olin-Sang-Ruby Institute.  He lived in Israel for a year prior to college, where he studied Hebrew on a kibbutz ulpan and was an early partic...

Jeff Levin, Ph.D., MPH, University Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, Professor of Medical Humanities, Director of Program on Religion and Population Health at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, is this week’s guest on the Seekers of Meaning Podcast. Dr. Levin’s new book, Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity’s Two Greatest Institutions, is described by its publisher as “the most comprehensive text to date detailing the history of religion and medicine.”

You can watch the video conversation in this player, or listen to the podcast in the player below the video.

About the Guest

Dr. Jeff Levin, an epidemiologist by training, holds a distinguished chair at Baylor University, where he is University Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, Professor of Medical Humanities, and Director of the Program on Religion and Population Health at the Institute for Studies of Religion. He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, and as an Affiliated Member of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Levin holds an A.B. in religion and in sociology from Duke University, an M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, and a Ph.D. in Preventive Medicine and Community Health from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan’s Institute of Gerontology. His research has been funded by the NIH, the AMA, and private foundations. He is a member of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, the International Epidemiological Association, the American College of Epidemiology, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the International Society for Science and Religion.

Dr. Levin has authored over 220 scholarly publications, mostly on the instrumental functions of religion for physical and mental health, general well-being, and aging.

He has written or edited 11 books, most recently Religion and Medicine: A History of the Encounter Between Humanity’s Two Greatest Institutions (Oxford, 2020). His current work is focused on three subjects: (a) social and epidemiologic research on religion and population health, (b) theories of healing and the work of healers, and (c) the role of faith-based initiatives in public health and healthcare policy. He is a former president of Congregation Agudath Jacob, the Conservative synagogue in Waco, Texas.

For the July 4 holiday weekend, we present a rebroadcast of an earlier episode of the Seekers of Meaning Podcast.

Featured on this program from May 2020 is Sarah Hurwitz, a former speechwriter for President and Mrs. Obama, who has just authored a new book about her journey back to Judaism, Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There).

After a decade as a political speechwriter—serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama, a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, and chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign — Sarah Hurwitz decided to apply her skills as a communicator to writing a book . . . about Judaism. And no one is more surprised than she is.

Hurwitz was the quintessential lapsed Jew — until, at age thirty-six, after a tough breakup, she happened upon an advertisement for an introductory class on Judaism. She attended on a whim, but was blown away by what she found: beautiful rituals, helpful guidance on living an ethical life, conceptions of God beyond the judgy bearded man in the sky—none of which she had learned in Hebrew school or during the two synagogue services she grudgingly attended each year. That class led to a years-long journey during which Hurwitz visited the offices of rabbis, attended Jewish meditation retreats, sat at the Shabbat tables of Orthodox families, and read hundreds of books about Judaism—all in dogged pursuit of answers to her biggest questions. What she found transformed her life, and she wondered: How could there be such a gap between the richness of what Judaism offers and the way so many Jews like her understand and experience it?

Sarah Hurwitz is on a mission to close this gap by sharing the profound insights she discovered on everything from Jewish holidays, ethics, and prayer to Jewish conceptions of God, death, and social justice. In this entertaining and accessible book, she shows us why Judaism matters and how its message is more relevant than ever, and she inspires Jews to do the learning, questioning, and debating required to make this religion their own.

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About the Guest

From 2009 to 2017, Sarah Hurwitz served as a White House speechwriter, first as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. Prior to serving in the Obama Administration, Sarah was chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign. Sarah is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.