Spotlight on CLAL
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happening at CLAL and about the work that CLAL is doing across North America. Sometimes we
will focus on a program, or a special event, or upon a CLAL faculty member's work and
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Exploring The Future Of Social Change: CLAL Convenes
Leading Social Advocates to Examine the Impact of Key Trends on Efforts to Build a Better
Society
By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs
On May 20-21, the Jewish Public Forum at CLAL will bring together a dozen leaders in
social advocacy, philanthropy and the arts for a thought-provoking forum on the Future of Social Change. The program will address some of the pivotal
changes that advocates will need to face over the next ten to fifteen years. What are the new ethical issues on the horizon? How will new communications technologies both
limit and empower groups and individuals? What
spiritual or psychological factors will affect social or civic engagement?
Among the panelists joining members of CLALs renowned faculty of scholars and
rabbis will be: Sandi DuBowski,
filmmaker/director of the groundbreaking documentary Trembling
Before G-d; Jay Rosen NYU Professor and
author of What Are Journalists For?; Madeline
Lee, Executive Director of the New York Foundation; Ruth Messinger, President of the American Jewish
World Service; and Joshua Mailman, President of
the Sirius Business Corporation and a founder of Social Venture Network. The event is
sponsored by the Jewish Public Forum at CLAL, which convenes interdisciplinary forums to
generate new thinking about how ethnic and religious identities and communities change in
the face of broad societal and technological shifts.
People working to effect long-term change in society, whether they be activists or
analysts, artists or religious leaders, will face new and unexpected challenges. This will create the need for new coalitions and
partnerships, said Shari Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the Jewish Public Forum. Jews and Jewish institutions that see
their role as moral or ethical leaders will need to consider a variety of new issues and
settings to do their work -- from the ethics of new technologies to the dynamics of an
emerging global civil society. There is no
better way to address these challenges than to convene this kind of conversation, to make
opportunities to reflect on the long term.
Sessions will examine innovative mechanisms for social change, what it means to work in
a changing global market and legal setting, and the costs and benefits of working from a
particular religious or ethnic tradition to promote the greater good. In addition, participants will contribute
essays for a CLAL publication, which will be widely disseminated to religious and
community leaders, philanthropists, academics, and other opinion-makers.
Future of Social Change is part of the Jewish Public Forums multidimensional
project called Exploring the Jewish Futures, which examines the challenges and
choices that Jews and other ethnic and religious communities might face in the decades
ahead. Participants represent fields as wide
ranging as religion, international human rights law, journalism, science, business,
anthropology, social services, and the rabbinate.
The Jewish community has always led the way in social change, civic engagement and
public responsibility in America, said Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, CLAL Vice President. The real opportunity here is to see how our
more private communal and internal spiritual language can inform that process and also
grow by learning from others leading in those fields.
This is the way Jewish life has always maintained its vitality and
relevance, and it also represents an expansion of CLALs own commitment to
integrating Jewish wisdom with our contribution to building a better world.
The Future of Social Change
is the last in a series of three seminars held this year.
The two previous programs examined the future of family and tribe and the future of
education and cultural transmission. The
project is funded through the generous support of the Eleanor M. and Herbert D. Katz
Family Foundation.
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