Spotlight on CLAL
Welcome to Spotlight on CLAL. Here you will find stories about what is 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 interests. Bookmark this page if you want to get to know us better.
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Brandeis in the Berkshires
By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs
Post-denominational Judaism: In an age of freedom, affluence and power, do the divisions still matter?
This was the animating question explored by Rabbi Kula at a lively discussion at Brandeis University’s Brandeis in the Berkshires in July. The lecture, part of an annual series featuring prominent political, spiritual and literary leaders, and presented at the Founders’ Theatre, Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, generated active participation by members of the audience. Issues of Jewish identity, group loyalty, practice, and new avenues of Jewish experience were debated among an audience of close to 300 people. Rabbi Kula pointed out that the questions in Jewish life parallel the questions in American life, because both are about living in an era of greater individual choice, openness, and pluralism.
In the morning, Rabbi Kula met with a smaller group from Brandeis to look at Jewish identity and at how to build a community when identity is so fluid. Topics included intermarriage, survival, and the growing importance of personal Jewish journeys and life experience.
The Brandeis University-CLAL collaboration exemplifies how two Jewish institutions can enrich one another. Brandeis, one of the leading educational institutes in the country, reached out to CLAL, a leader of religious pluralism, to enhance their summer program and encourage new thinking about the Jewish future.
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