Blog

I dread Passover every year. In 2010, I wrote a blog about it in which I said: I hate Pesach. I think it is a true experiential learning opportunity (and not just the Seder) … but I face the cleaning, the changing of dishes, the cooking, the family tension around the Seder table, the week…

It’s rare that I am become tongue-tied and inarticulate, but I have spent the last seven days trying to figure out the most poignant way to communicate this message. As it turns out, the only way is to just say it: I have been diagnosed with clinical moderate depression. It is a new diagnosis as…

When I opened my eJewishPhilanthropy this morning, I scanned all of the snippets and headlines as I do each morning.  Typically, I make a mental note of what articles I want to come back to later in the day, but today, one snippet not only caught my eye, but stopped my heart:So, I clicked on…

Over the past few months, I have been asked by many young professionals in the Jewish communal field to provide them career advice. Some have been in the field for 2-5 years, others are just graduating from a Bachelor’s or Master’s program. They have asked questions about degrees they should pursue (yes, get a Master’s…

Every once in a while, a celebrity or politician gets misquoted or a sound byte is used out of context and ripples begin to infiltrate that person’s career for a while until it all gets cleared up.  While I am not a celebrity, I was recently mis-represented in Patrick Aleph’s Blog on Kveller.com entitled “Ban…

It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back … the tweet that pushed me right over the edge (or just to finally write this blog!): If you are wondering why @buberzionist would even ask this question (I’m making an assumption), and why I would even respond the way I did, it’s because so many of…

This blog was originally posted on the BJELA website. Anything that happens at camp is informal education, right?  And everything that happens in a classroom is formal education?  Seems easy, but not so quick.  Over the past few years, this buzzword of informal education keeps popping up, but unfortunately is often misused (as is experiential…

I have long stated that my goal as a Jewish educator is to help people live their lives – every day, every moment – through a Jewish lens.  I have been challenged by many on this concept, with doubt that non-Orthodox people can do this.  People have challenged me to be self-reflective:  “Do I live…

I  have attended many Jewish conferences, but the URJ Biennial this year was the largest – over 5,500 Jews of all ages.  I attended this particular conference as a consultant to the URJ.  I was engaged in March 2011 to help the URJ professionals and lay leadership in a variety of capacities related to the…

There’s a different kind of marathon that I participate in – it’s not the 26.2 miles that my friends run in the ING NY Marathon, or the Disney Marathon.  It’s the 36+ awake-hour marathon I run at the GA each year.  And while the exhaustion is different than the toll a regular marathon takes, it…

Earlier today I facilitated a presentation for the national NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth), the youth affiliate of the Reform Movement.  I had been asked to help their staff think about how educational philosophy is an important part of youth education planning.   While many of their staff had – at one point…