The College Commons Podcast

Are Jews white? Join Rachel Laser in a challenging discussion on white privilege and being a minority in America. Rachel Laser is currently working as a consultant on bridging racial and cultural divides. She advises, runs workshops, gives speeches, facilitates conversations and guest lectures about implicit bias, and also racism and privilege at nonprofits, law firms, government entities, universities, public and parochial schools, houses of worship, and community centers. She has also written about white privilege and racism, including Uncovering My White Privilege on Yom Kippur, Flawed But Determined: Becoming a White Supporter of Racial Justice, and her most recent piece Why I am Atoning for Racism. She has spent much of her career finding paths forward on divisive culture issues. Laser recently served as the Deputy Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC), the Reform Jewish Movement's Washington, DC office. From the RAC, she ran interfaith campaigns on a number of social justice issues, including gun violence prevention, immigration reform, paid sick and family and medical leave and LGBT equality. Before the RAC, she directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, DC progressive think tank specializing in understanding and reaching moderates. There, she launched the "Come Let Us Reason Together" Initiative, which mobilized evangelical Christians and progressive activists to work together on the most contentious social issues. She also helped draft the first-of-its-kind common ground abortion bill to be introduced jointly by a pro-life and pro-choice member of Congress. She is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Chicago Law Schoo

What is the relationship between science and Judaism? Rabbi Mitelman argues that you can value science and religion without rejecting either. Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the scientific and religious worlds, and is being incubated at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. His work has been supported by the John Templeton Foundation, Emanuel J. Friedman Philanthropies, and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, and his writings about the intersection of religion and science have appeared on the homepages of several sites, including The Huffington Post, Nautilus, Science and Religion Today, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and My Jewish Learning. He has been an adjunct professor at both the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and the Academy for Jewish Religion, and is a sought-out teacher, presenter, and scholar-in-residence throughout the country.

Here are the voices of HUC-JIR scholars and students, reflecting on Charlottesville - giving context to our shared experience. Included are: Rabbi Rachel Adler, Ph.D. Rabbi Adam Allenberg Meir Bargeron Dr. Sharon Gillerman Rabbi Richard Levy Rabbi Michael Marmur. Ph.D. Rabbi Aaron Panken, Ph.D. Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi, Ph.D. Sheryl Stahl Rabbi Dvora Weisberg, Ph.D. Dr. Yaffa Weisman Henry Wudl Dr. Sivan Zakai

Rabbi Jonah Pesner discusses the history and work of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the pressing social issues they address. 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, creative entrepreneur and tireless advocate for social justice. Rabbi Pesner’s experience as a community organizer guides his pursuit of social justice. He has been a principal architect in transforming the URJ and guiding the Reform Movement to become even more impactful as the largest Jewish denomination in the world. Among other initiatives, he is a founder of the Campaign for Youth Engagement, a bold strategy to mobilize tens of thousands of young people in the Jewish community.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are Alice Greenwald's most moving and challenging projects. Join us for a probing discussion on the complexities of memorializing tragic events. As the chief executive, Alice Greenwald is responsible for the overall vision, financial well-being, management, and long-term sustainability and relevance of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. From 2006-2016, Ms. Greenwald served as Executive Vice President for Exhibitions, Collections, and Education and Director of the Memorial Museum. In this role, she oversaw the articulation and implementation of a founding vision for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, managing its programming, collecting, exhibition, and educational initiatives. Ms. Greenwald previously served as Associate Museum Director, Museum Programs, at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Her 19-year affiliation with USHMM began in 1986, when she served as a member of the “Design Team” for the Permanent Exhibition. From 1986-2001, Ms. Greenwald was the principal of Alice M. Greenwald/Museum Services, providing expertise to various clients including, in addition to USHMM, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, the Pew Charitable trusts, and the Historical Society of Princeton. Ms. Greenwald has served as Executive Director of the National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia (1981-86); Acting Director (1980), Curator (1978-81) and Assistant Curator (1975-78) of the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, and Curatorial Assistant at the Spertus Museum of Judaica, Chicago.

Rabbi Scheinerman draws from a wide range of interests as she discusses the needs of the dying, interfaith work and her love of halakha. Rabbi Amy Scheinerman received her bachelor’s degree from Brown University, has studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Princeton Theological Seminary, and was ordained in 1984 at HUC-JIR/New York. She has served Conservative, Reform, and unaffiliated congregations, and has taught in a wide variety of venues. Rabbi Scheinerman has been involved in Jewish education across the spectrum, from preschool programming and family education, through education for the elderly and also those beset by Alzheimer’s. She maintains a popular website at scheinerman.net/judaism, which serves as an educational vehicle without borders, a Talmud blog at http://tenminutesoftalmud.blogspot.org, and a Torah blog at http://taste-of-torah.blogspot.com. Rabbi Scheinerman has served as a volunteer chaplain for the Howard County Police and hospice chaplain in a variety of venues. She is involved in numerous interfaith endeavors, including joint projects with many church communities to provide food and social services to the poor. She has written numerous columns for the Jewish Times of Baltimore and the Carroll County Times. In addition, Rabbi Scheinerman is a past president of the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, and the Greater Carolinas Association of Rabbis.

Professor Walton discusses the challenges of interfaith worship, feminist theology's long journey and hierarchies in religious institutions.  Professor Janet Walton graduated from Catholic University with the B.M. in 1967, received the M.M. from Indiana University in 1971 and the Ed.D. from Columbia University in 1979. She is a Past President of the North American Academy of Liturgy(1995-97), a Henry Luce Fellow in Theology and the Arts (1998), the recipient of a Henry Luce Travel/Research grant (1988), the 2003 recipient of the AAR Excellence in Teaching award (2003) and the 2009 recipient of the Berakah Award, a lifetime award for distinctive work in worship given by the North American Academy of Liturgy. Professor Walton is a Roman Catholic and a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names, a congregation of catholic women. Her publications include four books, Worship and Art: A Vital Connection, Sacred Sound and Social Change, co-edited with Lawrence Hoffman, Women at Worship: Interpretations of North American Diversity co-edited with Marjorie Procter-Smith, Feminist Liturgy: A Matter of Justice and an edition of Liturgy: New and Borrowed Rites with Siobhan Garrigan as well as many articles. The most recent articles include perspectives on hymnody, feminist liturgy, and interfaith worship. Presently, Professor Walton is working on a book entitled, Worship Without Dominance and a video and book with Troy Messenger and Susan Blain on the history of James Chapel worship since its renovation in 1979.

As a poet and translator, Dr. Back, discusses how her own poetic sensibility enables her to inhabit and translate the work of Israeli poet, Tuvia Ruebner. Rachel Tzvia Back is a poet, a translator of Hebrew poetry, a scholar and an educator. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a PEN Translation grant, a Dora Maar Brown Foundation Fellowship, and a Hadassah-Brandeis Research grant. In addition to five volumes of her own poetry (English) and a study of the poetics of the American poet Susan Howe (1999), Back has published important collections of Israeli poetry in translation. Her collection In the Illuminated Dark: Selected Poems of Tuvia Ruebner (Hebrew Union College Press and University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014) won the triennial Risa Domb/Porjes Prize in 2016, and was a finalist for both the National Translation Award in Poetry and the Jewish Book Council Award in Poetry in 2015. Her new translation collection On the Surface of Silence: The Last Poems of Lea Goldberg is forthcoming from Hebrew Union College Press and the University of Pittsburgh Press in Spring 2017. Her other acclaimed translation works include Lea Goldberg: Selected Poetry and Drama (2006), With an Iron Pen: Twenty Years of Hebrew Protest Poetry (2009) and Night, Morning: Selected Poems of Hamutal Bar-Yosef (2008). Back lives in the Galilee, where her great-great-great grandfather settled in the 1830s; she teaches at Oranim College, in the foothills of the Carmel Mountains. Her classes include students from Jewish, Muslim and Christian backgrounds; thus, the classroom becomes a laboratory for inter-ethnic and religious dialogue through literature among people dwelling in a political, religious, and ethnic conflict zone. Photo courtesy of David H. Aaron.

In a probing exploration, Matan Koch, disability expert, leads us through a thoughtful discussion on how we language disability and the inadvertent benefits of privilege.  Matan A. Koch is a speaker, educator, and consultant, sharing ideas and strategies to promote the universal inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of society, using strategies that benefit everyone. His lifelong history of disability advocacy began at age four with a presentation to several hundred young people, continued with a term as the president of Yale University's student disabilities community, and reached its most recent high point with his appointment by President Barack Obama to the National Council on Disability, for a term which concluded in 2014.

Dr. Neil Levin discusses the history and the musical creativity and life of American Jewry. Artistic Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Milken Archive for Jewish Music since 1993, Neil W Levin has devoted his professional and academic life to the scholarly study of the music of Jewish experience from historical, musicological, ethnological, Judaic, and cross-cultural perspectives. While he has lectured, written, and taught courses on a diverse array of Jewish and Judaically related musical subjects spanning a broad spectrum of traditions, his particular areas of focus embrace comparative considerations of eastern and western spheres of Ashkenazi Jewry in terms of their sacred, secular art, theatrical, and folk music; and the musical creativity and life of American Jewry. As a professor of Jewish music on the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York since 1982, he has taught graduate courses on the history, development, graduate courses on the history, development, and repertoire of synagogue music, cantorial art, Yiddish and Hebrew folksong, the music of modern Israel, and music of American Jewish experience. He is recognized as one of the leading authorities in the field of Jewish music in general, and he is in much demand as a lecturer and presenter at university seminars and academic conferences throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel. As of November 2017, he is the Visiting Professor in Residence in music at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York.