"Summertime – and the Thinking is Easy” – Thinking Differently about Jewish Education

Dr. Miriam Heller Stern, PhD, is Incoming CEO of Builders of Jewish Education, Los Angeles. She is a leader, scholar, strategist and consultant, having directed the graduate schools of education at Hebrew Union College and AJU as a faculty member for over fifteen years. Her most recent publication, "Jewish Creativity: An Essential Aspiration for Jewish Education" is a call to educators across the Jewish spectrum to empower learners to develop chidushim, novel of ideas of value, reclaiming a historic legacy of Jewish creativity. She is the founder of Beit HaYotzer, the Creativity Braintrust, and advises initiatives to improve and advance Jewish education nationally and globally.

Rabbi Dr. Tali Zelkowicz is the Director of Curriculum and Research at The Wexner Foundation where she supports the work of leadership education for professional and lay Jewish leaders in North America, and leaders in the public service in Israel. An educator, rabbi, and sociologist of education, she holds degrees from New York University, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the University of British Columbia, and studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tali has taught graduate courses in clinical supervision, curriculum design, Jewish texts, pedagogy, professional learning, and the sociology of Jewish education at HUC-JIR Los Angeles, and served as Head of School at Columbus Jewish Day School. Her recent publication “Using Both/And Thinking to Lead Transformative and Enduring Learning in Jewish Communal Life” invites us to question an either-or framing that too often governs the landscape of Jewish education, forcing us to make a choice between what we call “formal” versus “informal” education or “engagement.” Instead, she contends that the most successful Jewish learning will be able to sustain and balance – and not eliminate – the tension between two equal imperatives that she calls “Translation” and “Transmission.”

Rabbi David E. Levy is the Director, Field Consultation at The Jewish Education Project. His primary work focuses on supporting congregational educators across the country to explore the big questions in Jewish Education, and how they are particularly positioned to respond to them. Prior to The Jewish Education Project, David worked at Westchester Reform Temple for a decade, where he served as the Associate Rabbi and the Director of the Jewish Learning Lab. He also has extensive experience working with Jewish camps, and as a consultant. David received Rabbinic ordination and a Masters in Religious Education from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems from Drexel University.