Mifgash means "Encounter"

During our time in Israel, the Fellows and Mentors of the Leadership Institute will be having a Mifgash with a group of Israeli educators in the form of a conference.

The title of the conference is: "Changing the Mindscape and Landscape of Jewish Peoplehood: New Paradigms for Educational Leaders."  It will take place at Oranim Academic College of Education on February 13, 2012.

The purpose of the conference is to engage Jewish educational leaders from different parts of the world in a meaningful discussion around topics of mutual interest to educational leaders.  We hope that the dialogue, the sharing and the thinking will afford all participants the opportunity both to teach and to learn from one another.

Both in small groups and as a community we will address the following questions:

• How do we understand Jewish peoplehood in theory and practice? 
  
• What commonalities and differences do we experience? 
  
• What leadership dilemmas do we face in our work?
  
• What we learn from each other to address these dilemmas?
  
• How might we continue the conversation by creating initiatives that foster partnerships and joint learning for our students and faculty?

At the present we have about 100 participants including: 42 Leadership Institute directors of educational institutions from the United States, and 40 Israeli educators including principals of Israeli schools (some of whom are enrolled in an academic program at Oranim). In addition there will be 15 faculty members from Oranim College, and a number of Israeli rabbis and practitioners from neighboring communities, who are working to change the landscape of Israel Engagement and Jewish Peoplehood.

The day after the conference, many of the Israeli principals who participate in the conference will host small groups of American educators in their schools, to observe examples of educational innovation. We will have a chance to see Israeli schools in action and to engage in further dialogue about Jewish Peoplehood education, change and leadership.

Dream v. Reality

". . . Each bus queue can easily catch fire and turn into a stormy seminar, with total strangers arguing not only about strategy, economy and family, but about the essence of history, the importance of morality, theology, the connection between nation and God, and metaphysics. But even while disputing their moral viewpoint it doesn't stop them from elbowing their way to the head of the line." - Amos Oz

Rachel Korazim began her article, "The Place of Israel in North American Jewish Education: A View from Israel, in What We Now Know About Jewish Education with this quote and another by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, to share the tension "between the ideal or spiritual approach to Zion and the practicalities of everyday life in Israel." As we prepare to depart and go up to Israel, I am finding this struggle between the dream of Israel and the reality of Israel today to be pulling at my heartstrings. It has been seventeen years since I last had the honor of visiting Israel and as many like to remind me, it is as if I have never been to the current State of Israel.

When last I lived in Israel, 1991-'92, it was a time of great excitement, promise and hope. Regularly as I walked past the King David Hotel there was a different country's flag flying as peace was trying to be negotiated. One of my fondest memories from that year was on New Year's Day building a snowman on the Temple Mount with my classmates and African Muslim children. Unfortunately those optimistic times have changed and since graduating HUC in 1994 I have had to teach my students about the Matzav, the "Protective Fence," and raised money for bomb shelters in Sderot. I was running school one Shabbat when I had to announce to our students that Rabin had been assassinated. We have also regularly had to prepare our students leaving for college how to deal with Anti-Zionism. I struggle with how we teach Israel as a Country at War and how for most of my students the only Israelis they meet that have not made Yeridah are Israeli Soldiers.

The first time I had the pleasure of living in Israel I lived on Kibbutz Kfar Blum on a WZO, World Zionist Organization, program for American and Canadian tenth graders. I experienced the dream of Labor Zionism as a reality. I worked picking cotton and oranges, taking care of animals in a children's petting zoo, and cooking and cleaning in the guest house kitchen. It was there on a secular kibbutz that I experienced for the first time the true meaning of preparing a kitchen for Passover and it was there that I learned that chickens have not only feathers but hairs that need to be plucked. Yet, now my kibbutz has gone the route of many with their own version of privatization. In fact, I recently taught a lesson from Torah Aura's Artzeinu about Kibbutz Degania and its decision to choose privatization.

Many of my lay leaders and teachers when asked which of the Eight Faces of Israel (created by Beit Knesset Israel-An Israel Engagement Initiative in Reform Congregations) chose Israel as Larger than Life. This seems to be one area that supports the dream of Zionism with the reality of the State of Israel. We can celebrate all that Israel has done in the area of technological advances and the messages of Start-Up Nation. As a birder I can celebrate how Israelis figured out how to help planes not fly into birds. Yet, the conflicts and challenges Israel faces are mostly ignored by this face of Israel.

Last summer when we first were presented the Eight Faces of Israel document I related best to Israel as Land of Sacred Moments. That was my first connection to Israel as I traveled and celebrated Pesach there on a family mission in elementary school. It was my thought that if we wanted our students to connect with Israel and that this generation is about meaning and purpose, this was a good lens for Israel. Yet, over the past six months as I have struggled with the role of women in Israel, I relate best to Israel as Our Partners. It is this face of Israel I want to see most in Israel, to meet those who are fighting in Israel for the same issues I am fighting for both here and in Israel - religious pluralism, women's rights, GLBT rights, minority rights and environmental issues. It is this face, that we may best be able to help our families create strong bonds with Israel, where the Dream and the Reality of Israel are striving to come together.

My teachers asked me to return with all Eight Faces of Israel so together we can explore the new realities of Israel and how best to teach them to our students. I look forward to wrestling with the Dream and the Reality of Israel through the lens of these Eight Faces so that I can come to a new understanding and deeper love of Israel and so I may share both with my students.