by NJJN Staff

May 28, 2009

Two MetroWest rabbis — Amy Small of Congregation Beth Hatikvah in Summit and Helaine Ettinger of the Jewish Congregation of Kinnelon — have been selected to be among the first group of fellows for Rabbis Without Borders, an initiative launched this year by CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Jewish Learning and Leadership. The program is designed to help rabbis make Jewish wisdom accessible to the wider American public. More than 80 applications were received for the 22 spots.

“We are very excited by the amount of interest generated by this program,” said RWB director Rabbi Rebecca W. Sirbu, former director of JCC MetroWest’s Jewish Health and Healing Center. “Clearly rabbis recognize the need to apply their skills in new ways to reach a wider audience and make the teachings and tools from Jewish wisdom more accessible…and to make Jewish thought and practice a real resource for the American public.”

The program’s rabbis will be encouraged to create a network of interdenominational religious leaders from across North America who can make Jewish wisdom more available.

The rabbinic fellows will gather six times in New York City over the course of one year. They will study with leading thinkers, authors, and influential people from a variety of fields. The first session, to be held on June 30, will host Prof. Barry Kosmin, the principal investigator of the 2001 American Religious Identification survey. Other experts will include Steve Waldman, editor-in-chief and cofounder of Beliefnet, and Bill Donohue, president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

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