This month NIF wrapped up the eighth year of its prestigious Elissa Froman Social Change Fellowship. This year, the fellowship gave seven rabbinical students in Los Angeles and New York City the opportunity to explore progressive social change work in Israel. Amidst the polarization within the Jewish community over issues of war and peace, this fellowship became a haven for future rabbis to have constructive conversations about the situation in the Middle East and in their local communities.

 “In this program, we are cultivating a new generation of American rabbis who will use their rabbinates to amplify and build on the work of the intrepid activists leading the fight on the ground,” explained Zak Witus, NIF’s Young Leadership & Education Manager.

This was an unprecedented year for the fellowship. When the war broke out, NIF decided to cancel the branch of the program that typically serves Hebrew Union College students during their year in Jerusalem. NIF reallocated resources to fund a rabbinic student internship in New York instead. “It felt really gratifying for us to continue to offer maximal support to rabbinical students grappling with communal fracture and intense anguish for our people in Israel/Palestine,” Witus said. “There are very few programs for future Jewish clergy like ours that are committed to equality and freedom for all people who live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. It felt really important to me–urgent, actually–that we pivot quickly and effectively.”

Two of the fellows, Elana Ackerman Hirsch and Hannah Bender, were ordained this spring by Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. Rabbi Hirsch is starting a new job as Assistant Rabbi at Beth Israel in San Diego and Rabbi Bender recently moved to Durham, North Carolina, where she will be the Assistant Rabbi at Judea Reform Congregation. Having met with NIF grantees like Standing Together as well as US-based progressive community leaders like Prof. David Myers, NIF’s immediate past board president, Hirsch and Bender enter their rabbinates with not just enhanced knowledge of the issues, but also with relationships that will enable them to be better ambassadors for our movement for a just, equal future. 

This is a moment when so many progressive American Jews feel distrustful of both segments of the American Jewish community as well as parts of the progressive left. In this moment, it is the personal bonds among those of us with shared values and a shared vision for the future that can sustain us and help us build power in the long term.

“Out of the pain and grief of this year, the biggest blessing for me has been participating in the NIF Elissa Froman Social Change Fellowship,” Bender wrote in a recent blog post. “I am grateful to have had the space to learn and process with an incredible group of leaders within an organization that represents my Jewish and progressive values as time continued to pass and new horrors emerged.”