Alumni Updates

This year's fellowship is off to a great start...

You can keep on on our blog byfisummer.wordpress.com and follow us on twitter.

Related links:
about the 2009 fellows>>
2009 faculty and staff>>

 

SUMMER FACULTY

Rabbi Shimon Felix
Executive Director

This will be my nineteenth summer working with the Fellows. I started as one of the educators on the program, became the Israel Director in 1998 and I've been Executive Director since 2003.  READ MORE »

Shira Atkins
Until last year, I was literally on my toes every day, striving to become a professional ballerina. I wanted to plug in to that dangerous artistic high of striving for (and rarely achieving) perfection. This fall, I managed to shift my energy to a more diverse and balanced set of activities.

Although public school ends at 2:33 pm, I'm typically there 11 hours a day, which I enjoy most of the time, even though the bathrooms reek of cigarettes and high school drama. I sing and dance in the winter and spring musicals, serve as an attorney for the Mock Trial team, debate interest rates as part of the Fed Challenge (economics) team, perform jazz, modern, and hip-hop dance as part of our school's troupe, and enjoy many other fantastically useless activities such as the Yoga Club and the Knitting for Rwanda Club. (I swear these are not just for my college applications.)  READ MORE »

Joining Rabbi Shimon Felix and Rabbi Andy Bachman are two new faculty members, alumna Ilana Kurshan '95 and Rabbi Sonia Saltzman. Ilana has taught at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, heads Kehillat Kedem, a cutting-edge traditional egalitarian Minyan in Jerusalem, edits the book review section of Lillith magazine, and is the author of Why is This Night Different From all Other Nights? The Four Questions Around the World. Sonia, who is the Rabbi of Temple Shaarey Shalom in Ashland, Mass., received her ordination from Hebrew College's transdenominational Rabbinical School, headed by our very own Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld. Sonia is the mother of BYFI alum, Ben ‘02 and joined the Rabbinate after years working in the business world. We are very excited about this diverse, accomplished group of educators, and are looking forward to a wonderful summer together.

As they do every year, our Israeli Fellows - Amitei Bronfman - visited the United States this December for a two-week seminar on American Jewish life. This trip is part of their Fellowship program, which consists of a series of seminars on Jewish and Israeli life and identity, including a week-long Mifgash (encounter) with the American Fellows in Israel during the summer. The trip took the twenty 2008 Amitim to Baltimore, Washington, DC, New York, and Camp Isabella Friedman in Connecticut.  It included rich interaction with both the 2008 Fellows as well as older alumni. 

The Amitim began their trip in the Washington area, where they met for dinner (hosted by Sandra Di Capua ‘02) with 10 of our US alumni, including Michael Colson '87, our oldest alumnus, Wayne Jones '93, Sarah Beller '98, and Igor Timofeyev '91, all of whom spoke to the Amitim about their work. The Amitim met with Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl '89 at her mid-town Manhattan synagogue, and visited the Hillel house at the University of Maryland, thanks to Rachel Finkelstein '03.

They were privileged to hear a presentation by Taylor Krauss '97 about his work as Director of Voices of Rwanda, and enjoyed a Chanukah party at the home of Jonah Fisher '06. They had a fascinating session at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), meeting with Deborah Lauter, National Civil Rights Director and mother of alumna Rachel '01.  They visited the JCC of the Upper West Side, with Rabbi Carol Levithan, mother of Josh '93. The Amitim also had a wonderful Shabbaton at Camp Isabella Friedman with their American peers, the 2008 Fellows. Many thanks to all the alumni who went out of their way to make the Amitim's trip as engaging and interesting as it was.

A few weeks later, on January 1, 2009, we held our annual Jerusalem winter break dinner. A mix of some 40 American and Israeli alumni got together at Shimon's Katamon home for a wonderful Mifgash, full of networking, conversation, and good cheer. If you have plans to be in Israel next winter, put this event in your calendar! If you plan to visit Israel before then, and would like to contact Amitim from your year, please contact Becky or Shimon.

Sarah Beller '98, soon to receive her MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University in Washington DC, has a very daunting thesis question ahead of her: how can one measure the impact of arts-based conflict resolution initiatives?  This is a question that stems out of her long-time interest in the field of conflict resolution, or, as Sarah calls it, "conflict transformation."  READ MORE »

Igor Timofeyev '91 was the first person to serve in the position of Special Advisor for Refugee and Asylum Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where he subsequently also became Director of Immigration Policy.  Following his graduation from Williams College, he obtained a M.Phil. in Russian and East European Studies at Oxford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served on the Yale Law Journal, the Yale Journal of International Law, and the Russian and East European Law Forum.   READ MORE »

Ben Wizner ’88 has spent more time at Guantanamo Bay than the average Brooklyn resident. As staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the past 7 years, Ben has focused almost exclusively on national security and human rights cases. A few weeks after Ben took the job at the ACLU, the attacks of September 11th occurred. There were new challenges to confront like discrimination against Arabs, Muslims and South Asians; surveillance of non-violent peace groups; and the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.
 READ MORE »

Tova Serkin '97 spends her days working to strengthen Jewish Peoplehood. As Executive Director of the international not-for-profit organization KolDor, based in Israel, she supports a global network of emerging Jewish leaders who are committed to shifting the existing paradigms in the Jewish world and leading change in Jewish communities worldwide. KolDor's model is innovative, offering a platform for Jewish connections. One flagship project that emerged from KolDor's network is Jewish Social Action Month - a month devoted to tikkun olam (repairing the world) and Jewish unity globally.  READ MORE »

Charlie Buckholtz ‘89 co-authored the biography In Heaven Everything is Fine

Home Front Hearts, a nonprofit founded by Randi Cairns '87, was featured in the The Star-Ledger and New Jersey Jewish News. Find out how you can support Randi's efforts at Home Front Hearts, Inc.

Etan Cohen ‘91 co-wrote summer hit Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller

Michael L. Frazer '95 has a book forthcoming from Oxford University Press, The Enlightenment of Sympathy: Justice and the Moral Sentiments in the Eighteenth Century and Today

Adina Gerver ’96 selected as American Jewish World Service (AJWS) Lisa Goldberg Memorial Writers' Fellowship and accepted to study at the Advanced Scholars Program of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem

Abigail Heitler Hirsch ‘89 co-authored The Power of Two Workbook

Ben Kapnik '00 joins Center for Law and Democracy's Board of Directors

Dr. Ari Y. Kelman '88 recently published UNCOUPLED: How our Singles are Reshaping Jewish Engagement with Dr. Steven M. Cohen

Liz Kilstein '99 named Root Tilden Kern D'Agostino scholar at NYU Law School

Idit Klein ‘89 profiled in Curve magazine

Deb Dusansky Kornfeld '87 selected as Jewish Programming Director for a Wisconsin camp through Chizuk, a program of the Mandel Center for Jewish Education of the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America

Anya Manning ‘02 awarded prestigious Insight: Schusterman Fellowship for Jewish Community

Jodi Meyerowitz '05 named a 2008 PresenTense Fellow for her project Shomer Achi which was also awarded a BYFI Alumni Venture Fund grant

Yellowjackets, a play by Itamar Moses '94, premiers at the Berkeley Repertory Theater

Rabbi Avi Orlow '91 joins the Foundation for Jewish Camping as Director of Education

Naamah Paley '02 named 2008 Dorot Fellow

Sam Rascoff '90 joins NYU Law School as Assistant Professor of Law

Erin Scharff '99 named Root Tilden Kern scholar at NYU Law School

Dan Smokler '96 joins NYU Bronfman Center as Educational Director

Danny Stolzman '97 was Field Producer for "Sandhogs," an 11-episode series on the History Channel

Beth Zasloff '90 and Edgar Bronfman co-author the book Hope Not Fear

This summer, 7 college-age alumni attended the 2008 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Conference in Washington, D.C. as guest of the Samuel Bronfman Foundation (SBF). Ben Greene, program officer at the SBF, hosted the BYFI student delegation. Attendees heard from politicians including Senator John McCain & Senator Barack Obama as well as Jewish thinkers like Leon Weiseltier and Michael Oren.

The student delegation included: Mateo Aceves '06 (Brandeis), Nat Gardenswartz '06 (Princeton), David Gruber '06 (Bowdoin), Madeleine Levey '06 (UMich), Deborah Beth Medows '03 (BU Law School), Michael Pomeranz '04 (Yale), and Courtney Yadoo '06 (Harvard). BYFI attendees submitted written reflections after the event. Nat Gardenswartz wrote, "what I found most illuminating at the conference was the perspective it gave me on American politics." And Michael Pomeranz pointed out that a highlight of attending the conference included the company and conversation he shared with the other BYFI alums, "as always, they stimulated my thinking about the Jewish community and about the world."

Nominations are now open for BYFI Alumni Venture Fund for grants. Proposals due October 15th. This is the final round of funding for 2008; funds are limited. Projects that align with the values of BYFI and are led by BYFI alums, either wholly or in part, are eligible for funding. Visit the BYFI Alumni Venture Fund website for more details and complete the online application. The next funding cycle will be in May 2009.

In July, we gave you the opportunity to vote on which summer speaking engagement you’d like us to document and make available to the community. Your top choices were Etgar Keret and Yossi Klein Halevi. We were pleased to capture Yossi Klein Halevi's engaging session and make it available for our alumni to view. He is a well-known Israeli author and journalist who spoke about Israeli politics and, more importantly, philosophical and theological issues facing the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora.

Active in Middle East reconciliation efforts, Halevi serves as Chairman of Open House, an Arab-Jewish educational project in the working class town of Ramle. He is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based academic research institute. In 2001 he published At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. Halevi has written for the Jerusalem Report, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and Washington Post.

We have received a record number of applications for BYFI Alumni Venture Fund grants. In just one week of soliciting grant applications for this quarter we've recieved nearly as many applications as in the previous 12 months.

Donate now to ensure these worthy projects receive full funding.

Read recent updates from two grantees: The Righteous Indignation Project & Minyan Na'aleh

The BYFI alumni community is composed of diverse and talented individuals. Read two in an ongoing series of BYFI alumni profiles:

Ari Lipman, BYFI '95, is an activist and organizer. As founder of Faith Vote Columbus in Ohio, he is leading an interfaith coalition of religious congregations, neighborhood associations and labor unions committed to increasing voter turnout in urban precincts.

Full profile on Ari Lipman

Randi Cairns BYFI '87, is an expert multitasker - mother of four children ranging in ages from 3 to 13, working freelance jobs while her husband Captain Ian Cairns is stationed in Afghanistan tasked with training the Afghan National Police, studying full-time towards an MS in Human Services, and working to get her budding not-for-profit organization Home Front Hearts off the ground. 

Full profile on Randi Cairns

Voices of Rwanda comes to a city near you this winter
Couldn't make it to BYFI's June 4th event "Jews & Tutsis: Oral History as Justice" in NYC? Don't fret. BYFI Alumni Venture Fund grantee Taylor Krauss '97, director of oral history archives Voices of Rwanda, will be making more East and West coast appearances through BYFI this November & December.

View pictures and more from the June 4th event.

BYFI ALUMNI HAPPY HOUR - Coast to Coast, July 2008
Join BYFI alums for a summer social event. In July, BYFI will host events in 6 cities : Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Interested in hosting an event in your city? Email becky@byfi.org 

Register your interest

SAVE THE DATE

BYFI Fall Forum, November 9th, New York City
Join alumni, friends and family for an engaging day of discussion, panels and workshops about the new generation of Jewish literary content in American culture.
Read More

BYFI Collegiate Weekend, November 7-8, New Haven, CT
After a hiatus in 2007, we will be holding 2008's Collegiate Weekend on Friday and Saturday, November 7-8, at Yale University. Read More

BYFI'S 22ND SUMMER - Check out the blog

The 2008 Fellows left for Israel on July 1st. Their journey will be documented by BYFI counselors Hannah Kapnik '04 and Ariel Fisher '05 on our first ever BYFI Summer Blog. The Fellows come from 12 states and Canada, view their bios.  We have our first-ever Amitim from Afula, Kibbutz Yavneh, and Eilat. The faculty consists of Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld - her 12th summer! - Rabbi Claudia Kreiman - for her third time in a row, and Rabbi Andy Bachman, coming back after a fabulous rookie year in '07.

If you will be in Israel this summer, please come and visit the Fellows and faculty. You can join them for a Shabbat meal, or hear one of our speakers. Just contact Shimon at shimon.felix@byfi.org to arrange it.

A TASTE OF THE BYFI SUMMER - vote here
It's not too late to provide input on which summer speaking engagement you'd like to see featured for our alumni community. If you missed the e-mail or haven't voted you can do it here.

 

Nextbook(www.nextbook.org)

What they do: Nextbook is a non-profit organization which commissions books on Jewish themes, sponsors public lectures, readings, and performances in cities around the country, and publishes an online magazine. The website, Nextbook.org, contains information on all of these projects and also maintains an annotated list of recommended books.

Why we like them: 1) High quality content akin to The New Yorker or NPR. 2) Thought-provoking podcasts on topics ranging from an inside look at Streits Matzo factory to exploring an old shul inside a prison. 3) Essays by talented Jewish thinkers. 4) Events in major cities featuring great Jewish authors. 5) And, our favorite, a daily email digest of interesting and obscure Jewish news articles and essays from the world press.

Sarah Cowan ’97 awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her PhD research in Demography at the University of California, Berkeley.

Yaacob Dweck’s ’95 recent translation of Israeli author S. Yizhar’s novel Khirbet Khizeh reviewed in the Economist.

Sheila Jelen (’87 & faculty) awarded tenure at the University of Maryland as Associate Professor of English and Jewish Studies.

Keshet’s Hineini Education Project featured in a JTA article about their recent workshops in Atlanta for Jewish educators about GLBT inclusiveness. The project received a BYFI Alumni Venture Fund grant. Idit Klein’89 serves as Executive Director of Keshet.

Rachel Nussbaum ‘93 & Andy Bachman (faculty) named in Newsweek’s list of the Top 25 Pulpit Rabbis in America.

Noah Oppenheim '95 has joined Reveille productions in LA from his previous role as producer of Today on NBC. Reveille is the production unit behind shows like Ugly Betty and The Office. On July 3rd, Oppenheim was a guest on MSNBC's 'Race for the White House with David Gregory.

 Share your good news with us. Email Ava at ava.charne@byfi.org.

Dear Fellows,

I am thrilled to share the many exciting things happening with the Alumni Advisory Board over the last few months.  READ MORE »

As our alumni community matures, the Alumni Advisory Board (AAB) is evaluating and improving many aspects of how the alumni community should function.

BYFI has produced it's first- ever film: a 5-minute piece on the Fellowship program, meant to introduce us to prospective applicants and anyone interested in finding out who we are. Made by Sara Liss ('96) and her husband Avery, who together run the production company Brandplug, the film features the 2007 Fellows as well as some of our alumni from the early years - take a look - Thanks to Sara and Avery for a great job!

Save the dates! Our spring alumni event will take place in New York on Wednesday, June 4th, 7pm at The Bronfman Center at NYU, and will feature Taylor Krauss ('97) founder of Voices of Rwanda and a BYFI Alumni Venture Fund grant recipient. Taylor will show us some of what he has filmed in Rwanda and tell us about his exceptional work there documenting testimonies of Rwandan survivors of genocide.

Our Collegiate Alumni Shabbaton will take place on November 7th and 8th, 2008. Pencil it in your diary and watch for further details.

On Sunday, November 9, in New York City, we will be holding our BYFI Fall Forum. The Forum will take place at the newly reconstructed historic Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side, and will feature Jewish authors including many of our own alumni. Save the date and watch for details.

We want to congratulate the 9 alumni projects that were recently awarded grants through the Alumni Venture Fund, supported through your donations to the annual BYFI alumni fundraising campaign. The next round of applications will be due July 15. Revised application forms will be available at the end of April via the BYFI website.

1. Keshet's Jewish Safe Schools & Supportive Communities- a training program for community leaders, staff, and educators, giving them the resources and guidance they need to promote respect, dialogue, and ongoing growth by exploring sexual orientation, gender identity, and the celebration of diversity in a Jewish context. Idit Klein ('89) is the Executive Director of Keshet.  READ MORE »

Over the past few months the Development and Governance committee chaired by Rachael Wagner ('99) has been working on creating a mission statement for our Alumni Advisory Board. This mission statement is designed to help the board, and the alumni community as a whole, move forward in creating new opportunities for programing, networking, and communal action.  READ MORE »

We'd like to thank Rachael Wagner ('99) and the committee for their work. Here is the full mission statement:

BYFI would like to congratulate Yehuda Kurtzer (Alumnus, '93, BYFI faculty member 2002 & 2003) on winning the competition for "The next big idea in Jewish life" sponsored by Brandeis University and The Charles and Andrea Bronfman Foundation. You can read about the competition and Yehuda's big idea below. Well, done, Yehuda, and much success with your next two years at Brandeis!  READ MORE »

Itamar Moses' ('94) great new play, The Four of Us, is currently playing at the Manhattan Theater Club. Its got more of a BYFI connection than meets the eye. Read these reviews to find out what it is.

Itamar- a "music camp"?

March 26, 2008
The New York Times
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Bonds of Friendship, Frayed by Envy

Forget three. Two is crowd enough in “The Four of Us,” a comic drama by Itamar Moses about a pair of aspiring writers and their egos, one tender and one Teflon. A clever if modest study of the strains that success can put on a sturdy friendship, the play is less flashy but far more appealing than Mr. Moses’ notable previous drama about the anxieties and rewards of the artistic life, “Bach at Leipzig.”

The opening scene finds Benjamin (Gideon Banner) and David (Michael Esper), both still in their middle 20s, at lunch to celebrate the sale of Benjamin’s first novel. The conversation is mostly casual catch-up chat. David, still a would-be dramatist, has been away for much of the summer, earning needed money for grad school by working as a counselor at the camp where they met as teenagers. He casually inquires about the details of Benjamin’s contract for the book he wrote during time they spent together in Prague.

Price tag: $2 million.

David’s reaction to this staggering sum goes through several stages. At first there is stupefaction, at some point excited congratulation. But eventually David adds a worried observation, the hope that Benjamin will not find this sudden windfall, well, “totally spiritually corrupting.” Thus does the green-eyed monster come capering into the room, wearing a mask of friendly concern.

In fact David is more entranced than Benjamin by the rarefied life that his friend begins to lead. The next scene finds them both in the resplendent apartment of the movie star who bought the film rights to the book. Benjamin is indifferent to the heady atmosphere of celebrity. He couldn’t put names to the familiar faces at the movie star’s birthday party.

“That’s very annoying to me,” David grouses. “You have access to all of these people, but you’re too pop-culturally ignorant to appreciate it!”

As the play moves back and forth in time, tracing the progress of their relationship, Mr. Moses establishes the contrasts in their personalities that initially draw them together but eventually begin to chafe.

Benjamin is inward and self-sufficient, dedicated to the novelist’s calling with little thought of those ancillary baubles, fame and fortune, that may or may not come. During their Prague summer he rose at dawn daily to hit the computer; David worked at a bar, slept late and picked up girls, to the priggish disapproval of Benjamin.

David is needier and more insecure, nettled by Benjamin’s placidity and self-possession. He looks to others to measure his place in the world, while Benjamin seems to be motivated only by a desire to satisfy his own expectations.

“It’s one of the things that makes you a seductive friend,” David says. “You rarely seem to need anything. From outside yourself.”

Embedded in these dual portraits are some thoughtful if arguable observations on the different writerly DNA of novelists and playwrights. The dramatist, it is suggested, is partly drawn to the more public and immediately observable approbation of applause, as well as to social aspects of the collaborative process, maddening though it can be. The monastic life of the novelist must be its own reward. (That and the occasional $2 million book contract for the lucky few.)

Mr. Esper transmits his character’s antsy anxiousness effectively, while Mr. Banner’s Benjamin remains irksomely unruffled, even when David tries to provoke him. They are likable actors playing likable characters.

Mr. Moses’ play is likable too, although it does not always deliver enough drama or insight to keep us fully engaged throughout its 95-minute running time. Too many scenes of the boys shooting the breeze amble expansively over unexceptional territory: sex and intimacy, how Benjamin always knows the best new band before everybody else, the mechanics of the book business or the theater world. Mr. Moses writes fluidly naturalistic dialogue, but you may feel as if you’re eavesdropping on the dorm-roomish conversations of two clever but not wildly interesting young men.

The play’s formal elegance goes some way toward compensating for the slacker patches. Mr. Moses springs a nifty metatheatrical twist in the last minutes in a scene that leads to a potential rupture in the friendship. At last the fundamental irritation that has nagged at David comes to light. He wants to mean as much to Benjamin as Benjamin means to him, and cannot be sure he ever has.

Their differing approaches to both art and friendship come into focus as an irritated Benjamin asks, “How could you write about me?”

David’s touchingly revealing retort: “How could you not write about me?”

THE FOUR OF US

By Itamar Moses; directed by Pam MacKinnon; sets and costumes by David Zinn; lighting by Russell H. Champa; sound by Daniel Baker; associate artistic director/production, Mandy Greenfield. Presented by the Manhattan Theater Club, Lynne Meadow, artistic director; Daniel Sullivan, acting artistic director. At City Center, Stage II, 131 West 55th Street, Manhattan; (212) 581-1212. Through May 11. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

WITH: Gideon Banner (Benjamin) and Michael Esper (David).

 

Josh Meyer ('91) has just put out a book of his paintings, Wednesday evenings: Paintings of Sharrona Pearl. He also has a show of his work coming up in April at The Nesto Gallery, Milton Academy - Congratulations, Josh.

Josh is involved in putting together a BYFI alumni artists' weekend this summer at BIMA, the Berkshire Institute of Music and Art, located at Brandeis University. If you are an alumni artist and would like to get involved, contact him at joshua.meyer@aya.yale.edu

   READ MORE »

Danny Greene ('00), has just made a pod about his college roommate and fraternity brother who became an ultra-orthodox Jew and recently married a woman to whom he got engaged after knowing for only 2 weeks. The pod is called From Keggers to Kosher, and premiered on Current TV. Danny is not only one of the producers, he is also one of the stars.

View the video.