Panel at JTS - Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us About Building Vibrant Communities
Apr 27, 2010 - 7:30 pm
The Jewish Theological Seminary
3080 Broadway (at 122nd Street)
(212) 280-6093
publiceventsSPAMFILTER@jtsa.edu
Admission is free, but reservations are required.
Please email publicevents@jtsa.edu or call (212) 280-6093.
Please arrive at least fifteen minutes early to allow sufficient time for registration, and have photo ID available
.
How will the independent minyan movement affect the traditional American Jewish community? What does this new movement imply for the future of synagogues and Jewish education? Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen, and Professor Steven M. Cohen will discuss these issues and others raised in Rabbi Kaunfer’s new book Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us about Building Vibrant Jewish Communities. JTS Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen will moderate.
Named to Newsweek’s list of the top fifty rabbis in 2009, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer is cofounder and executive director of Mechon Hadar, an institute that empowers Jews to build vibrant Jewish communities. He also teaches Talmud at Yeshivat Hadar, the first full-time egalitarian yeshiva program in North America, and cofounded Kehilat Hadar, an independent minyan in Manhattan committed to spirited traditional prayer, study, and social action. He was ordained at JTS.
Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen has served as a rabbi at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST) in Manhattan since 2002, following her ordination at JTS. Passionately committed to progressive and feminist Judaism, she is an activist and an advocate for full inclusion and celebration of LGBT Jews in the Conservative Movement and the larger Jewish world.
Professor Steven M. Cohen is research professor of Jewish Social Policy at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive @ NYU Wagner. Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen and he cowrote The Jew Within. Professor Cohen has written or edited a dozen books and hundreds of scholarly articles on contemporary American Jewry.
One of the world’s leading experts on American Jewry, JTS Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen has long been active in the effort to revitalize Jewish life and Jewish community. At JTS he has championed a significant transformation in the education of the next generation of Jewish leadership.
