Guest post by Editor Man – from Park City, Utah
We spent most of the day at Temple Har Shalom, Adam Bronfman’s shul. The congregation is 13-years-old, but just opened its own building (today I am a full-fledged synagogue).
The first session – “Rethinking Jewish Collectivity – was led by David Myers, the director of UCLA’s Center for Jewish Studies. Aided by a more discussion-friendly format, he did a great job, fueling some of the most engaging back-and-forth so far. That said, I’m not sure we lived up to the “rethinking” part of the title – since most of the dialogue centered on familiar Israel-Diaspora themes. I’ll have more to say on this session, but I’d rather wait until I can do some editing with the audio.
For now, click here to listen to the lunch event (which was open to members of the congregation): “How Is Our Children’s Judaism Different Than Ours?”, a discussion between Adam Bronfman (son of Edgar) and Wayne Firestone, the director of Hillel. The moderator was Daniel Septimus, editor-in-chief of MyJewishLearning.com.
I’ve given you the full 60 minutes for two reasons, the first being that I don’t have the time/ability to edit it down right now. The other is that Bronfman and Firestone are both in positions to influence the Jewish community’s approach to outreach and identity building. So when you get a chance, it’s worth a listen, just to get better feel for who they are.
