Rabbi Josh Zweiback Appointed Director of the Year-In-Israel Program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem

Rabbi David Ellenson, President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), has announced the appointment of Rabbi Josh Zweiback as Director of the Year-In-Israel Program at HUC-JIR in Jerusalem, effective July 1, 2009.

“The appointment of Rabbi Josh Zweiback as Director of our Year-in-Israel program inaugurates an exciting new era in rabbinical education at the College-Institute. His intellectual ability, his Jewish knowledge, his religious sensibility, his love of Israel and Hebrew, his musical talents, and his wealth of congregational and educational experience in the American rabbinate make him uniquely qualified to play a creative role in the formation of our students as they begin their quest for religious leadership in the Jewish world,” said Rabbi Ellenson and Rabbi Michael Marmur, Dean, HUC-JIR/Jerusalem.

Ordained by HUC-JIR’s New York campus in 1998 and trained as a Jewish Educator with an M.A.J.E. from the Rhea Hirsch School of Education, Rabbi Zweiback has served Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills for the past ten and a half years. He began his career at Beth Am as Adult Learning Coordinator, the movement’s first full-time adult educator. He was later promoted to Senior Educator, tasked with overall responsibility for all of Beth Am’s education programs. For the past three years, Rabbi Zweiback has focused on the pulpit and pastoral components of synagogue life, sharing fully in the preaching and lifecycle load of the congregation with his Beth Am colleagues.

During his tenure at Beth Am, Rabbi Zweiback initiated numerous educational programs including Tzavta, a family b’nai mitzvah enrichment program; Hagigah, a theater based children’s education program; Hadracha, a teacher training initiative; and helped found Gan Ami, Beth Am’s early childhood education program.

Rabbi Zweiback supervised all aspects of Beth Am’s adult education program and particularly enjoyed the opportunity to teach courses in Talmud, Zionism, Jewish mysticism, Tzedakah, Modern Jewish Thought with a focus on the writings of Emanuel Levinas, and Reform Judaism. He worked with colleagues to create and implement a Lifelong Jewish Learning Map, which serves as a curriculum of Jewish studies for all ages of synagogue life. For the past five years, Rabbi Zweiback has served as a Visiting Lecturer at HUC-JIR’s Rhea Hirsch School of Education in Los Angeles, teaching a course in Adult Curriculum.

He has a passion for communal programming and initiated the Peninsula Night of Jewish Unity, which is now in its eleventh year. This event brings together over twenty Jewish institutions in the Bay Area for an evening of Jewish learning and attracts over 500 people from all of the movements of Judaism.

He has taught 7th grade Jewish Studies at the Gideon Hausner Jewish Community Day School in Palo Alto for four years. He developed an approach to teaching Pirkei Avot through song composition, which culminates each year in the debut of recordings written and performed by the students (http://www.hausner.com/avot/).

Four years ago, Rabbi Zweiback helped launch Beth Am’s Fund for the Future Endowment campaign, which just reached its goal of building a four million dollar programmatic endowment for the congregation.

“Yoshi Zweiback will bring to our Year-In-Israel Program his unique and inspiring energies as dynamic congregational rabbi, master educator, songleader/musician, and social activist. Throughout his rabbinic career, he has been a leader in the transformation and revitalization of Reform Judaism in the congregation, the classroom, and the broader Jewish communal world. This appointment marks a new era for the enhancement of our program and the impact it can have for our students and graduates. Rabbi Zweiback’s move to HUC-JIR/Jerusalem with his wife and three daughters is a significant expression of the centrality of Israel to American Reform Judaism. He will leave his mark on all our American and Israeli programs and be a wonderful and crucial addition to our staff,” said Rabbi Naamah Kelman, Associate Dean, HUC-JIR/Jerusalem, who will become Dean of the Jerusalem campus on July 1, 2009.

As an HUC-JIR student, Rabbi Zweiback founded KAVOD, a tzedakah collective dedicated to promoting human dignity (http://www.kavod.org). He continues to serve as KAVOD’s Volunteer Executive Director. KAVOD’s board includes fourteen graduates of HUC-JIR. Six years ago, in partnership with the College-Institute, KAVOD initiated a Tzedakah Fellowship program which affords HUC-JIR students the opportunity to learn how to raise and distribute tzedakah funds efficiently and effectively. Since its inception, KAVOD has distributed over $750,000 with an overhead of just $75.

Rabbi Zweiback is a musician and composer who has served as a songleader at various movement camps and in youth group settings for over twenty years. As part of Mah Tovu (http://www.mahtovu.com), he has released three albums and published two books. Mah Tovu has performed across the United States and their melodies have found their way into camps as well as synagogues.

His publications include the teacher’s guide to Shalom Ivrit II; Day of Days; and Days of Wonder, Nights of Peace: Family Prayers in Song for Morning and Bedtime, all from Behrman House Publishing. Numerous sermons have been published in The American Rabbi. He wrote a chapter in Theological Terms in the Talmud, edited by Dr. Eugene Borowitz. He has served on the editorial board of BabagaNewz Magazine since its inception in 2001.

Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Rabbi Zweiback was raised in Omaha, Nebraska. His father, Dr. Speedy Zweiback, and his mother of blessed memory, Hermene Zweiback, made Jewish education and Jewish community a priority for Josh and his sister and brother. He attended Princeton University, graduating magna cum laude, Phi Betta Kappa in 1991.

He is especially excited about bringing his eleven years of congregational experience as an educator, rabbi, and musician to the first-year students in Jerusalem. He also looks forward to pursuing a Ph.D. in Jewish Education.

Rabbi Zweiback is married to Jacqueline Hantgan who is a public policy advocate and organizer. in the field of stem-cell research. Jacqueline and Josh met in Jerusalem in 1992 and have long wanted to return there to live. They have three children: Isa, Ariela, and Naomi.

A Breakfast with Sam Fried by Rabbi Aryeh Azriel

Sam Fried has a powerful story to share.  We need to tell our people.  This man’s life project is to establish Heartland Holocaust Educational Fund, is a non-profit entity, in partnership with the Omaha Community Foundation scholarship to teach the holocaust in NE. This amazing treasure the monument commemorating the holocaust in Lincoln.  Our community and the general community should not ignore the need to hear the life stories of the survivors in our community.

Photo from the Jewish Press of Omaha. Frances and Sam Fried stand before the Wall of Remembrance they donated at the Holocaust Memorial in Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln. Fried was awarded an honorary doctorate last month by the University of Nebraska-Omaha for his role in Holocaust education.

Take a trip to Lincoln a half day.  Go and visit, it’s a place for student, teachers, he is organizing a wonderful project.

The Nebraska  Holocaust memorial is located on the grounds
of the Nebraska State Cemetery (WYUKA)
3900 O Street Lincoln Nebraska

Read more about a new fund to offer college courses on Holocaust.

Sometimes life is so hard, you just have to sing.

Today in staff meeting Cantor Shermet gave a compelling D’var.  She shared an article “The Music of Recession” by Goldie Rosenberg. Rosenberg writes about her father’s struggles in tough economic times, his choices, his pressures, his struggles, his relationship with God. It’s a beautiful teaching and so powerful in the midst of our current economic crisis.

As my father told me the story, he said, “It was so bad, I just had to sing.”

“Say again?!” I wasn’t sure I heard right.

He smiled and told me, “Sometimes it is so bad, you just have to sing to God.”

Music is an odd invention; it always employs force. Think about it. The drum is a skin stretched to its tightest which you then pound away at with the drumsticks. The guitar is strings pulled taut, which you then pick or strum at, exerting pressure on the right string. The piano works more or less like the guitar, with strings being stretched and then hit. The flute, the clarinet, the oboe — they take breath pushed strongly through it and constrain it into a narrow space so that there is pressure on that breath, until it escapes through an opening.

All instruments are pressure concepts. As soon as you take away any tension, your instrument won’t work. It needs pressure. (Read the whole article)

As God’s instruments, do we have what it takes to withstand the pressure, to sing a new song to the world?

Thank you for sharing Cantor. Yashar Koach.

The D’var was so powerful we decided to share it with the Board of Trustees as an opening prayer.