Webinar: Introduction to PR and Media Relations

For starters, check out “I’m a Reconstructionist Rabbi…..” a short video that combines offhand humor with wisdom and has drawn chuckles as well as heartfelt comments and, so far, has been played more than 18,000 times on Instagram.

Philanthropy and private giving are a vital part of American democracy and deeply ingrained in Jewish communal life. Historian Lila Corwin Berman, Ph.D., has, through her scholarship, shed light on the history of Jewish philanthropy while raising questions about how it is practiced. Who benefits from philanthropy? Who gets to decide how dollars are spent? Do good intentions lead to good results? Does philanthropy advance democracy?

Back in 2017, Rabbi Shelley Barnathan met with 100 prospective members individually over coffee to ask some central questions about what they wanted in a new Reconstructionist synagogue in Philadelphia’s western suburbs.

She had just completed rabbinical school after leaving a 32-year career as a language arts teacher. A child of Holocaust survivors, she wanted to realize a childhood dream that wasn’t accessible in her Modern Orthodox community.