Section archive - Conferences & Events

The Songleader Boot Camp (SLBC) National Conference, to be held at The Jewish Community Center, St. Louis, MO on February 19–21, 2017, offers one of the top Jewish leadership training opportunities in the country led by nationally renowned Jewish leaders, educators and music artists. SLBC teaches participants about the many vehicles they have to create powerful, interactive connections, expand leadership abilities, and learn specific skills and techniques to inspire change in their communities. SLBC offers a profound exploration of the physiology, psychology, strategy, and execution behind explosive Jewish teaching and songleading.

In honor of the birthday of Professor Nechama Leibowitz (3 Elul, 5665), Lookjed is reprinting Judah Harris' essay that is based on his attendance at a Drisha sponsored program that took place several years ago. - Nechama Leibowitz: Her Life & Work, was the theme for this year’s Winter Week of Learning at Drisha, a center for advanced Jewish Studies (but all levels are welcome) which offers ample learning opportunities throughout the year, but attempts special programs during popular vacation seasons to bring teachers and students together in a common pursuit. December 23rd and 24th was the most recent “community learning event,” as Drisha calls it, with presentations by Nati Helfgot, Walter Hertzberg, Moshe Sokolow, and Chayuta Deutsch from Israel, who wrote one of the special biographies of Nechama Leibowitz that has been published in recent years.

In collaboration with The AVI CHAI Foundation, the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University and a steering committee of religiously and geographically diverse Jewish day school heads are convening a two-day conference, November 14-15, 2016, to explore the trends playing out in the academy and the campus quad: “From Anti-Zionism to Anti-Semitism: An Educators Conference.” The conference intends to inform – not to alarm – us about the climate of college life today and to consider how Jewish schooling addresses the changed atmosphere that we and our students confront. Many of us are disturbed when the good that we take for granted – Zionism, Israel, and Judaism – are denounced as evil. We are confused when liberal ideas about diversity and progressivism are turned against the Jews who believe in those ideas. If we are troubled and confused, our students facing the assault are even more so. We have to know and better understand what they will have to confront.

This week, I had the privilege of attending the 4th Annual Summer Sandbox, a 2.5 day conference focused on project-based learning (PBL) and education in the 21st century hosted at Yeshivat Noam in Paramus, NJ. As an educator well aware of the use, jargon, and general interest in PBL within the progressive educational community but without much insight into its underlying principles and methods, I've been meaning to attend this conference for a few years now.