Future
Leaders Gear Up For First Event
Senator Lieberman Scholars
Program Set to Kick Off
The Orthodox Union’s Senator Joseph I.
Lieberman Scholars Program will have its first event the week of the
November elections. The five scholars -- high school seniors Samantha
Brinn (Jacksonville, FL), Martin Levy (La Jolla, CA), Rachael
Oppenheimer (Leonia, NJ), Raimy Rubin (Pittsburgh, PA) and Shira
Wakschlag (Lincolnwood, IL) -- will be in Washington, D.C. for a special
initiation weekend. The participants will attend a Shabbaton in their
honor at Kesher Israel Synagogue in Georgetown and will spend Shabbat
meals with young Jewish leaders who work in the political arena. Among
the speakers will be Tevy Troy, policy director for Senator John
Ashcroft of Missouri, and Jeff Mendelshohn, chief of staff to
Congressman Ciro Rodriguez of Texas. The speakers will present short
descriptions of their professions and be available for one-on-one
questions and discussion.
In the second part of the retreat, the
Lieberman scholars will participate in the Panim el Panim conference,
also in Washington, November 12-15. Panim el Panim, run by the
Washington Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values, brings together
Jewish high school students in grades 10-12 from across the country for
a four-day seminar that will examine public policy and social activism
through the lens of Torah texts and values. The seminar will teach these
young leaders how to take Jewish ideas, beliefs and knowledge about
civic engagement and translate them into action and empowerment to
effect tikkun olam, repair of the world, individually as well as
collectively. This year, there will be 107 Panim el Panim participants.
The aim of the Lieberman Scholars weekend
is to enable the five high school seniors to get to know one another,
begin their leadership training and help them gain valuable insight into
world of political activism. Nathan Diament, director of the OU’s
Institute for Public Affairs, a co-sponsor of the program, explained,
“We are taking young adults who have already proven themselves as
leaders in their local communities and grooming them to become future
leaders on a larger scale. This experience is an incredible opportunity
for these young men and women who will hopefully come away from the week
feeling that one person really can make a difference.”
The Senator Joseph I. Lieberman Scholars
Program is a project of the Institute for Public Affairs and the
National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY)-- divisions of the
Orthodox Union.
The Orthodox Union, now in its second
century of service to the Jewish community of America and beyond, is the
world leader in youth work, advocacy for persons with disabilities,
synagogue services, adult education and political action. Its kosher
supervision label, the , is the world’s most recognized kosher symbol
and can be found on over 250,000 products in 68 countries around the
globe.
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