From Our Staff

Class dismissed: Jewish LearningWorks CEO David Waksberg retires

Originally published in J. Jewish News of Northern California – May 28, 2020 Around the time David Waksberg became CEO of the Bureau of Jewish Education 13 years ago, he had a heart-to-heart with a colleague. And not just any old colleague. He called former Soviet Jewish refusenik Natan Sharansky.…...

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Be the campfire for our teens

When I accepted the position of CEO at Jewish LearningWorks, I was motivated by optimism about the future of our work, elevating the art of Jewish teaching and the practice of Jewish learning. In spite of this historical moment, I continue to be driven by that optimism. Though none of…...

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Farewell from our Director of Inclusion

Dear Friends, For nearly a decade I have had the privilege of supporting, advising, and working with all of you to make the Bay Area Jewish community more welcoming and inclusive. From our humble beginnings with five schools in the North Peninsula, to our work today offering special needs support…...

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Sometimes you need to lose yourself to be found

Can you remember losing yourself in a book?  I remember reading Chaim Potok’s The Chosen as a teen.  The Orthodox world of Potok’s childhood was quite different from my own, but the protagonists met in a baseball game!  Seeking to understand what it meant to be a Jew in modern…...

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Who is wise? Who is mighty?

My father’s father grew up in a small city in western Poland. Inspired by Theodor Herzl, he was frustrated by his yeshiva’s unwillingness to embrace Zionism and its inability to address his deepest concerns. Expelled for reading Spinoza (hidden under his Talmud tractate), he joined the Zionists and never looked back. My…...

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