POLISH LEADERS WRAP UP YEAR
OF LEARNING WITH BAY AREA RABBIS
Bay Area-based Taube Philanthropies is celebrating the conclusion of a yearlong exchange program between local rabbis and Jewish community leaders across Poland.
The virtual exchange — dubbed “Minyan Makers” — saw local religious leaders log online to facilitate Jewish text studies for Polish professionals from the Auschwitz Jewish Center, the Galicia Jewish History Museum, JCCs in Krakow and Warsaw, and other organizations.
The exchange, inspired by a 2015 Jewish heritage tour of the Eastern European country for local clergy affiliated with the Northern California Board of Rabbis, brought 13 local rabbis together with 44 Polish professionals from 21 institutions, and was funded via a grant from Taube Philanthropies. Its founder, the Bay Area real estate developer and businessman Tad Taube, was born in Kraków in 1931, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1939 just months before the Nazis invaded Poland.
Taube has donated millions toward efforts to revitalize Jewish life in the country after its Jewish population was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust. In 2007 Taube was named an honorary Polish diplomat for the San Francisco Bay Area.
Today approximately 4,500 Jews live in Poland, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.
Among the local rabbis who participated in Minyan Makers were educator Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan, Rabbi Danny Gottlieb of San Francisco’s Beth Israel Judea, Rabbi Serena Eisenberg of the American Jewish Committee and Rabbi Pam Frydman of the Northern California Board of Rabbis.
In post-Holocaust Poland … we have found a common place to reimagine Jewish life reborn.
Participants were divided into four minyanim, or groups of at least 10, to study excerpts from the Torah, the Talmud, from Jewish prayer liturgy and from Kabbalistic writings.
Wolf-Prusan led the first Minyan Makers session. He said in a release that he chose to teach the opening lessons from Pirkei Avot (Sayings of Our Fathers) because of its themes of revitalization and renewal.
“This simple and elegant dialogue between teachers and students, composed after the destruction of Judean autonomy in the second century, reveals the central mission of the Mishnah itself — the reconstruction and revitalization of Jewish life,” Wolf-Prusan said. “It was relevant then and is relevant now, in post-Holocaust Poland, where we have found a common place to reimagine Jewish life reborn.”
With the conclusion of the program on June 22, Taube Philanthropies announced a second exchange program facilitated by Gabe Miner, the Taube Center’s rabbinic intern. Supported by Roselyne Swig and the Libitzky Family Foundation, the new program, called Doresh, will continue efforts to introduce Jewish texts to interested students, incorporating Polish Jewish sources.
Helise Lieberman, director of the Taube Center in Warsaw, lauded Doresh as a successor to Minyan Makers.
“It is possible to facilitate engaging online learning experiences that inspire a sense of communal connection,” she said. “Doresh will create a virtual beit midrash, a house of study, building on this connection as it fosters a sense of peoplehood.”
For more information or to sign up for Doresh, please contact Gabe Miner at: doresh@taubejewishheritagetours.com
ABOUT NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOARD OF RABBIS
The Northern California Board of Rabbis serves the needs of colleagues, acts as a religious resource in communal and individual affairs, and builds connections and commitment to the Jewish community.
ABOUT TAUBE CENTER FOR JEWISH LIFE & LEARNING
The Taube Center for Jewish Life & Learning Foundation is dedicated to enriching Jewish life in Poland and to connecting Jews from around the globe with their Eastern European heritage. The Taube Center produces an array of educational programs and resources, including custom-designed Jewish heritage tours; TJHTalks, a monthly webinar series on Poland’s Jewish past and present; Yerusha, a professional development program; and Mi Dor Le Dor Europe, a pan-European Jewish heritage educational initiative.
PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS:
- Association of the Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw)
- American Jewish Committee (Warsaw)
- Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (Oswiecim)
- Brama Grodzka-Teatr NN (Lublin)
- Committee for the Jewish Heritage Protection (Tarnów)
- Cukerman’s Gate Foundation (Bedzin)
- Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (Warsaw)
- Galicia Jewish Museum (Krakow)
- Hillel Warsaw
- Hillel Krakow
- JCC Krakow
- JCC Warsaw
- Jewish Culture Festival (Krakow)
- Lauder-Morasha Jewish Day School (Warsaw)
- Lodz Jewish Cemetery (Lodz)
- Mifgash Foundation (Warsaw)
- POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Warsaw)
- Zuzanna Ginczanka High School (Warsaw)
