National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership

The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL) is a leadership training institute, think tank, and resource center. It is an inter-disciplinary and inter-denominational movement, in which rabbis from all of the major Jewish denominations

Jewish denominations

Jewish religious movements , sometimes called "denominations" or "branches", include different groups which have developed among Jews from ancient times and especially in the modern era among Ashkenazi Jews living in anglophone countries...

in North America are participants. The organisation is described by The Jewish Daily Forward as a "think-tank dedicated to questions of Jewish identity and religious practice...in its quest to expand the boundaries of Jewish communal life".

According to the organization's website, "CLAL links Jewish wisdom with innovative scholarship to deepen civic and spiritual participation in American life. CLAL's interdisciplinary programs explore religious and national identity. The CLAL faculty, with its reputation for excellence, represents rabbis and scholars from many streams and disciplines, and provides cutting-edge teaching, lectures, courses, seminars, and consulting across the country."

Rabbis Irwin Kula

Irwin Kula

Irwin Kula is an American rabbi and author, currently serving as the president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership . In 2008, he was listed as 7th in Newsweek’s “50 most influential rabbis” list.-Education:...

and Brad Hirschfield

Brad Hirschfield

Brad Hirschfield is a rabbi, author and the president of CLAL–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. Hirschfield was ranked three years in a row in Newsweek as one of America's "50 Most Influential Rabbis" and recognized as a leading “Preacher & Teacher” by...

presently serve as co-presidents of CLAL.

Etymology

CLAL has an intentional double meaning in Hebrew. To the English speaker, CLAL is a four letter acronym formed using first letters, with some license, of a part of the organization's English language name (Center for Leadership and Learning). But in Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, these same four letters represent an alternate phonetic transliteration

Transliteration

Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...

for klal, which translates roughly as community. Klal is the first word of klal Yisrael

Klal Yisrael

Klal Yisrael is an expression developed since the 1880s among Orthodox Jews of the Hibbat Zion movement to describe and promote a sense of shared community and destiny among all Jews, in Palestine, in the diaspora, and later in Israel and the USA...

, a Hebrew expression that is frequently heard in invocations for unity among the Jewish people. This Hebrew interpretation of the name CLAL suggests the organization's stated mission to serve as a center of interdenominational cooperation in American Judaism.

History

CLAL was founded in 1974, by Rabbi Irving Greenberg

Irving Greenberg

Irving Greenberg, also known as Yitz Greenberg, is a Modern Orthodox rabbi, Jewish-American scholar and author. He is known as a strong supporter of Israel and a promoter of greater understanding between Judaism and Christianity....

, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel

Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...

, and Steve Shaw.

External links

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