By Racheli Shafier One of my favorite parts of The Nachshon Project so far has been the opportunity to learn in a beit midrash. Every Tuesday afternoon, we travel together to the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, an “open, co-ed and non-denominational Jewish learning community.” Nachshon Fellows chose from four class options, and I chose […]
By Leah Sherin Before our trip to Ammunition Hill, we began the day visiting Har Herzl. Our tour guide, Aviv, usually gives tours of Har Herzl and Ammunition Hill to groups of commanders in the army, a very different kind of tour than most of us received when visiting these sites on any previous Israel […]
By Jenna Weberman Each Friday night, my family gathers to light Shabbat candles. After taking turns lighting our own, we’ve had a tradition all throughout my life in which we light one additional candle. One reason for this final candle is connection: when we light the final candle, we physically link together, touching someone who […]
By Sarah Kusnitz Most words in Hebrew come from a three letter root called a shoresh. One shoresh that we have recently been particularly interested in is this one, ק.ד.ש.-Kuf. Daled. Shin. I would like to translate this but there’s no straight, easy translation that will do and anything I say is itself and interpretation […]
By Andrew Jacobson Every Tuesday, the Nachshon Project takes us to the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem for an afternoon of learning. Along with several other fellows, I am taking a course titled "Jewish Identity as Reflected in Tanach" with Howard Markose. Each week we tackle a new subject - Shabbat and conversion amongst them so […]
By Hannah Taylor “There are two types of people who go to Mt. Herzl. Those who tour, and those who visit” Aviv Vishkovsky, our tour guide for the day, said to us upon entering Har Herzl, Israel’s military cemetery. “People who tour are not from Israel, they come to learn Israel’s history, they don’t know […]
By Ianne Sherry On Tuesday the 6th of February we had the incredible opportunity of learning with Leah Rosenthal. The lesson began by looking at the list from the Talmud of rituals that are allowed to be completed in foreign languages and those which can only be completed in Hebrew. We went on to discuss […]
By Hannah Gilfix During the opening conference, a group of fellows planned and organized ice breaker games for the entire cohort. They decided to put together a few Minute to Win It games. A lot of planning went into the program and then, as happens often within informal education, the schedule got changed and they […]
By Mady Frischer “Anyway here’s Wonderwall…” Yes, the classic words that start every Havdalah. Is it not the tradition before launching into a chorus of ya li li’s to sing an enthusiastic round of Mr. Brightside? Yet, that’s what we did to end our first Shabbat together on the Nachshon Project. We all came to […]
By Shira Botzum The Opening Conference was a whirlwind week of setting the foundations for so many of the conversations we were going to have over the course of the semester. We were just beginning to get to know each other and to fully appreciate the scope of how diverse our cohort is. As the […]
