About NGF
The purpose of the International Nahum Goldmann Fellowship is to provide a constructive space for young leaders to test questions and assumptions, practice critical leadership skills, and learn about the diversity and shared values across the Jewish world.
For one week, approximately 40 emerging leaders between ages 25-40, from Jewish communities large and small, participate in a retreat which exposes them to the highest levels of Jewish textual learning through lectures and workshops. Faculty from around the world, who represent the broadest range of Jewish life and practice, act as teachers and mentors during and beyond the program. In addition, Fellows practice leadership skills in fellow-led electives and engage in intense conversations with their peers that leave participants with a profound sense of connection to each other and the larger unfolding story of the Jewish people.
The Nahum Goldmann Fellowship was conceived of and created by Dr. Nahum Goldmann himself in consultation with former MFJC Executive Vice-President, Dr. Jerry Hochbaum. Its creation emanated from the Foundation’s emerging strategy to grow the social capital of the Jewish people by serving the stunning tapestry of Jewish cultural life globally, and thereby supporting and growing the concept of Klal Yisrael. The Foundation’s most impressive vehicle for the propagation of the concept of Klal Israel is the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship.
In the last 30 years, the MFJC has organized twenty-nine international Nahum Goldmann Fellowships, and six regional Fellowships in Eastern and Western Europe, North America, South America, Australia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and Israel. These programs have successfully identified and trained more than 1000 young men and women for leadership positions – communal, cultural, and professional – in Jewish communities around the world.
The initial goal of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship was to create a space whereby the Fellows could explore their relation to their own Jewish identity and redefine it based on their own particular Jewish journey. It also aimed to help these individuals redefine their roles as young Jewish leaders. More than 70% of the alumni of those fellowships declared that they have successfully redefined themselves as Jews as a result of the NGF.
The NGF gently nurtures global Jewish unity and peoplehood: we believe in the inherent value of Klal Yisrael, its heritage, history and culture. The program encourages individual Jewish expression, informed by engagement with serious Jewish scholarship and by real engagement with other young Jews of differing cultural, religious and political identities. We are one of the very few programs with a true global reach—investing in young Jews from countries with large and small Jewish communities.
2018 NGF Evaluation Report
Read the results of our 30 year evaluation of the International Nahum Goldmann Fellowship.
Support the Fellowship
Jewish Unity is not just an ideal – it is an inherently Jewish value best encapsulated by the often used Talmudic saying: “Kol Yisrael Arevim Ze La’zeh – All of Israel are responsible for one another.” Yet this value is under serious threat as the centrifugal forces in the Jewish world increase in volume and vilification. To this disturbing trajectory, the International Nahum Goldmann Fellowship offers a compelling counter-force. Our programs reach Jews from all parts of world—from Belarus to Brazil—we need your support to maintain our global reach.
The Foundation was established in 1965 by Dr Nahum Goldmann following his successful negotiation with the then West German government for reparations. In Goldmann’s view, the reparation funds were not to be confined solely to the physical reconstruction of Jewish life after the Shoah. He foresaw the critical and indispensable role that Jewish culture, broadly defined, needed to play in the regeneration of the Jewish life. He argued passionately that, “If I could restore to life the thousands of intellectuals buried in Auschwitz, I could rebuild the Jewish people.”
Past Fellowship
Featured: Israel | June 12-18, 2023