FELLOWSHIP ARCHIVE
The first Nahum Goldmann Fellowship (NGF) was designed as a two-week summer institute for young European Jews
between the ages of 25-45.
PROGRAM
The theme for this inaugural NGF was Let My People Know and gathered 32 Fellows from 13 countries for a series of lectures, workshops and conversations designed to increase the Fellows’ exposure to Jewish learning and their connection to the larger Jewish world.
faculty
An outstanding faculty was assembled from Israel, the United States, and Europe and included:
Dr. Arnold Eisen, Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Professor Saul Friedländer, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland
Professor Arthur Hertzberg, Vice President World Jewish Congress, Geneva, Switzerland
Dr. Benjamin Ish-Shalom, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Professor Eliezer Schweid, Professor of Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Jerusalem, Israel
Dr. Gerhart M. Riegner, Former Secretary General World Jewish Congress, Geneva, Switzerland
Rabbi Michael Rosen, Founder of Yakar, Center for Tradition and Creativity, London, England
More about the fellowship
The seminar was aimed at providing Jewish learning at the highest level through a series of lectures and workshops on Jewish texts, Jewish Philosophy and Thought, and contemporary Jewish history. The participants represented professional and lay leadership of European Jewish communities, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and Yugoslavia.
Of his experience at the NGF Jonathan Davis from England wrote: ”I must ask myself how it is possible for one who has received virtually no Jewish education, who speaks no Hebrew, and who has never set foot in Israel, to consider himself a Jew. The peculiar achievement of the institute is that, at the same time as discovering the magnitude of my ignorance and becoming convinced of the need to counter it, I have also found my sense of identity, of being part of a community, of being affirmed.”
The immersive and inclusive educational model developed for the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship created for the first time, an opportunity for discourse around common concerns across religious, ideological, and geographic lines.
Ingrid Lomfors from the Jewish Center in Gothenburg, Sweden noted that the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship helped the participants share a sense of belonging to a greater European Jewish community.
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