Workshops & Resources to Meet this Moment
JEWISH EDUCATION
IN A TIME OF CRISIS
We might not have a say in the events that shape our history. Yet, we do have influence, no matter how small, in shaping the way we — and our learners — remember them.
Scroll down for workshops and resources.



FIND THE LANGUAGE
Articulate challenging questions and dynamics.
LEARN TO LEAD
Inspire others by sharing personal stories.
SEEK FOR HOPE
Discover hope through a new Values in Action (VIA) resource.
FEATURED WORKSHOPS
To lead our learners through these turbulent times, we must first navigate them ourselves. Through a series of workshops, we invite you to experience and explore resources to help grapple with the impact the war in Israel is having on us locally and globally.
Storytelling Israel: Personal Narratives and Community Engagement
FACILITATED BY Dr. YAKIR ENGLANDER & Mollie Andron
9:00-10:00 AM PT, 12:00-13:00 ET, 18:00-19:00 CET,
19:00-20:00 ISRAEL
In this workshop, we will acquire storytelling tools on how to talk about Israel, whether with Jewish community members or others. The workshop utilizes stories to explore various, personal, and intimate characteristics of Israel, while emphasizing unique tools that allow the story to transition from a private space to become a means of explaining the storyteller’s relationship with Israel. This includes focusing on the role of the storyteller as well as that of the active listener.
Educational Resources
What do I need in my thought bubble?
Finding my Source of Strength
Antisemitism: Between Values and Actions
The Mezuzah Test
Blackout Poetry
Teens Speak Their Truth
Faculty

Mollie
Andron
Lead Faculty and Fellowship Director
Mollie has over 10 years experience teaching in a variety of Jewish educational settings – from formal classroom teaching to nature education, theatre education to collaborative philanthropy education. She enjoys being in the field, as well as building programs and trainings to support others. Mollie holds a double Masters in Midrash and Jewish Experiential Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary, a BA in Religion from Bard College, and is a graduate
of M²’s Senior Educators Cohort. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband and children.

Dr. Mijal
Bitton
Public intellectual and a spiritual leader
Dr. Mijal Bitton is a public intellectual and a spiritual leader. Mijal serves as the Rosh Kehilla (communal leader) of the Downtown Minyan community in Lower Manhattan. She is a Visiting Researcher at NYU Wagner and the Director of the first national study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews in the United States. Mijal earned her doctorate from New York University, is an alumna of the Wexner Graduate Fellowship, and was featured in the New York Jewish Week’s “36 under 36” in 2018 as a “public intellectual” with ‘public values.” Mijal is a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, a Sacks Scholar, a Maimonides Fund fellow, and a New Pluralist Field Builder. She lives in New York with her husband, Rabbi Sion Setton, and their two children.

Shoshana
Boyd Gelfand
Board Member
Shoshana Boyd Gelfand has been part of the Pears Foundation team in London since 2011, where she currently serves as Director of Leadership and Learning. Prior to that, she was CEO of the Movement for Reform Judaism in the UK and Vice President of the Wexner Heritage Foundation in New York. Shoshana is a founding faculty member of Faith in Leadership, Visiting Scholar at Sarum College and Visiting Research Fellow at St. Benet’s Hall, Oxford. She serves as Vice Chair of the International Jewish Committee on Inter-religious Consultations(IJCIC)and also serves as board chair of OLAM (a network of Jewish and Israeli organizations working in the fields of global service, international development, and humanitarian aid). Shoshana broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio’s “Something Understood” and “Pause for Thought” programs, and presents frequently at conferences on issues around faith, identity and leadership. Shoshana was ordained as a rabbi in 1997 at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where she also received her Doctor of Divinity honoris causa.

Debbi
Cooper
Director, Community and Family Engagement, PJ Library

Michelle
Dardashti
Rabbi and Associate University Chaplain
Brown RISD Hillel and Brown University Providence, RI,
Pedagogies of Wellbeing Research Fellowship alumna
Rabbi Michelle Dardashti was ordained and received a Masters in Jewish Education from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is trained in Congregation Based Community Organizing and came to Brown after serving as the Marshall T. Meyer Fellow at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan and Director of Community Engagement at Temple Beth El in Stamford. The daughter of an American folk-singer/teacher and an Iranian-born cantor, RMD (as she’s known on campus) was raised on a brand of Judaism which is multicultural, meta-denominational, musical and global – she became a rabbi to share the gifts her parents’ eclectic Judaism afforded her: passion, hope, wonder, gratitude, empathy, responsibility and joy; she came to Brown to nourish a Judaism that’s broad and deep and engaged with the world. She has spent time living and working in the Jewish community of Montevideo, Uruguay as well as four years in Jerusalem, where she was a student at the Hebrew University, a Dorot Fellow and volunteer and staff member at a number of NGOs working in the realms of democracy, dialogue and cross-cultural education. In her eight+ years on College Hill, Rabbi Dardashti has birthed a number of initiatives that critically explore allyship, activism and contemporary American Jewish positionality, including HIRAJ and the Narrow Bridge Project. She has also led monthly New Moon Gatherings for women across campus, created weekly platforms for Jewishly Inspired Meditation (“JIM, a workout for the soul)” and, in collaboration with Brown students, founded Kivun, a platform for musical and soulful prayer.

Dalia
Davis
Judaic Studies Teacher
Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School, Minneapolis, MN
Pedagogies of Wellbeing Research Fellowship alumna
Rabbanit Dalia Davis graduated from Yeshivat Maharat’s Advanced Kollel. She majored in Jewish History and Dance at Barnard, studied in Israel at Nishmat, received an M.A. in Jewish Education from Y.U. and a certificate in Talmud and Halacha from GPATS. Dalia co-founded Uprooted: A Jewish Response to Fertility Journeys. Dalia currently lives in the Twin Cities where she teaches Judaic studies at Heilicher’s Minneapolis Jewish Day School and Binah Teen Scholars’ Circle, and is designing a youth curriculum for Congregation Darchei Noam. She is also a Creative Movement Facilitator at Studio Inside Out. Dalia served as Rosh Beit Midrash for Merkavah Women’s Torah Institute in Berkeley, taught Melton courses in Springfield, MA, and served as Jewish dance educator for the Foundation for Jewish Camps. She is the creator of Beit Midrash in Motion, a fully embodied approach to Jewish learning. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fdizn6opo6zl47ovk2yz2/Jewish-Pedagogies-of-Wellbeing-2023_Bios-Brochure.pages?rlkey=tgrb6pymviu684sk0ujpydizl&dl=0