The Religious Education Association (REA) has awarded Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg and the ALEPH Ordination Program’s ground-breaking Israel-Palestine educational initiative, Beloved Land: Israel and Palestine through the Kaleidocope, the 2019 Wornom Innovation Grant for Innovation in Religious Education.

The prestigious award was announced this past weekend at the REA annual conference, which was attended by a significant gathering of Israeli religious education scholars. The conference was organized by renowned scholar and Jewish educator Dr. Hanan Alexander,  Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of Haifa, Israel. 

Key to the award is Beloved Land’s focus on hope.

“This educational endeavor delivers a compelling innovative model for empowering Jewish spiritual leaders with sophisticated nuanced capacities to enter the contentious arena of Israel/Palestine conversation in ways that promote multi-cultural understanding, compassion and hope,” says Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg.  

“Too often the location of skewed narratives, propaganda, emotional combat, hopelessness and rage, hard but needed conversations around Israel and Palestine often remain suppressed or become fruitlessly explosive,” continues Ginsburg. “Beloved Land’s integrated academic and experiential 4-Worlds approach facilitates the caliber of educational and spiritual formation that cultivates a capacity for deep listening, ongoing learning, resilience, and a nurturing of the possibility of a more deeply shared society. As religious educators, we will not, cannot, succumb to living in a post-hope world.”

With gratitude to the Religious Education Association for this recognition, we invite YOU to also affirm hope, resilience and compassion by joining us in supporting the Beloved Land Program. For more information on the AOP Israel and Palestine Program, please visit www.aleph.org/belovedland.

DONATE NOW to be part of this innovative program. You can join us with any donation, large or modest. You can affirm with us that, we will not, cannot, succumb to living in a post-hope world. Simply type in “Beloved Land” in the Comments/Dedication section at the bottom of the page.

Support the Beloved Land Program. Sponsor a rabbinic, cantorial, rabbinic pastor student—or any of our dedicated community spiritual leaders—to participate in this groundbreaking training.