The Charlotte
Vol. 32, No. 1
Tevet-Shevat 5770
January 2010
An Affiliate of the Jewish Federation of Greater Chariotte
Federation’s Main Event Features Rabbi Daniel Brenner
Charlotte Native is Executive Director of Birthright Israei NEXT
The Jewish Federation’s 2010
Annual Campaign will officially
kick-off on Sunday, Febraary 21,
during The Main Event featuring
special guest speaker Rabbi
Daniel Brenner, Executive
Director of Birthright Israel
NEXT, who was recently named
by Newsweek Magazine as one of
the 50 most influential rabbis in
America.
Brenner’s speech entitled
“Going Retro? The Next
Generation’s Search for Jewish
Authenticity” will be both eye
opening and inspirational. His
remarks will address the future of
Jewish life in America, what the
next generation will bring to the
table and how we as a Jewish
community can connect and
engage them. Rabbi Brenner will
surely leave us looking at our
selves and our community in a
new light.
The Federation is especially
pleased to be bringing Rabbi
Brenner to our community
because he was bom and raised in
Charlotte and was educated at the
Hebrew Academy before attend
ing Charlotte Latin and graduating
from Myers Park High School.
Daniel is the son of Dr. Saul and
Martha Brenner, long time mem
bers of Temple Israel.
The highly popular Federation
annual event is chaired by Kevin
Levine and Louis Sinkoe, who
have assembled a fantastic
Steering Committee of community
leaders to help promote the event.
“Louis and 1 are honored to chair
the Main Event and are excited
and pleased that Rabbi Daniel
Brenner accepted our invitation to
be our guest speaker. Having
Daniel, who is our contemporary,
return to his hometown to address
our community is a tribute to the
strong Jewish upbringing and val
ues instilled in him by his parents,
the Hebrew Academy and Temple
Israel. From my days at the
Hebrew Academy and Temple
Israel, 1 remember Daniel as an
energetic, talkative, and boisterous
kid. He has come a long way
from throwing magnolia seed
‘grenades’ during carpool line. His
views and stories will entertain
and inspire us all,” remarked
Kevin Levine.
The Main Event will be held at
Temple Israel at 7:30 PM and a
sumptuous dessert reception will
follow the program. Event tickets
are $25 per person and can be pur
chased online at www.jewishchar-
lotte.org or by calling the
Federation office at 704-944-
6757.
In the Spring of 2007, Daniel
Brenner was hired by the
Birthright Israel Foundation to
launch a wide-reaching effort to
engage the over 200,000 North
American program participants
and their peers in Jewish commu
nal life. Birthright Israel NEXT,
the project has grown into a
national organization with profes
sionals working in twelve cities,
peer-driven programs that are
attracting over 50,000 partici
pants, and a robust training pro
gram for emerging leaders. It is
now the largest effort to foster
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Jewish cultural, intellectual, civic,
spiritual, and philanthropic life for
young adults ages 22-32.
Brenner’s rabbinic path has
focused on working across bound
aries. Prior to working for
Birthright Israel, Brenner worked
outside the Jewish world, direct
ing an educational center at
Auburn Theological Seminary, a
historic Protestant institution on
Manhattan’s Upper West Side. In
this capacity, Brenner launched
America’s first doctoral level pro
gram for clergy that work in the
context of religious diversity, cre
ated an educational curriculum for
Face to Face/Faith to Faith,
Auburn’s international youth lead
ership program. He also devel
oped Evolution, DNA and the
Soul, a popular program of sci
ence education for religious lead
ers with Columbia University. At
Auburn, Brenner was at the epi
center of the successful effort to
stop anti-Israel divestment in the
Presbyterian Church and his
efforts in this debate garnered him
a Simon Rockower Award for
Excellence in Jewish Journalism.
Before his work at Auburn,
Brenner served for five years on
the faculty of CLAL: The National
Jewish Center for Learning and
Leadership in New York City
where he pioneered programs that
forged bonds between leaders of
different Jewish denominations
and co-authored (with help from
Joseph J. Fins, M.D., Chief of
Medical Ethics at Cornell’s New
York-Presbyterian Medical Center
and Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard)
Embracing Life and Facing
Death: A Jewish Guide to
Palliative Care. In his preface to
the book. Senator Joseph
Lieberman praised the work as a
“transcendent contribution” to
Jewish life.
Brenner is also a prolific play
wright - his fifth professionally
produced play premiered at New
York City’s Vital Theater Brenner
holds a B.A. in philosophy from
the University of Wisconsin and
both M.A. and rabbinic degrees
from the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College. He lives with
his wife Lisa and their three chil
dren in Montclair, New Jersey.
According to 2008 Main Event
speaker Rabbi Joseph Telushkin,
“Daniel Brenner is a wide-ranging
scholar whose intellect has tra
versed so many fields, and whose
heart encompasses the whole
Jewish world, and the non-Jewish
world as well. How wonderful it is
Rabbi Daniel Brenner
for the community of Charlotte
that he is a native son, and that he
is returning to share with you his
hard-earned wisdom.”
The mission of the Jewish
Federation of Greater Charlotte is
to raise and distribute funds to
support and enrich the lives of
Jews locally, nationally, in Israel
and worldwide. Through educa
tion, planning and community
building, the Federation s mission
ensures that Jewish values, goals,
traditions and connections are
preserved for current and future
generations. ^
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Local, Global, Eternal
ISreel: Cinematic Views of Israel
Sunday^ January 24 at 7:30 PM in the Sam
Lerner Center for Cultural Arts
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Join the Charlotte Jewish Film
Society as it continues its cinemat
ic journey to the land of Israel.
Our upcoming presentation is of
the fascinating film “Children of
the Sun” by Ran Tal, which docu
ments the experience of growing
up on kibbutzim in the 1920s and
30s.
“Not everyone’s home movies
chart the rise and fall of a bona
fide social movement, but not
everyone grew up on a kibbutz. In
the early 20th century, these coop
eratives sprang up throughout
what is today Israel to foster a
utopian society based on absolute
equality. Children bom on the kib
butz were charged with no less
than delivering redemption to
mankind. Hand-in-hand with the
new social order came the aboli
tion of the nuclear family. No
mommy and daddy,
only nannies. No pri
vate bathrooms, only
communal coed show
ers. Children were
raised not as individu
als but as a group.
There was no 1, only we. In his
moving and unconventional docu
mentary, director Ran Tal collects
more than a dozen of these first-
generation kibbutzniks and pairs
their reminiscences with the splen
didly preserved home movies that
track their unique upbringing.
Sometimes with warmth, some
times with rancor—but always
with wit and candor—Tal and his
subjects reflect on a fundamental
ly different way of life, while also
hitting on something at the core of
human identity.”
The screening of this film will
be followed by a discus
sion with community
members, who them
selves grew up in a
Kibbutz and will share
their personnel experi
ences with us.
This event is free and open to
the public. For more information
please contact Tair Giudice,
Program Director, at 704-944-
6763. ^