Jewish Fluency

Equipping knowledge and skills to integrate Jewish practices and sensibilities

Synopsis

Hillel professional

What does a Hillel professional need to know Jewishly to do his/her job?

Corpus of knowledge

Is there a corpus of knowledge and/or experiences that a Jew (or Hillel professional) needs to know? IF so, what is it?

Who is an educated Jew?

Who is an educated person?

Summary

We reviewed Lee Moore’s paper on Jewish Fluency. Key questions and understandings included:
· Fluency as ‘the capacity to see the world Jewishly’

· Knowing it (Judaism) because you are a part of it (Text is not enough!)
· Knowing what to DO with it (Judaism)
· What is the VALUE of being fluent?
· Is addressing Jewish fluency actually addressing Jewish insecurity. We don’t want Jews to be Jewishly insecure.
· Metaphors that might be more apt than fluency: citizenship, being an informed citizen; Conversational
· How to teach curiosity to go deeper?
· How to help people have the basics so that they bring their own chiddush to the community?

Participants: Sara Magida, Josh Bolton, Ariel Naveh, Shlomo Geller, Glenn Ettman, Elyse Winick, Vera Wexler, Abi Dauber Sterne, moderated by Lee Moore