Courageous Leadership Now

Mandel Institute graduates, fellows, faculty and mentors met on April 21st, 2020 for the second in a series of convenings on communal responses to the coronavirus pandemic. The session featured a talk on “Courageous Leadership Now” by Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Dr. Kurtzer described the pandemic as a catalyst for an overdue conversation about how the Jewish institutional ecosystem can be redesigned to better serve our rapidly changing communities. How can communal leaders move beyond the “myth of abundance” to address a growing “crisis of relevance”? In breakout groups, participants discussed priorities for institutional restructuring, and how their own organizations are responding to immediate challenges while planning for the future.