From the NJJN

New Jersey rabbi's new role begins where free trips to Israel leave off


Rabbi Daniel Brenner has been named vice president of education at birthright israel.


by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer
05.31.07

As head of interfaith programming for a Presbyterian seminary, Rabbi Daniel Brenner was often on the receiving end of jibes of the "What's a nice Jewish boy like you¦" variety.

And yet, so comfortable had he grown at Manhattan's Auburn Theological Seminary, he acknowledged, that he had to be asked twice before considering a position as vice president of education at Taglit-birthright israel.

"The first time I said, ‘Look I can't do this. I'm deeply immersed in my work at Auburn," said Brenner, a resident of Montclair.

But that was before Israel's war with Lebanon last summer. After the war, when Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg, his former mentor at CLAL — The Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, made the second call, Brenner's internal focus has shifted to Israel, where he has family.

"The war got me thinking," said Brenner. "I really want to be part of that dream. I want to stand in solidarity with my family in Israel. Birthright israel is one way American Jews can have the opportunity to stand in solidarity with Israel."

He also began thinking about the Jews he was interacting with through his work at Auburn.

"I did a lot of work with Jews in the context of Muslims and Christians," he said. "Young Jews are trying to carve out their Jewish identities. And they are not finding their places in the Jewish world but somewhere else."

Birthright israel would enable him to access a generation of unaffiliated Jews and help them to connect. "Oh, yeah, this is why I became a rabbi," he remembers thinking to himself as he attended his first birthright israel board meeting.

Brenner begins his new position June 1 and will focus on programs for birthright israel alumni. The program offers free or heavily subsidized trips to Israel for young Jews who have not been there previously on organized tours.

Administrators at the birthright israel Foundation were thrilled with the new appointment. "Rabbi Brenner brings a glowing sense of Jewish excitement to whatever he touches," said foundation president Jay Golan. "He has a broad range of Jewish experience and great respect in dealing with people across the spectrum, whether politically from right to left, or denominationally from Chabad to Reform. He finds commonalities and bridges the gaps in an unusual way."

"For me, it's all about this generation," Brenner said. "How has the Jewish world changed and how are these young people, 18 to 26, seeing the world? How do they do Jewish when they return from these trips?"

Brenner has already crafted his vision for how they might want to "do Jewish." It begins with involving the alumni themselves — 15, to be exact: young professionals from cities across North America — who have already said they want to be more involved.

They will spend three weeks this summer at a retreat in Israel, brainstorming about how to reach the 30,000 young people who go on birthright israel trips every year. The list already includes gatherings like retreats, Shabbatons, and social circles based on common interests, as well as such organized activities as a national day of service learning or a national initiative to celebrate Hanukka.

"I don't want cookie-cutter programs, but options," he said. "I hope as a result of my work, we'll see a flowering of a new generation getting involved in Jewish life."

Birthright israel already offers some post-trip programming, but at a level its founders and leaders consider patchwork at best. Administrators anticipate that Brenner will ramp up the effort.

"Daniel will turn his attention to making sure the vast majority of recent alumni get invited to something within six to eight weeks of their return," said Golan. "Being contacted quickly and with something exciting is a huge logistical piece we are not doing, or only doing on a patchwork basis…. Daniel will move to develop national curricula and programs that can travel to wherever people need them, whenever they want them."

Transcending divisions

Brenner, who serves as part-time rabbi at the String of Pearls, a Reconstructionist synagogue in Princeton, is also a published author and playwright. In 2001, he was named one of the upcoming generation's "best and brightest" by the New York Jewish Week. At that time, he was serving as senior teaching fellow at CLAL- The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. As director of Auburn's Center for Multifaith Education, he applied CLAL's pioneering work in promoting pluralism among Jews to programs involving Christians, Muslims, and Jews. In the aftermath of 9/11, Brenner created programs that he hoped would transcend prejudice and social divisions and build a renewed sense of civic cooperation among the faiths.

Brenner has no illusions about the challenges he faces in his new role, but he's looking forward to meeting them head on. Many birthright israel participants have not become b'nei mitzva — 20 to 30 percent, according to the organization. About 60 percent are unaffiliated or very marginally affiliated.

"This is a group I love to work with because they ask really tough questions. There are no assumptions with this group," he said. "You really have to be absolutely clear about why someone should like to be Jewish. Birthright israel reaches young people at a stage of intense questioning. The Jewish community must step up and speak to them."

Brenner expects to travel back and forth to Israel often, which would make finding time on the pulpit difficult. He will step down from the pulpit at String of Pearls, a decision over which he said, "I'm heartbroken, but I'll have to focus all my energy working with birthright."

Brenner also expects to bring a certain level of intensity to his work.

"I have 100,000 alumni to serve," he said.

But one thing he'll always have time for is writing. Brenner is a frequent contributor to Jewish and religion publications, and his fifth professionally produced play, Driving School of America, premiered at New York's Vital Theater in 2004. "I could never stop writing," he said. "In my heart, I'm a writer. I write for my mental health and my sanity."

What he's most looking forward to is learning about his new constituency. "This will give me an incredible window into the lives of American Jews as they live and not just the core Jews who are raised in our institutions."

Beliefnet Archive's Brenner's Blogs

It is a grey, rainy day on this date of mourning in Manhattan. Six years seems like a long time --- last year the five year mark was a significant milestone and I felt the gravity of the day as I stood outside Trinity Wall street. This year I was rushing off to work, watching a hundred umbrellas bobbing on the sidewalk - life as usual. we move on.

I went to read my 9/11 pieces that I wrote after the attack and that's when I found that there's now an official Rabbi Daniel Brenner page over at Beliefnet, the leviathan of religion websites. Here's what you can find:

Honoring Our Fathers After you've done the ties, after-shave, and golf balls.By Rabbi Daniel Brenner
Build a Mosque at Ground Zero . . . and a church, and a synagogue. An inter-religious center would be a testimony to America's spiritual power. By Daniel S. Brenner
The Future of Foreskins Circumcising my own sons brought me physically closer to them. Why are so many parents willing to forego this important bond? By Daniel S. Brenner
Little Plastic Torahs, Big Revelations On the holiday of Shavuot, we show our love for the Torah--a love not just of the text, but of the very Torah itself. By Rabbi Daniel Brenner
Light in Dark Times This year, dedicate each night of Hanukkah to a set of heroes from the past several months. By Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner
Rebuilding in the New Year A parable for Rosh Hashanah. By Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner
Double Blessing This year is a time to reflect on several types of miracles--American and Jewish, ancient and contemporary. By Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner
Learning from Suffering When we confront death, we confront life's most important--and toughest--questions. By Daniel Brenner, Tsvi Blanchard, Joseph J. Fins, and Bradley Hirschfield

New Poems for Rosh Hashannah

I’ll Stop the World and Melt With You

Same story every year.

The rich man

A big sinner

The pious rabbi

Alone in his study.

How can I atone?

We will go to the blacksmith.

Put all your gold in the fire

Melt it down

Dip in a spoon and drink the molten metal.

The rabbi’s shaky hands tie a blindfold around the rich guy’s head.

Are you ready to pay the price for your sins?

A spoonful of marmalade.

New Year’s Buzz

I can not open the honey.

Liquid Nails

That was what they used to lay the linoleum in the breakfast room.

Thus begins this five thousand seven hundred something new year

congealed crud blocking natural sweetener

I wanted it to be another way

That I would have prepared

Brand new jar,

purchased off a beekeeper,

marked with a homemade label

Busy B Farms

or

Natural Buzz

or the best of all, a label-less product,

little bits of honeycomb suspended in light brown goo.

But I worked up to the very last minute.

Blocked out the sound of each morning’s shofar blast,

Opted out of the self-reflection thing altogether.

Should I take a hammer to the thing?

Immerse it in ice water?

Drill a hole in the top with my Black & Decker?

My beloved hands me a floppy circular piece of rubber

I twist

Open up, Gates of Repentance.

Poem for Rosh Hashanah

Who Shall Live

A layer of Saran Wrap
Protection
A shpritz of lemon juice
Secret
These red delicious will remain white
Without sin.

Who shall live?
And who shall dye their hair?
Who by pestilence?
Who by Pilates?

Nobody knows.
What is this ‘Jeopardy’?
Well it’s
Another year, spaceship earth has made one more elliptical orbit
-Planetarium narrator.
And I’m still here.
We’re still here.

God is the King
May the thorny crown be replaced by something more comfortable,
Say with a sweatband,
Perhaps in size six.

Heed the cry of the shofar!
Heed the blast of the shofar!
It is the cue for the kitchen help,
off with the Saran Wrap.

- Daniel Brenner

Five Truck Stops South

About 5 truck stops South of my hometown of Charlotte, NC (past the Gafney peach and about a dozen Fireworks stores) is the road to Clemson. That road takes you to the Georgia mountains on the Appalachian trail. That is where I was last week, in Clayton, for a Hillel-sponsored conference at Ramah Darom. 

Many highlights to report, one being the opportuinty to lead services with Josh Nelson, 
a young Jazz educator and Jewish music composer. The service we lead was the "creative liberal" 
one - and after I gave a short drash on "tzedek,tzedek tirdof" he broke into the 
Police's "Message in a Bottle." 

You might be thinking that this was corny. But at that moment, overlooking a calm lake and summer evening sky, it was the opposite -- it was serious and moving, and many people remarked that it was the high point for them in the davenning. 

Josh is both an accomplished guitarist and a singer with serious range. He's got a new album coming out with Universal - slickly produced pop with a Jewish message. Check him out

The Third Temple

It is Tisha B'av and I write from the city that sits alone. Jerusalem, last night your streets were filled with pilgrim mourners and police forces, pillow-carrying grandfathers and acne-riddled flag waving teenagers, one guy I saw driving through the Jewish quarter on a Kawasaki. Yid on a Mamluk bike traversing ancient Roman sidewalks. Rak po.

So what is my prayer? I would like one day to see the security fence torn down and the concrete and metal from the rubble be formed by a group of artisans and architects into a third temple. A new har habayit in Jerusalem built not from hewn stones, but out of the very symbol of the fear and division between peoples. Large bulldozers ascending the mountain with their sacrifices, cement blocks of watch towers, highway barriers, barbed wire. This I offer up, a new mishkan.

It will all be transformed, swords into plowshares, the barbed wire untangled to create a mosaic of the milky way galaxy, an olive orchard, a single human cell - twelve mosiacs that line the entry way to the new throne of the Divine Presence. Gates will be on all sides of the new Temple, welcoming those from the Egyptian and Babylonian highways, EZ Pass, and we will bring even those small symbols of fear - security alarm sirens, locks, bicycle chains - all of us pilgrims with wheelbarrows full of such things. we will walk, singing songs of redemption, or simply being content with the new silence. the sound of footsteps is music enough.

For the new Tisha B'av we will feast on Leviathan, spilling a few drops of wine for every year that passed that we let our reptilian blood rule our lives. We were like dreamers, we will say, in the new Eden.

mei yerushalayim eir hakodesh

yes, i blog from der judenstadt! last night I was at the Lab in Jerusalem- old train station now performance space to see Shem Yichud, a midrashic theater piece by Basmat Hazan Arnof...a deeply religious piece about loneliness, prayer, marriage, omelettes. Afterwards, we went to Hadag Nachash's free show...a thousand Israelis of all ages shaking their tucheses to the groovy sounds of funk and hip-hop and Shanon Streit yelling "Nehenim v'mapsutim?" Hebra-Arabic for "y'all having a good time?" Kein v'aiwa.

A Poem

At Any Given Hour
Inspired by Cesaria Evora

At any given hour men are arguing about the path of a ball.
In, out, goal no goal, each has his opinion.

One says “Let’s get back to work”

At any given hour women are talking about their bodies.
Blood, no blood, sick not sick, each has her own opinion.

One says “It is what it is – it will be what it will be”

And soon it is evening.
They come together over food.
Some talk and some are silent.
A few are laughing.

A man beats his wife because of money.
A man sings a lullaby to a crying baby while his wife sleeps.
Across town a woman slaps a child because of lying.
A woman changes the bandages from her husband’s surgery saying ‘Poor thing.’

A few are laughing to themselves.

Water flows down drains, carrying with it secrets, clues, revelations, remnants.
Something creaks, something crashes, but mostly there is the hum of machines and cars and silence.

The great rush of lovers is felt tonight, the wind roaming the streets to give flight to their hair, the young people are behind bushes in the parks, jeans muddied, locked in every embrace imaginable.

The aide from the hospital lifts the spoon to her lips and she tastes.

Yes. Mint chocolate chip.

A photo of Sasson Klezmer

Here they are funkifying the bamboo-ed corner of my suburban lawn behind my humble abode.

Notice the faux grass carpet underneath the drums - remnant of my dreams of a mini-golf course.

Thanks to Jon for the PA system and to Daniel for recommending them.

btw i clicked this photo with my phone - the T-Mobile Dash. I highly recommend this slim, ugly phone to all those who crave multi-tasking devices. I can even play chess on the thing.

Reb Blog is back!

My apologies to all Reb Blog readers for the hiatus. Many things are cooking in my life that have prevented the usual posting. The big news is that after four wonderful years I am leaving Auburn to return to the Jewish world, taking on a new position at the birthright israel foundation and working on an initiative that will foster Jewish community and connection for Jews between ages 18 and 30. There's an article in NJJN on my job switch tommorrow. I am going to miss the multifaith adventures, but G-d willing I'll be having some new ones of my own as I wander the streets of Jerusalem this summer.

In other news, two weeks ago my wife Lisa and I went down to New Orleans, which was an incredible experience (photo to the left is from a NOLA jazz club - thanks Matthias for showing us around!) One highlight was a Soul Rebels concert and an interview we did with the drummers during the set break. Lisa is working on a documentary theater piece about recovery efforts.

And last week we had the band Sasoon Klezmer from Seattle play at a little party celebrating Lisa's new job at Drew University and my new gig. They were funky and freilech. Check them out if they are playing near you.


http://www.njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/053107/njNewJerseyRabbi.html

Jews, Carrots

Check out this wonderful new blog on Jews and Carrots. And matza. And organic produce. And just about everything else to do with "How a Jew Eats." (please steal this book title!) Yasher Koach to Hazon for launching this project.

The Decemberists in March

Last night my beloved and I hit the Loew's Theater in Jersey City (A fantastic palace of Cinema built in 1929...not yet restored...grand and decaying like Asbury Park's Paramount) and we heard the truly wonderful band The Decembrists. We have dug their sound for a long time, but had no idea that they could put on such a raucous, whimsical and at times frenetic live show -- there was a hurdy gurdy, a two person whale puppet, alot of rock lighting wackiness and two sing-a-longs. All this from a band that sings most often about the tragic deaths of folk, mythical or historical characters. Don't miss them when they come to your neck of the woods.

The Corruption of Power

In the days before I jetted out to Arizona for our annual Rabbinical Convention, I hosted Mikey Weinstein, the Air Force Academy graduate who is in a one man battle against the Dominionist Evangelicals in the U.S. Armed Forces, for a meeting at Auburn. He wrote a book "With God on Our Side" about many of the abuses that have been carried out by certain Evangelical officers in the military. He argues that these folks have taken over the military bases and are imposing their agenda on all soldiers.

The first thing to know about the guy whose name reminds most folks of a Life cereal commercial is that Weinstein is a tough guy. His language is coarse, and his physical presence reminds one of the boulders that one sees along the highway headed towards Colorado Springs. He’s in “combat mode” and the one time JAG is now suing the U.S. government in order to stop the Evangelicals. “They are as serious an enemy as Al-Qeida!’ he says. He does not mince words.

It was a bizarre day -- After meeting Weinstein, I went to Marat/Sade, a play from 1968 about a group of mentally ill inmates of an institution putting on a play for the upper-classes about the French revolution. I was lucky to get a ticket to the current production at the Classical Theater of Harlem. (Thanks to my beloved) The show was performed by a mixed race cast who were encaged in a chain-link fence that not only occupied the theater in the round style center stage, but the aisles as well. Imagine the cage as a “w” and the audience sitting in its two valleys. The “inmates” stared at you from behind the fence. They drooled. They scratched themselves. Snot ran down the noses of a number of inmates. And as the play began, the show became a parade of blood, feces, and urine while we witnessed beatings, rape, and murder. My beloved was hunched over for more than half an hour, convincing herself not to vomit. It was certainly the most violent and riveting experience I’ve ever had in a theater.

So what is the connection between the rise of dominionist theocrats and the parade of abuse in Marat/Sade?

I'm not so sure...but the themes of martydom, control, and violence are all in the mix. A very strange day.

Judaica Uganda

This weekend at B'nai Keshet in Montclair, a member of the Ugandan Jewish Community
JJ Keko, taught three songs during services. He did Psalm 92 and 93 and taught a L'cha Dodi. JJ is one of the singers on the Smithsonian Folkways recording (see link). It was great to meet him and to learn from him. We also got to drink the coffe he grows as part of Thanksgiving Coffee Company.

Nation-state Debate

The Nationalism Project is a nifty site which explores debates on the origin of the concept of nation and nationality. I just happened across it while working on the curricula for Face to Face.

Frantic Turtle

I was down at the Bowery Poetry Club last night for a show by Jake Marmer's outfit Frantic Turtle. Marmer, sporting a Woody Allen themed t-shirt waxed poetic about fish soup, gabbais, russian novelists, shimon bar yochai while his laid back band did lots of reggae like things. It was all truly mesmerizing and wonderful. The spirit of Ginsberg lives on.

Here's a link where you can hear their fine work: Frantic Turtle

Afterwards, we were treated to another wonderful act, Plain Hex Quartet.

Mazel Tov Dad!

Saul Brenner, Lifetime Achievement Award in Judicial Politics
Professor Saul Brenner will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) this fall at the annual meeting of the association in Chicago. The award was announced by Melinda Gann Hall, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University and chair of the selection committee.

Dr. Hall stated: “The Law and Courts field is particularly distinguished by the number of outstanding scholars who consistently have contributed much over the course of their careers. Thus, [Dr. Brenner has] reason to be particularly proud of [his] achievements and this award.” She continued: “ From a personal perspective, I know that I speak on behalf of all the committee members when I say that we appreciate the extraordinary impact [Dr. Brenner’s] work has had on our own. The Lifetime Achievement Award is the only such award given by the APSA for those who study judicial behavior and law."

Dr. Brenner has been at UNC Charlotte since 1965. He is a past recipient of the First Citizens Bank Scholars Medal in 1994, which honors the best scholars at UNC Charlotte. He is the senior professor in the Political Science Department.

A Gem from Reb Rilke

Once the realization is accepted

That even between the closest of human beings

Infinite distances continue to exist

A wonderful living side by side can grow up

If they succeed in loving the distance between them

Which makes it possible for each to see the other

Whole and against a wide sky.

-Rainer Rilke

Torah Mi Garden State

Reb Blog is now featured on My Jewish New Jersey! a nifty new portal of rabbinic rants from the capitol of golus.

Tragically Hip

Nextbook has got a little feature in their Religion section that riffs on my recent Revealer piece. (And while you are there, I recommend reading Shalom Auslander's wacky memoirs.)

Here's their comment:

Services for the Tragically Hip

Questionable efforts to make shul cool continue with indie rock rabbis and Synaplex, a program that organizes Saturday "Tour de Torah" bike rides and "Jewpardy" sessions. The WSJ's Naomi Schaefer Riley takes a critical look at the latter, and gets lambasted by Rabbi Daniel Brenner for arguing that the non-Orthodox need "consultants to sell their religion."