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