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Alliance for Jewish Renewal (ALEPH) and the Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal

Judy Dawson

303.444.6100

Since 1998, OHALA has welcomed 140 to 200 Jewish clergy people per year to its four-day annual conference, preceded by a two-day Shabbaton, led by students engaged in ALEPH’s rabbinic ordination program; this year the organization will hold its 10th annual conference. The core of ALEPH’s annual conference is continuing rabbinic education, the theme of which changes each year to meet the needs of participants and best support their work. The program providers stated that this type of enrichment helps rabbis to nurture themselves and their families, keeps them interested in their rabbinic work, and helps enhance various aspects of participants’ rabbinic work. Participants learn and teach together, contributing to worship services, lectures, study groups, and other activities, such as meditation, chanting, and yoga. Through a year-long program focused on ethical growth and development (led by Rabbi Sheffa Gold, a Reconstructionist), participants each select a middah. Participants in this small group reflect upon the middah and support each other throughout the year. ALEPH conducts an evaluation of participants’ experiences after each year’s conference and makes changes to the program each year based on this feedback, including adding or reshaping learning sessions, changing the balance of activities, adjusting the food, etc.

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