Elan Ezrachi and Naamah Kelman are a husband and wife team. Together and separately they cover a wide range of contemporary Jewish and Israeli issues. Based in Jerusalem, they have been involved for more than 40 years as professionals and lay people in critical areas of Jewish life.
Naamah, the Dean of Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, is the first woman to be ordained as rabbi in Israel and one of the leaders of the Israeli Reform movement.
Elan, the founding CEO of Masa – Israel Journey, is an educational specialist in the area of Jewish peoplehood, and the author of Awakened Dream – 50 Years of Complex Unification of Jerusalem (in Hebrew).
He currently teaches at the University of Haifa.
Here is a promo video made by Rabbi Kelman and Dr. Ezrachi for a virtual program they are doing for 36 congregations in Chicago (a historic occasion that Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Progressive Orthodox groups are coming together for them!):
Topics to be addressed, separately and together:
- Can we fall in love again? Israeli and American Jews Finding New Connections – The Promise and Perils of Relations between Israel and Diaspora Jewry
- The Israeli Jewish Renaissance : New Forms of Jewishness and Hebrew Culture are Flourishing throughout Israel
- Forward Together: How Reform, Conservative, Unconventional Orthodox, and Secular Jews and other Non-establishment Jewish Movements are Creating New Spaces and Reshaping Israeli Religious Life
- “City of Peace?”: The Reality of Jerusalem 55 years after Reunification – What is the current dynamic of relations, neighborhoods, politics, and geography?
- Beyond the Secularist-Orthodox Duopoly: Nuances and Shades of Jewish Identity in today’s Israel changing the paradigm and upending the State Rabbinate
