JChatting - interviews with a Jewish flavour

  Dr. Erica Brown is the director of the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership and an associate professor of curriculum and pedagogy at The George Washington University. Erica has a daily podcast, “Take Your Soul to Work” and is the author of twelve books on leadership, the Hebrew Bible and spirituality. Her latest book Esther: Power, Fate and Fragility in Exile (Maggid) was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Council award. She has been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, First Things, and The Jewish Review of Books and wrote a monthly column for the New York Jewish Week. She has blogged for Psychology Today, Newsweek/Washington Post’s “On Faith” and JTA and tweeted on one page of Talmud study a day at DrEricaBrown. Erica was a Jerusalem Fellow, is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation, an Avi Chai Fellow and the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award for her work in education. Erica enjoys conducting interviews and moderating panels to ge...

  Rabbi Chaim Navon teaches Gemara and Jewish thought in Herzog College at Yeshivat Har Etzion and at Midreshet Lindenbaum. He is an author of several series of shiurim online at the VBM—The Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash of Yeshivat Har Etzion. Rabbi Navon authored a number of books including: Caught in the Thicket: An Introduction to the Thought of Rav Soloveitchik. He studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion from 1992 to 2004 and received rabbinic ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein.   1.      What Jewish message does the world need to hear?   I don’t believe that a one-off, short message would particularly influence the world. Real change is made through slow, deliberate, long-term education.   2.      What area do you see that Rabanim/teachers do not stress enough?   Paradoxically, I would say – God. We have moved from a time when Rabbis would speak  only ...