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Celebrating the 80th Birthday and Unique Living
Legacy of
Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis
One of the Greatest Innovative Jewish Leaders of our Generation
In his thirty-five years at Valley Beth Shalom, Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis has established
a unique living legacy of scholarship, creativity, ethical action, and spiritual
expression. Through his initiatives and innovations in Jewish communal life, worship,
Jewish ethics, ecumenical dialogue, and Jewish learning, Rabbi Schulweis has enriched
the lives of Jews and non-Jews around the world. His work has shaped modern Judaism.
In order to preserve and extend this legacy,
Valley Beth Shalom has created the Harold M. Schulweis Institute, a Center
for Jewish Learning.
The mission of the HMS Institute is to share with generations to come, Rabbi Schulweis'
vision of Jewish life and Jewish learning developed at Valley Beth Shalom. The Institute
will function, first, as a "Presidential Library", collecting, preserving and disseminating
Rabbi Schulweis' writings and oratory; second, the Institute will offer new programs
including Jewish scholarship, public dialogues, and participation in issues affecting
Jewish, Israeli and global communities; third, the Institute will promote programs
which enrich Jewish life and the life of the synagogue with visual arts, performing
arts, music, and literature.
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Preserving the Legacy: The Library
The first project of the Institute is this site: a comprehensive effort of collecting,
cataloging and making available Rabbi Schulweis' material legacy: his books and
articles, transcripts, poetry, and digitized copies of previously unpublished sermons,
lectures and teachings, selected letters, essays, and monographs. The Library combines
a large physical collection of books, documents, and original writings with an on-line
virtual library which makes Rabbi Schulweis' scholarly legacy available worldwide.
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Click here to listen to a discussion between Rabbis Schulweis and Feinstein |
Rabbi Schulweis has led public discussion of the central issues of Jewish life.
The Scholars Series will continue his vision. The inaugural event in this series
was the extraordinary “Conversation of the Learned,” convened from March 30 to April
1, 2005, in honor of Rabbi Schulweis’ eightieth birthday, and was attended by several
thousand people over the three day sessions. Recordings from this event are available
as CD and cassette tape albums and online from the Institute Online Library on this
site.
Under Rabbi Schulweis, VBS has demonstrated care and concern for those who are discriminated
against, or are too disadvantaged to advocate for themselves. Rabbi Schulweis has
extended these concerns for social welfare and interfaith ecumenism to address major
global social and moral issues Most recently, he has organized Jewish World Watch
as a project to help alleviate the hardship of victims of racial violence in Africa.
Global Outreach Programs created by the Institute will ensure that such activities
continue.
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Rabbi Schulweis is deeply committed to the place of the arts in Jewish life, and
most particularly, in the life of the synagogue. The Creative Arts program will
encourage artists in all disciplines to share their gifts with the synagogue community.
Composers, musicians, poets, dancers, dramatists, painters, and sculptors will be
enlisted to deepen and share their vision with the synagogue and to enter into dialogues
with its members.
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