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But How Do you Know?
As part of my course work in the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI)/Hebrew Union College Graduate Certificate in Educational Leadership, I was asked to research my own practice as a teacher. I immediately knew my research topic! Does learning in my classroom empower young people to be Upstanders? If so, what experiences in my Jewish… →
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Making Abraham an Upstander
Parashat Vayera D’var 5786 – 8 November 2025 (A video of my reading this d’var is linked at the bottom) Years ago I heard Rabbi Donniel Hartman speak about the Abraham of Genesis 18:16 – 33 versus the Abraham of Genesis 22. Rabbi Donniel taught that our choice of which Abraham speaks to us said →
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Working Towards Full Repentance – D’var Parshat Vayiggash 8738 – given 31 December 2022
When learning about the steps of Teshuvah – the repair and return to a good place that is meant to happen after we “break” a relationship, a trust, or someone else’s property – we don’t always learn about the final step – the proof that the intention behind the apology and repair was sincere and →
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Ich Judenwochen – A Lone Jew in the Kraichgau
“Oh wait! Are you Jewish?” This was said to me in a lecture that I sat in on at the Jewish Studies Institute in Heidelberg. The lecture was in German and I had been doing my best, aided by Google Translate, to follow along. It also helped that it was on the Crusades and Jewish →
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Teaching the Holocaust in Germany
Teaching about Jewish resistance during the Holocaust as a Jewish visitor to German schools. (Again out of order chronologically, but fresh, and heavy, on my mind…) This week I spent two days teaching at a gymnasium – “college prep” high school – in Heilbronn. I was speaking in their Religious Education classes, a History class →
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Arguing for the Sake of Justice – William Cooper and Kristallnacht
“William Cooper stood to gain nothing from his actions. He had no connection to the Jews of Europe. But he knew what it was like to be persecuted based on one’s racial or ethnic identity and did not wish that on anyone else.” →
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Dancing with the Remnants – My Reflections on The Bielski Partisan Gathering
Dancing with the Remnants Marking the 75th Anniversary of Liberation from the Nazis with the Bielski Partisans Nance Morris Adler Shabbat Shuva 5780 Shomer Yisrael, Sh’mor Sh’erit Yisrael V’al yovad Yisrael, ha-omrim: Sh’ma Israel. Guardian of Israel, guard the remnant of Israel; and preserve the people of Israel, who proclaim: “Sh’ma Yisrael. →
nancesea 