In times of crisis, many have identified the need for resilience. In the face of the unknown, we often seek to return to “normalcy.” But the simple resilience of “bouncing back” is illusory. We can never return to a previous state. Instead, we must cultivate a complex resilience that allows us to learn and grow through disruption.
Join JPro San Diego for this special lunch and learn session where we introduce the concept of “complex resilience”—the ability to learn and adapt through crises—along with some related Jewish texts, and we discuss the ways that Jewish leadership can apply this concept for today and the future.
Meet Our Facilitator:
Dr. Dean P. Bell is President and CEO of Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, where he also holds a faculty appointment as Professor of History. Dr. Bell has taught at DePaul University, Northwestern University, Hebrew Theological College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California, Berkeley. He has served as President of the Midwest Jewish Studies Association and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Jewish Studies. Dr. Bell is a widely published author in the areas of Medieval and Early Modern Jewish history. His current research focuses on Jewish environmental history. Bell is author or editor of 13 books and monographs and dozens of articles, including co-author of Interreligious Resilience: Interreligious Leadership for a Pluralistic World and co-editor, with Keren Fraiman, of The Routledge Handbook of Judaism in the 21st Century.
Stacie and Jeff Cook understand commitment. They live it.
Black, Jewish and Queer. These three identities weave the fabric of who I am, but it took a long time to believe that they could exist together.
Lee and Toni Leichtag established the Leichtag Foundation in 1991 following the sale of their business. Lee and Toni were lifelong entrepreneurs with a passion for innovation and for supporting talent. They believed that only with big risk comes big reward. Both born to families in poverty, Toni to a single mother, they strongly believed in helping those most in need and most vulnerable in our community. While they supported many causes, their strongest support was for young children and the elderly, two demographics who particularly lack voice in our society.
Lifelong Baltimoreans, Rabbi George and Alison Wielechowski and their sons, 11-year-old Lennon and 9-year-old Gideon, are more than pursuing the good life in Southern California. Having moved to San Diego more than three years ago, they are fulfilling a lifelong dream.
You would think that as the executive director of San Diego LGBT Pride, Fernando Zweifach López Jr., who uses the pronoun they, has done all the coming out they possibly can. A queer, non-binary individual who has worked for many years on civil rights issues, López also speaks openly and often about their father’s family, Mexican-American migrant workers who tilled the fields of rural California.