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Mazal Tov to AJR’s Gala Honorees

Rabbi Bruce & Terri Alpert

AJR Alumnus & Board Chair Emeritus, and Special AJR Supporters

They began dating in ninth grade; they fell in love a little later. Bruce’s rabbinical studies began in 2004; they fell in love with the school a little later. Bruce and Terri Alpert have two distinct relationships with AJR but their combined passion for the Academy has helped its success in countless ways.

Rabbi Bruce Alpert (Chair Emeritus) served for six years as the Board Chair, immediately preceding Dr. William Liss-Levinson. Leaving a family run business in manufacturing to pursue the rabbinate, he began serving as Rabbi of Beth Israel Synagogue in Wallingford, Connecticut after his ordination in 2011. Terri Alpert had one request when her husband said he would like to become a rabbi. It was simple: “As long as you don’t become a congregational rabbi it is fine with me.”

Terri was, and is, a very successful entrepreneur in the world of business. She has been invaluable to Ora and AJR when thorny problems have arisen that require the expert advice of a professional who values communication and has the ability to deliver a straightforward sentence. Bruce is a soft-spoken man with the gift of intelligence. They worked it out.

Bruce prefers not to be in the spotlight if he can help it. Terri is a partner who helps him navigate the stage. It wasn’t always thus. Before rabbinical school it was Bruce who was the supportive partner while Terri built her career. They have a willingness to be there for each other and to be the support each needs. That is a job they do willingly and lovingly.

Around the time that Bruce was in his second year of studies, AJR conducted a study mission to Israel. It was there, in Israel, that Terri began to form her own personal connection to the school. Terri and Ora really bonded during that trip while Bruce was getting to know his student colleagues in a new way. Terri would later remark that one of the things she truly loves about AJR is that it allowed Bruce to “achieve his dream, that he didn’t know earlier in life was his dream, and that he had no idea would become his path.”

More than that, Terri says: “we all need to start by knowing ourselves and then, we need to stop putting ourselves in boxes because when we do that, we are also putting other people in boxes. In this divisive world of ours we need to find as many ways to find unity as possible. Unity without creating uniformity! And, you know, AJR is the platform for that in the Jewish world.”

Adding to Terri’s thought Bruce goes on to say that when he thinks about AJR and what he loves most about it, it always begins with Ora. “It’s a labor of love for her, AJR is.” Bruce contributed a chapter to AJR’s book about pluralism. He entitled his chapter Confessions of a Reluctant Pluralist. The confession’s theme is that AJR helped Bruce become committed to the idea of religious pluralism simply and undeniably because it is the right way to work together. “What you don’t want,” Bruce says, “is a pluralism built out of necessity. You want a pluralism that is committed to the idea that things are better when there is a variety of ideas and a variety of approaches.”

Bruce and Terri Alpert have lived that sentiment and they have been instrumental in helping AJR exemplify that teaching.

Rabbi Menachem Creditor

AJR Faculty Member

Rabbi Menachem Creditor’s AJR journey began in 2002 when he met AJR alumnus, Rabbi David Paskin. Newly ordained, both he and the Academy’s Rabbi Paskin served neighboring congregations in Massachusetts. Mutual friends kept saying they owed it to themselves to meet; they would have a musical and soul connection. The meeting took place, the friendship was immediate, and two albums followed. More than that, David was instrumental in having Rabbi David Greenstein publish one of Menachem’s first academic essays in AJR’s journal, Gvanim. Up until that moment Menachem understood pluralism to mean tolerance. AJR would reframe that understanding. AJR would marry the word “pluralism” to its bashert, “cherish.”

Rabbi Creditor came to see that the Academy represented a connection to home, heart, and something essential about being human. In a world that could, and would, see an October 7th shape and reshape our understanding of liturgy, poetry, music and so much more, Dr. Ora Horn Prouser reached out to Menachem and asked about a potential publishing partnership. The question before them was “how to mark a Pesach, a holiday of liberation, in which hundreds of our sisters and brothers were enslaved.” To date, the partnership has produced six different volumes and Rabbi Creditor has become a beloved teacher for the Academy’s students.

The connection Menachem felt for AJR deepened on a summer day when his wife, Neshama Carlebach, said the words, “I am supposed to do more.” Menachem’s response was immediate: “You can do this. And, there is the perfect place for your fire.” The phone call was immediate; the decision was made.

Menachem has said that AJR is the “crystallization of what is right in Judaism.” That, coming from the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar in Residence at the UJA Federation of New York. The opportunity to teach emerging Jewish leaders, the experience of watching them wrestle with foundational texts as they argue with voices from the past, the joy of watching new commentaries being written, and the awesome responsibility of being part of a sacred chain – AJR is the cauldron, the holy environment where all that takes place.

According to Menachem, AJR should not be the only rabbinical and cantorial school but…its spirit should be shared with every other seminary. The Academy’s commitment to literacy, the commitment to emotionality and spirituality, the attunement to every student’s heart and path are the hallmarks of an institution dedicated to the essential and best of its students’ lives, and ultimately to the lives of Klal Yisrael. As AJR celebrates its seventieth anniversary Rabbi Menachem Creditor says it should be blessed to say “We got it right! The needs of any institution always outstrip what it is able to do. That’s the mark of a worthy institution.”

“AJR is not three letters. And it isn’t even definable. It is a beating heart.”

Menachem lives in New York with his wife, singer and AJR rabbinical student, Neshama Carlebach, and their family. His compositions include the song Olam Chesed Yibaneh and the book A Rabbi’s Heart.

Dr. Ora Horn Prouser

AJR CEO and Academic Dean

Dr. Ora Horn Prouser is the Academy for Jewish Religion’s CEO and Academic Dean. She began teaching here in 1999 and became AJR’s leader in 2003. She is an extraordinary biblicist and scholar, but if you ask her about her accomplishments she will lead with an idea: that the Academy has kept its eye on the singular understanding that relationships are the core of who we are as a seminary and that the Jewish community will grow and thrive in a climate that produces clergy and leaders who understand this deeply.

She will go on to tell you about the lifelong relationships forged in class and out of class, the friendships with colleagues and with alumni. She will say that the energy spent searching for excellent teachers and students, each one of them a person with a powerful desire to spend their life making a difference, is time spent in Holy work.

She will amplify her message by letting you know that everyone is not the same and that attention and kindness should be the calling cards of leadership, that we should all experience a love born from the ability to treasure the other not because of sameness but out of an appreciation for the majesty of difference. Ask Ora about her accomplishments and this is what she leads with.

Ora grew up in a family that prized service to the Jewish community, a family that understood the need for that service to be the logical extension of a love of people. Her father, Rabbi Bill Horn was a beloved congregational rabbi and her mother, Dena Horn z”l was a masterful educator with a lifelong love of the Hebrew language. This is the family Ora grew up in. For Ora, Jewish Day School led to undergraduate and graduate degrees from Columbia University and The Jewish Theological Seminary, and to marriage with Rabbi Joseph Prouser. Their three children, Shira, Eitan, and Ayal, have each forged their own creative and meaningful lives. Their grandchildren are third generation Jewish Day School students.

If you know about AJR you probably know that the school is the oldest pluralistic Jewish seminary in the United States, but to really understand what that means all you have to do is think about the decision AJR made in proudly and publicly standing up for Zionism. Ora’s leadership guided the administration as it worked hard to make sure that our understanding of pluralism, its limits and guard rails, was as expansive, meaningful, and open-hearted as it could be. Our pluralism was a tent that could accommodate an idea of Zionism that could be discussed. What it couldn’t accommodate was a negation of the Zionist ideal.

Dr. Ora Horn Prouser is a visionary. She stands squarely in the tradition of leadership that has helped to shape an AJR future which acknowledges its responsibility to our past, to our present, and to our future. More than that, it acknowledges the need for its graduates to understand the traditions of the past while serving the Jewish world of the present and future. AJR models that sort of thinking, and doing. The rabbis, cantors, and Jewish leaders it produces all pay it forward by modeling the same for their communities. It is a proud and crucial legacy.

Dr. William Liss-Levinson

Chair, AJR Board of Trustees

William (Bill) Liss-Levinson became AJR’s Board Chair in August of 2018 and has been a dynamic, consistent, and powerful leader and champion for the school. He has brought his extensive Jewish background and education, attention to nuance, and creative energy to every opportunity for engagement and dialogue. His tenure has seen a simply amazing and transformational period of growth for the Academy.

Spanning a distinguished forty-five-year career in the healthcare industry, Bill has held senior positions in several major companies, was the Director of Medical and Geriatric Services for one of the nation’s leading philanthropic organizations and, most notably, was the founding director of one of the first hospice programs under Jewish auspices in the United States. He has given tireless time to the Jewish community as a member of the Board of Directors of

the Jewish Book Council and has authored chapters and articles in many professional publications. He is the author of the book, In Search of Theological Modesty: Biblical Lessons which reflects much of his Jewish philosophy on pluralism.

As Board Chair, Bill has heralded the decision of so many AJR second career candidates, people already successful in their field but who feel called to take on the commitment of seminary study. Bill has an overwhelming and deep appreciation of AJR’s students and he has made that appreciation known to everyone who will listen. He has said repeatedly that it is dramatically important for our students and alumni to understand and know how much they are appreciated for the gifts they bring to the school, to the AJR community, and therefore, to the larger Jewish world.

Bill’s introduction to AJR came from his older brother, Rabbi Joel Levinson, who was ordained by the Academy in 1999 after making a decision to leave a long and full career in the financial industry and follow his dream of becoming a rabbi. Coincidentally, some years after Joel’s ordination, Bill happened to call a company from which he had previously purchased a necklace for his wife, Nechama. Very impressed with their customer service and the kindness and efficiency of the person he spoke with, he commented on it. Much to his amazement, Terri Alpert, the company’s CEO, reached out to him personally regarding his feedback. One thing led to another and Terri, having looked at Bill’s LinkedIn profile, said she’d like to connect Bill to her husband, AJR’s Board Chair, Rabbi Bruce Alpert. Bill joined the Board in 2016.

Bill took it upon himself to gain a real and deep understanding of just what AJR offered and what it stood for. This education led him from a basic understanding of pluralism to a nuanced view of both the expanse, but also the limitations, of the pluralistic tent. He came to see the institution’s students as exemplars of all those who willingly committed themselves to serious intellectual study and growth and who followed in the footsteps of the rabbis and cantors who helped shape the Jewish landscape. He saw, and appreciated, a student body wrestling with the questions: what is meaningful, who is meaningful, and why is it meaningful. He saw a student body that was uncommon in its love for each other and in its non-competitive desire to support one another.

Looking out over the AJR landscape has prompted Bill to offer a blessing to AJR: to realize that, having heard the Voice at Sinai, we are on a path to a Promised land and, like Moses, we may not get there, but we are forever heading in the right direction.

Bill and his wife Nechama – a psychologist and author of children’s books – moved from Great Neck, NY to Washington, DC five years ago to share life’s adventures with their wonderful children and grandchildren.