How might Jewish tradition and historical experience inform our role in the conversation about global poverty?
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“There was a period of time when the mere fact of Jews ‘doing well’ became a self-justifying goal… ‘doing well’ means we can survive. But at this point we have a much more sophisticated notion that survival has to be for a purpose.” -Rabbi Daniel Landes
We live in a time of unprecedented gaps between enormous affluence and extreme poverty. Where is the place of the Jewish people within the conversation about how wealth should be distributed in our world? OLAM’s own Dyonna Ginsburg and Rabbi Daniel Landes of Pardes weigh in on our second episode of Global Torah.
Guest Bios
Dyonna Ginsburg
Dyonna is the Executive Director of OLAM, a collaborative venture and joint platform for promoting global Jewish service. Prior to OLAM, Dyonna served as Director of Education and Service Learning at The Jewish Agency; Executive Director of Bema’aglei Tzedek, an Israeli social change NGO; and co-founder of Siach, a global network of Jewish social justice and environmental professionals. She has a BA in International Relations from Columbia University and an MA in Jewish Education from Hebrew University. A frequent lecturer, she was named “one of Israel’s 50 most inspiring women” by Nashim magazine in 2015.
Daniel Landes
Danny has served as Director Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies since 1995. Born in Chicago, Danny studied in Chicago with Rabbi M.B. Sacks, the Menachem Tzion; in Israel with Reb Aryeh Levin, the Tzadik of Jerusalem, with the great mystic R. Zvi Yehudah Kook, and with the Chief Rabbi R. Avrum Shapiro. In New York he studied with the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik; and in Los Angeles with the Av Beit Din R. Shmuel Katz (on whose rabbinical court he served). Danny was a founding Faculty member of The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and of Yeshiva of Los Angeles, as well as Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at Loyola Law School. He was Rabbi of the Upstairs Minyan which he merged with the renewed Congregation Bnai David Judea – a center for spirituality, intellectual ferment and social action. He has taught for the Wexner Foundation for over 20 years, is an exponent of Jewish Unity and also was the first rabbi to be invited by Indonesia to speak publicly. He and his wife Sheryl Robbin, a social worker and author, write on Biblical and ethical issues.