12 January 31 • 2019
jn

ADAM FINKEL CONTRIBUTING WRITER

 
Wexner program 
returns to Detroit 
after 31 years to 
enhance young 
leaders.

I

srael facing the “Who is a Jew” 
issue, one of several religious dilem-
mas to confront the state. Clergy 
“challenged” by intermarriage, assimi-
lation and Hebrew school inattention. 
American Jewry confronting a night-
mare of anti-Semitism and hate. A 
Supreme Court justice hearing rocked 
with intense scrutiny. An administration 
facing scandal dealing with a foreign 
nation and a country glued to news 
reports of it and the Congressional testi-
mony around it, day after day. After day. 
This was more than three decades 
ago. It seems like everything — from the 
flavors of Faygo to the challenges of our 
demographics to the soup stains on the 
Maxwell House Haggadah — has stayed 
the same, with the history and the head-
lines repeating themselves.
Thirty-one years ago, the initial 
Detroit cohort of the Wexner Heritage 
Fellowship, a North American leader-
ship development program designed to 
provide a toolkit of Jewish knowledge 
for emerging community leaders, was 
assembled. Detroit participants were 
recruited for that initial group when the 
three youngest members of the current 
Detroit cohort (including this author) 
were not yet born. This was the era of 

Sinai Hospital, still 10 years away from 
being sold off to DMC.
This was the late 1980s. Boblo and 
Tally Hall were thriving, so I was told; 
Google and Uber were not yet envi-
sioned, nor were JSwipe or Twitter or 
Amazon. 
Over the last three decades, it seems 
like everything except the Amidah has 
changed. Yet, truth-be-told, that may 
now depend on your prayer book, which 
may be digital, colorful, more matriar-
chal or, for some, non-existent.
One thing is certain: Making sense of 
a confused, complicated, certainly uncer-
tain world is assisted by education rooted 
in Torah, by community-building done 
in real time and with peers who easily 
become friends. This is Wexner 2017-19 
— and Wexner 1986-88. 
The program still allows participants 
the dedicated time with the highest-cal-
iber scholars to discuss and deliberate 
around the core of who we are as a peo-
ple, all rooted in the famous Pirkei Avot 
phrase that inspired the Wexner Heritage 
Program: “The world stands upon three 
things: upon Torah, upon Divine service 
and upon acts of kindness.
The 20 current fellows have discussed 
pressing issues with noted scholar 

Deborah Lipstadt just as earlier ones did 
with Leon Uris, the famous author of 
bestsellers including Exodus.
Matthew Shiffman of Birmingham, 
already a passionate philanthropist and 
dedicated booster of the city and com-
munity, has found immediate value in 
the program.
“Having the opportunity to be part of 
an incredible group (chavruta), Wexner 
has provided me a lasting platform to 
further my Jewish education and pre-
pare me to be an even better lay leader 
within our community. It’
s been many, 
many years since this program has been 
in Metro Detroit, and I feel blessed to be 
part of it.
”

THE PROGRAM’
S ROOTS
When Les Wexner decided to make a 
significant philanthropic investment in 
leadership in the North American Jewish 
community, he approached it entrepre-
neurially, said Rabbi Jay Henry Moses, 
vice president at the Wexner Foundation. 
“He and his co-founder, the late Rabbi 
Herb Friedman, piloted the Wexner 
Heritage Program in Les’
 hometown 
of Columbus, Ohio, in 1985. It was 
immediately clear they had hit on a win-
ning formula. So, they reached out to 

neighboring communities, and Detroit, 
where Les’
 dear friends and mentors 
Max Fisher and Al Taubman were pillars 
of Jewish life, was one of the first cities 
to respond to the call and embrace the 
leadership development opportunity that 
the Wexner Foundation was offering. 
“So, the Detroit group of 1986-88 were 
pioneers, helping the foundation test 
and hone the approach to adult Jewish 
learning in the service of strengthening 
leadership.
”
“
As a native Detroiter myself,
” Moses 
said, “I was especially delighted the 
trustees of the D. Dan and Betty Kahn 
Foundation, in partnership with the 
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan 
Detroit, had the vision to realize a gen-
eration had passed, and it was time to 
invest in developing volunteer leaders in 
the Wexner model again. 
“Since the 1980s, we have watched 
with great interest as Detroit weathered 
economic and social challenges and 
began an inspirational renaissance in the 
last decade. In the Wexner program, we 
teach that leaders need to guide their 
communities to respond to changing 
circumstances with an adaptive mindset 
— as Jewish communities have done for 
three millenia. 
“We work with communities all over 
North America; nowhere are we seeing 
more vision and energy than in the cur-
rent Detroit cohort, which represents 
nearly every corner of Detroit Jewish 
life, from city to suburbs, secular to 
Orthodox, schools, community cen-

jews d
in 
the
on the cover

&

Learning
Growing

Josh Levine, Gayle Gold, Sherri Singer, (spouse) 

Rachel Maxbauer and Reuben Maxbauer 

continued on page 14

PHOTOS COURTESY WEXNER HERITAGE PROGRAM