November 21, 2008

Paideia Launches Alumni Think tank

One of the dark November weekends this year was illuminated by a group of Paideia’s bright alumni, all working as Jewish professionals throughout Europe.

An initial number of twelve former Paideia students, today representatives of organizations such as Hillel, Kesher and JAFI with substantial impact on the map of Jewish Europe, gathered in Stockholm to envision the future of European Jewish communities.

In a series of think tank sessions topics such as ”The Nature of Jewish Communities – the Present and the Future,” “Institutional Approaches for Future Directions,” “Pan-European”: Fantasy or Future?” and “Jews in a non-Jewish Europe and non-Jews in Jewish culture,” were discussed with great interest and passion.

The Paideia alumni as a group possess a number of key-virtues that make them especially interesting as a think tank group working on issues concerning the future of Jewish European life. They have all undergone a stringent filtering process just by being recruited to Paideia in the first place, based on their ambition to contribute to Jewish life and culture in Europe and a great majority of them have since their graduating continued their involvement in Jewish life benefiting from the knowledge and tools they have acquired at Paideia.

Together, over 150 alumni represent 28 different European countries where many of them hold important positions as the heads of the Jewish communities, key positions within Jewish organizations and heads of Jewish studies departments at a number of distinguished European universities.

This initial think tank meeting was made possible thanks to The Groschinsky Memorial Foundation. It is the first step in Paideia’s intention to solicit the alumni’s opinions on what the most pressing needs are for them and for the sake of Jewish revival in Europe. The Paideia alumni think-tank will also function as an insightful advisor and informant to Paideia on the future directions of the institute.