These are the awardees for the Wornom Innovation Grant.
2019 Awardee: Dr. Elliot Ginsburg
Project Title: Beloved Land: Israel and Palestine Through the Kaleidoscope
Sponsored by The Aleph Ordination Israel and Palestine Program, this practitioner-oriented project is designed to create possibilities among Jewish congregational leaders and religious educators for engaging in peaceful dialogue and mutual understanding between Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank. It requires an intensive online preparatory course followed by an immersion experience in the Land, concluding with an online seminar.
The project brings its Jewish participants into dialogue with Muslims, Christians and others in order to wrestle with the varied claims on the Land and the consequences for faith identity and practice in a region suffering long-term fractures. It thus addresses the REA’s concern for diversity, interreligious engagement and orientation toward building a world of greater justice and peace. The designers are deeply convinced that “As religious educators, we will not, cannot, succumb to living in a post-hope world.” REA is privileged to join as a sponsor of this important initiative.
2018 Awardee: Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Schein
Project Title: Text Me: Ancient Jewish Wisdom Meets Contemporary Technology
This project was based on the creative energies of the double entendre in the title. The project attempted in various ways to explore the interfaces, synergies and dissonances between contemporary technologies (one meaning of text me) and the wisdom of our religious texts (expanded as a result of this project to include Christian and Islamic as well as Jewish wisdom).
Venues for playing out this symphonic clash of harmonies and dissonances were varied. A professional support/development group of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic educators in the Twin Cities emerged. Dialogues about “digital faith” occurred in three different communities.
The enduring products of the works can be sampled on the website textmejudaism.com. A sample of its method and approach is found here in the graphic novella, It’s Complicated: Scully and the Smartphone.
2017 Awardees: Dr. Lakisha Lockhart and Callid Keefe-Perry
Project Title: Art, Faith, and the Pursuit of Justice: The Sanctuaries and Interreligious Interculturalism among Artists Working for Social Change
The Sanctuaries is an innovative community based in DC that seeks to “activate artists to build power, shift culture, and heal spirits for the wellness of the people.” As a collective they have quickly grown in both number and reach, and with the help of the Wornom grant, they have received invaluable assessment and reflective work to support their rapid growth. In turn this project has provided religious educators a case study in how making art together can operate as a powerful interreligious spiritual practice.