Press Release from EDAH Monday,
July 3, 2006
Contact: Rabbi Saul J. Berman 212-244-7501 saulberman@edah.org
Rabbi
Berman to Move to Chovevei Torah
Rabbi Saul J. Berman, founding Director of Edah, announced the intention of the Executive Committee to seek the approval of the Board of Edah to wind down the organization by the end of this summer, 2006. The board is expected to meet mid-July to pass on the Executive Committee’s recommendation.
“When we founded Edah in late 1997,” said Rabbi Berman, “we
saw it as a project with a ten year mission – to reverse the separatist trend
within Modern Orthodoxy which was isolating the Modern Orthodox community from
the rest of the Jewish people. After nine years, we feel we have arrived at a
good place—more to be done, but much of the groundwork put into place. It is a
good time for Edah to pass the challenge on to others to take up the work.”
David Eisner, a vice president of
Edah, said, “There comes a time in the life of a young organization,
especially one like Edah that has achieved so many of its objectives, when it
must decide whether it is the best use of scarce communal resources to expand
and perpetuate itself, or to seek other ways to complete its missions.”
Morton Landowne, president of Edah, said, “Edah has been an energetic catalyst for change in the Modern Orthodox community for the past nine years. Our achievements have exceeded our expectations. We have decided that it would be the most effective use of communal resources to integrate our distinctive programs into other, like-minded, institutions. We are pleased that Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, for example, will absorb the three major projects of Edah, the web-site, the Journal and the audio-visual library. We are also pleased that Edah at the JCC will continue in this coming year. We are grateful to our staff, donors, supporters and all the people who have shared in Edah’s vision for their commitment and unfailing conviction and dedication.”
Rabbi Berman has been offered by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah
(YCT), and will accept, the position as Director of a new Rabbinic Enhancement
Initiative, funded by the Legacy Heritage Foundation. He will focus
on designing and implementing programs to enhance the intellectual,
emotional and spiritual growth of rabbis in the field. “YCT has emerged as a powerful resource for
the education and placement of rabbis with an Open Modern Orthodox
perspective,” said Rabbi Berman, “It will contribute to making Torah more
accessible to serious Jews in
Rabbi Berman said, “It
is now time for Edah to step aside, to acknowledge that our advocacy has been
heard by adherents and opponents alike and that as our initiatives are more
widely emulated and our vision more deeply planted, our purpose has been
substantially advanced. We take pride in knowing the
organization has served its purpose well, and that its vision will continue to
be pursued energetically by those who have been inspired by Edah. The
organization will close, but the vision will continue to grow.”
Background Information
Edah’s agenda has been to engender a
Modern Orthodox community passionately committed to all of Torah and mitzvot, in love with the entire Klal Yisrael, open to the richness of
secular knowledge, respectful of the Tzelem
Elokim we share with all humanity, committed to expanding the opportunities
for women in Torah, tefillah and
community leadership, recognizing the limits of halachic authority and seeking shared responsibility for governance
in areas of non-halachic decision
making, and devoted to the use of an halachic
process in which the goal was neither chumrah
nor kulah but an understanding of the
will of God in bringing kedusha into
our daily lives.
Edah created the following programs: