Pardes North America’s mission is to dramatically expand access to deep, accessible Torah learning experiences within intimate communities across North America. We see Jewish learning as a powerful tool to aid participants in accessing the Jewish ideas, communities, and rituals that could improve their lives, strengthen their relationships, and help build a better society.
Pardes North America will accomplish this in three different ways:
Pardes North America is working with a number of major Jewish organizations as embedded partners to help expand their educational capacity in ways that help leaders (professional and volunteer) to both be inspired and be more inspiring themselves. Deep and accessible Torah learning is a powerful tool to help good leaders become great, and for those great leaders to remain resilient and creative. Pardes North America is uniquely positioned to partner with organizations due to its deep commitment to pluralism. Pardes North America provides text study experiences that are not only designed to be intellectually sophisticated, but also inspire excitement and commitment towards Jewish life.
We are proud to work with partners including Jewish Federations of North America, Moishe House, the Jewish Learning Collaborative, Birthright, Hillel International, BBYO and others.
Pardes alumni always speak about the “Pardes Effect.” If you spend time at our home in Jerusalem, you carry the learning, relationships, and mentors with you wherever you go afterwards. Pardes alumni go on to become leaders and changemakers in almost every Jewish community in North America. Now, it’s time for Pardes to reconnect and continue investing in our alumni’s Jewish life and learning.
Pardes North America is creating an array of fellowships, gatherings, and online learning opportunities that allow alumni to tap into Pardes Torah and reconnect with their Pardes family. We will also be empowering these alumni to become our ambassadors and create and convene new Torah learning circles within their communities and networks throughout North America.
Pardes North America will seek out new opportunities to create and offer public ways to access Jewish learning that include podcasts, online learning, special days of learning, educational resources and learning series. Pardes North America faculty, fellows and staff will contribute articles, opinion pieces and new learning series that will apply the most profound ideas in Jewish text to help us address the most pressing issues facing our community and world today.
In the inaugural year alone, Pardes North America has contributed heavily to the Jewish learning ecosystem in North America, providing a wide variety of learning opportunities.
Rabba Shani Gross
shani@pardes.org
Director of Education, North America
David Gutbezahl
davidg@pardes.org
Technology and Communications Associate
Rabbi Monica Kleinman
monica@pardes.org
Pardes North America Program Associate
Jordyn Steifman
jordyn@pardes.org
Assistant Director of Online Learning and Alumni Engagement
Rabbi Mike Uram
mike@pardes.org
Philadelphia, PA
Rabba Shani Gross
shani@pardes.org
Berkeley, CA
Rabbi Jonathan Leener
jonathan@pardes.org
Brooklyn, NY
