This week I attended an excellent Jewish leadership conference as part of the MASA program. MASA provides a lot of funding for young Jews to come to Israel from abroad--including people doing programs like mine. In total, there were 200 young people at the conference from all around the world--about half are Americans, a quarter are from Russia or countries that were formerly part of the USSR, and a quarter are from other places (Europe, South America, etc.).
This week was very rewarding. I find group settings like this can be hit or miss--are the people going to be truly thoughtful and engaged? Will the sessions be educational or boring? Five days is a long time to spend together if things do not mesh--but the sessions were largely thought-provoking, the people were friendly, and it was a worthwhile experience.
I was also very grateful that the conference organizers selected me as one of seven people to present a ten-minute speech to about 170 of the participants. Of course, when they asked for proposals, I made mine all about interfaith. I gave my speech on Tuesday night, entitled, "Jewish Leadership: Why Do We Need Interfaith?"
I was so happy that people really seemed to connect with my push to more interfaith outreach. It was very moving that after all the speeches ended, a number of participants lined up to discuss the topic further with me. These were people that agreed with my sentiments, or came from mixed-faith families themselves, and more. We continued the conversation on interfaith for a while. Throughout the rest of the conference, people continued to approach me to say that the speech had had an impact on them.
They took a video of the speeches, so I wanted to share mine here for those interested in hearing a bit more about my perspective on the necessity of interfaith dialogue. Just scroll down the page a bit until you see, "Welcome to the Masa-GLI Global Leadership Summit November 2016 TED Talks - Part 2." If you drag the viewer to the time of 14:00, you'll see me: Allyson's MASA Speech
Please feel free to offer helpful critiques if you have some ideas for topics I should have included in the speech, if you see any weak parts of the presentation, etc. I would love to hear ways that I can make my personal narrative more effective, so that it can hopefully be a more powerful tool to encourage others to participate in interfaith dialogue. I am so happy after this week, and really very motivated to continue to share my experiences in interfaith more widely.
Now go out and love one another.
<3,
Allyson
