Tidewater Together brings new scholar and ideas

by | Feb 23, 2015 | What’s Happening

Rabbi Sharon Brous

Rabbi Sharon Brous

The Tidewater Together community weekend held last year in March was optimistically billed as “the first annual.”

Positive thinking and feedback, as well as audiences totaling more than 1,000 over the four days of events, ensured that a “second annual” would be held this year.

Scholar-in-residence Rabbi Sharon Brous will lead community conversations that are intended to inspire interaction, introspection and growth—both personally and throughout the Tidewater Jewish community.

Brous, who resides in Los Angeles, is greatly admired throughout the Jewish communal world and has earned recognition through word of mouth and multiple media outlets. She has been called one of the nation’s leading rabbis by Newsweek/ The Daily Beast, and as one of the 50 most influential American Jews by the Forward.

“I didn’t know how we were going to find someone to be our scholar-in-residence who would resonate with our community as well as Rabbi Brad Artson did last year,” says Alex Pomerantz, UJFT Senior Development Officer.

“But Rabbi Brous is going to be amazing— our rabbis know her and have great things to say, and recently some of our Lion of Judah women heard her speak, and are very excited they’ll get the chance to hear her again—they’ve cleared their calendars for the weekend.”

Brous is the founding rabbi of IKAR, a spiritual community dedicated to reanimating Jewish life by standing at the intersection of soulful, inventive religious practice and a deep commitment to social justice.

Ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary in 2001, Brous served as a Rabbinic Fellow at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York City before settling in L.A.

Tidewater Together conversations are free and open to everyone in the community. There is a charge for an optional Friday night Shabbat dinner at Ohef Sholom Temple, but dinner is not mandatory for attendance at the service that follows.

The first conversation led by Brous will include a cocktail reception on Thursday, March 26, 7:30 pm at the Sandler Family Campus. Over the next four days, conversation will take place at five area synagogues and cover topics ranging from morality to boundaries to a rediscovery of Jewish values.

For more information, or to RSVP for any, or all, of the conversations, visit www.TidewaterTogether.org, all 757-965- 6136, or email apomerantz@ujft.org for more information.

by Laine M. Rutherford