Steve Gutow (RRC '03) is the executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). Steve has extensive expertise in public policy and political issues, and will be guiding us through Monday evening's processing of our Day of Service working in New Orleans in the midst of the continuing disaster we call Katrina: What have we learned? What can we do? What did we experience? What did we witness? What emotions, thoughts, and values rose in our consciousness as we worked in the rawness of what had occurred nearly five years ago? We will also seek to understand what both Jewish tradition and values and American tradition and values teach us about what we should do and have not yet done to remedy the ruin and poverty that persist in New Orleans. What stops us? What can we do as individuals; as a community, as a nation? This discussion should be more salient than ever in light of the immense tragedy this year in Haiti.

Steve recommends the article "An Ounce of Advocacy" as background reading for our discussion.

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso (RRC '74) was the first woman ordained at RRC. Along with the first woman ordained at HUC-JIR, Sally Priesand and the first woman ordained at JTS, Amy Eilberg, Sandy has joined hands in developing a trailblazing historical initiative that seeks to create the world's largest archival repository documenting the history of women in the rabbinate. This collection will be housed at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati (AJA).

Sandy will be joined by Sally Priesand and Gary P. Zola, Executive Director of the AJA and Professor of the American Jewish Experience at Hebrew Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion. They will discuss why they have decided to create a historical repository that will provide future historians and researchers with the historical tools they will need to reconstruct the ways in which women rabbis have redefined the modern experience of an ancient tradition.

This year we are pleased to have David Stein (RRC '91) as our convention text consultant. David describes himself as "a skeptic with reportedly misanthropic tendencies." He is a freelance editor of Judaica, occasional scholar-in-residence, and leader of High Holy Day services at the Taos Jewish Center. He has completed the "Prejudice Reduction Trainers Trainin" of the National Coalition Building Institute. His approach to issues of race is informed also by his experience leading an "Unlearning Racism" support group in Re-evaluation Counseling; and to issues of class, by a "Beyond the Taboo" workshop co-led by Christopher Mogil and Felice Yeskel.

A: Elizabeth Bolton: "Music in our Rabbinates" in ANTONINE

B: Deborah Glanzberg-Krainin: "RRC's Reconrabbi.net website" in RIVERSIDE 1

C: David Stein: "Text Study" in COTTONMILL

D: Elyse Wechterman: "Troubling the Waters" in BIENVILLE

E: Mordecai Liebling, "Creating Social Justice Programming" in DAUPHINE 1

(See the Workshops page for more information.)

Music swap, singing together in ANTONINE

Rabbis parenting children with special needs in DAUPHINE 1

Rabbis thinking about or planning a sabbatical in COTTONMILL

Rabbis who have dealt with personal trauma (health, grief, loss) while serving as a pulpit or public rabbi in BIENVILLE

12-step meeting: a collective self-facilitated meeting for members of any 12-step program (LOCATION WILL BE POSTED AND ANNOUNCED ON WEDNESDAY MORNING.)

"The Outcast is Not Outcast - Strange Jewish Glimpses of New Orleans"
Allan Lehmann (RRC '79), a fourth generation New Orleanian, is Associate Dean of the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College. Previously he served as Jewish Chaplain and Rabbinic Hillel Director at Brandeis University . Before returning to the Boston area (Allan lived there and was part of Havurat Shalom in the early '70's) in 2000, he was rabbi of Bnai Israel in Gainesville Florida for 21 years.

Toba Spitzer (RRC '97) will moderate a panel presentation focusing on how we integrate a consciousness of class and race into our work as rabbis and spiritual leaders. This panel will present different strategies that have been used in New Orleans both pre- and post-Katrina. The speakers will discuss the unique challenges of reenergizing a socially divided city and how they used outreach, organizing and collaboration to begin building alliances.

Rabbi Uri Topolosky leads Congregation Beth Israel, a community synagogue in the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area. He received his rabbinic ordination from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in 2005 and relocated from Riverdale, NY in July of 2007 to help rebuild the congregation following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. While the building is being reconstructed, Congregation Beth Israel has been sharing space with Congregation Gates of Prayer, a local Reform synagogue.

Rabbi Myrna Matsa holds the position of Rabbinic Pastoral/Trauma Counselor for Hurricane Katrina Support in the New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the Biloxi/Gulfport Region. She was sent by the New York Board of Rabbis in partnership with the United Jewish Communities to work closely with leaders of the various faith communities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and also lay people within the Gulf area providing them with direct pastoral services during reconstruction, serving as a Jewish referral resource, and interfacing with various mental health associations.

Dr. Lance Hill is the Executive Director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research, a tolerance education and race relations research center based at Tulane University in New Orleans. Hill holds a Ph.D. in history from Tulane University, where he has taught US History and Intercultural Communication. Hill was a community organizer for fifteen years before embarking on an academic career. From 1989-1992, he served as Executive Director of the Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism (LCARN), the grass roots organization that led the opposition to former Klansman David Duke's Senate and Gubernatorial campaigns. In 1993, Hill co-founded the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University, a race and ethnic relations center. The Institute's tolerance education program-the most comprehensive project of its kind in the South-has provided training to more than 4,000 teachers from 785 schools in the Deep South. The program uses case studies of the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement to teach the causes and consequences of prejudice.

Wednesday night after closing circle, you can join an optional private tour of New Orleans with Mike Indest, tour guide, minister, art gallery owner. Here's what he says about the walk we'll be taking:

"I think the most interesting stories about New Orleans are about the Religious figures and Institutions that molded the city and the people. Great stories of brave and interesting characters, Priests, Voodoo Priestesses, Nuns, and of course the Fallen. Their partnership created one of the most interesting cities in the world."

• The Inquisition in New Orleans
  The Ursuline Nuns - early feminists
  Sisters of the Holy Family - First black convent in New Orleans
  Voodoo - Ancient Ancestor worship that survived by "hiding" in Catholicism
  Architecture
  French/Spanish History
  and anything else that comes up during the tour.
  
• Mike was raised Catholic, rebelled and become a Calvinist. After High School he moved to Switzerland to study. Moved back to New Orleans and 18 years later finished his Masters in Theology. He has been leading tours for over 6 years, meeting the need for tours that are fun, that tell stories not just facts and that are slightly irreverent.
  
• The cost of the tour is $20 per person. We'll meet at Graphite Galleries, 956 Royal Street at 7pm. The tour will conclude at 8:30pm (a perfect time for dinner on the town in New Orleans). There will be a sign-up sheet in the lobby (maximum number is 28). A great way to cap off our time in "the Big Easy."