las palabras de sabiduría / words of wisdom (mid-year seminar)

JDC Entwine Fellows with the legend Ralph I. Goldman

 “Whoever saves a life, it is as if he has saved the world entire.”  

While at the JDC Entwine Mid-Year Seminar in Israel, we had the opportunity to hear from Ralph I. Goldman, a JDC Honorary Executive Vice President and a man who has dedicated his entire life to humanitartian work, Israel, and the Jewish people. One of the fellows, Erica, asked him about how he persevered when things were difficult or when he felt a bit hopeless to all the challenges in the world. Ralph answered by quoting the Talmud and saying  “Whoever saves a life, it is as if he has saved the world entire.” I first explored this concept on my first JDC Entwine trip many years ago and I loved that he brought up this concept. Doing one thing for one person is just as important and relevant as helping the multitude. I hope to carry and live these words each day.

"We don't have the answers coming from the outside - we have the passion to help." - Jacob  Sztokman, Founder & Director of Gabriel Project Mumbai

Jacob Sztokman, founder of Gabriel Project Mumbai, said these palabras de sabiduría during a session at our Mid-Year Seminar. There were in a response to a question from JDC Entwine Fellow Lucie about how to help a community when coming in as a foreigner. Jacob's words really resonated with me. I am serving in Argentina for one year and while I see challenges the community is facing and many times think to myself "oo I know how to help fix that", it is not my place. First because I am a foreigner, second because I am only here for one year and any sustainable change cannot be carried out by me as I'll be leaving, and third because honestly it is not my place to have the "answers". Instead I can bring my passion and add a fresh perspective, ideas, alternative solutions, and help to implement ideas that the community wants to implement.

Glocal - synergy between global movement and thinking locally

This is a topic we discussed at Mid-Year Seminar with Justin Korda, Executive Director of ROI Community. As a fellow, I find myself constantly thinking about the synergy between global and local. I am living and working with one community but constantly find myself wanting to include a global perspective in our programming. I think this mainly occurs because of my experiences and connections with our global Jewish community and my passion to create these connections for others that I meet. In these next six months I want to really utilize my global connections through the other JDC Entwine Fellows and the BBYO community to share what is going on in Argentina's Jewish community and bring the world's Jewish communities to my community in Argentina.