Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski spoke on Healthy Strategies: Personal, Spiritual, and Organizational at the Association of Jewish Outreach Professionals’ international convention.
Photo by Harris Saltzburg
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February 26, 2009
From Saturday evening, Feb. 14, through Monday, Feb. 16, Orthodox lay and professional workers involved in Jewish outreach gathered to pool their expertise and explore ways to swell numbers in a time of shrinking resources.
“How to Do More with Less: Riding the Wave Instead of Fighting the Tide” — the 21st annual international convention of the Association of Jewish Outreach Professionals — took place at the Hilton Hotel in Elizabeth.
The organization describes itself as an independent network that supports the efforts of men and women dedicated to leading other Jews to a life guided by traditional Torah values. According to its website, their efforts are a counterforce to assimilation in the modern world.
The speakers came from Israel and from New Jersey and elsewhere across the United States. Their topics ranged from practical issues of management and economics, to the tactical, the emotional, and the spiritual.
They covered issues like “Why Be Jewish?” and how to get people to go to Israel and stay there and ways to maximize the number of high-schoolers who go on to get involved in Jewish activities in college. They also looked at career planning, staff burnout, and how nonprofits can earn big bucks.
The main speaker on Sunday was Rabbi Nissan Hakakian of Monsey, NY. In his talk, All For One: Making Achdus in the Kiruv World a Reality, he made a call for unity, respect, and harmony as opposed to the divisiveness that can undermine most well-intended outreach efforts.
Dr. Dovid Lieberman of Lakewood — who continued his outreach efforts in a program at the Wilf Jewish Community Campus in Scotch Plains Feb. 22 — gave two talks, on self-esteem and on how to raise happy, resilient children.
The Feb. 15 evening program, The World Has Changed, was opened to public. The keynote speaker was the Novominsker Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Perlow.
He was followed by two of the revered Twerski brothers, Brooklyn Law School professor Rabbi Aaron Twerski, who discussed Re-examining Honesty, and Torah scholar and psychiatrist Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, who spoke on Healthy Strategies: Personal, Spiritual, and Organizational.
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