“Trust me, we will never end our relationship with you,” Morton Mandel, Chairman of the Mandel Foundation, promised program graduates at a stirring graduation ceremony held at the Mandel Leadership Institute (MLI) in Jerusalem. “We have such a tremendous sense of satisfaction with the graduates and the programs of the Institute and the Mandel Foundation.”
Mandel also said goodbye to Annette Hochstein, who had announced her resignation as president of the Mandel Foundation–Israel earlier in the week. “I want to share with you all the joy I felt to work with Annette and it is important to me to know that Annette will remain part of the leadership of the Mandel Foundation as president emeritus.”
Dr. Eli Gottlieb, Director of MLI and vice-president of the Mandel Foundation–Israel, seconded the farewell remarks to Annette and spoke about her special qualities, which had taught him a great deal. Gottlieb described the relationship between Annette and Prof. Seymour Fox based on Ami Bouganim’s book A Meeting with an Educator. Appealing to the fellows, he said, “The world needs leaders with these qualities more than ever.” Gottlieb thanked the administrative staff and faculty for their dedicated, creative work and concluded, “May we succeed in learning what we can from our teachers and our predecessors. But may we never stop learning to be ourselves.”
Annette Hochstein said that she learned from Mandel what good leadership is, and how to pass on the baton successfully. She congratulated Dr. Varda Shiffer, who will become president of the Mandel Foundation–Israel in July 2010. She noted that participants in Mandel programs are constantly discussing issues and penetrating questions about education and society while figuring out their own positions. Hochstein added, “You need courage and empathy to create acts of leadership.”
Dr. Zvi Zameret, Chairman of the Pedagogical Secretariat in the Ministry of Education, congratulated the graduates and shared with the audience his thoughts on the task of educators, who have to convey humility and optimism and to believe in their ability to bring about change.
Later in the ceremony, the directors of the Mandel programs congratulated the graduates. Abigail Dauber-Sterne, Director of the Jerusalem Fellows program, noted the tremendous diversity at Mandel and said that new challenges are constantly arising in the encounter with fellows from a variety of approaches and worlds. Dauber-Sterne spoke about the weekly Torah portion, Shelah, in which spies visited the land of Israel before the Israelites were to enter it: “Caleb and Joshua painted a different picture. They too saw the challenge, but they described the situation as something real and possible, and said that the challenges could be overcome. The difference is leadership ability and the manner of transmission. All of the Jerusalem Fellows will return to their communities and bring a message with them. How the new ideas are received will depend on how they are transmitted.”
Adi Nir Sagi, Director of the School for Educational Leadership, said that each fellow came with dreams and desires to continue leading a just and civil society, and that from the standpoint of the designers of the program, this was a challenge in its own right. “You made a brave choice to stop. It’s a challenge to go from being a leader to being a student.”
The fellows’ representatives shared with the audience their personal feelings and experiences and added their best wishes for the future. Rabbi Lisa Goldstein described the personal experiences of the Jerusalem Fellows and their complex, mixed feelings now that the program is over. “Each of us brought a special word of our own: belonging, identity, community, etc. Each word has depth, and we tried to see how each word can be turned into something real, illuminating, and influential. The words started out as a spark and turned into a great light full of vision.”
Yair Albertonof Cohort 17 of the School for Educational Leadership described his personal feelings and the experience in the program of study: “I think we all have an individual and collective task—to develop a society of autonomous people, people with opinions, people who, through free dialogue and agreement, are capable of forming an intentional community in which people live with a sense of commitment both to the people around them and to all of society. However, two years at the Mandel Leadership Institute make it possible to rethink the exact topics that provide a different perspective.” Yair described his vision of a society in which all people can be appreciated for who they are and the school is a setting for building an autonomous personality.
Prof. Moshe Halbertal spoke of his interesting encounter with the singer Kobi Oz, who wrapped up the evening with a concert entitled Mizmorei Nevukhim: “I’ve taught several cohorts here at the Mandel Leadership Institute, and one of the things that characterize the groups that study at Mandel is the wide variety. If there is an artist in our society who embraces the broad spectrum of Israeliness, it’s Kobi.” Prof. Halbertal said that Kobi’s new concert, Mizmorei Nevukhim, speaks of tradition and progress, periphery and center, and many issues pertaining to identity and creativity.
Kobi Oz explained that the title of the concert came from a quest for the poetry of confusion—because it is from confusion that amazement can spring. It seems that this description also fits the experience of the fellows at the Mandel Leadership Institute: Their learning is intended to enable each fellow, at the height of activity, to stop and think, to be amazed, and from this place to grab hold of a different perspective.