During a three-day overnight retreat this week, a diverse group of 22 outstanding high school student leaders—hailing from different neighborhoods across Greater Boston—came together to kick-off the fourth annual cohort of the Dignity Project run by Hebrew College's Miller Center. The passionate young leaders, who were recruited from local schools, civic organizations, and houses of worship, laid the foundations for a “community of practice,” rooted in the values of hospitality, humility, authenticity, interconnection, and empathy that they will continue to build over the six-month fellowship program.

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Hebrew College rabbinical student Monica Steiner was in high school in Monterey, CA on September 11, 2001. She had friends in the military and realized how lucky they were if they had access to a chaplain to serve their spiritual needs. If you were Jewish and in the military, it was even rarer to have a chaplain equipped to meet you spiritually. And if you needed a female Jewish chaplain? You might as well forget about it. This realization in the early 2000s, during a moment of national crisis, planted the seeds for Steiner and her service in the Army National Guard’s Chaplain Candidate Program. “This is a sorely needed area of spiritual service, and I am honored to be able to step in and do it,” she said. 

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“Through painting, starting with a process of meditation and listening, I often embark on a visual conversation with the ideas of the Torah text, exploring such things as beginnings and the idea that the world as we know it was shaped by language. My work is also often informed by the fact that the Hebrew language seemingly came into being at the time of the transition from pictographic to phonetic writing and therefore Hebrew letters most likely hold essential visual, symbolic meanings as well as phonetic meaning.” 

— Mel Brown, artist

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How long does it take to belong somewhere? How many generations pass before the actions of your ancestors no longer matter?

While my grandfather was granted full citizenship shortly after the war, declaring him unilaterally British, something of the refugee experience lingers to the third generation. I speak no German, but I always know where my passport is. The family stories I grew up on include tales of unlikely border-crossings, fraught embassy trips, and evading police...

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