During the month of October, Diller supervisor Julie Berman, lay-leader Maxine Boyd and coordinator Lee Lobel attended the Professional Leadership Conference of the Diller Teen Fellows Program in San Francisco.
This was the 20th anniversary of this world-renowned leadership program which was started by Helen Diller z’l who believed in ensuring the longevity of the Jewish community by empowering Jewish teens to become leaders in their respective communities.
Each diaspora Diller Cohort (group) is partnered with a city in Israel working throughout the year in close contact . During March the Israeli cohorts visit their diaspora communities for 10 days and during July the diaspora communities spend three weeks in Israel touring, learning, doing outreach projects, staying in home hospitality with their twin city and meeting up with all 700 like-minded Diller participants from throughout the world.
At the conference we were addressed by, amongst others, Rabbi Darren Kleinberg, Head of Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto and Dr Shlomi Ravid, pioneer and educator in Peoplehood education for over 30s.
This is indeed a unique programme and one that our community is extremely proud to be involved in.
