The Bronfman Fellowship has selected its 33rd cohort of intellectually curious 11th-graders from across North America, including Congregation Beth Torah’s Youth Group Co-President Sam Fine. Other Bronfman Fellows include the president of a club that helps support youth development in the African country of Eswatini, a young physicist whose studies on cosmic ray muons have been used by high schools throughout the country, a professional jeweler who works with ancient gemstones, and an activist who spoke to a crowd of thousands about the violence spawned by white nationalism in the wake of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue.
The 26 Fellows, chosen from more than 230 applicants, will participate in a five-week program of study and travel in Israel, followed by a year of programming centered around pluralism, social responsibility and Jewish texts. They also interact with a group of Israeli peers who were chosen through a parallel selection process as part of the Israeli Fellowship, Amitei Bronfman.
The Bronfman Fellowship was founded in 1987 by philanthropist Edgar M. Bronfman, formerly CEO of the Seagram Company Ltd. He passed away in December 2013.
“Edgar Bronfman would have relished the opportunity to get to know this year’s Fellows,” said Becky Voorwinde, executive director of The Bronfman Fellowship. “They are a passionate, inquisitive, talented and incredibly bright bunch. I look forward to seeing them challenge and inspire one another and their communities throughout their lives.”
Following a competitive application process, the 2019 Fellows are from 10 states and Canada and represent a wide range of Jewish backgrounds, including Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and secularly/culturally Jewish.
Sam is a junior at Blue Valley High School. There, he participates in debate and business clubs, and has won numerous awards. He won first place at Business Professionals of America’s state competition in Banking and Finance and Personal Financial Management and finished in the top 20 in Personal Financial Literacy (PFL) at DECA’s National Leadership Conference. He also has won first place in PFL at DECA’s state competition for two years in a row. At school, Sam is also involved in Youth Court and honor societies for math, science, Spanish and English, and he is an officer in Investment Club. Outside of school, Sam is the senior patrol leader of Troop 10 and is very involved at his synagogue, Beth Torah. In addition to Beth Torah’s youth group, he is a teacher’s aide for Sunday school. He participates in NFTY, which he said has drawn him closer to his Jewish roots and has given him Jewish friends from around the region. He is interested in economics, politics and philosophy, and he plans to pursue a career in engineering. Sam is also a former winner of The Chronicle’s annual Hanukkah Art Contest, sponsored by Chabad House Center and The J.
The Fellowship promotes the study of Jewish texts, traditions, history and culture as a way for Fellows to engage with each other and the world. The Fellows will study with an esteemed faculty including Gila Fine, editor-in-chief of Maggid Books (Koren Publishers Jerusalem) and a teacher at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies; Rabbi Dahlia Kronish, director of Jewish and student life at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in New York; Jake Marmer, education and programming director of The Bronfman Fellowship, author of two poetry collections and contributing editor/poetry critic for Tablet Magazine; Evan Parks, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University where he studies German-Jewish thought and modern German literature; and Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, the executive director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at NYU and the university chaplain at New York University.
For more information about The Bronfman Fellowship, including how to apply, visit bronfman.org.