BROOKLYN — Brooklyn resident Becky Paley Voorwinde, who most recently served as corporate responsibility project manager at Ernst & Young, L.L.P., has been named the inaugural director of alumni engagement for the prestigious Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel (BYFI), a 21-year-old program of The Samuel Bronfman Foundation.
Voorwinde herself is an alumna of the Fellowship program (Class of 1997). It provides a transformative five-week educational experience in Israel for high school students in the summer prior to their senior year. Fellowship recipients travel throughout that country exploring their Jewish identity and meeting leading thinkers, authors, artists, educators and others who have a profound impact on shaping their adult Jewish lives.
“Our community of over 540 outstanding alumni has exhibited a high level of engagement with the program since its inception, leading to significant contributions in the Jewish community and the wide world,” said Rabbi Shimon Felix, BYFI executive director.
In addition to Voorwinder, notable BYFI graduates include: Angela Warnick Buchdahl, America’s first Asian-American cantor and rabbi, who is now at NY’s renowned Central Synagogue; Tali Farhadian, a Rhodes Scholar and academic fellow at Columbia Law School, who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; Brooklyn resident Jonathan Safran Foer, award-winning and best-selling author of “Everything is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”; Noah Oppenheim, senior producer of NBC’s “Today” and New York Times best-selling author; Nahanni Rous, producer of the documentary “Encounter Point,” about peace-making efforts between Palestinians and Israelis; and Jonathan Tepperman, assistant managing editor of Newsweek International.
Voorwinde will focus her efforts primarily on the older cohort of alumni, ages 27 years and up, empowering them in their roles as active participants and leaders in the Jewish community. To do so, she will work in cooperation with the alumni themselves, the Alumni Advisory Board and the professional staff of the Fellowship and The Samuel Bronfman Foundation.
Voorwinde will also be responsible for envisioning, planning, and implementing a wide range of new and recently enacted pilot initiatives, including a November 9 conference focusing on the topic of Jewish literature and secular Jewish identity, networking opportunities and mentoring and capacity building support for grant recipients of the Alumni Venture Fund.
Voorwinde graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Barnard College with a B.A. in American Studies.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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