EMA Summer Institute 2026: Torah for the Leaders
June 2026
Ask any Jewish leader or educator what they wish they had more of, and the answers tend to cluster around similar things: time to think, colleagues who understand the work, and space to remember why they do what they do. The Executive M.A. in Jewish Education Summer Institute is, at its best, all three at once.
At this year’sinstitute,Cohorts13 and 14–studentsbeginning their second and first year of study, respectively –gathered on our New York City campus for a week of learning, worship, and connection.Before the coursework and the packed schedules,theygatheredatNew York’s historicCentralSynagogue for Kabbalat Shabbat services and dinner together. It was the perfect opening note: not a lecture or an orientation,but a meal and a room full of people spending sacred time together.Rested and connected, the Summer Institute began in earnest on Sunday when Cohort 13 hosted a welcome session for Cohort 14– a warm, refreshingstarttotheweek.
After that, theirdays were packed. Mornings began inthe 91chapel with Shacharit, offering a moment of stillness and prayer before the learning began. Courses withKristi Garroway,Ph.D.,Professorof Bible,and Rabbi Jan Katzew, Ph.D.,pushed students intellectually;atefilahIntensive with Cantor Jill Abramson ’02, Interim Head of Seminary Programs and Director of the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, enveloped students in the spiritual heart of Jewish communal life.
Through it all, learning still occurred in the spaces between one scheduled event and the next – over lunches together, in passing hallway conversations, and in the small moments spent with colleagues who understand your work.
Thestudentsventured beyond the walls of 91, too. A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art withProfessorGarroway invited a different kind of reflection in a unique learning space, surrounded by art and relics of the past. A trip to the Heschel School, a Jewish day school on the Upper West Side, offered inspiration and, perhaps,areminderof some students’ownschool days when they were young.
The weekconcludedwithaSiyyumled by President Andrew Rehfeld,Ph.D.,which gave way to one final gathering where students each wrote their own blessing: for themselves, for their communities, and for the cohort members who had been with them all week.It’sone thing to study together, butit’sanother thing to wish for each other,out loudand in writing.That, maybe, iswhat the Summer Institute is really about.
May we be blessed with challenges andgiven the courage to learn from them.
May we find Torah in the eyes of our students, teachers, peers, and mentors.
May we find the best versions ofourselves.
– selection of EMA student blessings