Vision to Reality: The Reut Blog

Last week the Reut Institute participated in the closing session of the Wexner Legacy Heritage Summer Institute in Jerusalem. Every other year, the Wexner foundation brings its Legacy Heritage Fellows for a week-long intensive study tour, designed to deepen these leaders’ understanding of contemporary Israel and the issues it faces. This year, we were honored to have been invited to organize the closing session.

The session was titled “Innovative Leadership in Israeli Society” and aimed to inspire participants to consider the role of innovation in their own communal leadership in North American Jewish life. The session began with an opening talk by Reut CEO Gidi Grinstein on the meaning of leadership in Israel, based on the theory of Ronald Heifetz of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, in his book Leadership without Easy Answers.

Afterwards, three of Israel’s leading innovators told their own personal success stories of how to mobilize change in Israeli society. The speakers included: Bambi Sheleg, Founder and Editor of Eretz Acheret Magazine, Talia Aharoni, Founding President of MAALA, and Guy Rolnick, Founder of TheMarker. The final part of the program included breakout sessions with the Legacy Heritage fellows, in which they began to brainstorm how to exert creative leadership in their communities back home.

For Gidi Grinstein’s presentation, click here.