National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership


The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership is a leadership training institute, think tank, and resource center. It is an inter-disciplinary and inter-denominational movement, in which rabbis from all of the major Jewish denominations in North America are participants. The organization is described by The Jewish Daily Forward as a "think-tank dedicated to questions of Jewish identity and religious practice...in its quest to expand the boundaries of Jewish communal life".
Rabbis Irwin Kula and Brad Hirschfield presently serve as co-presidents of CLAL.

Etymology

CLAL is an acronym formed from the organization's English language name. It is also a transliteration of a Hebrew word that can mean community, as in the expressions "Klal Yisrael" which refers to the Jewish people as a whole. It is intended to suggest the organization's stated mission to serve as a center of interdenominational cooperation in American Judaism.

History

CLAL was founded in 1974, by Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, and .