Rabbi Lynn Shmuel is working with Temple Junior Jessica Sibelman to bring the Maimonides Leaders Fellowship program to Temple.
“I want students to understand that [Judaism] is the greatest moral compass one can have,” Shmuel told CampusJ.
Shmuel has been running the program at the University of Pennsylvania for three years, and said he hopes to not only bring the program to Temple, but also Drexel, and the Tricollege: Swathmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr. He won’t be doing this alone, as Rabbi Shimon Kay and his wife Shoshana are moving from Israel to the U.S. to run the program at Temple.
“I was seeking a type of Jewish learning course which would connect me to Judaism but also be understanding of my more reform observance practices and more cultural identification with being Jewish,” Penn junior Elana Wilf told CampusJ of why she joined the Maimonides programs last spring.
The program, an ultra-Orthodox outreach effort, was founded at the University of Michigan in 1999, lasts ten weeks, and requires students to attend a weekly 2.5-hour class on leadership and the Torah. The classes contain some lectures, but also heavily emphasize interactive participation by the students, and cover a range of topics, such as:

At the same time the students also participates in various trips, and listen to speakers. The program also hosts its own trip to Israel, which unlike Birthright lasts for nearly three weeks (Birthright lasts for two), emphasizes the discussions the students participated in through the weekly class sessions, and offers students more time off to themselves than Birthright typically does.
“It’s different in that Jews don’t understand how much Jews would love the Jewish identity if they were empowered through it,” Shmuel said of the program.
The program takes on about 25 to 30 students, and Shmuel said they get applications from more students than they can take at Penn. Shmuel said they don’t generally consider freshman, and base the selection process largely on seniority.
“Put your preconceptions of what being ‘Jewish’ means aside and enjoy learning about your religion, engaging in lively discussions, and learning from others about what it means to be Jewish and how this can impact your life,” Wilf says to students interested in the program.
Students who join the program will be awarded stipends equivalent to their level of participation, and are asked to submit a journal, as long or short as they like, at the end of the semester as feedback.