Course Faculty
Courses at Genesis are unlike any high school classroom learning experience. They offer you an ideal environment to explore ideas about justice, diversity, responsibility and what it means to put passion into action. Each course provides a challenging, hands-on seminar experience without the pressure of tests or grades. Courses meet for 50 hours over the course of the summer.
Teams of instructors have created courses that help each participant understand and make personal connections between Jewish and secular studies. Instructors are professionals in their fields, Ph.D candidates and high school teachers or university professors.
2009 Course Instructors
Investigating Journalism and Responsibility
Ronit Sela
Ronit Sela returns this year to Genesis for her third summer teaching the Journalism Course, and after having worked as a community educator in Genesis 2002. Ronit has experience working as a journalist and news editor in both Hebrew and English. She is currently working for The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and lives in Jerusalem.
Innovation and Revolution: The Relationship Between Technology and Society
Lisa Colton
Lisa Colton is the founder and president of Darim Online, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Jewish organizations make the most of Internet technologies. Lisa has worked with hundreds of Jewish organizations to help them strategically integrate technology into marketing, communication, education, fundraising and community building to pursue and achieve their own mission and goals. Lisa is a graduate of Stanford University, and an alumna of the Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies and Livnot U’Lehibanot. She served as the president of the board of The University of Vermont Hillel where she received the “Exemplar of Excellence” award from the Schusterman Hillel International Center, and received the Jewish Communal Service Association’s Young Professional’s Award. Lisa currently serves on the board of the Congregation Beth Israel Preschool (where her son attends), and previously served on the board of CAJE. She is a member of the Lippman Kanfer Institute’s “Jewish Education 3.0” and “Jewish Social Entrepreneurship” think tanks. She has previously worked developing middle school science curriculum, and was the high school youth group advisor at her congregation in Burlington, Vermont. When not teaching at Brandeis, she lives in Charlottesville, VA with her husband, Jason, kids Eli and Meira, and their dog, Stella.
Judaism and Justice: Wrestling with the Law
Jason Happel
Jason Happel is a lawyer and teacher in Massachusetts. He teaches philosophy and law at Prozdor of Hebrew College, including classes on Maimonides, Nietzsche, and Shakespeare. Before law school, Jason was a youth program director and organized youth trips with Habitat and YouthBuild; he also assisted with an interfaith radio program.
Talya Weisbard Shalem
Talya Weisbard Shalem loves teaching learners of all ages, from 3 to adult, and has done so in many capacities in her life. She has served as Hillel Rabbi at Wellesley College, and as Education Director at a synagogue school. She has been a Jewish Educator for BIMA and a Resident Assistant for Brandeis Summer Odyssey. She holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Harvard College and a masters and rabbinical degree from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is excited to combine her Judaic knowledge with an intense focus on law this summer, since she is the granddaughter, daughter, and sister of lawyers, and was raised debating legal and ethical issues over the dinner table. Talya lives with her husband, Josh Schreiber Shalem, in Medford, Massachusetts.
World Religions: Encountering Diversity
Tracy Nathan
Tracy Nathan is an ordained Rabbi and Jewish educator who has been involved in interfaith dialogue for many years. She recently facilitated interfaith programs and taught an undergraduate seminar on "Faith and Activism" through the Pathways Initiative at Tufts University. She was also a facilitator and coordinator of the Seminarians Interacting Program through the National Conference for Christians and Jews, where seminary students and faculty come together for interfaith dialogue and learning. She taught at the Solomon Schechter School of Greater Boston, and before coming to Boston, served for three years as Associate Rabbi of Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco. Tracy was ordained through the Jewish Theological Seminary, earned a Master of Arts in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Wesleyan University.
Rodney received his Masters of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School in 2007 where he concentrated on issues related to Islam and the West. He did work with the Pluralism Project at Harvard on international multi-religious contexts. Rodney is currently the Coordinator of Social Justice Education programming at Beaver Country Day School, a private high school in Chestnut Hill, Boston. He also is serving as the Interfaith Curriculum Consultant to the Pluralism Project, developing and teaching a class on World Religions using the Project's resources and networks. As part of this work, he will reach out to high school students to develop an awareness of and involvement with interfaith work.