It was a picture perfect evening. More than 450 people attended the 15th Annual MJE dinner at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City on April 2, 2014. Manhattan Jewish Experience is a cutting edge program for young Jewish professionals in their 20’s and 30’s, with little or no background in Judaism who are interested in connecting more to each other, to their community, and to their religion.
Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE) 15th Annual Dinner theme was “Celebrating Israel’s Vital Role at MJE.” In a time when BDS campaigns and Israel Apartheid Week are gaining progressively more ground among today’s youth, MJE realizes that it is important now more than ever to recognize Israel’s true greatness, both as a home to the Jewish people and for its significance to Jewish outreach in general and to MJE in particular.
When MJE was founded in 1998, Founder and Director Rabbi Mark Wildes created an organization whose mission was to utilize classic Jewish and Zionist teachings as well as social programs to reach out to less affiliated young Jewish professionals and reconnect them to their Jewish heritage and to Israel. In addition to lectures on Torah, question and answer sessions on any and all things Jewish, Shabbat Dinners, and Weekend Retreats, MJE offers two educational and spiritual tours of Israel every summer to its participants, led by Rabbi Wildes himself with his family. To date, 18 MJE participants have already made aliyah.
This year MJE is embarking upon an exciting new partnership with Ohr Torah Stone, the brainchild of the founding Rabbi of Lincoln Square Synagogue and current Chief Rabbi of the Israeli city Efrat, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who received a special Tribute Award at the Dinner. Ohr Torah Stone is a Modern Orthodox movement shaping Jewish communities worldwide, inspired by the unique vision of Rabbi Riskin.
