Sarah Kelman and Hanan Beliak
As a newly engaged couple, Sarah Kelman and Hanan Beliak became involved with NewGround when they first moved to Los Angeles and were eager to meet other young Jews. The recommendation to participate in NewGround from Hanan’s father, Rabbi Haim Beliak, began as a social endeavor but morphed into an experience that impaced their life trajectory. A Cultural Anthropologist now working for her PhD at UC Santa Cruz, Sarah went into the fellowship with an open mind, wanting to find a space for more Jewish understanding in her own life. Yet, she felt a solidarity in her group that extended beyond just the Jewish participants. The experience of building close relationship with Muslims has shaped her professional interests. Academically, Sarah is now studying Malaysia and looking at issues related to politics and cultural identity as they relate to food and Islam. Read more...
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Tasneem Noor
When
Tasneem Noor first began participating with NewGround, she was happy to see so
many diverse and open-minded people, ready to discuss not only the topics
important to all of them, but to get to know the people in the room and learn
about how their faith was part of their everyday
lives. Born in
Pakistan but raised there, in India, and in United Arab Emirates, she moved to
Los Angeles when she was a junior in high school. She attended UCLA for both her Bachelors in
English, and Masters in Education in Student Affairs. Now, as part of the student affairs division
at Cal State Los Angeles, she is working with the student government to support
student programming and advocacy based initiatives. Read more...
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Amy Kolsky
Amy Kolsky is an adventurous spirit. During the NewGround experience,
Kolsky was the only Jewish fellow who had not been to Israel or
Palestine. “I didn’t have
much of a connection to Israel or particularly strong views on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I
just knew that both sides experienced
a painful past and both sides took a powerful stance now. I came to the realization that after
NewGround, I wanted to learn more about the region.” So Amy took a position teaching at a
summer school in the West Bank city of Nablus. After completing her teaching
assignment, she spent a month traveling or more specifically, “Couchsurfing,” around
Israel. “I came in to NewGround open-minded and the fellowship taught me how to
take this experience to the next level- to encounter people as individuals not just as representatives of political entities." Read more...
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Rebecca Berger
2010 Newground alumna, Rebecca Berger, is a Judaic Studies teacher at Sinai Akiba Academy where she is working with fellow alumnae to create an exchange program between her Jewish middle school students and the Muslim middle school students at New Horizon Day School. This partnership will give students the opportunity to understand each others' religious traditions and gain insight into what it means to be a young Muslim or Jew in America today. "NewGround's philosophy of 'embracing curiosity over assumptions' is deeply compelling to me and it is something that I think is vital to share with the younger generation of Muslims and Jews." Read more...
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Rachel Gandin
NewGround alumna Rachel Gandin recently returned from 4 months in Jordan where she produced the first Arabic-language feature film made by a major American studio. The United is a family sports film that tells the story of a reluctant Egyptian soccer coach who brings together a rag-tag team of teenage boys from across the Arab world to defeat his longstanding French rival. It will be released throughout the Arab world in early 2012. Raised as a Reconstructionist Jew, Gandin is fluent in Arabic has long been drawn to Arab culture. Read more...
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