The Grand Conversation: The Machon Siach Podcast Machon Siach

American Jews and Higher Education:This series will explore the experience of American Jews in higher education, and consider some of the challenges raised in recent years by shifting campus culture and changes in law and policies around admissions, discrimination, and free speech on campus. As a school committed to the "grand conversation between Torah and the world", the majority of whose graduates continue on to secular college, how are we thinking about some of these issues, and what work do we need to do to prepare our graduates to engage them?Episode 1: Past is PrologueIn this episode, Rabbi Shmuel Hain interviews Dr. Rivka Press Schwartz about the history of Jews' experiences on American college campuses, from the arrival of waves of Eastern European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th century, through decades of exclusions and quotas through greater acceptance on campuses after World War II. How was higher education once seen as an essential component of American Jews' "making it"? And how has shifting campus culture, and shifting cultural and educational norms, in the last part of the 20th and early 21st century, affected that acceptance, and Jewish students' comfort on campuses?

In this episode, Dr. Rivka Press Schwartz speaks with two individuals who understand how to gather and use data to offer insight into schools' successes and areas for improvement. Her first guest is Rabbi Joseph Beyda, principal of the Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School, who discusses his use of data to take the measure of his school community and assess the effectiveness of its programs. Her second guest is Jake Trumbo, project coordinator at Bach Harrison, who oversaw the three administrations of the survey gathering data about substance use among Modern Orthodox adolescents. He discusses the process of surveying, and what it looked like from his side.This is the second episode in our new series: Substance Use among Modern Orthodox Adolescents: Identifying Problems, Implementing Solutions.

For the past six years, Machon Siach has been working to understand the scope of the substance use problem among Modern Orthodox adolescents, and to identify and implement evidence-based interventions to address that problem. This eventually led to the implementation of the Guiding Good Choices parenting program for all 9th grade parents. In this work, we have been guided by Dalene Beaulieu, an expert from the University of Washington's Social Development Research Group. Listen as we explore what we learned from her, and what she learned about our community, over these years.
This is the first episode in our new series: Substance Use among Modern Orthodox Adolescents: Identifying Problems, Implementing Solutions.

In this episode, Rabbi Harcsztark and Dr. Sarit Kattan Gribetz discuss Dr. Kattan Gribetz's book and research on ​Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism. Key questions include: What do we learn from how the rabbis conceptualized time and how can we translate some of these insights and values to our high school students? How do we deepen our understanding of gendered time including the differences between men and women in Jewish law rooted in the conceptualization of time? What is the relationship between the academic study of Talmud and the religious engagement of Talmud Torah?

This episode features an eye-opening discussion between Rabbi Tully Harcsztark and Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth- the director of Mosaica, an Israeli NGO focusing on insider religious mediation.What exactly does the work of insider religious mediation look like during a war?Is there ongoing dialogue between religious leaders in Muslim and Jewish communities in the Middle East at this terrible time?What should we as high school educators be teaching our students about the role of religion in this seemingly intractable conflict?

This special episode of the Grand Conversation, recorded at the end of October, is devoted to important, complex, and ongoing issues being discussed in our community in this Post-October 7th world: How can we meaningfully connect with and support our alumni on college campuses, and how are we helping parents and current SAR HS students navigate the college guidance process?Our guest host is Dr. Rivka Press Schwartz, Associate Principal of SAR HS and Director of Research and Program Development at Machon Siach. Our two guests are leaders of SAR High School’s College Counseling team, Mr. Michael Courtney, Director of College Counseling at SAR HS and Ms. Michelle Biller-Levy, Associate Director of College Counseling at SAR HS and Director of Post-Graduate Initiatives, at Machon Siach.