13th of May 2008 /

Moishe House Mazel Tovs

By Deborah Moon

Peterson gets Insight fellowship

Moishe House founding resident Matt Peterson, 24, was one of 10 recent college graduates nationwide named as fellows in Insight: the Schusterman Fellowship for Jewish Community.

Peterson will move to Washington, D.C., in September for this 22-month fellowship, which is a project of the Center for Leadership Initiatives. There were 160 applicants for the 10 positions.

“I will intern for six months with three different Jewish non-profit organizations,” said Peterson. “At the end of the fellowship I hope to procure a career in Jewish non-profit management.”

“The fellowship will open up a lot of opportunities to do professional communal work,” he added.

The Insight Fellowship offers a combination of three practical placements with Jewish non-profit organizations, skills training in non-profit management, networking with Jewish community leadership and domestic and international travel to see community projects in action.

In 1991, 7-year old Peterson and his mother Judge Eve Miller were one of nine founding families of the South Metro Jewish Community in West Linn, which evolved into the Reform congregation Beit Haverim. Peterson became a bar mitzvah there in 1996.

In 1997, Peterson joined Congregation Neveh Shalom, a Conservative synagogue.

While attending the University of Oregon from 2002 to 2006, he was social chair and fundraising chair for the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. He was religious chair for Hillel for three years and vice president and then president of the Chabad House Jewish Student Center.

Peterson earned a bachelor of the arts in environmental studies, with minors in Judaic studies and business administration. He wrote his honors thesis on Judaism and ecology.

He also completed two years of Biblical Hebrew. In 2005, he studied abroad at the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies, where the course books were entirely in Hebrew and included Talmud, Chumash, philosophy and modern Hebrew.

Currently, Peterson is a supervisor at Goodwill Industries’ Portland Outlet store.

As one of three founders of the Moishe House Portland, Peterson has helped plan numerous programs for young Jewish adults. In the first three months of the year, he planned the Wednesday Night Learning Series. Weeks alternated between a “Hebrew with He’Brew” class and a “Torah on Tap” class.

Berris tapped for two leadership conferences

Portlander Jodi Berris has been selected/invited to participate in two major leadership conferences this year.

Berris, 29, is the founder of Portland’s Moishe House and Portland Jewish Events.

June 15-19, she will attend the ROI 120 in Jerusalem. ROI is a leadership program for 120 young adult Jewish leaders from around the world.

ROI is an international partnership between Taglit-birthright Israel and the Center for Leadership Initiatives, a U.S.-based foundation with funding from Lynn Schusterman. For more information on ROI, visit its Web site at roi120.com.

Additionally, Berris has been invited to participate in “The Conversation: Jewish in America 2008” in Atlanta this fall. The project brings together about 65 American Jews who are leaders or potential leaders in their respective fields to talk about the future of Jewish life in this country and what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century.

The first Conversation was held in October 2005 in Aspen, Colo. This year the conversation convenes at Chateau Elan, in Atlanta Sept. 14-16.

Sponsored by The Jewish Week in partnership with the Center for Leadership Initiatives, the program is intended to provide a safe and creative place for people from a wide span of religious, political and generational perspectives who share a love for the Jewish people and care about its history, survival and advancement to meet, talk and imagine together.

More information on the conversation program is available at www.theconversation2008.com.

Berris said she plans to take advantage of both leadership opportunities.

New housemate needed to help coordinate events for young adults

With the departure of Matt Peterson to participate in a two-year fellowship, Portland’s Moishe House is seeking a new housemate between the ages of 21 and 30 to share the four-bedroom home located at 6217 SW 33rd Place to help plan and organize events for young Jewish adults.

Moishe House is a subsidized housing program that enables “young, eager, innovative Jews to live in and create their vision of an ideal Jewish communal space.”

Created by the Forest Foundation (TheForestFoundation.net), Moishe House also receives funding from the Center for Leadership Initiatives and the Schusterman Foundation. The Forest Foundation lists 22 Moishe Houses internationally.

“Candidates should be comfortable living in an active social and party atmosphere and be willing to live in a strictly kosher and shomer Shabbat environment,” said Jodi Berris, who founded the Portland Moishe House.

Benefits include a 75 percent rent subsidy, programming budget and attendance of both national and regional Moishe House retreats per year. Candidates can move in anytime before Sept. 1.

For more information and to set up an interview, contact Jodi Berris at jodiberris@aol.com or 248-760-0743.