A hip hop artist who raps prayer services, a medical student who donates computers to children in Mexico and a marketing manager working to create a new Shabbat dinner project in the Bay Area were among those picked to attend a young Jewish innovators summit in Israel.
The ROI Global Summit, which took place June 28 through July 2 in Tel Aviv, is a collaborative project between the Center for Leadership Initiatives and Taglit–Birthright Israel. The fourth annual international summit included everything from grassroots organization-building workshops to small discussion groups to offbeat networking games.
From the more than 600 people who applied to attend the summit, the invitees were whittled down to a list of 120, with three hailing from the Bay Area: Jonathan Gutstadt, Danny Greene and Tobin Greensweig.
Gutstadt, 30, says the summit was like a dream come true.
“It is the biggest thing that has happened in my career,” he says. “I found so many like-minded people from different countries.”
Gutstadt was invited because of his hip hop/reggae group, Hip Hop Shabbat.
Originally from North Oakland, Gutstadt got the idea for Hip Hop Shabbat while attending the University of Oregon’s Hillel events. He was leading services one night, and decided to combine his renewed interest in Judaism with his love for hip hop.
After producing an album in 2004, Gutstadt and his musical partner, Judah Ritterman, went on the synagogue circuit in the Bay Area.
The summit was the next big step for Gustadt, who recently decided to commit to his musical endeavor full time. He’s created a Hip Hop Shabbat siddur and has future goals of spreading the rhymes across the U.S., creating more albums and perhaps making an instructional rap DVD.
Gutstadt says he’s extremely grateful the summit gave him such interesting networking opportunities.
“Everyone was a superhero,” he says. “These are amazing people doing amazing work in the Jewish community — education, technology, social justice. It is the best of the best projects happening in the Jewish world.”
Danny Greene’s Shabbat Remix is one of those innovative projects. Greene, who grew up in San Rafael, now lives in San Francisco where he works as a brand engagement manager at Current TV.
Though still in the planning stages of his new project, Shabbat Remix, he has investors ready and hopes to launch the program in the fall. It involves different clusters of young adults hosting potluck Shabbats once a month. Following the meal, the groups will come together for a late-night party.
“I’m trying to create something that gives people a reason to engage in Jewish life, while staying authentic to people’s urban lifestyles,” explains Greene, 26.
During the summit he helped facilitate a conversation on Israeli politics and Jewish identity among participants from Israel, the U.S., Uruguay, Venezuela and Germany. It was an eye-opening moment, according to Greene.
“It was such an unbelievable cross-section of people,” he says. “We were able to explore personal Jewish identity from so many backgrounds.”
As for Greene’s own Jewish identity, he has strong ties to both Israel and the Bay Area. Though he considers Israel his second home, he says he was keenly aware he was representing the Bay Area Jewish community during this recent trip.
“There were people there from all around the world,” he says. “It was a great opportunity to share what the Bay Area Jewish community had in common with them.”
San Rafael native Toby Greensweig, also 26, came to ROI representing a side project he created through a group of doctors and pilots in Santa Barbara called Aeromedicos, which caters to a clinic in Cadeje, a small Mexican city.
Greensweig’s project began when he was asked to help the clinic in rural Cadeje install a satellite Internet connection. He soon began recycling old computers and bringing them down to the elementary school by the medical clinic.
Greensweig is about to head off to medical school, so he’ll no longer be able to devote as much attention to his pet project. But he so connected with another ROI attendee that the Israeli participant is now poised to help with Aeromedicos.
Greensweig also received another kind of help at ROI — some feedback on a new project. Just in the planning stages, he’s begun working on combining rural technology with medical patient care.
“People had some great ideas at ROI, they really helped me crystallize my plan,” he says. “These were the smartest, most passionate young Jewish innovators I’ve ever met.”
For more information on the summit, visit www.roicommunity.org.