Clal appoints Rabbi Elan Babchuck as Director of Innovation

Rabbi Elan Babchuck

New York - Clal, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, has named Rabbi Elan Babchuck to the new role of Director of Innovation, beginning in July 2016. Babchuck brings a wealth of experience in the intersection between innovation and spirituality, including entrepreneurial roles beginning at age 18 and continuing since.

“From its beginnings more than four decades ago, Clal has been a leader in innovating Judaism, offering new models of leadership, and making Jewish wisdom accessible and usable to help anyone anywhere flourish,” said Clal co-President Rabbi Irwin Kula. “Elan, with his history of entrepreneurship, experience in the for-profit business world and track record of new initiatives at Temple Emanu-El in Providence and co-founding projects like (401)j, Leaders Without Borders, and Thrive: The Center for Mindfulness and Wellbeing, is the ideal person to build out our innovation incubator.”

The incubator will launch in the fall of 2016, under Babchuck’s direction, and will focus on nurturing disruptive innovations that help to advance Clal’s mission, making Jewish a public good.

“Successful incubation demands a combination of openness to opportunity, excitement about new ideas, fearlessness about the future and genuine discipline regarding the wise use of available resources – material, intellectual or otherwise,” said Clal co-President Rabbi Brad Hirschfield.  “Those are the values which animate Clal, the mission of making Jewish a public good, and Elan himself.  It’s what drew him to us, and us to him.”

Babchuck joins Clal, having studied with its faculty while in rabbinical school and having participated in the organization’s prestigious national fellowship, Rabbis Without Borders, in 2013-2014.

“The Rabbis Without Borders fellowship was an incredibly rich experience that opened my eyes to new ways to engage with Jewish wisdom, and radically fresh ways to translate that wisdom into practice. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to provide that lens for others, and support a new cohort of rabbinic ‘translators’ in their innovative endeavors, as well,” said Rabbi Babchuck.

Rabbi Babchuck will work out of an office in Providence and travel to NYC and other innovation project sites around the country, as well. “While Clal is based in New York, our reach is national and even international,” said Kula and Hirschfield, “so we’re quite excited to have Rabbi Babchuck based in Providence, itself a center of many exciting social entrepreneurship initiatives, and from where he can build on his proven track record of successful innovation.”