National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership
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Founded in 1974, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL) is a leadership training institute, think tank, and resource center. It is an inter-disciplinary and inter-denominational movement, in which rabbis from all of the major Jewish denominations in North America are participants.
CLAL has an intentional double meaning in Hebrew. To the English speaker, CLAL is a four letter acronym formed using first letters, with some license, of a part of the organization's English language name (Center for Leadership and Learning). But in Hebrew, these same four letters might be an alternate transliteration for the first word of klal Yisrael, a Hebrew expression that is frequently heard in invocations for unity among the Jewish people. This Hebrew interpretation of the name CLAL suggests the organization's stated mission to serve as a center of interdenominational cooperation in American Judaism.
According to the organization's website, "CLAL links Jewish wisdom with innovative scholarship to deepen civic and spiritual participation in American life. CLAL's interdisciplinary programs explore religious and national identity. The CLAL faculty, with its reputation for excellence, represents rabbis and scholars from many streams and disciplines, and provides cutting-edge teaching, lectures, courses, seminars, and consulting across the country."
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