Applications for the 35th season of the prestigious Bronfman Fellowship are now being accepted and are due by Dec. 3.

The Bronfman Fellowship selects 26 outstanding North American teenagers for an intellectually challenging year of programming that begins with a free, five-week trip to Israel in the summer between the Fellows’ junior and senior years of high school, followed by monthly virtual experiences and a winter and spring seminar in the U.S. The program inspires exceptional young Jews from diverse backgrounds to have a significant impact on the world as community builders, deep thinkers, moral voices, and cultural creators. The program was founded by Edgar M. Bronfman, z”l, formerly CEO of the Seagram Company Ltd. and a visionary Jewish philanthropist. 

During the program’s seminars, Fellows meet with leading intellectuals, religious and cultural leaders, and educators, and are guided by a faculty of rabbis and educators who help them explore a wide range of Jewish texts, from classic religious works to contemporary Israeli and American voices. Fellows also interact with a group of Israeli peers. They have the opportunity to participate in the Fellowship’s arts tracks: workshops in poetry, drama, visual narrative, and music taught by leading innovators in the field of Jewish art.  Upon returning home from the summer in Israel, Fellows also explore major themes in North American Jewish life.

 This past summer, The Bronfman Fellowship conducted a virtual program for its 2020 cohort. It is the Fellowship’s hope that the 2021 Fellowship year will proceed normally and that Fellows will be able to meet in person and travel to Israel. If international travel is not possible, the Fellowship will continue to provide Fellows with a transformative experience through domestic travel options and/or virtual programming, as the current health situation warrants.

There are now over 1,300 Bronfman Fellowship alumni across North America and Israel. Among them are 7 Rhodes Scholars, 4 former Supreme Court clerks, 18 Fulbright Scholars, 36 Wexner Fellows and 27 Dorot Fellows. Fellowship alumni include Daniel Handler, a.k.a. Lemony Snicket, author of the best-selling Series of Unfortunate Events children’s books; Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated; Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl, the first woman to be named senior rabbi at New York’s Central Synagogue and the first Asian-American person to be ordained as a rabbi and cantor; Anne Dreazen, director for Iraq Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Itamar Moses, Tony award-winner for The Band’s Visit. 

Applications for the 2021 Fellowship are available online at bronfman.org.  High school students in the United States and Canada who self-identify as Jewish and who will be in the twelfth grade in the fall of 2021 are eligible to apply. For an application and other information, visit www.bronfman.org.