As the Assistant Regional Director in the Chicago office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), David Kurzmann, among his many outreach projects, led a group of non-Jewish college students on a mission to Israel. The program had no agenda other than providing a first-hand opportunity for its participants to get to know a country that may have been defined for them by news reports and hearsay. When they arrived, Abe Foxman, ADL's National Director, said to them "If you walk away with one thing from this trip, it's that it's complicated."

Kurzmann, who became the Executive Director the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) last year, has made a career of delving into the complicated, working to untangle and illuminate complex issues of identity, and using that process to build bridges of understanding and trust.

Every day we read the newspapers and see the unrelenting pain and suffering caused by failures of understanding, failures of openness, failures of communication. For those of us who involved in interfaith work, we know that a little bit of religious understanding can go a very long way. And we're excited about the many opportunities we can create in our community to create it. 

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