The Bronfman Fellowship has selected its 31st cohort of eleventh grade high school students, among them a Page in the U.S. Senate, the founder of a charitable organization that has fed nearly 20,000 people, a speaker at UNICEF’s International Day of the Girl, and a specialist in close-up card magic who has won several national science awards.

The 26 Fellows, chosen from two hundred and fifty-two applicants across North America, will participate in a five-week program of study and travel in Israel, followed by a rigorous year of programming centered around pluralism, social responsibility and Jewish texts. The new class of Fellows will join an active alumni network that includes some of today’s most exciting Jewish writers, thinkers and leaders.

Over the summer, Fellows will meet with political and cultural figures in Israel such as authors Etgar Keret and A.B. Yehoshua, politician Ruth Calderon, activist Anat Hoffman and journalist Matti Friedman (Bronfman ’94). They also spend a week with a group of Israeli peers who were chosen through a parallel selection process as part of the Israeli Fellowship, Amitei Bronfman.

Alumni of The Bronfman Fellowship are leaders in their community, playing key roles in fields such as social justice, academia, law, and the arts. There are now over 1,100 Bronfman Fellowship alumni across North America and Israel. Among them are 7 Rhodes Scholars, 4 former Supreme Court clerks, 18 Fulbright Scholars, 29 Wexner Fellows and 22 Dorot Fellows.

The program was founded by philanthropist Edgar M. Bronfman, z”l, formerly CEO of the Seagram Company Ltd.