title: National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership
text: # National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership
  
  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 major Jewish denominations in North America participate. The organization is described by The Jewish Daily Forward as a "think-tank dedicated to questions of Jewish identity and religious practice...in its quest to expand the boundaries of Jewish communal life".
  
  Rabbis Irwin Kula and Brad Hirschfield presently serve as co-presidents of CLAL.
  
  ## Etymology
  
  CLAL is an acronym formed from the organization's English language name (Center for Leadership and Learning). It is also a transliteration of a Hebrew word that can mean community, as in the expression "Klal Yisrael" which refers to the Jewish people as a whole. It is intended to suggest the organization's stated mission to serve as a center of interdenominational cooperation in American Judaism.
  
  ## History
  
  CLAL was founded in 1974 by Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, and Rabbi Steven Shaw.
  
  ## Programs
  
  CLAL runs Rabbis without Borders.
  
  