Eitzah: Preserving Jewish Wisdom. Connecting Generations.
Eitzah is a Jewish wisdom and storytelling initiative dedicated to preserving the lessons, stories, and hard-earned wisdom people accumulate over a lifetime. Through thoughtful, long-form conversations with Jewish elders, educators, leaders, builders, artists, and culture-bearers, Eitzah preserves lived experience, hard-earned lessons, and the wisdom worth passing from one generation to the next.
The project reflects the breadth and diversity of Jewish life, bringing forward voices, traditions, stories, and perspectives that help us better understand where we have come from and what we might carry forward.
At the heart of Eitzah is a simple question:
How do we make sure that the wisdom people accumulate over a lifetime does not disappear with them?
George S. Blumenthal is a retired telecommunications executive, philanthropist, and collector dedicated to preserving and sharing Jewish history. He has helped digitize treasures including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Aleppo Codex, Maimonides manuscripts, and Theodor Herzl’s diaries. The son of refugees from Nazi Germany, he works to make the Jewish people’s history and connection to the Land of Israel accessible to audiences worldwide.
Why I Started Eitzah
For more than two decades, my work in Jewish education and communal life has given me the opportunity to sit with remarkable people and hear the stories, experiences, questions, and lessons that shaped their lives. Again and again, I found myself struck by how much wisdom people carry with them, often quietly, and how easily it can disappear if no one takes the time to ask.
For me, that question is also deeply personal.
My Omi left behind recorded testimony about her life and experiences. Being able to hear her voice, to listen to her tell her own story in her own words, has become increasingly meaningful to me, especially as I think about passing her story on to my own children.
It made me think about all the wisdom that is never recorded. The lessons learned over a lifetime. The stories families hear only in fragments. The questions we think we will ask someday.
Eitzah grew out of a desire to ask those questions while we still can.
To listen carefully. To preserve what people have learned. And to make sure that the wisdom of one generation has a chance to reach the next.
Preserving wisdom. Connecting generations