Sharon Brous, "The Amen Effect" — The Shirlyn Miller Lecture in Human Rights and Public Understanding

We are excited to welcome Rabbi Sharon Brous to the Mauthe Center on November 10 for the Shirlyn Miller Lecture in Human Rights and Public Understanding! She will speaking on the "The Amen Effect," the topic of her best-selling book by that same title. In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society? Rabbi Brous argues that some of the most important work of our time, as instinctual as it is counter-cultural, is to find our way to one other in celebration, in sorrow, and in solidarity, to show up for each other in moments of joy and pain, vulnerability and possibility, to invest in relationships of shared purpose and build communities of care. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

This event is the latest in our Shirlyn Miller Lecture in Human Rights and Public Understanding. Through the generosity of her daughter Susan Nuetzel, this series honors the life and work of Shirlyn Miller, who died last year at 103. Shirlyn was well known and beloved in the Green Bay community for her many contributions to human flourishing and public understanding. Friends and family often spoke of her insatiable curiosity and resilient hope — qualities which we strive also to emulate in these lectures.

Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR, a leading edge Jewish community based in Los Angeles, and author of The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World, a national bestseller. She offered the invocation at the Democratic National Convention in 2024, led the Hanukkah candle lighting with the Vice President and Second Gentleman in 2023, and the White House Passover Seder in 2021. She was named #1 on the Newsweek/The Daily Beast list of most influential Rabbis in America, and has been recognized by The Forward and Jerusalem Post as among the most influential Jews alive today. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, and her 2016 TED talk, “Reclaiming Religion,” has been viewed by more than 1.5 million people. Brous is in the inaugural cohort of Auburn Seminary‘s Senior Fellows program, which unites top faith leaders working on the frontlines for justice, she sits on the faculty of REBOOT, and serves on the International Council of the New Israel Fund and national steering committee for the Poor People’s Campaign. A graduate of Columbia University (both undergraduate and M.A. in Human Rights), she was ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.