The idea for the Institute for Contemporary Midrash was seeded in the spring of 1995 when ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal听sponsored听an experimental, three-weekend Bibliodrama training by Peter Pitzele听in Philadelphia. Managed by Rivkah Walton, the ALEPH Associate Director at the time, participants included psychotherapists Bobbie Breitman and听Judy Freed, rabbinical student听Lisa Kapin, Rabbi Goldie Milgram, Cantor Chaim Rothstein z鈥漧, Rabbi Shawn Zevit, and actor/director Robb Hutter, among others.
Following the success of the experiemental training, Walton designed a week-long Bibliodrama Training Institute in the summer of 1996, which was sponsored and hosted by Elat Chayyim and听subsidized with discretionary funding from the Nathan Cummings Foundation. This led to the official creation of the听Institute for Contemporary Midrash (ICM) in the fall, which听was to include visual, performing, and literary arts as a 501(c)(3).
In 1997,听the ALEPH Board committed听to serving as the fiscal sponsor of ICM听and listed听the organization听as an ALEPH asset in order to broaden ALEPH鈥檚 spiritual identity beyond ecstatic worship.
Until听2001,听ICM offered听five week-long, multi-disciplinary, subsidized summer training programs;听three week-long Bibliodrama trainings for Christian clergy and seminarians at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.;听courses in contemporary midrash at ALEPH Kallahs; along with publishing eight issues of "Living Text: The Journal of Contemporary Midrash." The ICM served as a resource and referral service for individuals seeking information about Contemporary Midrash听and communities seeking artists-in-residence through its website.
