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August 23, 2002/Elul 15 5762, Vol. 54, No. 49
Valley couple to teach, learn in Latvia
BETH OLSON
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 Dan Fellner spent the last year in Riga, Latvia, on the Fulbright Scholar Program. Fellner and his wife, Amy, will return to Riga this month. Photo courtesy of Dan Fellner |
His time in Riga, the capital of Latvia with a population of 850,000, was so enjoyable that Fellner decided to reapply for the program - and this time his wife, Amy, decided to apply as well. In April, the couple was notified that they'd been accepted to the program, and they'll return to Riga later this month.
Dan Fellner, a public relations consultant and faculty associate at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, will continue to teach broadcast journalism and public relations at the University of Latvia.
Amy Fellner, an attorney and faculty associate at ASU's School of Justice Studies, will be teaching courses in legal ethics, commercial law and alternative dispute resolution at the Riga Graduate School of Law.
"It's a great opportunity because (alternative dispute resolution) is an area that's just starting to develop in that part of the world," she explains. "I'm going to be doing quite a bit of training and teaching on that topic to help educate not just the law students, but the legal community in Latvia how to engage responsibly in those types of activities."
She goes on to explain that Latvia, which has only been independent from the Soviet Union since 1991, is "in the process of westernizing all of their institutions as they transition to a democracy."
Latvia is working toward gaining acceptance into the European Union and NATO, and part of the process is meeting certain requirements - many of which relate to its legal system.
"It's a very exciting time to be there and I feel like I'm making a contribution," says Fellner, who is a specialist in white-collar crime and serves as an arbitrator for the New York Stock Exchange.
During the year Dan Fellner spent in Riga, he also contributed to Latvian society, consulting with media outlets as well as contributing his ideas on public relations issues to the government.
He says that the fields of journalism and public relations are so new in Latvia that college students are able to secure jobs as network news anchors and writers for major newspapers. When the press secretary to the president of Latvia came to speak to Fellner's class, he was surprised to learn that she was only 25 years old - and had been the president's press secretary for three years.
"The news director of the largest TV station is 29 and he's the veteran of the newsroom," he says. "That's what happens when you build a system from scratch."
While Dan Fellner was able to spend nearly a year in Latvia already, Amy was able to experience life there for two extended visits. During their time there, they partook in a variety of cultural activities - from live theater to opera to ballet - and spent time exploring the Jewish community and history of the area.
There is one synagogue that serves the 9,000 Jews in Riga. The Orthodox synagogue is the place of worship for many Russian Jews who immigrated to Latvia. Dan Fellner says he was able to visit the synagogue several times while he was in Riga, including attending a Passover seder there with his parents, Irv and Eileen Fellner of Mesa, who came to Riga for a month-long visit.
"It was really fascinating watching a seder that was in Hebrew and Russian," he says. "It was especially meaningful because my parents were there to experience it (with me)."
While Amy Fellner was visiting her husband, she was able to attend two international Jewish-themed conferences. "Jews in a Changing World" featured speakers from eight countries in Eastern Europe making presentations on "the state of Jewry in the countries of the former Soviet Union," she explains. The second conference's topic was Holocaust research in the Baltic countries.
"It was fascinating because they are starting to open up and do a lot more research on what happened historically," she explains.
Dan Fellner says that the conference on Baltic Jewry was attended by the president of Latvia, and the prime minister and cabinet ministers were speakers.
"I think that speaks a lot to the government's interest in the Jewish community there," he says.
The couple also visited the site of a concentration camp, and each day on the way to work, Dan Fellner passed the site of a synagogue that was burned by the Nazis in 1941 - with several hundred Jews trapped inside.
"That was always a stark reminder of what happened there 60 years ago," he recalls.
On one of Amy Fellner's visits, the couple traveled to Lithuania to visit the synagogues, Holocaust memorial and Jewish museums there. Additionally, they visited the shtetl were Amy Fellner's grandmother grew up.
"We made it a high priority to experience as much a Jewish life there as we could in the sense of learning about the history," she explains.
Dan Fellner says there's been a recent rebirth in the Jewish community in Riga, including the establishment of a Jewish community center with a museum called "Jews of Latvia."
Each year the Fulbright Scholar Program sends 800 scholars and professionals from the United States to more than 140 countries to lecture and conduct research. The Fellners' situation is unusual in that the couple will be traveling together (only five or six couples a year participate together in the Fulbright Scholar Program), and that Dan Fellner received a renewal grant, which is "a very difficult thing to obtain - it's quite an honor," explains Amy Fellner.
In addition to being excited about all of the opportunities the coming year will present, the couple also mention that they are happy to simply be able to live on the same continent.
"I wouldn't be going back if it hadn't been such an amazing experience," says Dan Fellner. "The fact that it was so wonderful and I had the opportunity to go back, and the fact that (Amy) could come back with me made it too enticing to turn down."