Donniel Hartman Commentary on “Rotem Conversion Bill” Receiving Wide Attention

Donniel Hartman’s commentary on the “Rotem Conversion Bill” controversy, “Relationship of Israel and World Jewry Depends on Meaning, Not Claims of Necessity,” is receiving widespread attention in Israel and North America, including citations and reprints by The New York Times, Forward, and Ynet, among others: Israel Puts Off Crisis Over Conversion Law (The New York Times, 23/07/2010) Donniel [...]

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Hartman Institute creates rabbinic students seminar in Jerusalem for 2009-10

Come and study in Jerusalem at the Shalom Hartman Institute with your fellow rabbinic students from other movements in an open and supportive atmosphere. Faculty David Hartman Melila Hellner-Eshed Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi Rut Kaniel Kara-Ivanov Israel Knohl Micah Goodman Topics Reading the Zohar The Soul of the Sinner: From Chet to Geulah God After Auschwitz: [...]

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Donniel Hartman: Israeli Army commanders struggling with religious challenges

In a lecture this week to rabbis at Shalom Hartman Institute for the annual summertime Rabbinical Torah Study Seminar, Donniel Hartman mentioned that he had just finished a session with senior IDF commanders attending an ongoing program at Shalom Hartman Institute, the Lev Aharon program. This program teaches Judaism, Jewish moral philosophy, and other related [...]

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Hartman Institute scholar in the news – Ariel Picard on ‘unorthodox’ marriage in Israel

Haaretz reports on a conference on Judaism at Israel’s far north Kfar Blum, in which Shalom Hartman Institute scholar Rabbi Dr. Ariel Picard, director of the Institute’s Be’eri program of Judaic studies for secular Israeli high schools,  offered an innovative way to break the deadlock for those Israelis who cannot marry under current rabbinical law [...]

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Bloggers at Hartman Institute summer programs

Summertime programs at Shalom Hartman Institute are well under way. We have hundreds of rabbis, community leaders, and others here for seminars, havruta study, lectures, tours, and more. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is on tap tonight for a private appearance. Israeli Education Minister Gidon Sa’ar was here the other night. So, with visitors, we also [...]

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Charles Krauthammer: David Hartman & Maimonides ‘big influence on me’

Charles Krauthammer – you know him as the acerbic, neoconservative, pro-Israel columnist for the Washington Post and other newspapers – has another side. According to this interview in the Jerusalem Post, he and his wife have  “started to try to revive and preserve Jewish music that has been lost to the masses” with a program [...]

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Hartman ‘represented’ on Newsweek top rabbis, synagogues list

The value and virtues of Top 10, 25 or 50 lists are endlessly debatable. But what is indisputable is that they start discussions – and disputes. The publication this week of the new “Top 50 (U.S.) Rabbis” compiled by Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman & CEO Michael Lynton, News Corporation Executive Vice President Gary Ginsberg and [...]

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Story behind the picture, V. 1 – Ron Aigen

We change the homepage picture on the Hartman website on a regular basis – once every week or so. But we don’t have space to say a lot about each photo. So, beginning with the current picture (see a small version above), we are going to have something to say about each picture as it [...]

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David Hartman laments rise of extremism, irrationality in Jewish world

I don’t want this one to slip away unnoticed, even though it is off the main Hartman website homepage for now: David Hartman’s new column on the rise of extremism in the Jewish world. The essay is adapted from one of his recent lectures in the Pomrenze Lecture Series: Challenges Facing Modern Jewry in Israel [...]

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David Hartman: The rise of religious extremism

David Hartman talks about how Jewish religious extremism, and even “mainstream” Orthodoxy have grown in modern times as more modern, rational movements have struggled.

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