SHI has been in the news so often lately that it’s making our heads spin. And that’s not even counting all the attention garnered by SHI president Donniel Hartman’s recent piece, “Haredim and Mainstream Israelis Alike Must Rethink Their Roles,” which stirred fierce controversy and engendered 85 talkbacks on Ynet.
- What makes SHI so unique? It begins at the top. The Jewish Journal of LA writes, “Donniel Hartman embodies things that are usually perceived as mutually exclusive: a charismatic speaker who shies away from sound bites; an Orthodox rabbi who legitimizes other branches of Judaism; a fervent Zionist who is deeply liberal; a centrist with passion; a theorist who is pragmatic; a thinker who can act.”
- SHI is coming to a synagogue near you. Three New Jersey rabbis—one Reconstructionist, one Conservative, and one Orthodox, all of whom have spent time at the Hartman Institute—are planning to work together to teach a course to community leaders based on the first volume of the Institute’s DVD Lecture Series, “Leadership and Crisis: Jewish Resources and Responses.” “The rare intra-denominational event will reflect the approach of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a think-tank in Israel that promotes pluralistic study,” The New Jersey Jewish News reports. Additional information on this and the second DVD lecture series, The Other in Jewish Tradition: Challenges and Opportunities at http://www.hartman.org.il/Center_Leader/Program_View.asp?Program_Id=32
- Gaza, rockets, and Israeli politics are just some of the topics that come up over lunch with Yossi Klein Halevi, SHI fellow and member of SHI’s Israel Engagement Project. Tablet writes, “…Halevi’s thesis is that the right-wing agenda, which focuses on combating the international demonization of Israel, and the left-wing agenda, with its litany of grievances—settlements, the threat to democracy posed by the religious and nationalist parties—are really targeting the same fear: “That the Jews stand to be re-ghettoized.”
- Modern Orthodox education for girls like you’ve never seen it before—young women learn to dance, read the Torah, and study Jewish texts from a feminist perspective. The Jerusalem Post reports, “…In an unprecedented move by the [Ministry of Education], the Shalom Hartman Institute Midrashiya Girls’ High School has received a five-year mandate to develop an authentic and coherent educational vision that fuses respect for Jewish tradition and learning, obligation to Halacha and feminist ideology.”
