Holy Living in Human Bodies: 2010 Edward Bronfman Family Foundation Annual Lecture

Holy Living in Human Bodies: 2010 Edward Bronfman Family Foundation Annual Lecture at Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, Israel. Part of the 2010 International Theology Conference, January 2010. Speakers were Dr. Melila Hellner-Eshed, Shalom Hartman Institute, Prof. Rusmir Mahmutehaji, University of Sarajevo, President, International Forum Bosnia, and Rev. David M. Neuhaus, SJ, Vicar for the Hebrew and Russian-speaking Catholic communities in Israel, Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Opening remarks were made by Rabbi Prof. David Hartman. The moderator was Dr. Hami Verbin, Shalom Hartman Institute.

The Hartman Institute gratefully acknowledges the Bronfman family for supporting this annual initiative.

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Hartman Rabbinic Fellows heading home, blogging about their visit

Hartman Institute Rabbinic Fellows have concluded their Winter 2010 retreat at the Institute. They are nearing the end of their three-year program. Some of their comments from recent blog posts give you a sense of how highly they have valued the program:

Rabbi Jonah Layman: “Another week of study at the Shalom Hartman Institute has concluded and I am still amazed at how wonderful the program is. No matter the topic of study for the week – this week it was individual and community – the classes are first rate and engaging. The teaching is engaging and provocative and there is always something that I can bring home to shul to teach.” Rabbi Layman posted a nice gallery of photos on Picasa. Click here to view them.

Rabbi Steve Moskowitz: “Rabbi David Hartman created the Shalom Hartman Institute where I am now studying. He is a remarkable rabbi.  It is an honor and privilege to study with him….He is unafraid of questions.  He is unafraid of struggle, and therefore no stranger to controversy.  What is most remarkable is that I have found him to be loving and caring when addressing people and especially us, his students, yet tenacious and unforgiving when struggling with our texts.”

Rabbi Moskowitz also posted several videos on YouTube. Here’s one he titled, “Jerusalem Montage”

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Say hi to Hartman Institute at the UJC General Assembly in Washington, Nov. 8-10, 2009

President Obama to appear at Jewish Communities General Assembly, Washington, DC, Nov. 9, 2009

Shalom Hartman Institute will be at the United Jewish Communities (soon to be Jewish Federations of North America) annual General Assembly from November 8-10, 2009, in Washington, D.C. (Booth 311). First, and foremost, I invite you to stop by for a chat. I plan to have some goodies from Israel with me to entice people – if the marketing materials and flyers, and books, and magazines, and videos featuring Hartman Institute scholars aren’t enough!

As I said on Twitter (@alanabbey) I will give an extra piece of whatever I end up bringing if you tell me you heard about it on this blog or my Twitter page.

But seriously, I will be there to present the amazing programs of the Hartman Institute and to offer our new DVD Series of lectures on “Crisis and Leadership,” which is a special program now available for purchase by synagogues, community centers, adult education programs, Hillels, and private individuals tailored for adult education courses,  private study, leadership development and more.

By the way, Hartman Institute is not the ONLY draw at the GA. President Obama is scheduled to make his first speech to a Jewish group since becoming POTUS 44, as is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Sensitive to the times, Netanyahu – who, unlike Obama, does not have his own airplane, is flying “economy” to the U.S. Obama will take the short drive from the White House to the conference hotel in NW Washington.

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Israel and North American Jews – Do we need each other? Do we understand each other?

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic Monthly interviewed Michael Oren, a New York state native who is now Israel’s ambassador to the United States in Aspen, CO, recently. In the interview (click here to see the entire interview on video; click here to read the Israel-Diaspora relations segment edited down for you), Oren discusses the need Israelis have for American Jews and vice versa:

Israel needs the political and economic support of American Jewry, and American Jewry increasingly needs the spiritual infusion of the Jewish state.… In recent years, we have found that a 10-day visit to the state of Israel by American Jewish youth does more for Jewish identity than seven years in Hebrew school. In fact, seven years in Hebrew school, as one poll shows, does some damage to Jewish identity.

Oren also cleverly dissects the “problem” of American Jewry for Herzl and the early Zionists: America wasn’t supposed to happen for the Jews. Nowhere was supposed to be safe for them! Oy. What a problem!

This issue comes up over and over again. North American rabbis here at Hartman Institute in recent weeks heard lectures on the subject and worried over it time and again. Here’s a link to a downloadable PDF document featuring Donniel Hartman’s in-depth take on the matter: “Rethinking the Partnership Between Israel and World Jewry.”

(Hat tip to Hadassah Levy for bringing it to my attention.)

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New video from Hartman Rabbinic Fellow Steve Moskowitz

Rabbi Steven Moskowitz, who is here in Israel for the summertime residency of the Shalom Hartman Institute Rabbinic Leadership Initiative, has been carrying around a little Flip video camera, showing that not only Chabad rabbis can make good use of high-tech gadgets. His video shows a sampling of Ben Yehuda Street (Jerusalem) street life – religious hippie with electric guitar, dancing “Na Nan Nachman” types, a harpist (!) and some hellos from “real” Israelis.

His surprise guest at the end is Rabbi Josh Zweiback, also a leadership initiative rabbi, but one who is not at the Institute this month – for a good reason. He has just made aliyah from the SF Bay Area to work for the Reform movement here in Jerusalem. Mazal tov to Josh on his aliyah!

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Another blogger at Hartman Institute – Rabbi Steven Moskowitz

Steven Moskowitz, rabbi of the Jewish Congregation of Brookville on Long Island’s North Shore, is a Senior Fellow of the Hartman Institute’s Rabbinic Leadership Initiative. His blogging includes video shot in the Old City of Jerusalem, and a nice post on a rabbinic hike through Wadi Kelt, just south and east of Jerusalem in the Judean Desert. Why IS a rabbi from Long Island wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball hat?

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‘Serving God’ video lectures available online soon

Four lectures about Serving God in the Jewish tradition by leading scholars of Jewish studies from the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel, pluralistic Jewish learning and leadership training. Soon on the Shalom Hartman Institute website.

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Hartman Institute’s women scholars shine online

Channa Pincasi, Shalom Hartman Institute

It’s most definitely NOT affirmative action. In fact, I didn’t even realize it had happened until I checked the homepage of the Hartman Institute after my latest article update. It just so happens that there are four items on the homepage featuring women scholars at the Institute.

The latest is Channa Pincasi’s piece about the spies Moses sent to check out the land of Canaan before the Children of Israel crossed into it, a story being read in the Torah currently. She wonders if the Israelites might not have had to spend a total of 40 years in the desert had they sent women. It’s a humorous but thought-provoking piece.

Also on the site:

A video lecture by Melilla Hellner-Eshed on ways of remembering Sinai.

A video lecture by Vered Noam on the tug between obligations to parents and children in Jewish law.

An article about the latest cohort of Melamdim teaching program graduates, a program for training educators for Jewish day schools in North America, headed by Renana Pilzer.

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God Narratives in the Torah – Donniel Hartman

God Narratives in the Torah by Donniel Hartman. This special lecture is now available online for the first time. It was given July 10, 2008, at Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, Israel.

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Israel’s Redemption From Egypt A Condemnation of Injustice

Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem, Israel, in this pre-Pesach message for 2009 (5769) talks in this short (6-minute) video about how the redemption of the Israelite slaves from Egypt is not a precursor to God’s stepping in and saving the Jewish people again and again. Nor is it a sense of triumphalism and “chosenness.” But the redemption from Egypt at Pesach became a symbol of how the Jewish people must condemn injustice wherever they find it.

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