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Leading Israeli Scholars Join Shalem College Academic Council
April 26, 2010 | 12 Iyar 5770
Spring greetings from the Shalem Center. In this issue of E-news, you’ll find an announcement of the prominent scholars who have joined the Shalem College Academic Council, along with details on the recent hiring of a Vice President for Development—both of which constitute major steps in our efforts to establish Israel's first liberal arts college and to prepare generations of students for a lifetime of learning, service, and leadership.
In addition, you will find links to video content from Shalem’s recent conference on the “Human Nature Tradition,” as well as a link to a recent article in Azure, Shalem’s journal of public affairs, on the need for a change in Israel's posture internationally. In “Essential Reading” this month, we bring you an article outlining a study which notes the dearth of young Jewish leadership, along with an essay calling for a revitalization of the humanities at British universities.
We hope you find E-News useful and informative, and encourage you to share it with your friends, family, and colleagues. If you’d like us to send them a copy directly, simply email us their names and email addresses at e-news@shalem.org.il. If for any reason you’d like to unsubscribe, please follow the instructions at the bottom of this email.
Scholars from Israel’s Top Universities Join Shalem College Academic Council
Leading Israeli scholars, representing a diversity of views and areas of expertise, have joined the Shalem College Academic Council, which has begun to meet regularly. Members include: Yosef Gorny, Dan Laor, Asher Maoz, and Ziva Shamir of Tel Aviv University; Ella Belfer and Eytan Gilboa of Bar-Ilan University; and Sara Japhet of Hebrew University. The Council, which is chaired by Shalem College President Designate Martin Kramer, also includes half a dozen scholars representing Shalem's leadership and faculty. Click here to see a full list of the members of the Academic Council, their affiliations, and their fields of study:
Erica Frederick Joins Shalem as Vice President for Development
Erica Frederick, a professional with more than 30 years experience in raising funds for institutions of higher education and for Jewish organizations, recently joined Shalem as Vice President for Development. She spent the last 10 years at Hebrew Union College, the seminary of the Reform Movement, where she launched an historic $150 million capital campaign as Executive Vice President for Development. “We are delighted to welcome Erica, who brings precisely the wisdom and experience we need as we prepare to launch our College development campaign,” commented Shalem Center President Daniel Polisar. Frederick will establish of Shalem’s Office of US Development in New York, and will spearhead the campaign to launch Shalem College. Click here to read her bio:
Shalem Conference on Human Nature Attracts Leading Philosophers to Jerusalem
Video excerpts from Shalem’s December 2009 conference on the “Human Nature Tradition” are now available on the Shalem Center website. The conference drew philosophers, historians, and scholars of cognitive science to Jerusalem to consider both the history and contemporary relevance of a unique tradition of philosophical “human nature” studies in Europe in the 17th-19th centuries. Click on these links to watch opening comments from conference co-convener Mordechai Feingold (CalTech), as well as selected lectures on the human nature tradition by Stephen Darwall (Yale), Aaron Garrett (Boston University), Daniel Garber (Princeton), Knud Haakonssen (Sussex), Yoram Hazony (Shalem), Fania Oz-Salzberger (Haifa), Jesse Prinz (CUNY Graduate), and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (UNC—Chapel Hill). More lectures from the conference will be available online soon. Click here to see all available lectures:
Daniel Gordis Speaks to Audience of 1700 at Annual AIPAC Dinner in New York
In late March, Shalem Senior Vice President and Senior Fellow Daniel Gordis spoke at the AIPAC Annual Dinner in New York to an audience of 1700, which included US Senators, Representatives, and prominent advocates for Israel. Gordis spoke of the need to articulate the unique contribution Israel makes to mankind and human history. “Israel’s enemies…have taken the battle to destroy the Jewish state into the court of international opinion, and you and I need to know how to respond,” Gordis said. “Israel represents a message about human flourishing and human freedom that human beings all across the globe desperately need.” Click here to watch the full video, along with other recent videos of Gordis speaking on related topics:
Jewish People Lack Leadership – Says Study
A new study prepared by the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Planning Institute constitutes a blunt assessment of the future of the Jewish people as they face a lack of young leadership. “Current leadership, both in Israel and in Jewish institutions…lacks the deep understanding of changing realities and new ideas for coping with them,” the study says. Titled “2030: Alternative Futures for the Jewish People,” the study recommends a number of immediate steps, which include: Developing a “durable/enduring Jewish identity, especially among the younger generation;” and establishing “a Jewish Leadership Academy to train and support emerging leaders.” Click here to read The Jewish Week article on the forthcoming report:
British Universities Should Focus on Humanities and Invest for the Long Term—Says Leading Intellectual Historian
Princeton Professor of History Anthony Grafton, one of the world’s leading intellectual historians, laments the decline of British universities in a recent piece in The New York Review of Books, and calls for renewed investment in the humanities. “Universities become great by investing for the long term,” he writes. “Accept the short term as your standard—support only what students want to study right now and outside agencies want to fund right now—and you lose the future.” To see the full article, click here:
Cambridge University Press to Publish Yoram Hazony’s “Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture”
Cambridge University Press has contracted to publish Shalem Provost Yoram Hazony’s next book on the Bible, tentatively entitled The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture: An Introduction. The book will propose a new academic discipline to study the biblical texts for their ideas, “the same way we study the ideas of Plato or Nietzsche,” explains Hazony. “The ideas that find expression in the Hebrew Bible—the metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy of the biblical authors—are rarely explored in universities,” he says. “It’s strange, but there are no courses for students on this subject, and until very recently, almost no research either. I think the time has come for a change.” Click here to read Hazony’s most recent article on the Bible, “Jerusalem and Carthage”:
The Great Brain Race, by Shalem Visiting Research Fellow Ben Wildavsky, Published to Critical Acclaim
Ben Wildavsky’s The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World, recently published by Princeton University Press, is the first popular account of how globalization is transforming higher education – and why this revolution should be welcomed, not feared. Wildavsky is a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution; he was a Visiting Research Fellow at Shalem in the summer of 2009, where he conducted a portion of the research for his book. “You can't understand the way the world will work in this coming century without understanding the phenomenon Wildavsky reveals here,” said Judy Woodruff of PBS Newshour. Click here for reviews and purchasing information:
Asaf Turgeman Lectures at Shalem on Connection Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism
On March 10, University of Haifa post-doctoral fellow Asaf Turgeman addressed the Shalem academic community on the turning point in the relationship between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, making note that the identification of anti-Zionism as a new type of anti-Semitism is a relatively new phenomenon which first found expression in the public and academic discourses in Israel in the 70’s, after UN Resolution 3379 which claimed a connection between Zionism and racism. Turgeman argued that both the conceptual and public discourse regarding this phenomenon indicate an ideological turning point with implications for the public and academic discourse in Israel. Click here to read more about our Institute for Middle East & Zionist History:
Winter 2010 Issue of Azure Now Available
Recently published, the 39th issue of Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation includes a prominent article by noted Israeli scholar Yehuda Liebes on the nature of divine affection, along with an editorial titled “A State in Need of a Spine” by Associate Editor Marla Braverman. Criticizing Israel’s tendency toward self-effacement in the international arena, Braverman traces the root causes of this approach to the diasporic mentality that viewed the survival and success of the Jews as wholly dependent on the goodwill of others. “Clearly, Israel would be wise to pay heed to world opinion. But it should not grovel,” she writes. Click here to read the full article in Azure:
Shalem Press Publishes New Edition of Eliezer Berkovits’ Classic Not in Heaven
Shalem Press recently published a new edition of the work of the late Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits Not in Heaven, which analyzes Jewish law as it applies to the religious, ethical, and judicial principles of Judaism in the ever-changing human situation. Delineating common sense, feasibility, and ethical concern as the underpinnings of the Jewish legal system, Berkovits provides a wealth of original insights regarding the essence of halacha. The new edition includes a foreword by Shalem Senior Fellow Joseph Isaac Lifshitz. Click here to download the Foreword, Introduction, and excerpts from the book:
“We Were Exposed to So Many Things that We Had No Chance of Learning in School,” Says Rimon Participant
On March 21, the widely read weekly paper Modi’in News ran an extensive interview with four participants in the Shalem Center’s Rimon program for outstanding Israeli high school students. The article focused on the uniqueness of the program and its impact on the 80 high school juniors taking part in it. “This was one of the most amazing experiences we’ve had,” said Adi Aharoni, describing a seminar on Rabbinic literature. “I left that seminar with an appreciation of how important it is to listen to different opinions and to discuss and probe ideas.” Yasmin Amroussi added, “We were exposed to so many things that we had no chance of learning in school. We gained access to things that I never would have imagined that I would study.” Click here to read a full translation of the article:
The following web addresses provide an easy to access directory of all Shalem Center sites:
The Shalem Center: www.shalemcenter.com
Azure: www.azure.org.il
Techelet: www.techelet.org.il
Hebraic Political Studies: www.hpstudies.org
The undergraduate program: www.shalemstudents.org
Martin Kramer: www.martinkramer.org
Daniel Gordis: www.danielgordis.org
We want to hear from you. Please send comments and questions to e-news@shalem.org.il.
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