|
July 7, 2011 | 5 Tamuz 5771
Summer greetings from Jerusalem, where we continue to make significant progress as we at the Shalem Center prepare to open Israel's first liberal arts college. We hope you find E-News useful and informative, and encourage you to share with your friends, family, and colleagues. If you'd like us to send them a copy fresh from the server, simply email us their name and email address 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.
Shalem Provost Yoram Hazony Wins Rockower Award for Excellence in Jewish Journalism
The Shalem Center is delighted to announce that Shalem Provost Yoram Hazony has been awarded the American Jewish Press Association's 2010 Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Jewish Journalism for his Jerusalem Letter, "Hollywood's Jewish Moment." The essay is a film review of Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man from March 2010 and is Hazony's first film review to date. The essay also appeared in an abridged version in Hadassah Magazine at the end of last year. Hazony's essay won first place in the category of "Art and Criticism News and Features." The Rockower Award honors the best Jewish journalism published in the United States each year. Read "Hollywood's Jewish Moment"; read the abridged version; or read the full listing of all prizes awarded.
Shalem Announces Templeton Fellows in Philosophical Theology for 2011-2012
Shalem's Department of Philosophy, Political Theory, and Religion is pleased to announce the appointment of three Templeton Fellows in Philosophical Theology for academic year 2011-2012. The fellows are: Senior Fellow, Asa Kasher (Tel Aviv University); Research Fellow, Michael Fagenblat (Monash University); and Post-Doctoral Fellow, Hannah Hashkes (Hebrew University). Fellows will spend the year at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem writing a book or a series of articles investigating philosophical aspects of the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, or Midrash. The fellowships are part of a three-year project in "Analytic Theology" made possible by a $1.1 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Read more about the Templeton Fellowships.
Shalem Press Publishes Natan Sharansky's Defending Identity in Hebrew
In June, in time for the annual celebration of Hebrew Book Week in Israel, Shalem Press published the Hebrew edition of Natan Sharansky's Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy. Sharansky, who currently is the Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, wrote the book while he headed the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center. The book, a response to those who see national identity as the enemy of freedom, argues that identity is freedom's greatest ally in the struggle against tyranny. Read Ira Stoll's review of Defending Identity.
Articles by Daniel Gordis Stir Up Controversy Regarding Rabbinical Students' Views on Israel
In April, Shalem Center Senior Vice President Daniel Gordis wrote an article and a follow-up piece, both in the Jerusalem Post, pointing to the problem of American rabbinical students who are increasingly distanced from Israel. Gordis' follow-up essay in the June issue of Commentary magazine asks if Israel and Judaism can survive when many of their new leaders no longer believe that their primary responsibility is to protect and defend their own. This series of articles has stirred a significant debate that continues to gather steam. Read "Are Young Rabbis Turning on Israel" at Commentary online.
Anthony Grayling Announces Launch of the New College of the Humanities
Anthony Grayling, a philosophy professor at Birkbeck, University of London, is causing controversy with the announcement about the founding of the New College of the Humanities. This private college, slated to open in October 2012, will focus on reviving the teaching of humanities and social sciences within the UK and is to be modeled after schools like Harvard and Yale. The founding faculty includes 14 leading academics. Tuition will be twice that of Britain's publicly funded universities. Grayling's opponents argue that the New College will cater only to the elite and will lack diversity within the student body, faculty, and curriculum. Read the full New York Times article.
Israel Announces First Grants in $350 Million Program to Reverse Brain Drain
The Israeli government has announced the first three grants in its $350 million program to create 30 centers of research excellence to counteract the Israeli "brain drain" by bringing Israeli scholars back from abroad. The first center, focusing on molecular science, will be established at Hebrew University and will be led by Professor Howard Cedar. The second will focus on cognitive processes and will be established at the Weizmann Institute of Science where it will be led by Professor Yadin Dudai. The third center, focusing on computer science, will be established at Tel Aviv University and will be led by Professor Yishay Mansour. Eleven Israeli scholars currently at US institutions including Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley have already agreed to return to Israel to work in these new research centers. Read the full article from the Chronicle of Higher Education; or read Ha'aretz coverage of the story.
Yale to Replace Small's Anti-Semitism Institute with New Program Under Different Leadership
In June, Yale announced the closing of the Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA), founded and directed by Charles Asher Small since 2006; a few weeks later they announced plans to open the Yale Program for the Study of Anti-Semitism (YPSA), which will begin work this fall and will be convened by Maurice Samuels, a faculty member at Yale. YIISA operated within Yale's Institution for Social and Policy Studies; YPSA will be housed in the Whitney Humanities Center. The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed Small, who "said he feared that the new program will be too focused on literary and historical analyses of Jewish suffering, and insufficiently concerned with contemporary anti-Semitism, especially the rhetoric of the Iranian government." Read the full Chronicle of Higher Education article.
Google Leads Search for Humanities PhD Graduates
An article from Times Higher Ed explores the 2011 BiblioTech Conference at Stanford University, an event which united academics with entrepreneurs and senior managers from some of the world's leading high-tech companies, such as Google and TED Media. Participants in Google's panel noted that they are looking for employees from every possible background, with a particular emphasis on the humanities. Read the full article at Times Higher Ed.
Suzanne Last Stone Discusses Jewish Law in Honor of Shavuot
Suzanne Last Stone, Chairwoman-Designate of the Liberal Studies Department at Shalem College—which will house the college's Core Curriculum—was interviewed in early June by the Israeli media agency Leadel in honor of Shavuot, the holiday commemorating the giving of the Law. Professor Stone was interviewed via video along with Harvard Law School Professor and noted author Alan Dershowitz, and both were asked to explain the differences between Jewish law and Western law, and how their own interest in the former has informed their careers in the latter. Stone's interest centers around the role of the individual within the collective, and she discussed how "Jewish law is structured around the concept of obligations—as opposed to the concept of rights." Watch the videos.
Ze'ev Maghen's John Lennon and the Jews Favorably Reviewed in the Huffington Post
Shalem Center Senior Fellow Ze'ev Maghen's new book John Lennon and the Jews was enthusiastically reviewed at the Huffington Post by Andrew Pessin, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Connecticut College. According to Pessin, Maghen's book "addresses the question of why, if you're Jewish, you should be Jewish, and make your Jewishness a flourishing part of your identity,"and that universalism, rationalism, and inertia are the three key challenges to answering this question. "John Lennon and the Jews is an extremely original and significant piece of writing. It should be read by every Jew, no matter where you stand on the long spectrum between strict religious observance and determined rejection of the same." Read Andrew Pessin's full review.
Joseph Isaac Lifshitz Quoted on Capitalism, Generosity, and Investment
Joseph Isaac Lifshitz, a senior fellow in the Shalem Center's Department of Philosophy, Political Theory and Religion was quoted at length by Elliot Jager in his June article in the Jerusalem Post, "Jews and Capitalism." Jager's article addresses the question of what Judaism has to say about the free market and social and moral progress. When asked about the difference between charity and generosity, "Lifshitz emphasized a distinction rooted in Jewish thought: the distinction between pure charity, which he sees as lying 'outside the market,' and the 'generosity' that involves helping others enter the market." Lifshitz explained investment on the micro level as a normative good. An investor may profit, but morally what matters is setting our neighbors on the path to financial self-sufficiency. Read the full article at the Jerusalem Post.
Martin Kramer Addresses the Washington Institute's 2011 Soref Symposium
Last month, Shalem College President-Designate Martin Kramer addressed the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's 2011 Soref Symposium in Washington, DC. Kramer's panel was entitled "When the Dust Settles: The Middle East, Circa 2016." He was joined by Robert Kagan from the Brookings Institution and Robin Wright from the USIP-Wilson Center. Said Kramer at the panel, "As the era of dictators winds down, the likely outcome will be a mix of quasi-democratic practices with regionalism, sectarianism, and even tribalism. Violence will be endemic and disaffected groups on the margins will seek to break away from ineffectual central governments." Read more about Kramer's session at the 2011 WINEP Soref Symposium; or read an analysis of the situation which includes quotes from the symposium.
Goethe Institute to Support Shalem Press' Translation of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Shalem Press has received a grant from the Goethe Institute to support the Hebrew translation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, which is slated to be published in August 2011. The Philosophy of Right (as it is usually called) argues that free will can only realize itself in the complicated social context of property rights and relations, contracts, moral commitments, family life, the economy, the legal system, and the polity. The Goethe-Institut, as the cultural institute of Germany, brings the multifaceted image of Germany to the world, providing access to German language, culture, and society and promotes international cultural cooperation. Read about other titles available from Shalem Press; or read more about the Goethe-Institut.
Rimon Program for Outstanding High School Students Graduates Initial Class
In early June, the Shalem Center held a ceremony to mark the conclusion of a three-year Rimon pilot program for outstanding high school students interested in the humanities. The event, held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, featured the seminar model used during the nine seminars in which the graduating students participated since joining the program as high school sophomores three years ago. Participants and their parents took part in small group study sessions focused on selected texts from the Jewish and western traditions, and then joined a full group discussion. Senior Vice President Daniel Gordis, Co-Academic Directors Ido Hevroni and Rona Yona, and Program Director Sharon Ben Hamo then made farewell remarks to the graduates. Read Daniel Gordis' article about the Rimon program in the Jerusalem Post; or watch a short video featuring the Rimon participants.
Shalem Welcomes Participants in the 2011 Summer Internship Program
In June, Shalem welcomed the participants in the 2011 summer internship program. The participants in this year's eight week program are students from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, University of Toronto, and Hebrew University. Each intern is assigned to work with a Shalem scholar, and to assist with research in areas ranging from the contemporary politics of religion, state, and identity in the Islamic world to Zionist ideals and history. The 2011 Summer Intern program is supported by a generous grant from the Leichtag Family Foundation. Read more about the Shalem Summer Internship Program.
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
Bible and Philosophy: www.bibleandphilosophy.org
Yoram Hazony: www.yoramhazony.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. To receive the Shalem E-Newsletter in Hebrew, send an e-mail to heb-news@shalem.org.il. Technical note: Because various e-mail programs handle links differently, broken links sometimes occur. If this happens, you may need to copy and paste both parts of the URL (address) into your Web browser.
|
