Shalem's Daniel Gordis Wins National Jewish Book Award | February 2010

February 16, 2010 | 2 Adar 5770

Midwinter greetings from Jerusalem. In this issue of E-News, you’ll find news of prize winning books from Shalem authors, video clips featuring eminent Israeli scholars (former education minister and Labor MK Yuli Tamir and Prof. Emeritus Shlomo Avineri) at the launch of the Shalem Press edition of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, and a message to Shalem College supporters from new Labor MK, Einat Wilf, a founding member of the Shalem College Public Council.

In “Essential Reading” this month, we bring you more items on the liberal-arts-college movement that’s going global: Read below for stories of transformational colleges launched in China and the United Kingdom, along with the editor of Newsweek’s passionate defense of his own American liberal arts education.  

The Shalem Center is building Israel's first liberal arts college, preparing generations of students for a lifetime of learning, service, and leadership.

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Daniel Gordis Wins National Jewish Book Award, Joining Previous Shalem Winner Michael Oren
The Shalem Center congratulates Senior Vice President and Senior Fellow Daniel Gordis for winning the prestigious National Jewish Book Award for Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War that May Never End. Gordis’ book is the winner in the Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice category for 2009­. The book is a passionate reminder of Israel ’s purpose, a celebration of what Israel has accomplished, and a rare, realist’s guide to how Israel may continue to flourish.  Previous Shalem award winners include Michael Oren , who won the Everett Family Foundation Jewish Book of the Year Award in 2003 for Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Click here to read award coverage on the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles site:

“Shalem College Uniquely Positioned to Become Training Academy of Leaders,” Says Labor MK Einat Wilf
Einat Wilf, a former adviser to Shimon Peres and a founding member of the Shalem College Public Council, joined Israel 's parliament, the Knesset, this past month, as a Labor Party member. Under Israeli law, Wilf was obligated to resign the positions she held, including her Public Council seat. Yet, she made it clear that she remains personally supportive of Shalem College's mission, and wrote as follows: “Shalem College has been designed and conceived as a perfect merger of the curricula of the world's top colleges and the depth and breadth of Jewish thought. Bravely going against the grain of highly professionalized studies, Shalem unapologetically insists on the primacy of a liberal arts education. It does not shirk the notion that there are some topics, thinkers and issues which educated Jews who seek to best serve their people must know. As the concept of peoplehood begins to take shape and form, Shalem College is uniquely positioned to become the training academy of political, intellectual and spiritual leaders of the Jewish people. It has been my honor and pleasure to play even a small part in helping make Shalem College happen, and I look forward to watching it thrive and succeed and its future graduates take their rightful place at the vanguard of the Jewish people.” Click here for Wilf’s new Knesset biography:

Former Education Minister Tamir, Prof. Emeritus Avineri Laud Shalem Press at Leviathan Launch
The public launch of the first complete Hebrew translation of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan took place in Jerusalem on December 15, 2009. Marking the occasion, former minister of education (and current Labor MK) Prof. Yael (Yuli) Tamir and Prof. Emeritus Shlomo Avineri, who are among Israel's leading political theorists, congratulated Shalem Press on the book’s publication. It’s a “truly unusual translation effort,” said Tamir, “which I believe gives us the opportunity to take another look at important writing…and for this, as well as for all the work that was done on the translation and the editing, you deserve many congratulations.” Professor Avineri added, "In the state of Israel today, Shalem Press is doing a wonderful job in translating classical literature and political philosophy and thought into Hebrew.  It exposes the Hebrew reader to some classical and universal political thought, and this combination of awareness of the needs of Israeli society, and, on the other hand, of universal ideals, is one of the things that characterize this series and Shalem should be congratulated for it.” Click here to hear their remarks in full on video:

Yoram Hazony’s ‘Jerusalem Letters’ Debut: ‘Goodbye, Spinoza’
Yoram Hazony, founder and provost of the Shalem Center, launched Jerusalem Letters, a series of email dispatches on philosophy, Judaism, Israel, and higher education, on January 15. More than 1,700 people have signed up so far to receive the Letters. Hazony’s first dispatch, “Goodbye, Spinoza,” asked why the reputation of the Hebrew Bible as a source of ideas has fallen so low among educated people, and argues that for the first time in 250 years there may be an opening to change this. Hazony also announced that readers may submit their own letters in response: The most interesting will be posted on his new website, which is scheduled to go live after Passover. Dozens of letters and comments have already come in from readers. The conversation will continue with the next edition of Jerusalem Letters, due out on February 19. Click here to read “Goodbye, Spinoza” in full:

“First Lady” of Liberal Arts Delivers Zalman C Bernstein Memorial Lecture
The Shalem academic community was honored to host Eva Brann, a 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal, during her visit to Israel at the beginning of January. Brann is a former dean (1990-1997) and the longest-serving faculty member (1957-present) at St. John's College, Annapolis, which offers the best-known “great books” program in the United States. In two seminars with Shalem faculty, she gave ample example of the kind of “devoted” teaching she believes necessary for educators, and she spoke of the ethos that drives her. “So that students may choose well and live well” she said, “it is more to the point that they become familiar with what is best in school; life itself will quickly acquaint them with the worst." She delivered the 2010 Zalman C. Bernstein Memorial Lecture on “The Role of Higher Education in a Young, Jewish Republic.” Click here to view a portion of the lecture where she addresses the challenge and opportunity of patriotism:

Less Politics, More Poetry: China’s Colleges Eye the Liberal Arts
In a fascinating article, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the impact China’s first private, independent liberal arts college is having in a decidedly “illiberal” place. “For decades,” reports the Chronicle, “Chinese universities were mammoth, impersonal institutions in which professors lectured and students dutifully took notes. But United International— China's first independent liberal-arts college—is just one of many recent efforts by universities across China to remake undergraduate education into a more dynamic, interdisciplinary experience. The college began as the pet project of Hong Kong educators looking to put their stamp on mainland education. Four years into its existence… its intimate classes, abundant extracurricular activities, and student body of just 4,000 students have thrust it to the forefront of educational reform.” Click here to read more about one college’s impact on a whole country:

In the United Kingdom: Liberal Arts Takes Off
Educational options tend to the narrow in Britain, with subject specialization frequently beginning in high school. Now, in the wake of Lord Dearing’s 1997 review of higher education, the still rare liberal arts degree is starting to take off, increasing in popularity as students and employers seek broader skills. “As well as the existing degree at St Mary's University College, Belfast, Winchester University is to begin a liberal arts course in the fall of 2010, and in 2011, University College London, part of the elite Russell Group, will add its weight to the trend with its own liberal arts degree.” Click here to read a Guardian article on the steady growth of liberal arts in the United Kingdom:

Newsweek’s Editor Writes “In Defense of the Liberal Arts”
Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, attended Sewanee University of the South, one of the United States’ top ranked liberal arts colleges. In the January 9 issue of Newsweek, he offers an impassioned defense of his alma mater, and the possibilities this kind of education affords for “new innovation and new competitiveness.”  “The next chapter of the nation's economic life” he writes, “could well be written not only by engineers but by entrepreneurs who, as products of an apparently disparate education, have formed a habit of mind that enables them to connect ideas that might otherwise have gone unconnected…. Liberal education is a crucial element in the creation of wealth, jobs, and, one hopes, a fairer and more just nation.” Click here to read the entire editorial:

Jewish Ideas Daily, Pathbreaking New Website, Launched
The Tikvah Fund’s Jewish Ideas Daily has just launched and looks set to become a vital and valuable resource. It offers “an expertly prepared selection of the best the world has to offer in Jewish opinion, argument, thought, and analysis, pulled from hundreds of sources from around the globe.” Topics covered include Jewish philosophy, Israeli politics and rabbinic thought as well as new forms of Jewish literature, music, and art. The site also promises “the latest breakthroughs in historical scholarship and permanently relevant essays on the landmarks of the Jewish year, biblical archaeology and profiles of significant Jewish figures of today, yesterday, and tomorrow—all this, plus original columns, interviews and commissioned debates.” Among the articles featured in the initial weeks of publication have been a number from the Shalem Center’s journal Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation. To visit the Jewish Ideas Daily site, click here:

Visiting Fellow Jeff Helmreich: “Against Legalism and Humanism: What a Hebrew Ethics has to Offer”.
On December 24, visiting fellow Jeff Helmreich (UCLA, Philosophy) led a seminar for the Shalem academic community in which he discussed how certain biblical sources suggest an approach to ethics that differs in important ways from some leading schools of moral philosophy presently taught in philosophy departments. Helmreich argued that while the principal schools of thought in contemporary ethics seek to ground ethical obligation in individual virtue or individual rights, Jewish sources from the Bible onward seek to ground ethical obligation in the conditions prevailing in the world outside the individual.  Click here to see the full list of visiting scholars at Shalem in the past two years:

The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis in Jerusalem
On December 31, Shalem Press launched the Hebrew translation of Prof. Leon Kass’ The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis. To celebrate, Shalem Center senior vice president and senior fellow Daniel Gordis and associate fellow Ido Hevroni joined forces at an event at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center.  Each week the Begin Center holds the “Torah Reading Circle.” Hevroni had been charged with teaching the classes on Genesis to a very diverse audience of adults, religious and secular, and for this special event, Gordis joined him and nearly 300 participants for a dynamic and lively evening. Prof. Leora Batnitzky of Princeton University calls Kass’ book, “the most successful recent attempt to bring the Bible without canon, and without any prior assumptions, into contemporary intellectual conversation.” Click here to read more about the Hebrew translation of the book:

Visiting Scholar Prof. Julia Annas Leads Seminar on “Unity of Virtue”
On December 30, Julia Annas, Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, addressed the Shalem academic community on “The Unity of Virtue.” “In contemporary discussion,” Annas writes, “’the unity of the virtues’ is the term for the thesis that if you have one virtue you have them all…. This thesis is often found plainly false or silly by opponents of virtue ethics, and even some notable virtue ethicists don’t like it either. In ancient ethical debate, however, it was not found so remarkable. I aim to meet common objections to the thesis: that it makes virtue too ideal, that it encourages an unrealistically unified view of character and that it ignores the plurality of values and differences between ways of life…. I also try to argue positively for the thesis by indicating some ways in which it figures in ethical growth as an extension of ordinary ways of thinking of virtue.” Annas is the founder and former editor of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.  Click here to read her webpage:

Hebraic Political Studies Symposium on the Bible in Contemporary Intellectual Discourse
The latest issue of Hebraic Political Studies (4:3) offers a fascinating collection of essays that grew out of a conference at the Cardozo Law School in New York in March 2008.  Under the auspices of the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, participants sought to reflect on the Bible not just as a “source of new ideas” as Prof. Suzanne Last Stone writes compellingly in her introduction to the volume, but as a “resource” for developing new ideas. She points to “glimmers of a remarkable new phenomenon: the return to the Bible to generate arguments in a variety of fields of intellectual discourse.” Essayists include Shmuel Trigano (University of Paris X­­— Nanterre, religion) Leora Batnitzky (Princeton University, religion) David Gelernter (Yale University, computer science) and Perry Dane (Rutgers, law). Click here to read the table of contents for this issue:

Last Call: Shalem Summer Internship Program, June 20 – August 12, 2010
Outstanding undergraduates and recent graduates are invited to apply for an eight-week internship at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. Through weekly seminars, occasional symposia, and interaction with Shalem faculty and research fellows, the internship provides a unique opportunity to combine intellectual study with practical work experience in a variety of departments at one of Israel’s leading academic research institutes. Past seminars have included Michael Oren on “Post-Zionism and Israeli Historiography,” Daniel Polisar on “The Jewish State Tradition in Israeli Constitutional History,” and Yoram Hazony on “Theodor Herzl and the Cause of Jewish Restoration.” Summer interns will work in one of the departments or institutes at Shalem, and the program also features day trips outside Jerusalem. To apply, click here:  

Daniel Gordis Addresses 1,200 People at AIPAC Gathering in Arizona
On a December speaking tour in the United States, Shalem Center senior vice president and senior fellow Daniel Gordis told the 1,200 guests at an AIPAC breakfast in Phoenix that they were key to maintaining Israel’s legitimacy in the face of the Iranian nuclear threat. In a cover story, The Jewish News of Greater Phoenix reported that “more than 60 local, state and federal elected officials attended the American Israel Public Affairs Committee event. Twenty synagogues and Jewish organizations were represented, and the gathering also included more than 100 high school and college students.  Politicians who spoke included Democrats and Republicans, as well as Gov. Jan Brewer.  Gordis “delivered one of the most moving speeches on the subject I have heard," Anthony Krueger of Scottsdale wrote in an e-mail to the Jewish News. "He effectively drew from real-life examples to demonstrate how the anti-Israel movement harnesses disinformation tactics in order to delegitimize the existence of Israel." Click here to read more about the event:

Battling Anti-Israel Sentiment on Campus: Shalem’s Amichai Magen Addresses World Union of Jewish Students at Annual Congress  
Shalem associate fellow Amichai Magen was thanked warmly by students following his contribution to a key session at the 2009 World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) Congress, which brought together 100 elected Jewish student leaders from around the world in Jerusalem in December. “As an expert panelist and work session facilitator for the conference track, Deligitimisation of Israel on Campus, Magen addressed the foremost challenge for Jewish students worldwide, who are battling increasing challenges on campus.” writes WUJS president, Chaya Singer. “We are working to implement the strategies developed during the congress across our 52 national member unions in the coming year, and look forward to Magen's continued invaluable guidance. Click here to read more about Amichai Magen:

Shalem’s Rimon Program for Outstanding High School Students Attracts National Media Attention
On January 1, a journalist from the Israeli national daily newspaper Yediot Aharanot focused on the tenth-graders gathered at Ramat Hashofet, as part of Shalem’s Rimon High School Leadership Program and reflected on how unusual a group the teenagers were. “These young people debated passionately about the philosophy of Plato, Katznelson, and Ben-Gurion,” wrote Yoav Etzion, “and they discussed central ethical questions like social justice, practical Zionism, and more. We’re talking about a group under the auspices of the Rimon Program, whose goal is to educate visionary, thoughtful students to be future society leaders.” Chosen carefully from more than a dozen high schools, these students meet regularly for seminars on Greek thought, Jewish thought, Zionism and political theory. Click here to read a 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
Yoram Hazony’s ‘Jerusalem Letters’: www.jerusalemletters.com

We want to hear from you. Please send comments and questions to e-news@shalem.org.il. 
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