Alex Israel

Israel is originally from London and made aliyah in 1991. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics, the London Institute of Education, and Bar-Ilan University, received rabbinic ordination from the Israel Chief Rabbinate, and is a qualified mediator.[2]

Israel’s teaching affiliations include the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi, Matan in Jerusalem, and Midreshet Lindenbaum.[1][2] He is listed as Director of Community Education and the Summer Program at Pardes and has lectured on campuses and in communities on three continents.[3]

Israel works with the Rabbi Sacks Legacy as Sacks Scholars faculty and mentor, supervising and administering several Israel-based projects.[2] He contributed an essay titled “Not by Might: Aversion to Power in Rabbi Sacks’ Writings” to a special issue on Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.[4] In a podcast discussion about the essay, Israel and Tzvi Sinensky considered Sacks’ reading of Genesis as a rejection of myth, the “Divine Image” as a moral counterweight to power, and the idea of a covenantal society joined by a shared narrative. The discussion began with Sacks’ 2016 debate with Rabbi Shlomo Riskin about Judaism’s relationship with power.[4]

Israel publishes a daily program called “The Tanakh Podcast.”[2] His first book, I Kings: Torn in Two, a commentary on Sefer Melakhim, was published in 2013.[3] His second book, II Kings: In a Whirlwind, was published by Maggid Books in 2019.[1][2]

A recurring theme in Israel’s biblical teaching is how religious commitment is expressed through conduct and relationship to the Land of Israel. In an essay on the Torah portion Toldot, he contrasts Abraham, who arrives in the land as an immigrant, with Isaac, who remains there throughout his life. Israel interprets Isaac’s farming and persistence as establishing and deepening his father’s legacy.[3] He also reads Isaac’s repeated digging of wells and the conflicts at Gerar as evidence of tenacity: peace follows after the inhabitants recognize that he intends to remain and Abimelech seeks a covenant. In this account, Isaac does not merely continue Abraham’s work but gives it roots and stability in the land.[3] Israel draws a contemporary lesson from this reading: “We need the same defiant spirit of determination and tenacity, the same resolve to build and rebuild the land and the dream.”[3]

In a commentary on Parshat Eikev, originally posted on the Midreshet Lindenbaum website in 5766, Israel describes the Land of Israel as a “mountain-land” whose reliance on rain makes it difficult to live in. He connects that dependence on rainfall to a religious theme of reliance on God.[5] In a separate teaching on shmita, he describes the sabbatical year’s release of crops as carrying social and spiritual lessons, including curbing materialism and loosening human control over food production. He also identifies debt forgiveness, the narrowing of economic gaps, ecological rest for the land, and reliance on God as dimensions of shmita.[6]

Israel’s teaching on the biblical account of Josiah’s reform explores the scroll found in the Temple. The discussion presents Seforno’s suggestion that it may have been a special text for the king, perhaps containing selected passages for the Hak’hel ceremony and material associated with Joshua’s covenant ceremony.[1] It links public readings of covenant texts at Sinai, before Moses’ death, and at Mount Ebal with recurring commitments to Torah, and describes Hak’hel, held every seven years, as an opportunity for the nation to renew that commitment.[1]

Other teachings draw out religious meaning from ritual and biblical narrative. In a discussion of chametz and matza, Israel presents the Netziv’s contrast between leaven, associated with human intervention in nature, and unleavened matza, associated with a world governed by God. The teaching argues that Torah generally welcomes human creativity, but that it has no place on the Temple altar, where the focus is on God as the source of the world’s animal, vegetable, and mineral elements.[7] As Israel puts it, “Chametz – the product of human manufacture – has no place on the altar of God.”[7]

A teaching on Elul presents three successive forty-day periods associated with Moses at Sinai: the first ends with the breaking of the tablets after the Golden Calf, the second with Moses’ plea for forgiveness, and the third with the covenant’s renewal. Israel frames Elul as an opportunity to repair one’s actions and renew a relationship with God.[8] In a teaching titled “Joseph and Chanukah,” he compares Joseph’s life among foreign cultures, while retaining his religious identity, with the challenge of engaging selectively with outside cultures—accepting what is beneficial and rejecting what is antagonistic to Jewish life.[9]

Israel’s interpretations often connect biblical narratives and religious practices with questions of responsibility, communal continuity, and life in the present. His reading of Isaac emphasizes staying in the land and rebuilding; his account of the Hak’hel ceremony focuses on the renewal of a shared commitment to Torah; and his treatment of shmita links ritual observance to social and spiritual restraint.[3][1][6]

His interpretation of Adam and Eve presents partnership as something made possible through self-restraint and creating room for another person. The teaching argues that giving something up can leave a person “more whole than ever before,” and summarizes its lesson in the words, “only by making space for another individual will I experience true partnership.”[10] Israel also contrasts Genesis 1, in which man and woman are created in God’s image without speaking to one another, with Genesis 2’s account of sacrifice, fulfillment, and the work of building a relationship.[10] Together with his teaching on Joseph and cultural engagement, this approach uses biblical figures to consider how people balance personal choice, religious identity, and relationships with others.[9][10]