Shalom Hartman Institute

The Institute places Judaism’s encounter with modernity at the center of its research and educational mission, alongside religious pluralism, Jewish peoplehood, Israel’s Jewish and democratic character, and relations with other faith communities.[1] Its stated purpose is to enrich the moral and spiritual life of Israel and the Jewish people, deepen commitment to pluralism, and strengthen the covenant between Israel and Jewish communities beyond it.[2] These aims link scholarly interpretation of Jewish sources to the education of people working in religious, civic, and communal institutions.[2]

The Institute’s five stated areas of work encompass morally grounded ideas for contemporary Jewish life; respect for Jewish and Israeli diversity; Israel as a Jewish national home committed to democracy, equal rights, and religious freedom; mutual commitment between Israeli and world Jewry as equal partners; and cooperation with Christian and Muslim leaders.[4] Its audiences include scholars, teachers, rabbis, young adults, lay leaders, and other people positioned to influence their communities.[2]

In a 2016 explanation of its institutional approach, president Donniel Hartman distinguished developing ideas and translating them into large-scale educational programs from operating a policy think tank with a prescribed policy.[5] He identified pluralism, democracy, and liberalism as central commitments and described the goal as creating a meaningful Judaism for the modern world.[5] The Institute’s educational structure accordingly extends beyond a scholarly study house to schools, professional training, public discussion, and leadership development.[2][6]

Rabbi Professor David Hartman founded the Institute in Jerusalem in 1976 and named it for his late father, who had been born in Jerusalem’s Old City.[3][7] Hartman intended it to contribute to an intellectual renaissance responsive to the opportunities presented by the Jewish state, developing interpretations of Judaism’s classical heritage that could offer moral and spiritual direction in the modern world.[7] The Institute opened in Jerusalem’s German Colony and developed into a center training scholars, educators, students, leaders, and rabbis.[8]

Hartman brought both rabbinic and philosophical training to this undertaking.[3] Born in Brooklyn in 1931, he received rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University in 1953, served a Bronx congregation from 1955 to 1960, and subsequently served Congregation Tiferet Beit David Jerusalem in Montreal.[3] He moved to Israel in 1971 with his wife and five children, received a doctorate in philosophy from McGill University in 1973, and taught Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for more than two decades.[3] From 1977 to 1984, he advised Israeli education minister Zevulun Hammer.[3]

In 1976, young men and women joined Hartman in seeking a new way to express their relationship with Jewish tradition.[6] Most came from religious Zionist backgrounds and felt uneasy about the relationship between inherited tradition and contemporary life.[6] Their group became the foundation of a new beit midrash, or study house, combining commitment to Jewish tradition with openness to the present.[6] Scholars from different disciplines and fields of Jewish studies participated in an approach that brought classical scholarship into conversation with contemporary interdisciplinary methods.[6]

Hartman’s teaching treated the rebirth of the State of Israel as both a challenge and an opportunity for Judaism.[3] Drawing on Orthodox Judaism, he emphasized religious pluralism within the Jewish people and in interfaith relations, seeking greater understanding across Jewish affiliations and a more tolerant Israeli society.[3] His educational community encouraged questioning while maintaining a connection to tradition, and its students subsequently worked in Jewish education and research.[9] Hartman died on February 10, 2013, aged 81.[3]

By 1991, Rabbi Tzvi Marx served as the Institute’s educational director, while Noam Zion, who had joined in 1977, was an Institute scholar.[10] Its later North American expansion acquired a formal institutional framework with the launch of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America in 2010.[11] This branch combined national educational cohorts with local initiatives developed alongside community institutions.[11]

By 2019, the North American branch had expanded under Yehuda Kurtzer from a small New York office to staff in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Detroit.[12] That year, the Koret Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation each awarded it $10 million to support a $25 million business plan.[12] Its activities included leadership education, Jewish-thought research, and programs introducing Muslim and Christian leaders to Judaism and Israel.[12]

As of November 2026, Donniel Hartman and Yehuda Kurtzer are presidents, with Shiri Winter Mersel serving as senior vice president and chief executive officer.[13] Shraga Bar-On is vice president and director of the Kogod Research Center, and Rana Fahoum is vice president and director of the Center for Shared Society.[13] Donniel Hartman, the founder’s son, also holds the Richard and Sylvia Kaufman Family David Hartman Chair and has developed educational programs for scholars, educators, rabbis, and religious and lay leaders in Israel and North America.[14][15]

The Kogod Research Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought operates as a bicontinental center for applied research, bringing together more than 50 fellows, including Institute scholars and affiliated academics from Israel and North America.[16] Its work addresses contemporary challenges facing Israel and Jewish communities worldwide and reaches audiences through educational programs, publications, podcasts, and other media.[16] The Institute also maintains the David Hartman Center for Intellectual Excellence to cultivate future Jewish thought leaders, alongside centers concerned with Israeli and Jewish identity, shared society, and Judaism and state policy.[2]

The relationship between research and education was explicit in the Institute’s 2012 annual report: research teams developed interpretations of classical Jewish concepts and responses to contemporary challenges, then translated their work into curricula, publications, and educational programs.[17] Research topics listed for 2011–2013 included social justice, applied military ethics, Israel and world Jewry, modern dilemmas of faith, and culture and ritual in modern Jewish life.[17] Distribution through the Israeli-Jewish Identity Center and North American Institute connected this research with different educational settings.[17]

Israeli school education forms a substantial part of the Institute’s work.[5] In 2016, its programs operated in 130 secular high schools, approximately one-third of the country’s secular high schools at that time, covering grades 7–12.[5] The work included training principals and teachers, developing curricula, and deploying 40 advisers to implement the Tarbut Yisraelit, or Israeli culture, curriculum.[5] A separate 2013 interview described an effort to create a different Jewish conversation in approximately 400 schools.[18]

The Institute also operates two Jerusalem model high schools: the Midrashiya High School for Girls and the Charles E. Smith High School for Boys.[2][19] Their combined enrollment was reported as 700 in 2016 and 1,000 during the 2025–2026 reporting period.[5][19] Serving grades 7–12, they provide Modern Orthodox education emphasizing Jewish tradition, academic study, tolerance, critical thinking, and community involvement.[19] Beyond these schools, Wellspring offers educational initiatives for Jews aged 15–25 and the educators and institutions serving them in schools, camps, universities, and youth organizations.[20] Its offerings include a year-long supplemental high-school leadership program and a Jerusalem gap-year program in which North Americans study alongside Israeli peers.[20]

Rabbinic education brings participants from different Jewish denominations to Jerusalem for intensive study.[21] Programs lasting several weeks connect Jewish texts with issues in Israeli society.[21] In 2015, nearly 170 rabbis from North America and elsewhere gathered for ten days around the theme “Justice and Righteousness: Personal Ethics and National Aspirations.”[22] Their studies included Bible, Talmud, Jewish philosophy, theology, history, and mysticism, with discussion of the application of Jewish values in Israel and North America.[22]

A 2017 summer program brought approximately 150 rabbis from around the world to study at the Institute.[23] One participant’s six-week stay included two weeks of acclimating to Jerusalem, two weeks in the learning program, and two further weeks of personal spiritual exploration.[23] The Institute also announced a program to ordain men and women as “rabbi-educators,” rather than pulpit rabbis, in a denomination of their choice, including Orthodoxy.[24] Its wider educational activities include training Jewish studies teachers in Israel and internationally and holding seminars for communal and intellectual leaders.[6]

The iEngage project, also called the Engaging Israel Project, has developed curricula since 2010 on Israel’s significance for Jews worldwide.[25][26] Its stated approach moves away from crisis-centered engagement and toward Jewish values, identity, and the responsibilities of sovereignty.[25] Donniel Hartman’s educational framing treats Israel as a “work in progress,” rather than making crisis the principal basis of attachment.[14] Materials include recorded lectures, curricula, sourcebooks, and seminars for rabbis, educators, organizational professionals, communal leaders, and public activists.[18]

A 2014–2015 profile described iEngage as supporting serious conversation without prescribing participants’ opinions and identified users across congregations, Hillel, Jewish Federations, denominational movements, social-justice organizations, and Christian leadership.[26] In 2016, it was operating in 400 synagogues and organizations.[5] A planned campus component envisioned 200–300 American college students annually undertaking a year of study and a ten-day Israel seminar.[5] A separate three-year, $1 million Jim Joseph Foundation grant supported West Coast expansion and pilot initiatives at up to nine campuses, involving campus professionals, academics, and undergraduates in study in Israel and North America.[27]

During 2025–2026, 72 rabbis taught the iEngage curriculum “Liberal Zionism: Between Crisis and Aspiration” to nearly 1,200 learners.[19] The curriculum examined liberal Zionist values and critiques of Israel in the period after October 7.[19] Other North American activities have included a global beit midrash for community leadership, workshops, and Israel seminars bringing leaders from different Jewish movements into contact with Israeli society and culture.[8]

The Christian Leadership Initiative, undertaken with the American Jewish Committee, began educating Christian seminary, denominational, and church leaders in 2008.[1] In its 2016 format, the 13-month program combined seminars in Israel with monthly distance learning, using classical and modern Jewish texts taught by Israeli and North American Jewish scholars.[1] Its 81 alumni at that time met periodically for symposia extending their study of contemporary Jewish thought.[1]

The 2014 cohort began in Jerusalem with “God and Judaism,” addressing Jewish doctrine, spirituality, and theology, before returning to the United States for monthly remote study and a planned concluding Jerusalem seminar on Jewish community.[28] The curriculum subsequently described in 2017 included Jewish ethics and faith, the diversity of contemporary Jewish ideologies and practices, Israel’s meaning for world Jewry, religious pluralism, and interreligious study.[29] An alumni symposium in Atlanta focused on Judaism and Israel in American Christian discourse.[29]

The Muslim Leadership Initiative was developed with Imam Abdullah Antepli and Institute senior fellow Yossi Klein Halevi.[30] Its first cohort of 16 participants arrived in June 2013.[30] The year-long program for North American Muslim leaders studied Judaism, Zionism, and Israel through an opening two-week stay in Israel, lectures in the United States, and a concluding two-week Israel seminar.[30] Participants also traveled together, encountered Israeli society, met Israelis and Palestinians, and studied ethical, historical, and religious questions.[8] By 2017, approximately 100 prominent Muslims from local communities had participated.[8]

In his first-person account in SAPIR Journal, Klein Halevi reported that more than 150 emerging Muslim leaders had visited the Jerusalem campus.[31] He described the purpose as deepening understanding of Israel’s place in Jewish identity without seeking to challenge participants’ support for Palestinians.[31] Klein Halevi characterized its teaching as emphasizing Jewish peoplehood, attachment to the Land of Israel, and the uprooting and resettlement of Jews from Muslim countries.[31] He also described participants engaging in hevruta, paired study that values questions as well as answers, and presented the initiative as a test case for Muslim–Jewish relations.[31]

A biography published by The Rabbi Sacks Legacy credits Rabbanit Jennifer Raskas with co-directing the Muslim Leadership Initiative from 2022 to 2024 and directing the year-long Seminar and Writer’s Workshop for Journalists.[32] It also describes her Washington leadership work as reaching White House staff, members of Congress, think-tank analysts, executive directors, senior clergy, and philanthropists.[32]

Education for Israeli military officers combines Jewish identity, leadership, and ethics.[6][17] The 2012 annual report described an Applied Military Ethics research team studying battlefield conduct and tensions between observant and non-observant soldiers, preparing policy papers, and training command staff.[17] Through Lev Aharon, Institute and guest scholars used lectures, textual study, and group discussion to examine Jewish and Zionist leadership ideals.[17] More than 1,600 majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels, and other senior officers participated annually at that time; a 2016 account reported approximately 1,000 senior officers studying at the Institute each year.[17][5] The program emphasized examining identity, heritage, and ethical responsibilities rather than prescribing particular answers.[17]

The Center for Shared Society works with Jewish and Palestinian Israelis toward democracy grounded in equality, equity, and justice.[2] In 2025–2026, its Min HaBe’erot program for Jewish and Arab educators, Deraya program for Arab student leaders, and Lighthouse Leadership Initiative for Arab and Jewish teachers’ college students reached nearly 250 participants.[19] The Min HaBe’erot network included 126 current principals, gifted-program leaders, and regional school partners, alongside 650 alumni from more than 200 schools.[19] The Center for Judaism and State Policy addresses Israeli policies concerning Judaism and the state, with strengthening Jewish unity as its stated aim.[2]

The Institute’s public work connects Jewish textual learning with questions of national responsibility, communal diversity, and relations between Israel and Diaspora Jews.[2][4] Its annual conference on a Jewish and democratic Israel brings Institute researchers and outside scholars together around questions considered critical to Israeli society.[4] The 2015 conference was scheduled to examine nationalism and chauvinism during periods of crisis and routine.[4]

A 2017 San Francisco conference marking the Six-Day War’s fiftieth anniversary approached its aftermath through political, religious, ethical, and moral perspectives for Jewish professionals and communal leaders.[33] Its planned workshop, “The Frustration of Facts: Living with Competing Values,” paired modern psychological research with traditional Jewish texts to examine cognitive dissonance.[33] The program reflected an effort to bridge gaps over what Israel means within Jewish communities.[33] In 2023, Yehuda Kurtzer participated in a public debate on whether Diaspora Jews should have a say in Israeli affairs.[34]

Public cultural programming has also extended beyond professional leadership cohorts.[35] In 2012, the Institute and municipal partners organized “Praying Anew” events in Jerusalem, Modi’in, and Ramat Hasharon on the psychological, theological, and spiritual dimensions of prayer.[35] Institute researchers Rani Jaeger and Avi Sagi participated in discussions, while the Jerusalem event, held at 11 Gedalyahu Alon Street, included workshops with Institute scholars and guest lecturers.[35] The Institute was also among more than 30 organizations allocated support through a Jewish Renewal initiative intended to strengthen Jewish identity, tolerance, and Israelis’ engagement with overseas Jewish voices.[36]

Publishing and digital media broaden the reach of this educational model.[16] The Institute began publishing the quarterly “Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas” in 2021, offering longform essays intended to encourage informed conversation and thoughtful disagreement about Jewish communal concerns.[37] Its Kogod center reports that hundreds of thousands of people use its work, including rabbis, educators, lay leaders, communal professionals, young adults, and Israeli government officials.[16] For 2025–2026, the Institute reported 1.6 million English- and Hebrew-language podcast downloads over the preceding year, a 71 percent annual increase, and nearly 14 million views of Hebrew short-form videos across social platforms.[19]

The Muslim Leadership Initiative has faced opposition from some Muslim activists who characterized participation as normalizing Zionism, promoting propaganda, or weakening support for Palestinian rights.[30] Participants experienced public shaming and pressure to avoid the program, and Antepli received death threats.[30] Some critics also cited the expressly Zionist Institute’s work with Israeli army officers when objecting to Muslim participation.[38] Antepli distinguished opposition to Israel and Zionism from opposition to Judaism, expressing the view that many critics were neither opposed to Judaism nor antisemitic.[30]

David Hartman’s pluralistic approach also engaged contested questions of religion and state in Israel, including his opposition to legislation concerning Judaic values and religious practices.[7] These disputes concern the Institute’s educational and religious outlook as well as its engagement with Israel, rather than a single prescribed political platform.[5][7]