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Prof. Haviva Pedaya
At the conference on Hebrew as a Language of Culture held at VLJI in December 2008, Prof. Pedaya moderated a panel of poets, recipients of the Prime Minister's Prize for Poetry and Language. Her latest novel, The Eye of the Cat was recently published by Am Oved Publishing House.

Prof. Rachel Elior
Her latest publication, Memory and Oblivion: Forgotten Voices and Revealing Scrolls has just been released by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Kibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House.

Rabbi Prof. Naftali Rothenberg
His most recent publication, Wisdom of Love: Man, Woman and God in Jewish Canonical Literature, was released by Academic Studies Press.

Dr. Aviad Hacohen
At the December 2008 AJS conference in Washington, D.C., Dr. Hacohen participated in a roundtable discussion on "Minorities in Israel: Is Jewish Law Still Relevant?" Also participating were: Prof. Sylvia Barack-Fishman, Prof. Suzanne Last-Stone and Prof. Naftali Rothenberg. At Van Leer, Dr. Hacohen serves as academic director for the research group on Jewish commitment to the Palestinian Israeli sector.

Dr. Yotam Benziman
His publication Forgive and not Forget: The Ethics of Forgiveness has recently been released by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Kibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House.

Prof. Hanan Alexander
Director of the Center for Jewish Education and professor at Haifa University, Prof. Alexander is spending this year as guest professor of Israel Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Avinoam Rosenak
Currently, Dr. Rosenak directs the research group on "Halakhah (Jewish Law) as an Occurrence." Publication by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Magnes Press of Dr. Rosenak's book, The Halacha as an Agent of Change - Critical Studies in the Philosophy of the Halacha, the second in the Series on the Philosophy of the Halacha is pending.

Dr. Yochi Fischer
The recently released, Religion and Democracy in Contemporary Europe (Alliance 2008) was jointly edited by Prof. Gabriel Motzkin and Dr. Yochi Fischer.

Dr. Uzi Rebhun
Dr. Rebhun is currently preparing the manuscript for his book on American Israelis.

Dr. Shmuel Wygoda
Academic Director of the New Horizons for Jewish Educators project, for senior educators from religious high schools, Dr. Wygoda also directs the Channels of Knowledge project for heads of hesder yeshivot.


Left to right: Mr. Shlomo Tikochinski,
Dr. Elie Holzer and Dr. Moshe Meir
Academic directors of new research groups,
in 2009, in the field of Jewish Culture and Identity Ms. Dafna Schreiber
Introduced a new element into the annual program of the weekly Torah reading: interpretations of the text by means of motifs from contemporary culture.
Last year, the focus was on film, while this year, the focus is on literature and theater, and plans for next year are to focus on the visual arts.



The newsletter is published every four months.

For further information on any of the programs or research cited in the newsletter, please contact Harriet Gimpel at harrietg@vanleer.org.il.

Harriet Gimpel, editor

Opening the Week with Literature and Theater

In the tango of tensions that waltz their way through Israeli society, different identity groups can find empowerment for their self-expression through varying interpretations of the biblical text. The texts of common heritage for Jews, as well as other members of Israeli society, have always been subject to interpretation. In this generation too, no group has a monopoly on understanding the weekly Torah reading which is chanted among observant groups. Opening the Week at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (VLJI) has affirmed that every Jewish woman and man in Israel has, or can have, a share in the study and interpretation of the Torah, regardless of their identification, or lack of identification, with any denomination of Judaism. This program has promoted accessibility of the texts, and facilitated their legitimate recruitment for the self-expression of different individuals through the textual dialogue it has initiated between traditional sources and the prevalent cultural environment. Incessant crowds attend this VLJI series week after week, year after year, to study the weekly Torah reading outside of the traditional synagogue setting. The concept has been replicated throughout Jerusalem and the rest of Israel.


Full auditorium for session of Opening the Week
In its twelfth year, the focus of the series at VLJI is Literature and Theater. Guest lecturers this year - academicians, public figures, intellectuals -address issues raised in the weekly Torah reading and engage them in an exchange with literary or theatrical texts. The perpetual task of interpretation of the Bible is nurtured by this series, cultivating the work of generations of scholars in the Jewish tradition, with a particularly Israeli perspective.

Program director: Dafna Schreiber



Research groups

The newest: Prayer Groups and Prayer Communities in Israel

A new research group has formed as of January 2009 whose aim is to research the phenomenon of prayer groups and prayer communities in Israel. In recent years, dozens of groups have been established, which regularly hold prayer services and activities on the Sabbath, Jewish festivals, and various occasions connected to the cycle of Jewish life. These groups are not associated with any established synagogue or denominations and many of those who participate in these events do not view themselves as belonging to a religious congregation. In the past year, about forty of these groups have added themselves to the Israel Registry for Non-profit Associations.

The VLJI research group will promote a systematic study of the phenomenon, its characteristics and the potential significance of the activities of the groups. It should further serve to strengthen and empower these prayer communities and position the phenomenon at the top of Israeli society's agenda. The research group includes leading scholars and academic experts from diverse research disciplines, as well as senior figures from these prayer communities - in order to ensure that the research will not be alienated or detached from the field.

Academic Director: Dr. Elie Holzer



Ongoing research groups

Streams in Judaism - The Conservative Movement: Culture, Sociology and Education

In the course of 2008, a research group on the Conservative Movement met at VLJI under the larger title of the project on Streams in Judaism. Participants in the group have attempted to map the Movement and sketch its profile, examining how it has vacillated in the cultural, legal, gender, and educational contexts of its work. This approach also considers the sociological difficulties confronting the Movement and its attitude towards both the State of Israel and the Diaspora. In the absence of any other research on this subject, three basic questions have been addressed: 1) the polar cultural codes revealed by the debate within the Movement on homo-lesbian ordinations and marriages;
2) reasons, sources and implications for the dwindling numbers of members of the Movement; 3) the distinct character of the Movement and its formation accordingly. The group has scheduled an international conference for December 2009 to present its research.

Academic Director: Dr. Avinoam Rosenak



Contemporary Jewish Identity and Identifying: Definitions, Empirical Indexes and International Comparisons

The research group studying Contemporary Jewish Identity and Identifying is focusing on setting suitable definitions to create a uniform basis for examining the character and strength of identifying Jewishly in different communities throughout the world. The 15 members of the group include demographers, sociologists, psychologists, educators and scholars of Jewish Thought. The pending publication of an anthology of papers by the researchers will be concluded by a chapter proposing broad common denominators of Jewish identity and identifying, intended to provide a long term, spatially extensive and useful tool for comparative research in the Social Sciences on Contemporary Jewish Life. In this way, the group aims to contribute to policy striving to strengthen the phenomenon of identifying Jewishly and the relations between different Jewish communities throughout the world.

Academic Director: Dr. Uzi Rebhun



Hebrew as a Language of Culture

The status of the Hebrew language as the language of Jewish culture has been substantiated over the course of the 60 years since the establishment of the State of Israel. The resemblance and/or lack of resemblance of the language to ancient Hebrew sources pose questions regarding its development. A VLJI research group has been studying the contemporary status of the language as it represents culture and the subsequent implications for issues in education, sociology, linguistics, history, Jewish Thought and Philosophy. This research was the subject of the December 31, 2008 - January 1, 2009 conference at VLJI.

Academic Director: Dr. Yotam Benziman



New Channels of Knowledge for Rabbis from Hesder Yeshivot

New Channels of Knowledge is a direct result of the success of the New Horizons for Religious Educators program. The new program brings together a group of rabbis from the hesder yeshivot (Torah academies for religious young men study in combination with their military service). Like New Horizons for Religious Educators, this program facilitates broader exposure to general education in the Humanities and Social Sciences, which participating students seek to complement their scholarship and profound knowledge in the world of Judaica and Jewish studies. Rabbis representing the Zionist, Modern Orthodox educational leadership, and acknowledging the great success of the past five years of New Horizons for Religious Educators proposed that VLJI develop this new initiative.


A session of New Horizons for Religious Educators
The program reflects the view that in order to reduce social tensions among religiously observant and non-religiously observant groups in Israeli society, work has to be done separately within the various groups involved. Renowned university professors and instructors deliver lectures in the course of this program - for many of them, also a first encounter with students from the religious, Zionist educational world.

The UJA Federation of New York and the Levi-Lassen Fund have made it possible for VLJI to expand the basic program which now encompasses 35 educators each year in two parallel groups, as well as this new program for students of hesder yeshivot.

As a result of the initial program, VLJI has received and implemented several proposals from alumni to conduct projects whose aim is to diffuse tensions between the religious and the secular in Israeli society. Among them is a joint program for religiously observant and non-religiously practicing educators entitled "Common Denominator" and supported by the Poppers Prins Foundation and the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest. This project aims to construct a curriculum of shared values and ethical principles for public and religious-public education in Israel while also acknowledging points of divergence.

Academic Director: Dr. Shmuel Wygoda



New Initiative - Publication of an Academic Journal

The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute is one of the largest centers for study and research of contemporary Jewish identity and culture. For this reason, VLJI has decided to launch an academic journal on the contemporary culture and identity of the Jewish people, with the intent of arousing the intellectual public discourse on this subject. The journal will provide a platform for studies on ideological and philosophical streams and processes underway among varied and diverse groups of the Jewish people in Israel and the Diaspora. As such, it is intended to serve as a tool for creating discussion around the essential questions, crises, and new ideas presently budding among young thinkers and new creative actors engaged in dialogue with scholars, veteran thinkers and renowned players in this field in Israel and abroad.

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Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg, Ph.D.
Chair, Jewish Culture and Identity

Dafna Schreiber
Director, Jewish Culture and Identity

Shira Karagila
Coordinator, Jewish Culture and Identity