Understanding Israel Today and Imagining the Israel of Tomorrow

We welcome special guest Donniel Hartman

President of the Shalom Hartman Institute, as he reflects on a year of war in Gaza and now in Lebanon and discusses how the politicization of the October 7 tragedy has deepened divisions both in Israel and among Jews worldwide.

He is joined in conversation with Bella Tendler Krieger, Director of Adult Learning and Growth at CAJE-Miami.

Donniel Hartman is the President of the Shalom Hartman Institute where he holds the Kaufman Family Chair in Jewish Philosophy. He is the founder of some of the most extensive education, training, and enrichment programs for scholars, educators, rabbis, and religious and lay leaders in Israel and North America and is a prominent essayist, blogger, and lecturer on issues of Israeli politics, policy, Judaism, and the Jewish community.

Donniel is author of the Boundaries of Judaism and Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself. His latest book, Who are the Jews and Who Can We Become, was a 2023 Jewish Book Council Award Finalist. He is also the host of the award-winning podcast For Heaven’s Sake, together with his colleague Yossi Klein Halevi, which ranks consistently as the most popular Judaism podcast in the United States, Canada, Britian, Australia, and South Africa.

Bella Tendler Krieger is the Director of Adult Learning and Growth at CAJE-Miami which runs pluralistic adult Jewish educational classes and programs throughout South Florida. She is a member of the inaugural cohort of the Beit Midrash for a New North American Rabbinate at the Shalom Hartman Institute.

This program is part of a yearlong partnership between the Shalom Hartman Institute and CAJEand is sponsored in loving memory of Roberta and Jerome Shevin.