One Nation Under God? Heschel, Niebuhr, King and the Intersection of Religion and Politics in America
Jun 22, 2026 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Part of the series “America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment” Download Recommended Resources With Dr. Arnold Eisen, Chancellor Emeritus; Professor of Jewish Thought, 91快播, and E.J. Dionne, Journalist, Harriman Chair in American Governance, Brookings Institute A frank and wide-ranging conversation between two admirers of these great religious leaders 鈥痑bout the fateful linkage of politics to prophecy in America from the […]
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The Changing Landscape of Jewish American Literature
Jun 15, 2026 By Benjamin Resnick | Public Event video | Video Lecture
For decades, Jewish American literature was defined by giants like Roth, Bellow, Malamud, and Ozick, whose novels explored assimilation and the immigrant experience. But what defines Jewish American writing today? Author and 91快播 alum Rabbi Benjamin Resnickreflectson how the field has changed and asks whether the Jewish American novel still exists in the way readers once understood it.
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Jewish Storytelling and American Lawin Post-WWII America
Jun 8, 2026 By Shira Billet | Public Event video | Video Lecture
In the decades after World War II, Jewish American legal thinkers began drawing on biblical and rabbinic stories to help explore fundamental questions of constitutional interpretation. The work of Robert Cover in the 1980s, first developed in the context of the Vietnam war, is the most famous and influential example. Butlesser-knownfigures such as Edmund Cahn and 91快播 professor Shalom Spiegel began developing this discourse in the context of the postwar moment in 1950s America, and the civil rights movement thatemergedin its wake.
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Hard Cases: Facing Law鈥檚 Challenges in American Legal Theory and Rabbinic Literature
Jun 1, 2026 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Part of the series “America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment” Download Sources With Dr. Sarah Wolf, Assistant Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, 91快播 How do judges settle cases when there is no clear right answer? How are precedents mined for new rulings? Should laws be the product of a legislator鈥檚 own creativity, or are […]
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The Talented Dr. Finkelstein: His Initiatives, Allies and Critics
May 18, 2026 By Jack Wertheimer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Within the first decade of his 91快播 presidency, Rabbi Louis Finkelstein energetically launched a broad range of new initiatives. 鈥疕is efforts garnered widespread attention and even an adulatory cover story in Time magazine. They also prompted sharp public challenges from some of his closest colleagues.
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Baseball (A Jewish American Pastime)
May 4, 2026 By Robert Harris | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Part of the series “America at 250: Jewish Ideas and the American Experiment” Download Sources With Dr. Robert A. Harris, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, 91快播 Baseball has long been called America鈥檚 pastime鈥攂ut what happens when we read the game through the lens of鈥痯hilosophy, theology, halacha and aggadah? This session explores the striking parallels between rabbinic interpretation and […]
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From Anxiety to Action: Telling the Story of the World We Want
Mar 23, 2026
At the heart of Passover is a question that feels urgent today: how do we move forward when the future feels uncertain and frightening? This session explores the Crossing of the Sea through midrash and contemporary thought, treating imagination as a muscle that must be strengthened in times of crisis. As we concludeSeasons of Responsibility, we鈥檒l shift focus from individual anxiety to collective responsibility, inviting participants to consider how shared storytelling, community, and action help bring the world we long for into being.
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Relationships and Commitments: Land Beyond Ownership
There are ways to exist in harmony with all of creation that cultivate the soul and a relationship with the Divine. Hussein Rashid and Rabbi Gordon Tucker bring Muslim and Jewish texts into dialogue to explore how religious traditions resist transactional relationships with the earth and with one another. Drawing on the sabbatical vision from Leviticus and a Muslim sources on overtaxation, they reflect on restraint, renewal, and the dangers of extraction. Timed with converging sacred moments鈥攖he beginning of the Jewish calendar, Persian New Year, and the close of Ramadan鈥攖his session offers a shared language for ethical living in a fragile world.
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