Yehuda Kurtzer
By Yehuda Kurtzer
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Life The loneliness of Jewish theology
For several months, I’ve been interviewing clergy and other Jewish thinkers about God for a series in the Forward called Still Small Voice. Last week, one of those scholars, Dr. Yehudah Kurtzer, turned the tables and interviewed me for his podcast “Identity/Crisis.” Kurtzer, president of Shalom Hartman North America, was one of the 18 scholars…
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Opinion The Biggest Threat To The Jews? The Partisan Divide.
The central existential threat to Jews in America today is the toxic nature of partisanship in American political culture. I believe we are at a critical juncture for a new American Jewish conversation on this issue that asks us to consider how our political choices as Jews implicate our collective identity as Jews in America….
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Life Why You Should Sneak-Read In Shul This Yom Kippur
My journey, both personally and professionally, in Orthodox and non-Orthodox circles alike, has introduced me to a surprising divide, one that does not map neatly onto the denominational divide but evokes diverging passions that grow more animated as one moves from right to left. Namely: The practice of reading in shul. Every year I try…
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Opinion 3 Types of Shimon Peres Haters — and Why They’re Wrong
The Shimon Peres haters — and they are many — are coming out in full force already, preying on his would-be memory while his life hangs in the balance. Even as his family grows optimistic that he will recover following a massive stroke, these haters are trying to undermine the inevitable hagiography that looms and…
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Opinion Yitzhak Rabin Has an Urgent Message for Israelis — But They Can’t Hear It Now
It has been 20 years since the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The assassination was easily one of the most significant moments in Israel’s brief history, and arguably in Jewish history altogether. Why has there been so little talk of it — and so limited a commemoration — in the Jewish public square?…
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Opinion The Benefits of Airing Deep Splits Among Jews
Though the phenomenon has been in decline for some time, I think 2015 finally brings an end to the era of concerns about “airing our dirty laundry in public” on the messiest of Jewish communal issues. As Jews mirror the larger American political polarization of right and left, it is hard to imagine sustaining an…
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Opinion Abraham’s Lesson: Quality Over Quantity in Push for Jewish Continuity
Anxiety about the Jewish future — and the number of people we will have in that future — is totally reasonable. It is a long-standing hobby of Jews going back to Abraham, and an especially popular pastime of late 20th and early 21st century Jews. It is born of the historical reality of the Shoah…
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Opinion Putting Aside That Old Jewish Pessimism
It is still surprising — funny, even — that a people that has survived and thrived through millennia filled with cataclysms can still find itself debilitated by anxiety about its future, and especially by such concerns as banal as, say, the impending retirement of the generation of baby boomer CEOs running Jewish organizations. This past…
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