Yehuda Kurtzer is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a research and education center based in Jerusalem and New York.
Yehuda Kurtzer
By Yehuda Kurtzer
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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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Books Author Blog: Jewish People and Books
Earlier this week, Yehuda Kurtzer wrote about a recent Commentary article by Jack Wertheimer and the transmission of memory. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: Do the Jewish People need more…
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The Schmooze Author Blog: Transmission of Memory
Yehuda Kurtzer is the author of “Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past.” His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: When my son Noah was about 3 or 4, he came home…
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Books Author Blog: The Future of the Past
Yehuda Kurtzer is the author of “Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past.” His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: In a recent Commentary article, Jack Wertheimer once again takes on the…
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