Adult Education

Jewish Values and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Certificate Program - A Shalom Hartman Institute Course

We are excited to announce our first adult education program for 2019 - "Jewish Values and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict". Rabbi David Baum will lead this 13 unit course. The curriculum is developed by academics at The Shalom Hartman Institute. Students who complete the entire program receive a certificate of completion!

Why Attend This Shalom Hartman Institute Course?

• University Quality Program
  • Created by a team of internationally renowned scholars in the fields of Jewish studies, Middle East politics, and history, the Shalom Hartman Institute's educational programs have become the premier courses on Israel engagement in North America, reaching tens of thousands of constituents within the Jewish community.
• Engaging, Experiential Learning
  • The use of Jewish narratives (story-telling) about Israel and the unpacking of the complex meanings of peace in Jewish tradition, participants explore the ideas and values that animate different attitudes toward the conflict and how these values shape their own political understandings. A combination of lectures, videos, and guided discussion, allows participants to engage in conversations designed to help achieve shared respect for our differences.

Course/unit Descriptions:

1. Talking About Israel: Foundations for a Values Discourse explores the range of attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict across the Jewish world, emphasizing the different values and moral claims that lie behind each core position along the spectrum. The unit seeks to frame and establish the basis for a values discourse about the conflict in which different positions are understood in values terms.
2. The Current Discourse: Living with Difference examines the sociological categories of pluralism, tolerance, and deviance and their reflection in Jewish sources to gain an understanding of the ways in which Jewish communities can accommodate difference and develop strategies of acceptance and belonging.
3. The Israel We Imagine: addresses the most essential narratives and assumptions that the Jewish community holds about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An understanding of differing positions, resulting from differing visions and aspirations, can foster a richer and more tolerant Jewish discourse about the conflict.
4. Jewish Narratives of Peace: explores different models of peace within our sources and the way they affect our vision for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As one of the principal aspirations of the Jewish people, featured in all of our prayers, what type of peace are we praying for?
5. Attitudes Towards the Land – Perspectives from Within Israel: examines the historical and religious significance of the land in Jewish sources and the way this range of perspectives shapes the attitudes of many Jews, especially those in Israel, towards the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
6. Attitudes Towards the Land – Perspectives from Outside the Land: explores Diasporic conceptions of the place of land in Judaism and how they shape the way one views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
7. Justice: explores the central meanings and implications of justice within our tradition and the impact that these understandings have on our moral responsibilities toward the conflict and its resolution.
8. Justice: X Happened: looks at the claim that a wrong was perpetrated as part of Israel’s establishment and the ways in which this kind of controversial claim can be addressed in a genuine and morally appropriate manner.
9. Self-Preservation: explores the core moral commitment to self-preservation in Jewish tradition and its impact on the way we think about the conflict.
10. Compromise: examines the ways in which our tradition views the idea of compromise, its relationship toward justice, the way it interacts with self-preservation, and how it shapes political and moral perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
11. A Light Unto the Nations: The Idea of Exceptionalism analyzes the core concept of Jewish exceptionalism from within the Jewish tradition and how this idea can impact positions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
12. Concluding Conversations – Living with Competing Values: brings together iEngage faculty members to discuss how they synthesize the different values addressed in the series. The session models a conversation about the conflict in which values and ideas, rather than politics, take center stage.

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