Jews & Conservatism
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The 2021 Online Conference on Jews & Conservatism MARCH 14-15, 2021 From the Executive Director The Jewish Leadership Conference is one of many projects led by the Tikvah Fund. Our mission: to educate the rising generation of young Jews, in America and Israel, about the great challenges facing the Jewish people; to advance the most serious conservative thinking about Jewish history and culture, politics and economics, military strategy and world affairs; and to strengthen Jewish leaders in the cultural, religious, and policy arenas. During the Jewish Leadership Conference on Sunday, March 14, and Monday, March 15, we invite you to meet and speak with the leaders of some of our most important Tikvah projects and partner organizations. Just click on the “Meet & Greet” section of the conference website, and you can see a schedule of live conversation opportunities. This brochure gives you a brief overview of each organization. Thanks being part of this growing community of Jewish, Zionist, and conservative ideas. Eric Cohen Executive Director The Tikvah Fund 1 Sunday, March 14 Rabbi Hershel Lutch, 10:30am - 11:00am Executive Director www.tikvahonlineacademy.org Tikvah Online Academy offers the highest-level learning on Jewish culture and civi- lization, the history and heroes of Israel, the future of American democracy, the fight against anti-Semitism, and the principles of a free economy and free society. For many years, Tikvah has advanced its mission through a wide variety of residential seminars and summer programs. Tikvah Online Academy brings this kind of learn- ing—with small classes, master teachers, and spirited discussions—to an even larger number of students through live, intensive, online seminars. We offer programs for middle school, high school, and Israel gap-year students. Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, 11:00am - 11:30am Director & Editor-in-Chief www.iyun.org.il/en/ Tzarich Iyun and the Tikvah Fund’s Haredi Division seek to promote the development of Haredi communities that are faithful to their basic values, including both a com- mitment to, and deeply conservative instincts about, matters of family and morality, while also emphasizing the need for taking responsibility on personal, communal, and civic levels. As the Haredi proportion of Israel’s population continues to grow, it is clear that Haredi participation in general Israeli society is key to everybody’s future, but achieving this while retaining the core positive values of Haredi society demands much thought, a range of institutions, and real leadership. Our division is active in all of these areas, operating a Haredi-intellectual journal, running lead- ership programs that teach the language of civic responsibility, and partnering in building new institutions. We have already made significant achievements in each of these areas, but there remains far more work to be done. 2 Sunday, March 14 Aylana Meisel,Chair 11:30am - 12:00pm https://lawforum.org.il/ On matters relating to the judiciary, the foundations of democratic regimes, and the proper relationship between the individual and the state, Israeli public discourse is often one-sid- ed, shallow, and monolithic. An orthodoxy promoting judicial activism and supremacy is ad- vanced in academia, the media, and Israel’s intellectual elite. But many concerned citizens, and specifically many jurists, disagree with this worldview and its underlying assumptions. Inspired by the Federalist Society, the Israel Law and Liberty Forum offers lawyers, judges, students, and others a platform for advancing an alternative approach to Israeli law and policy. The Forum advances a conservative legal worldview based on four core principles: the separation of powers, judicial restraint, individual liberty, and limited government. Ad- visory board members include former Israeli Minister of Justice Daniel Friedman, Nobel Prize winner Professor Israel Aumann, and Professors Richard Epstein, Randy Barnett, Philip Hamburger, Peter Berkowitz, and Steven Calabresi. Amiad Cohen, CEO, 12:00pm - 12:30pm Tikvah Israel & Publisher hashiloach.org.il | shiboletpress.com Continuing a tradition of fruitful intellectual exchange between the West and the Jewish people, Tikvah has proudly partnered with Sella Meir Press to create the Shibboleth Library in Israel. Our new book press translates the very best of contemporary English-language conservative thought into Hebrew, and will soon publish original Hebrew-language conser- vative work. In its first two years, Shibboleth has published translations of Friedrich Hayek, Roger Scruton, Jordan Peterson, Jerry Mueller, and others, including many bestselling volumes. Shibboleth allows Israelis to systematically engage with a conservative system of thought and values otherwise absent from Israeli public discourse. Founded to enrich Israeli public policy discourse, the Hashiloach journal offers a new plat- form for excellent long-form conservative writing. Rigorous but accessible, Hashiloach fos- ters a unique community of readers and writers through its publications, events, and writing workshops. We publish original work on public affairs through a conservative lens, amplify other conservative voices, and translate classic conservative articles from English. Our work is regularly referenced in Israeli academic, cultural, governmental, and legal discourse. 3 Sunday, March 14 Sacha Roytman, Executive Director & 1:30pm - 2:00pm Tamara Berens, Krauthammer Fellow https://combatantisemitism.org/ The Combat Anti-Semitism Movement (CAM) is a non-partisan, global grassroots movement of individuals and organizations, across all religions and faiths, united to combat anti-Semitism. Our unique platform creates partnerships throughout the world, strategically implementing new and creative solutions to combat the world’s oldest hatred. We leverage the collective power of our broad-based coalition to unite individuals of all backgrounds in this fight. CAM fights anti-Semitism in whatev- er form it occurs and across the ideological spectrum, including efforts to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination in Israel, their ancestral homeland. Jason Bedrick, 2:00pm - 2:30pm Director of Policy https://www.edchoice.org/ EdChoice is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing a K–12 education system where all families, regardless of race, origin, or family income are free to choose a learning environment—public or private, near or far, religious or secular—that works best for their children. Founded 25 years ago by Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and his wife Rose, we work to educate and train the public and policymakers about educational choice policies—such as school vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and K-12 education savings accounts—in- cluding how they work and why they are needed.` 4 Sunday, March 14 Dr. Ronen Shoval, 2:30pm - 3:00pm Executive Director https://www.argaman.institute/ The Argaman Institute was founded to serve as a home and intellectual incubator for study, research, and writing on core issues facing Israeli society today. We aim to cultivate a new generation of Zionist and conservative intellectuals, and offer par- ticipants exposure to texts, teachers, and a discourse not found anywhere in Israeli academia. Argaman uniquely enables participants to delve into the great works of conserva- tive and liberal thought—pillars of the modern world—while providing generous grants allowing them focus on their academics. Programs currently include a survey course on foundational conservative texts for college students; an intensive seminar and research track on conservatism and culture for humanities students; and an ad- vanced level course in political economy for future academics and public servants seeking to learn and apply the principles of free-market thinking. Admission to these opportunities is competitive. ` 3:00pm - 3:30pm Abe Socher, Editor www.jewishreviewofbooks.com The Jewish Review of Books was created in 2010 with a single goal in mind: to pub- lish insightful and innovative articles about the most important and thought-pro- voking books and ideas. In our pages, leading writers and critics discuss Jewish thought, literature, culture, and politics as well as history, poetry, and the arts, with wit and erudition. 6 Sunday, March 14 Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, 3:30pm - 4:00pm leading Jewish thinker and educator Rabbi Meir Soloveichik is one of the most thoughtful, wide-ranging, and influen- tial Jewish thinkers in the world today. His essays and lectures, video courses and seminars, podcasts and conversations, cover an incredible range of subjects—from Jewish theology and philosophy, to the meaning of American Jewry and the Hebra- ic spirit of the nation, to the history and meaning of Zionism. This spring, we will be launching a major new website for Rabbi Soloveichik’s educational initiatives, filled with online courses, live events, essays, books, and more. Alan Rubenstein, 4:00pm - 4:30pm Executive Director https://tikvahcollege.org/ For too many Jewish students on American college campuses, opportunities to engage with Judaism vacillate between the mediocre and the toxic. Tikvah provides the antidote to this through programs that put the triumph of Jewish civilization and the heroism of the Jewish state at the forefront. Our Tikvah-Beren Collegiate Forum gives students the chance to join peers from campus- es around the country in seminars and speaker events that highlight Jewish excellence in the modern age. We also model for them a balance of Jewish