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TIKVAH ONLINE COURSES COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG 2018-2019 COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG FALL-WINTER COURSES AVAILABLE 2017-2018 NOW Daniel Deronda: A Zionist Masterpiece Ruth Wisse Decades before Herzl, George Eliot wrote Daniel Deronda, her great novel of Jewish nationalism. Explore this masterpiece with Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse. here is simply no better book to begin thinking through the imperatives for a national Jewish home than TDaniel Deronda. But it would be a mistake to think the book is simply an argument for a Jewish state in the form of a novel. It is at least as much about the nature of England and the outlook for its future. Some English readers subordinated the importance of the Jewish sections of the novel to the story of English-born Gwendolen Harleth and the issues surrounding her maturation. In fact, Eliot interwove the two plots to demonstrate the interrelated fate of the Jews and the English. She believed that English attitudes toward the Jews reflected and determined the kind of nation England was to be. From her personal experience as a lapsed Christian, George Eliot recognized that modern forces were destabilizing society without necessarily showing citizens how to manage the transformation. If a superior novel can serve as guide to the perplexed, here we have a whole education in a single volume, exploring the strengths and vulnerabilities of English liberalism, the blessings and burdens of love, marriage, and family life, the influences of memory and identity, the manners and mores of a decaying aristocratic culture, and the spir- itual qualities needed for cultural renewal. It is a rare pleasure to be in the hands of an author with so much appreciation for the variety of human experience and such a gift for bringing it together in a single book. This online course is guided by preeminent teacher and scholar Ruth Wisse, recently retired from her po- sition as Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and currently the Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. Her many books include The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey Through Literature and Culture, Jews and Power, and No Joke: Making Jewish Humor. FALL-WINTER COURSES 2017-2018 AVAILABLE NOW COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG Jewish Ideas and the American Founders Rabbi Meir Soloveichik Join Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik as he explores the life and legacy of Jonas Phillips, the first truly American Jew, and sheds light on the Jewish ideas that inspired America’s Founding Fathers. ombining history with theology and politics, this course examines the Jewish contributions to the early Crepublic by tracing the life of one remarkable Jewish family. When Jonas Phillips landed on the coast of South Carolina, a Jewish immigrant from the Old World looking for opportunity, he arrived as an indentured servant to another Jewish merchant. After earning his freedom, he went north, married in New York, settled in Philadelphia, created a large family, became a wealthy man, and throughout his life worked to help the new American nation realize its boldest and most promising ideals. Jonas Phillips was a religious Jew and an American patriot, and his life is a testament to the Jewish significance of the uniquely American tradition of religious freedom. His story and the stories of his children orient us toward an understanding of American politics, culture, and law that combines modern and biblical ideals: contract with covenant, faith with freedom, and equality with pluralism. The Phillips family helps us to see just what makes America so unique in Jewish and world history— what is worth protecting, worth celebrating, worth bequeath- ing to our children. Throughout “Jewish Ideas and the American Founders,” Rabbi Soloveichik invites us to ask if America is prepared to stay true to the legacy of Jonas Phillips and keep alive the ideals that make America exceptional. Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University and the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. His essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, First Things, Azure, Tradi- tion, and The Torah U-Madda Journal. This online course is sponsored by Allen K. Schwartz, in memory of his wife, Barbara R. Schwartz, and in tribute to all Jewish Americans, both strangers and neighbors. It is also sponsored by the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG AVAILABLE NOW Theodor Herzl: The Birth of Political Zionism Daniel Polisar Daniel Polisar, one of Israel’s leading experts on Herzl, examines of Herzl’s innovative statesmanship and visionary leadership. olitical ideas—no matter how great—require determination, vision, and the will of great leaders if they Pare to influence and order the lives of men. The founding fathers of the State of Israel held the big ideas of Jewish history together with the prudential judgment, executive energy, diplomatic savvy, and military strategy they needed to resurrect the Third Jewish Commonwealth in the Land of Israel. From Ze’ev Jabotin- sky to David Ben Gurion to modern Israeli leaders like Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres, the lives and strategic insights of great Jewish political leaders have much to teach us. This course’s focus is on the life and career of Theodor Herzl. With little institutional support, with virtually no resources or political leverage, the sheer force of Herzl’s writing and will carried him to sit across the negoti- ating table from kings and emperors, arguing for the free sovereignty of the Jewish people. How did Herzl deal with the challenges that confronted him from within and from without the Jewish world? What strategies did he pursue, what calculations did he make, how did he learn from his failures and how did he think about parlaying successes? What enduring lessons can we learn from Herzl’s campaign to lay the groundwork for the Jewish State? Shalem College co-founder and executive vice president Daniel Polisar leads us in an examination of Theo- dor Herzl’s Zionist statesmanship, helping us to relive the arguments and to confront the fateful moments of decision of early Zionist history. COMING SOON COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG Majesty and Humility: The Life, Legacy, and Thought of Joseph B. Soloveitchik Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter November 2018 In this in-depth exploration of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s life and thought, Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter shares personal and intimate reflections on the man who was his own mentor and guide. n his life, his leadership, and his legacy, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik straddled different worlds. Born into Ia dynasty of great Lithuanian rabbinic scholars, Rabbi Soloveitchik’s horizons were shaped by Jewish learn- ing and masterful Talmudic erudition. He also threw himself into the world of Western philosophy, earning a doctorate from the University of Berlin and nursing philosophical interests throughout the rest of his life. Born at the dawn of the twentieth century in the outskirts of the Russian Empire, Rabbi Soloveitchik moved to America where he revolutionized Jewish education, founded the Maimonides School in Boston, and was for decades the beating heart of Yeshiva University’s mission to pursue Torah wisdom alongside secular knowl- edge. Along the way, Rabbi Soloveitchik became the twentieth century’s most important American orthodox writer and thinker. Through his works of theology and philosophy, Rabbi Soloveitchik—known reverently as “The Rav”—articu- lates a vision of the modern Jew who lives the tension between faithful obedience to the inherited way of life that has sustained the Jewish people for so many generations, and at the same time who proudly engages the fullness of the modern world. Join us to study Rabbi Soloveitchik’s most profound writing and to examine cases of his communal leadership. Rabbi Schacter supplements his teaching about Rabbi Soloveitchik’s ideas with personal and intimate reflections on the man who was his ownmentor and guide. COURSES.TIKVAHFUND.ORG WINTER 2019 The Meaning of Jewish Nationalism Yoram Hazony January 2019 Israeli political philosopher, author, and Herzl Institute president Yoram Hazony examines the biblical origins of the independent Jewish national state. or thousands of years, the Jewish people has pursued a unique course among the nations. The Hebrew Bible Fchallenged the imperial order of the ancient world with a new political theory and a new theology. In this course, Israeli philosopher and author Yoram Hazony examines the biblical origins of the independent Jewish national state, the later development of this political concept in Protestant Europe and America, and its deployment by the Zionist movement that created the state of Israel. The course seeks answers to crucial questions surrounding Jewish nationalism both in antiquity and in our own time, including: What was unique about the biblical political concept of the independent Jewish national kingdom, and what purposes was it intended to serve within the context of the non-Israelite political thought of the ancient world? How did the Jewish tradition of national thinking shape the Christian political thought that gave rise to the modern world, and how did it fail to? Does the political founding of the modern State of Israel succeed as an inheritance of classical Jewish political thought in the writings and work of figures such as Theodor Herzl and David Ben-Gurion? And crucially, where does this idea of a Jewish state stand with respect to political right and wrong in today’s world of often quite contrary moral and political ideas? Can this ancient biblical dream still be meaningful for us in our own time, as Jews and as human beings? Yoram Hazony is president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, and the founder and former head of the Shalem Cen- ter in Jerusalem, a research institute that conducted nearly two decades of pioneering work in the fields of philos- ophy, political theory, Bible, Talmud, Jewish and Zionist history, Middle East studies and archaeology.

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