Getting Back To The 'Sources'

NEW YORK, March 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As the Jewish community prepares for a second pandemic Passover, the Shalom Hartman Institute is releasing the first issue of Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, to encourage connection, conversation, and thoughtful disagreement. Launching on March 22, 2021, the quarterly print journal features diverse voices tackling a wide range of issues, including the theological implications of the pandemic, the rise and fall of Jewish pluralism, and whether Jewish continuity is fundamentally sexist. Print subscriptions are available for $36/year, and the content will also be published weekly online, free of charge. (For more information and to subscribe/request a press copy, visit sourcesjournal.org.)

"Sources fills an urgent need in the Jewish conversation: to create ideas that will help Jews respond with greater nuance to our political, religious and social challenges," says writer Yossi Klein Halevi, who serves on the journal's editorial board.

"We're living in a time of public disorder and private bewilderment," says Benjamin Balint, editor of the journal. "As we approach our socially-distanced seders for the second year in a row, we need ideas that ground us and guide us toward what is most enduring for us and our communities."

Contributors to the inaugural issue include Miriam Udel, Yehuda Kurtzer, Gil Troy, Anne Lanski, and other prominent Jewish leaders and educators.

"Home, Endangered: A #MeToo Midrash," by Dr. Elana Stein Hain, Director of Faculty and a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, "is intended to give voice to the experience of survivors of abuse at the hands of trusted people and institutions," says Stein Hain. "It offers more possibilities for what a hero looks like in Jewish communal life."

"Our Common Humanity: Notes from a Pandemic," by Israeli ethicist Dr. Avi Sagi, takes a theological look at our collective experience--and our faith--in a time of extended human suffering. He writes, "the differences between [...] worldviews become irrelevant: now there is evil, the plague threatens, and our common duty is to fight it."

In an interview with Michael Sandel, the Harvard philosopher reflects on the long-fomenting cultural and political divides in the United States -- seen in full force at the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. "Asking citizens to leave their moral and spiritual convictions outside when they enter the public square creates a moral void, a vacuum of meaning in public life, that will invariably be filled with narrow intolerant moralisms, usually in one of two forms: fundamentalism or strident nationalism," he says.

"Sources is a place for big thinking, where we can engage with those we disagree with intellectually," says contributor Dr. Mijal Bitton, Scholar in Residence at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. "That engagement makes us better thinkers and pushes us to explore previously uncharted moral terrain."

To learn more and subscribe, visit sourcesjournal.org.

About the Shalom Hartman Institute:
The Shalom Hartman Institute is a leading center of Jewish thought and education, serving Israel and North America. Its mission is to strengthen Jewish peoplehood, identity, and pluralism; to enhance the Jewish and democratic character of Israel; and to ensure that Judaism is a compelling force for good in the 21st century.

SOURCE Shalom Hartman Institute