An American Jewish thinker on Judaism, Zionism, and Israel visited Hunter as part of the Provost’s Promoting Civil Discourse & Intellectual Dialogue Series.
Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, spoke “On Compromise: Can A New Approach to Pluralism and Persuasion Heal Divided Communities?” at Roosevelt House on April 28.
The event examined questions such as, how can we advocate passionately for our convictions yet maintain pluralistic communities? How can we sustain our moral commitments while making room for others whom we may feel hold deeply misguided beliefs?
Since Mideast hostilities erupted in October 2023, issues of protest, pluralism, and communal comity have arisen on some American campuses. For Kurtzer, the discord is a symptom of a larger crisis of confidence in liberal democracy and institutions. He outlined ways to make our fragile institutions more resilient.
In the Middle East, the questions are existential: Israelis and Palestinians must find a way to live side by side, because attempts to dominate the other have never worked and only lead to more death and destruction.
“The lives and fates of all the people living ‘from the river to the sea’ are inextricably linked," Kurtzer said in an interview, referring to an Arab expression. “There’s no way around it.”
As Kurtzer explained it, the Hartman Institute is a research center for the Jewish people.
“We work on ideas and develop cutting-edge educational programs to help Israeli leaders confront what it means to be Jewish in the modern age and the challenges facing the State of Israel. How does Jewish tradition and the best contemporary thinking help the Jewish people and the State of Israel to confront those challenges?”
The institute sees its major work as ensuring that Jewish tradition can evolve to meet the present moment and that the Jewish people can plan rather than lurching from crisis to crisis. That leads Kurtzer to even more questions:
“How do we design a better, more ethical Jewish future in Israel and in North America? What do you need to understand now about the mindset of the Israeli people? How do we manage the whole set of moral and ethical questions that are overtaking the Jewish people and Israeli society?”
Kurzer is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past, the co-editor of The New Jewish Canon, the host of the Identity/Crisis podcast, and the author of dozens of articles and essays about contemporary Jewish life.
The discussion aligned with a campaign to foster civil discourse and tolerance across CUNY’s 25 campuses, which was announced by CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez this past August during a visit to Hunter College.
