Jews and Power: Tradition, Literature, and Politics

Home » Jews and Power: Tradition, Literature, and Politics

Chabad House at Harvard University

Jews and Power: Tradition, Literature, and Politics

January 20, 2015 – January 23, 2015

A three-day immersion in Jewish thought, literature, and politics, open to Harvard undergraduate and graduate students and interested university students in the Greater Boston area.

Application Deadline: November 23, 2014
Stipend: $350

Course Summary

Prior to the founding of modern Israel, the extraordinary achievements of the Jewish people and their prodigious contributions to Western civilization have all taken place without the one thing that most defines a nation: the political and military power to protect its citizens in a sovereign land.

Between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the founding of the Jewish state two millennia later, the Jewish people survived without a national home. During that time, Jewish language, literature, law, and customs all helped sustain communities dispersed throughout the known world.

Jewish thinkers and writers reconceived the meaning of their nation in manifestly moral and communal rather than political terms. Without the mechanisms of government or self-defense, generations of exilic Jews sought toleration and protection from their host rulers. But their political dependency left diaspora Jews vulnerable to being scapegoated—a tendency that has persisted despite the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in Israel.

Courtesy of the Israel Defense Forces, via Flickr

With the return of sovereignty, what is the proper relation of Judaism and Jewish tradition to political and military power? Does the history of Jewish thought entail a distinctive approach to the responsibilities of leadership and statecraft? How does the literature, culture, and ritual life born in exile relate to the modern Jewish reality, with the Zionist State at the center and yet with significant populations of Jews still living as minority communities in sometimes friendly, sometimes tolerant, sometimes hostile states?

Led by leading contemporary theologian Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Harvard University emeritus professor Ruth Wisse, and former White House foreign policy advisor and Middle East expert Elliott Abrams, this special program during Harvard’s Wintersession will explore religious, cultural, and political dimensions of Jewish power. Drawing upon the traditional religious sources, modern Jewish literature, biographies of Jewish statesmen, and various historical case studies, we will explore both the spirit of the Jewish mind and the realities of the modern Jewish political condition. Evening panels will feature prominent Harvard faculty in conversation with our seminar leaders.

Eligibility/Applying

The program is open to all Harvard undergraduate and graduate students, as well as interested university students in the Greater Boston area.

To apply to Jews and Power: Tradition, Literature & Politics, please click the “Apply Online” button below. Please prepare a single MS Word or PDF document including:

-An essay of roughly 500 words describing why you want to participate in this program

-A photograph of yourself

-College and, where applicable, graduate school transcripts

-You may also include letters of recommendation.

APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

Time and Location

The program will be based at Chabad House at Harvard (38 Banks Street), beginning with a welcome dinner Tuesday, January 20 and ending with lunch on Friday, January 23.

This seminar is sponsored by the Tikvah Fund in partnership with Chabad of Harvard.

Course Faculty

Elliott Abrams

Elliott Abrams is the chairman of Tikvah, as well as chairman of the Vandenberg Coalition and senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. He served as special assistant to the president and NSC senior director for the Near East and North Africa in the first term of George W. Bush, and as…
» Learn more

Meir Soloveichik

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. Prior to this, Soloveichik served as associate rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan. Rabbi Soloveichik has lectured throughout the United States, in…
» Learn more

Ruth Wisse

Recently retired from her position as Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard, Professor Wisse is currently Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. Her books on literary subjects include an edition of Jacob Glatstein’s two-volume fictional memoir, The Glatstein Chronicles (2010), The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Literature and Culture (2003), and A Little Love in Big…
» Learn more