Prof. Benjamin Ish-Shalom

A researcher, a scholar, and a writer, founder and president of Beit Morasha, Prof. Benjamin (Benny) Ish-Shalom is among the world’s prominent leaders of modern Judaism. He is a senior lecturer in a variety of fields, including Jewish thought and religious philosophy; military ethics and applied ethics; values and leadership in the prism of Jewish culture and global thought; the Jewish mission – Tikkun, Israeli society and Jewish peoplehood, Jewish identity, and conversion.

Prof. Ish-Shalom received the AVI CHAI Prize for his leadership in promoting Jewish tolerance and unity and “for his extensive and diverse efforts to develop a shared cultural foundation for fruitful dialogue among the different segments of Israeli Jewry.” He was also awarded The Hebrew University’s Warburg Prize and a fellowship grant by the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

At the request of former Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon, Prof. Ish-Shalom developed the Identity and Purpose Program which, to date, has trained hundreds of thousands of the IDF’s officers and commanders in contending with issues of Jewish identity and values and the dilemmas of combat ethics. Together with Lt. Gen. Ya’alon and Chief Education Officer, Brigadier General Elazar Stern, he established the IDF’s Nativ program for immigrant soldiers.

The Cabinet of the Israeli government appointed Prof. Ish Shalom as the founding Chairman of “NATIV – the National Center for Identity and Conversion.” At the invitation of former Minister of Education Gideon Sa’ar, Prof. Ish Shalom also served as founding chairman of the Ministry committee for the new curriculum “Heritage and Culture in Israel,” and has led the program’s development and implementation in the education system and in teacher training colleges.

Prof. Ish-Shalom was a faculty member of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a long-standing lecturer in its Department of Jewish Thought. He served as the incumbent of the Andrew and Rose Miller Professorial Chair for Zionist Thought and Modern Israel at Yeshiva University in New York and has lectured at Bar-Ilan University, the Technion, and additional academic institutions.

Click to read Prof. Ish-Shalom’s entry in Wikipedia (in Hebrew)

Publication List

Books

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook—Between Rationalism and Mysticism  SUNY Press, New York 1993. 

The World of Rav Kook’s Thought, Avi Chai, New York, 1991. 

Articles and Book Chapters

Pluralismus und Toleranz in Judisch-orthodoxer Perspektive, Judaica – Zurich (Sept. 1989), pp. 169-193.

Religion, Repentance, and Personal Freedom, In: The World of Rav Kook’s Thought. New York, 1991, pp.373-420.

Tolerance and its Philosophical Basis, in: Philosophy and Rav Kook’s Thought. Ed. L. Kaplan and D Schatz, SUNY Press, New York, 1993. 

Torah and Wisdom: A Jewish “Science” or “Science of Judaism”, in: Peter K. H. Lee and Hans Ucko (ed.), Jewish-Christian Dialogue on Wisdom in an East-West Setting, Orbis Books, Hong Kong.

Rabbi Avraham Y. Kook, in: The Oxford Dictinary of the Jewish Religion (ed.: R.J. Zwi Werblowsky and Jeoffrey Wigoder), Oxford University Press, 1997.

Rabbi Yehuda. Kook, in: The Oxford Dictinary of the Jewish Religion (ed.: R.J. Zwi Werblowsky and Jeoffrey Wigoder), Oxford University Press, 1997 .

Nationalism, in: The Oxford Dictinary of the Jewish Religion (ed.:  R.J. Zwi  Werblowsky and Jeoffrey Wigoder), Oxford University Press, 1997.

Zionism, in: The Oxford Dictinary of the Jewish Religion (ed.:  R.J. Zwi  Werblowsky and Jeoffrey Wigoder), Oxford University Press, 1997.

Some Thoughts on Theological and Sociological Aspects of the Jubilee Year, in: Jean-Michel Bonvin (ed.), Debt and the Jubilee, Geneva 

Rabbi Avraham Yitshak Kook, in: Encyclopedia of Religion (ed.: Alan Hedblad Macmillan/Gale/Thomson), 2004.

“’Purity of Arms’ and Purity of Ethical Judgment”, Meorot 6:1, NY 2006, Tevet 5767.

“Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook”, in: Encyclopedia Judaica (ed.: Aviezer Ravitzky and Raphael Josepe), 2004.