Fall 2023 Tutorial Offerings

Please review our tutorial offerings for the winter semester (Term II). Each tutorial will meet six times, and classes will each be 90 minutes. If you have any questions about the courses, please email Avi Garson at agarson@tikvahfund.org.

Term I Term II

Term II

How to Become Excellent (or Not): Plato’s Meno

Meno was an ambitious teenager from a good family. One day, Plato tells us, he approached Socrates to ask whether human excellence is something that can be taught. This six-session tutorial will study the conversation that ensued. As we probe Plato’s dialogue through close textual reading, we will explore such questions as What is human excellence (or virtue)? Can one acquire it? And if so, how? By attending to these questions with Socrates as our guide, we will be led to consider the relationship between wisdom and virtue, between scientific knowledge and inquiry, and between philosophy and piety. Students will emerge with a deeper appreciation of Socratic political philosophy and its relevance for living an excellent human life today.

Aaron Tugendhaft

Aaron Tugendhaft studied history and philosophy at the University of Chicago, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Sorbonne. Since receiving his doctorate in ancient Near Eastern Studies from New York University in 2012, he has taught broadly within the humanities on four continents and has become a staunch advocate of traditional liberal education as a corrective to premature professionalization, academic hyperspecialization, and political polarization. His most recent book, The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet (University of Chicago Press, 2020), is a philosophical meditation on an Islamic State video of iconoclasm that explores the political power of images and the significance of their destruction. In fall 2021, he joined the history department and became a director of interdisciplinary programs at the Ramaz School in New York City.

Affirmation and Critique: Morality, Religion, and Culture in Nietzsche

“What is truth? How should one understand morality? Is there meaning to human life beyond what humans ascribe to life? This course, open both to takers of previous courses on Nietzsche and to newcomers to Nietzsche, will consider Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols (1888/9). Students will engage with Nietzsche’s views on value, culture, religion, and the history of philosophy. The course will proceed via a close reading of this book alongside Raymond Aron’s Liberty and Equality. Themes of the course will include Nietzsche’s understanding of Socrates, Nietzsche’s critique of religion, and Nietzsche’s understanding of liberalism and culture.

The course will offer both an introduction to Nietzsche’s thought and to themes which persist in philosophy in the aftermath of Nietzsche’s work.”

Samuel Zeitlin

Dr. Samuel Zeitlin studies and teaches political philosophy, the history of political thought, and international relations. His dissertation, which he is currently working to revise into a scholarly monograph, examined the themes of war and peace in the political philosophy of Francis Bacon. His translation and edition (co-edited with R.A. Berman) of “Land and Sea” won an award in the “Religion” category at the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2016. His most recent book (with Lars Vinx) is Carl Schmitt’s Early Legal-Theoretical Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2021). A version of Raymond Aron’s Liberty and Equality forthcoming with Princeton University Press in November 2023. His reviews have been published in Contemporary Political Theory, The Common Review, Jahrbuch Extremismus und Demokratie, and the Cambridge Humanities Review. His articles have been published, or are forthcoming, in The Review of Politics, History of Political Thought, History of European Ideas, Politisches Denken Jahrbuch, Global Intellectual History, and Modern Intellectual History. In addition to Cambridge, he has taught courses at UC-Berkeley, at Queen Mary, University of London, at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen, and at the University of Chicago, where he was Collegiate Assistant Professor and Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts.

How Does War Shape Israel’s Political, Economic, and Cultural Evolution?

Starting in 1967, we examine the way wars have influenced political thought and culture in Israel. Using as our method the history of succeeding generations, we will consider how victories have led to defeats, which have led to peaks of confidence and then subsequent insecurity. Can we speak of crisis–a distinct paradigm of win and lose, hubris and paralysis–or should we think of gradualism; does the evolution of Israel have a different and gradual contour leading to ever greater progress? We will read, watch, and discuss, to understand the six most recent decades in Israel’s history.

Brian Horowitz

Dr. Brian Horowitz holds the Sizeler Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Tulane University. He grew up in Roslyn, NY and attended New York University (B.A.) and University of California, Berkeley (M. A., PhD). He is the recipient of many awards including Yad Hanadiv, Lady Davis, Alexander Von Humboldt, and Fulbright. He is the author of six books that include, Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Russian Years (2020); Russian Idea-Jewish Presence (2013); Empire Jews (2009) and Jewish Philanthropy and Enlightenment in Late-Tsarist Russia (2009). He has published in popular newspapers, such as the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Mosaic, and Jewish Review of Books. He is presently working on a book on right-wing Zionists in the Mandate period.

Tuvia Book

Dr. Tuvia Book was born in London and raised in both the UK and South Africa. After making Aliyah at the age of 17, he studied in Yeshiva and volunteered for the IDF, where he served in an elite combat unit. Tuvia has been working in Jewish education, both formal and informal, for many years. He is a licensed tour guide and has taught students and educators from around the world for some of Israel’s premier educational institutions and programs. He is the author (and illustrator) of the internationally acclaimed Israel education curriculum For the Sake of Zion: A Curriculum of Israel Studies, as well as Moral Dilemmas of the Modern Israeli Soldier. He has just completed his next book on the history of the Jewish people during the Second Temple period, to be published by Koren.

The Great Speeches of Israel

How did significant leaders in Israeli history deal with the challenges facing the Jewish state through speech? What do the great speeches in Israeli history teach us about the tensions and dilemmas, emergencies and opportunities, that Israel has faced? What is distinctive about Israeli political rhetoric and what does it teach us about Israel’s past and present and the character of the modern Jewish state?

This course will study central political speeches in Israeli history, covering politics, war, statesmanship, religion, culture, memory, and the nature of Israel’s government. It will cover speeches by such figures as David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Moshe Dayan, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Benjamin Netanyahu. The course will try to understand the immediate political goals these figures tried to advance in their speeches, and it thereby hopes to deepen our understanding of the history of Israel. But the course will also focus on political ideas, analyzing these speeches to gain a greater sense of the various and competing visions of Israel that the nation’s most significant leaders have expressed.

Neil Rogachevsky

Neil Rogachevsky is associate director and assistant professor at the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, where he researches and teaches Israel studies and political philosophy. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Mosaic, Jewish Review of Books, American Interest, Ha’aretz, American Affairs, and other publications. With Dov Zigler, he is the author of Israel’s Declaration of Independence: The History and Political Theory of the Nation’s Founding Moment and is currently working on a book on constitutional debates in 1948-1949. He received his BA from McGill University, his MA from the University of Toronto, and his PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Walking the Fine Line: Rav Kook and the Narrow Path Through Modernity

Rav Kook was simultaneously an unparalleled master of all of Torah literature and a firm believer that the light of the Divine continues to be revealed in the world—even within situations, movements and ideologies that seem at first glance to be at odds with the values of the Torah world. Game on! Rav Kook was uniquely positioned to take on the challenge of figuring out how and how much to validate and support some of the movements and concerns that popped up in his lifetime in a way that fully honored the Divinity within them and also aligned with Torah – and he did not shy away from the task! In this tutorial, we will explore Rav Kook’s take on evolution, art, vegetarianism, Zionism and more.

Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder currently teaches Jewish studies to high schoolers at Gann Academy outside of Boston. His work with teens also includes an incredible group of private students, both pre- and post-bar mitzvah. His focus on the experiences of Jewish teens and what our tradition can offer them literally keeps him up at night and is the overall focus of his career and lifestyle. Before Gann he worked at MIT Hillel, and before that he was a pulpit rabbi in Boulder, Colorado. He also runs a small independent Jewish publishing house and maintains a rigorous writing schedule.

What History’s Greatest Artists Learned from the Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible has had a profound influence on the history of art. Narratively sophisticated and psychologically insightful stories of the biblical matriarchs and patriarchs, kings and queens, prophets and judges have provided rich source material for artists from all cultures. Across these different contexts, certain biblical episodes were depicted more frequently and deemed especially important. Which figures and subjects endured and were especially popular, and why? In what ways do the artistic representations echo and diverge from the original narrative and Jewish interpretive tradition? How do they express broader political and cultural goals of their patrons? How did biblical stories inspire artistic innovation? Focusing on distinct episodes from Tanakh, this tutorial explores the tradition of biblical commentary through art, elucidating approaches to visual interpretation and revealing what history’s greatest artists learned from the Hebrew Bible.

Jacob Wisse

Jacob Wisse is Associate Professor of Art History at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University. He is the former director of Yeshiva University Museum, where he guided its exhibitions and collections and its educational and public programs. He received his B.A. in Art History from McGill University; an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University; and a Curatorial Studies Degree, jointly from NYU and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He specializes in Jewish art and visual culture, as well as in northern European art of the Renaissance and early modern era. His book on City Painters in the Burgundian Netherlands is to be published by Brepols Press. He lives in Yonkers, NY, with his wife and two daughters.

The Role of Law and the Rule of Law

““We are a nation of laws, not of men,” John Adams was fond of saying. Adams’s distinction between “laws” and “men” might suggest that the concept of law and the American legal system are at odds with our democratic institutions. Yet it is common to hear political theorists describe our republic as combining the rule of law with democracy in harmony.

This raises a host of questions about the relationship between law, courts, and the American political system. What is the role of the law and the judiciary in a free and fair society? What is the rule of law, and why is it so important? Does believing in the rule of law require us to advocate for certain political and economic positions? Do we currently live under the rule of law, or does it remain an aspiration?

In this course, we will read excerpts from some of the greatest legal, political, and social philosophers to try to answer these questions. As we do so, we will touch on key questions regarding justice, fairness, and equality, and how these lofty ideals relate to law’s operation in America.”

Tal Fortgang

Tal Fortgang is a student at New York University Law School and a member of the inaugural class of Tikvah Legal Fellows. Over the past academic year, Tal taught for Tikvah in the Truman Scholars Program and led a Tikvah Online Academy high school course on Jews and conservatism. Before law school, Tal was a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, where he focused on poverty, welfare, economic mobility, constitutionalism, and intellectual history. His writing on the Supreme Court, capitalism, populism, and American political history has appeared in Commentary, Law & Liberty, National Review Online, and other publications. Tal graduated from Princeton University with a degree cum laude in Politics and a Certificate in Judaic Studies, writing his thesis on the history and tenets of American conservative populism. In his spare time, he enjoys teaching Jews of all ages how to read the Torah properly and lamenting his lot as a New York sports fan.

Maimonides and the Life of Virtue

What does it mean to lead a life of moral virtue and what is the path to its attainment? What distinguishes virtue ethics from other types of ethics? And how do classical virtue ethics compare with their Jewish counterpart?

In this class, we take a deep dive into the moral philosophy of Maimonides. We examine its philosophical and psychological roots in the Aristotelian tradition and the ways in which Maimonides adapted it to the Jewish tradition, transforming it in the process. We explore the ideal of the middle way, also known as the golden mean, the importance of moral therapy and self-examination, and the goal of the purpose-filled life. We use the ethical writings of Maimonides as the basis of our study, with readings from Aristotle as background and comparison along the way.

Elisha Russ-Fishbane

Dr. Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Associate Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, is a historian of Jewish culture in the medieval Islamic world and a scholar of medieval Jewish thought, law, and literature. His first book on the movement of Jewish-Sufi pietism in medieval Egypt, entitled Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Circle (Oxford University Press, 2015), was awarded the Salo Wittmayer Baron Book Prize by the American Academy for Jewish Research. His second book, Ageing in Medieval Jewish Culture, published in 2022 by The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, is a study of aging in the Jewish communities of the medieval Mediterranean and Near East and of old age as a paradigm and ideal in medieval Jewish culture. He is currently working on a study of how Islam, both as religious rival and political power, was portrayed in medieval Jewish literature, as well as how Muslims were depicted in the daily documents of the Cairo Genizah.

Term I

Adam Smith’s Economic Revolution

Aaron Tugendhaft
10:00–11:30 AM ET | Sundays | Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10

Adam Smith is regularly invoked in discussions of free market capitalism today, but what did the author of The Wealth of Nations actually say? In this course, students will get a chance to see for themselves. We will be reading key passages of Smith’s economic masterpiece from 1776 alongside selections from his other works and some contemporary interlocutors. Students will be introduced to Smith’s classic accounts of the division of labor, the conflicts between socio-economic classes, the benefits of free trade, the value of colonies, and the responsibilities of government. Throughout, we will pay special attention to the relationship between economics and politics, seeking to understand why Smith believed his economic vision constituted “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty.”

Aaron Tugendhaft

Epic Episodes in Late Second Temple History: Josephus and the Rabbis

David Flatto
10:00–11:30 AM ET | Sundays | Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10

Several of the epic episodes of late Second Temple Jewish history are attested to by the great Jewish historian, Josephus, as well as the Rabbis in the Midrash and Talmud. What is fascinating to note about these respective accounts is the ways that they overlap but also significantly diverge from one another. We will explore several examples related to a controversial political trial, a dramatic turning point during a war, a heated sectarian polemic, and conjecture about what may have really happened. We will discuss why Josephus and the Rabbis relay different versions, and what this reflects about Jewish values, ideals and commitments.

David Flatto

Professor David Flatto is a professor of law and Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received his B.A. and Ordination from Yeshiva University, his J.D. from Columbia University Law School, and his Ph.D. with distinction from Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He has been a visiting professor and lecturer at University of Pennsylvania Law School, New York University Law School and Yeshiva University, and a visiting researcher at Yale Law School and Columbia University Law School. He previously was a professor of law and religion at Penn State University. His wide-ranging research interests include comparative constitutional law and theory, comparative jurisprudence, and Jewish law and philosophy. His works have appeared in numerous scholarly publications including Harvard Theological Review, Yale Journal of Law and Humanities and the Journal of Law and Religion. He recently published The Crown and the Courts: Separation of Powers in the Early Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2020), and co-edited Law as Religion, Religion as Law (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

The Fault in Our Stars: Nietzsche’s Critique of Liberal Democracy

Samuel Zeitlin
10:00–11:30 AM ET | Sundays | Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is one of the most controversial as well as influential writers and philosophers of the past century and a half. Nietzsche is both a philosopher as well as a master stylist of poetry and prose. This course will look closely at famous passages of Nietzsche’s writings, from his Zarathustra to Beyond Good and Evil to Human, All-too-Human engaging both with Nietzsche’s view of humanity and religion as well as with an ultimate view toward Nietzsche’s views on liberalism and democracy.

Samuel Zeitlin

The Destination of Choice: The Study of the Self Through Homer’s Odyssey

Yente Austerlitz
6:00–7:30 PM ET | Sundays | Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10

The identity of the blind bard Homer may be unknown, but the epics he sang are cornerstones of the foundation of western literature and the perception we have of what it means to be a human being. This course invites all to encounter the journey home to Ithaca beginning with reading The Odyssey that tells the tale of Odysseus (the suffering one) and then by exploring the nature of the homecoming including the factors that hinder or make it possible. Homer’s wine-dark sea and rosy-fingered dawn will set the stage for the discussion, exploration and analysis of this godly epic.

The goal of the course is to read all 24 books of The Odyssey, while selecting some sections for slow-reading discussions. One particular episode for discussion will be chosen by each student and additional selections will be made in alignment with the themes of the course. These themes include free will, man and his folly, Homer’s view of the gods’ roles, curiosity and forgetfulness as distractions, and experience as teacher. Students will be encouraged to think deeply about these ideas and will be introduced to later Greek works—albeit briefly—where these topics are discussed. While no knowledge of Greek is required for this course, students are encouraged to use the Loeb bilingual edition of The Odyssey and the original Greek may make an appearance in the course whenever necessary or helpful. It is not only the content but the language itself that links us with and tells us of the wisdom of the ancients. Should students be interested, more focus will be given to discussing and exploring Homeric Greek.

Yente Austerlitz

Yente Austerlitz graduated with a masters in the humanities as a member of the inaugural class at Ralston college. She was the first student to receive the Philhellenism award for her passion and commitment to the Greek language. Prior to that, Yente received her masters in Forensic Psychology from John Jay college in NY and completed her internship at a NYS maximum security prison. She is curious about the nature of evil, devoted to speak with the ancients in their original language, and keen to continue studying the philosophy of belief and religion. Having taught herself English and ancient Hebrew at a young age, Yente has great respect for books and the written word and seeks to understand the truth in all that is One. She is currently working on a commentary on the fragments of Heraclitus in Ancient Greek as part of a Greek scholar position with Ralston college. While continuing her studies in Ancient Greek, Hebrew, German and Latin, she hopes to pursue a PhD. Yente believes that the key to wisdom is to encounter the ancients with humility and curiosity; her interests in language as philosophy, psychology, religion, Kabbalah and the humanities are the driving forces behind her passion for and analysis of the human psyche—or soul.

Family Feud: The Political Ramifications of Love and Lineage

Rita Koganzon
7:00–8:30 PM ET | Sundays | Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10

So many of the flashpoints in our culture wars, from marriage and sexuality to childrearing and education, involve the family that it seems obviously political. But how so? This seminar takes up the relationship between politics and the family in the history of western thought, from the ancient Greeks to modern feminists. We will examine why families exist at all (or if they should), what forms they take, and what purposes they fulfill in different regimes. In the process, we will take up ideas about sex, marriage, childrearing, and the purpose and limit of the private sphere.

Rita Koganzon

Dr. Rita Koganzon is the associate director of the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy and assistant professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. She is a political theorist specializing in the history of political thought. Her research focuses on the themes of childhood, education, and the family in political thought. She is the author of Liberal States, Authoritarian Families, a study of the family and education in the thought of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and has published widely on the family and education. She received her PhD in government from Harvard University, and her BA in history from the University of Chicago.

Violence, Virtue, and Victory: Israel’s Formative Conflicts

Neil Rogachevsky
7:00–8:30 PM ET | Sundays | Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10

The State of Israel as we know it today would not exist without the political and military crises that erupted in the thirty years before and thirty years after her founding in 1948. The first half of the tutorial will cover the pre-state political turmoil of the Balfour Declaration, 1937 Arab Revolt, and Israel’s Decleration of Independance. The latter half will focus on Israel’s three most important and notorious wars: The War of Independance, The Six-Day War, and the Yom Kippur War.

Neil Rogachevsky

The Greatest Show: Rav Kook’s Big Tent and the Circus of Heresy

Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder
7:00–8:30 PM ET | Mondays | Oct. 30, Nov. 6, Nov. 13, Nov. 27, Dec. 4, Dec. 11

Embark on a journey into the ideological tumult of early 20th-century Israel, a time when diverse visions of the future clashed, often straying from traditional Torah and Jewish observance. Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, however, took a bold stance, engaging with these unconventional thinkers, a stance that garnered both praise and critique. In his impassioned essay, “The Souls of Chaos,” Rav Kook not only defends his approach but does so with eloquence and vivid imagery, all while contributing to the revival of Hebrew as a modern language. This tutorial will delve into the vibrant era that shaped Rav Kook’s thinking, explore the ideologies he encountered, introduce the influential figures behind them, and illuminate the mystical framework that guided his perspective. Join us in uncovering the enduring relevance of Rav Kook’s intellectual odyssey.

Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

Violence, Virtue, and Victory: Israel’s Formative Conflicts

Brian Horowitz
7:00–8:30 PM ET | Sundays | Oct. 29, Nov. 5, Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10

Brian Horowitz

Classics of Maimonidean Thought

Elisha Russ-Fishbane
7:30–9:00 PM ET | Wednesdays | Oct. 31, Nov. 7, Nov. 14, Nov. 28, Dec. 5, Dec. 12

Alfred North Whitehead once wrote that the history of western philosophy can be characterized as a series of footnotes to Plato. Isadore Twersky similarly observed that much of Jewish philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Maimonides. There is simply no way to exaggerate the importance of Maimonides’ impact on the history of Jewish thought, whether medieval or modern.

This class is dedicated to the thought of Maimonides on its own terms, focusing not on scholarly summaries or arguments but on the master’s own writings. We will read a variety of Maimonidean classics, including the Introduction to Perek Chelek, the Eight Chapters, and many selections from the Mishneh Torah and the Guide of the Perplexed. Anything Maimonides wrote in Arabic, we will read in English translation. But we will read the Mishneh Torah in its beautiful original Hebrew. And while our primary focus will be to read and examine the texts of Maimonides, we will also take into account the ideas (both rabbinic and philosophical) that formed the backdrop to his own and some of the reverberations of his writings in the later Jewish tradition.”

Elisha Russ-Fishbane

The Court, the Cross, and the Constitution: SCOTUS Opinions on Religious Liberty

Tal Fortgang
7:00–8:30 PM ET | Thursdays | Nov. 2, Nov. 9, Nov. 16, Nov. 30, Dec. 7, Dec. 14

The first words of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution lay out the basic principles of religion’s place in American law. But the Religion Clauses — prohibiting Congress from making a law respecting religious establishment while guaranteeing free exercise of religion for all — are ambiguous. This course will trace how the Supreme Court’s changing interpretations of the Religion Clauses’ 16 words have shaped our nation’s understanding of religion in American life, and vice versa. Through a close examination of the reasoning behind landmark religion cases, we will think about what might account for the swings in First Amendment jurisprudence, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches the Court has adopted over our nation’s history. This course will also serve as an introduction to broader questions of constitutional interpretation and jurisprudence, as we analyze the kinds of reasoning and sources of authority the Supreme Court has chosen to deploy as it has breathed life into the First Amendment’s words.

Tal Fortgang

Tal Fortgang is a student at New York University Law School and a member of the inaugural class of Tikvah Legal Fellows. Over the past academic year, Tal taught for Tikvah in the Truman Scholars Program and led a Tikvah Online Academy high school course on Jews and conservatism. Before law school, Tal was a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, where he focused on poverty, welfare, economic mobility, constitutionalism, and intellectual history. His writing on the Supreme Court, capitalism, populism, and American political history has appeared in Commentary, Law & Liberty, National Review Online, and other publications. Tal graduated from Princeton University with a degree cum laude in Politics and a Certificate in Judaic Studies, writing his thesis on the history and tenets of American conservative populism. In his spare time, he enjoys teaching Jews of all ages how to read the Torah properly and lamenting his lot as a New York sports fan.

The Abraham Aesthetic: Jewish Perspectives on the Visual Arts

Jacob Wisse
7:00–8:30 PM ET | Thursdays | Nov. 2, Nov. 9, Nov. 16, Nov. 30, Dec. 7, Dec. 14

Jews have a rich and complex history in the visual arts. Since biblical times, art has been used to express Jewish conceptions of spirituality, nature, morality, love and beauty, and to mark out differences between Jewish and other religious ideals and practices. In spite of this vital and ongoing tradition, fundamental misconceptions persist about the Jewish experience of and perspective on the visual arts. This tutorial sheds light on the Jewish relationship with the visual arts by looking at works of art from ancient to modern times together with texts from a wide array of contexts—biblical, rabbinic responsa, artists’ statements, literary works, letters, and first-hand travel accounts. Students will explore issues such as iconoclasm and the Second Commandment, the art of the other, synagogues and their decorations, Jewish ceremonial art, artists and their practices, and collecting Jewish art.

Jacob Wisse

For more information, please contact:

Avi Garson

Director, Tikvah High School Fellowships
agarson@tikvahfund.org

Benjamin Gottesman

Associate Director, Tikvah High School Fellowships
bgottesman@tikvahfund.org

Solomon Fellowship

Fall 2023 Tutorial Offerings

Term II

How to Become Excellent (or Not): Plato’s Meno

Aaron Tugendhaft

Affirmation and Critique: Morality, Religion, and Culture in Nietzsche

Samuel Zeitlin

How Does War Shape Israel’s Political, Economic, and Cultural Evolution?

Brian Horowitz

Tuvia Book

The Great Speeches of Israel

Neil Rogachevsky

Walking the Fine Line: Rav Kook and the Narrow Path Through Modernity

Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

What History’s Greatest Artists Learned from the Hebrew Bible

Jacob Wisse

The Role of Law and the Rule of Law

Tal Fortgang

Maimonides and the Life of Virtue

Elisha Russ-Fishbane

Term I

Adam Smith’s Economic Revolution

Aaron Tugendhaft

Epic Episodes in Late Second Temple History: Josephus and the Rabbis

David Flatto

The Fault in Our Stars: Nietzsche’s Critique of Liberal Democracy

Samuel Zeitlin

The Destination of Choice: The Study of the Self Through Homer’s Odyssey

Yente Austerlitz

Family Feud: The Political Ramifications of Love and Lineage

Rita Koganzon

Violence, Virtue, and Victory: Israel’s Formative Conflicts

Neil Rogachevsky

The Greatest Show: Rav Kook’s Big Tent and the Circus of Heresy

Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder

Violence, Virtue, and Victory: Israel’s Formative Conflicts

Brian Horowitz

Classics of Maimonidean Thought

Elisha Russ-Fishbane

The Court, the Cross, and the Constitution: SCOTUS Opinions on Religious Liberty

Tal Fortgang

The Abraham Aesthetic: Jewish Perspectives on the Visual Arts

Jacob Wisse

For more information, please contact:

Avi Garson

Benjamin Gottesman

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