The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism and a center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies. The Jewish Theological Seminary Library is one of the most significant collections of Judaica in the world.
The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), known as the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) until 2003, founded in 1873 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the congregational arm of Reform Judaism in North America. The other two arms established by Rabbi Wise are the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Central Conference of American Rabbis. The current president of the URJ is Rabbi Rick Jacobs.
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, also known as Hillel International, is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, working with thousands of college students globally. Hillel is represented at more than 850 colleges and communities throughout North America and globally, including 30 communities in the former Soviet Union, nine in Israel, and five in South America.
Richard M. Joel is a Jewish scholar who was the fourth president of Yeshiva University (YU), a Modern Orthodox Jewish university in New York City. He has written on topics that include Jewish leadership, the BDS movement on college campuses, and civil discourse.
A midrasha refers to a Jewish educational institute for women involved in Torah study. The term is often used for such institutions located in Israel. A midrasha is somewhat equivalent to the term yeshiva. The midrasha is also somewhat parallel to a "women's seminary", which functions in a similar form, though often associated with more traditionalist communities. While the terms may sometimes become interchangeable, "midrashot" are commonly linked to Religious Zionism, while the women's "seminaries" are usually associated with Haredi Judaism. Also, the term midrasha may sometimes be used to refer to pluralistic institutions. In Israel, the term may also refer to field schools that organize seminars and nature field trips.
David Hartman was an American-Israeli leader and philosopher of contemporary Judaism, founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel, and a Jewish author.
Jewish education is the transmission of the tenets, principles, and religious laws of Judaism. Jews value education, and the value of education is strongly embedded in Jewish culture. Judaism places a heavy emphasis on Torah study, from the early days of studying the Tanakh.
Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies is a Jewish educational institution based in Jerusalem with programs worldwide.
Ono Academic College is a private college located in Kiryat Ono, Israel with over 18,000 students. With its vision of bridging economic and cultural gaps in Israeli society, the college attracts Druze, Bedouin, Palestinians, Ethiopian-Israelis, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and special needs students.
The first openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender clergy in Judaism were ordained as rabbis and/or cantors in the second half of the 20th century.
Donniel Hartman is an Israeli Modern Orthodox rabbi and author. He is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel.
Shaul Magid is the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. From 2004-2018, he was a professor of religious studies and the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Chair of Jewish Studies in Modern Judaism at Indiana University as well as a senior research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. From 1996-2004, he was a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; he was chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy from 2000-2004.
Richard Jacobs is a Reform rabbi and the president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the congregational arm of the Reform movement in North America which represents an estimated 1.5 million Reform Jews in nearly 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada. He is the first Union president to have served most of his career as a congregational rabbi. Before being installed as URJ president in June 2012, he served for nine years at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and then for twenty years at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York.
The John Paul II Center for Interreligious Dialogue is an academic center that serves to build bridges between religious traditions, particularly between Catholic Christian and Jewish pastoral and academic leaders. The Center is a partnership between the Russell Berrie Foundation and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). It operates as part of the Section for Ecumenism and Dialogue in the Theology Faculty of the Angelicum in Rome.
The Muslim Leadership Initiative, or MLI, is an educational program of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. The program invites North American Muslim leaders to explore how Jews understand Judaism, Israel and North American Jewish identity through a Zionist lens.
Yehuda Kurtzer is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He has written and lectured widely on Jewish history, Jewish memory, leadership in American Jewish life, and the relationship between American Jews, Israel and Zionism. In 2012, he was named one of the "36 under 36 young educators, thinkers, social justice activists, philanthropists and artists reinventing Jewish life" by The Jewish Week.
Albert S. Axelrad is an American Reform rabbi, author, educator, and community leader. He fostered the American Jewish counterculture of the 1960s-1980s. He also served as Jewish chaplain at Brandeis University and Executive Director of its B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation from 1965 to 1999.
Baruch Frydman-Kohl is a Canadian-American who served as the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Senior Rabbi of Beth Tzedec Congregation, the largest Conservative synagogue community in North America, from 1993-2019. He is now Rabbi Emeritus. In 2022, he was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada.
