“Yehuda Kurtzer thinks constantly and creatively about American Judaism…and on April 3, the prolific speaker and former Brandeis University professor appeared at UC Berkeley to deliver “Our Golden Age: American Judaism, in Transition,” a lecture sponsored by the Helen Diller Institute of Jewish Law and Israel Studies.

His message, unlike that of some, is optimistic — not in the sense that all is well, but in an eyes-wide-open approach that recognizes the “magnificence” of the community that American Jews have created, while pledging to keep working toward the promise of this country. He told a packed room of some 250 people that Jews could only have flourished in a post-World War II America that was committed to the liberal values of self-actualization, human equality and constant striving for the betterment of society — values that, symbiotically, Judaism helped inject into the American mainstream.”

Read the full article in the JWeekly of Northern California.