Building Foundations for a New Phase of Growth

Foundations for the Future: SHI North America is Growing

The next phase of growth for the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America has begun, with visionary lead support from the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Koret Foundation.

As we grow in both scope and impact, we remain committed to building a vibrant Jewish community. Together we will work to:

Make Judaism Compelling in the open marketplace of ideas.
Commit Our Community to Pluralism, despite divisive partisan politics.
Partner With Israelis to build an exemplary Jewish state.
Foster Partnerships between Jewish leaders and leaders of other communities.
Nurture Connections between American Jews and Israel.

Throughout 2019 and beyond, Hartman in North America is expanding both our reach and our ability to effect change.

Learn more about our year in ideas! 2019 Annual Report

More Communities

For the last 4 years, the San Francisco Bay Area has served as the test site for the expansion of our programming from our new headquarters in New York to more cities across the country, and we are now scaling up our work to include a series of new partners across North America. With new offices in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Detroit, we are about to have a permanent programmatic and scholarly presence that allows us to build our vision of a robust and pluralistic Jewish community on the East Coast, the West Coast, the Midwest and Canada.

More Leaders

Our theory of change, borne out by 10 years of success, builds from the premise that the Jewish people have been sustained for centuries by the quality of our ideas and the quality of our leadership. We are convinced that if you provide the right leaders with the right conceptual tools to address the right challenges, we can build a Judaism of meaning, vision and purpose.

Our own leadership is diverse and unified, influential and deeply informed. This year we made a number of new hires that will allow us to reach out more effectively and work with significantly more leaders, rabbis, educators, and leaders of other faiths.

More Research

To bring ever more academic research to bear on real communal challenges, we are expanding our Kogod Research Center for senior fellows and our David Hartman Center for future public intellectuals as well as establishing Scholar Circles in Chicago and San Francisco.

To emphasize our investment in thought leadership for the future of the American rabbinate, we are welcoming our first rabbinic cohort of David Hartman Center Fellows.

To add reach and impact, we are developing a new website alongside new channels and new vehicles for publishing and distributing the Institute’s cutting-edge scholarship.

More Programs

Beyond our existing campus and regional community programs , SHI North America continues to pilot new program initiatives in response to pressing needs in Jewish communal life. These include:

Building a more robust iEngage program in New York, with an emphasis on camps and schools;
Expanding our Jewish Values and American Democracy project to include a major conference timed for the heart of the American primary elections;
Producing a major new curriculum, entitled Foundations for a Thoughtful Judaism, to reimagine the ways Judaism is taught at points of entry into Jewish life;
Launching immersive fellowship programs, for educators on the East Coast and the West Coast, on issues of gender, power and authority under the auspices of our Created Equal Project

It has been a breathtaking ten years to reach this point, and we could not be more excited for the next phase. Torah is a growth industry! Join us on this journey to deliver on our critical mission for the future of Jewish life.