Aharon (Ari) Eitan is a David Hartman Center Fellow. He is also a research fellow of the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University. Among his research interests are: Judaism and rationalism, Judaism and the development of moral judgment, religion and state, and the ultra-Orthodox sector in Israel.

Eitan is a graduate of ultra-Orthodox yeshivot, where he studied until his decision to enlist in the IDF for military service. After his military service, he obtained a general education, graduated with honors and a bachelor’s and master’s degree in law. During his doctoral thesis on the tension between religious and liberal worldviews, Dr. Eitan was a visiting scholar at Columbia University.

Alongside his academic pursuits, Eitan is a social activist and writer. His books Yedid Nefesh (Hebrew; 2010) and In the Name of Reason (Hebrew; 2012) have received much acclaim. The book Yedid Nefesh was awarded the Harry Hershon Prize by the Hebrew University’s Department of Literature. Currently he is working on his forthcoming book Israeli Haredism: Ideology, Reality, and Human Rights (Hebrew) and a novel called A Question of Religion that tells the story of a young Orthodox Jew who has an inter-identity struggle in the absence of an answer to the significance of religion in his life.