Yehuda Kurtzer

Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer is the President of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Yehuda is a leading thinker and author on the meaning of Israel to American Jews, on Jewish history and Jewish memory, and on questions of leadership and change in American Jewish life.

Yehuda led the creation of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America in 2010 as a pioneering research and educational center for the leadership of the North American Jewish community, and teaches in its many platforms for rabbis, lay leaders, Jewish professionals, and leaders of other faith communities. He is the co-creator of the Shalom Hartman Institute’s iEngage Project, which seeks to bridge between Israel and world Jewry through content, curriculum, and cutting-edge educational programs. Additionally, he is the host of Hartman’s Identity/Crisis podcast which can be found at identitycrisispod.com.

Yehuda received his doctorate in Jewish Studies from Harvard University and an MA in Religion from Brown University, and is an alumnus of both the Bronfman Youth and Wexner Graduate Fellowships. Previously Yehuda served as faculty member at Brandeis University, where he held the inaugural Chair in Jewish Communal Innovation.

He is the author of Shuva: The Future of the Jewish Past, which offers new thinking to contemporary Jews on navigating the tensions between history and memory; and the co-editor of The New Jewish Canon, a collection of the most significant Jewish ideas and debates of the past two generations.

He lives in New York with his wife Stephanie Ives and their three children.