About the Institute

The Tikvah Fund is pleased to announce a three-week intensive summer institute in “The Jewish State: Democracy, Freedom, and Virtue” at the Edmond J. Safra Campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The institute will explore the philosophical foundations of liberal democracy, and examine the variety of daunting civic dilemmas that Israel, as the nation state of the Jewish people, faces in securing its founding commitments to freedom and democracy.

The institute will run from August 26 – September 13, 2012 (weekends not included). 

All programmatic costs, including tuition, housing, and meals will be covered.

Students will receive a $1,500 stipend.

The institute is open to exceptional B.A. students in any field from every higher educational institution in Israel with a minimum cumulative grade point average of 85.  M.A. students will also be considered. Students should be fluent in Hebrew and have excellent English. 

The academic director of the program is Peter Berkowitz, the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.  He is joined on the institute’s faculty by – among others – Hebrew University Professor Ruth Gavison; Hebrew University Professor Alexander Yakobson; Bar Ilan University Professor Joshua Berman; Tel Aviv University Professor Yossi Shain; Tel Aviv University Professor Asa Kasher, and Dr. Micah Goodman, director of the Ein Prat Academy for Leadership.

Feel free to contact jewishstate@tikvahfund.org with questions. 

The Tikvah Fund is a non-profit based in New York. Its mission is to promote serious Jewish thought about the enduring questions of human life and the pressing challenges that confront the Jewish people. Tikvah supports many programs, projects, and individuals— including new university centers and courses, books and journals, summer seminars and scholarships. Tikvah’s work is grounded in these fundamental convictions: that the great ideas, texts, and traditions of Judaism are a special inheritance, with much to teach everyone in search of wisdom about the human condition; and that the fate of the Jewish people greatly depends on the education of intellectual, religious, and political leaders, both in Israel and the Diaspora. 

Faculty