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Donniel Hartman can’t stand anything easy and quick; he might have lasted 30 seconds in an ad agency. He thinks in long form. His latest mastermind, called the Israel Engagement Project , includes a DVD set that features some of the top Zionist thinkers in Israel engaging the complex subject of Israel and Jewish values. He hopes it will become the basis for a national conversation in the American Jewish community….

 

Donniel Hartman embodies things that are usually perceived as mutually exclusive: a charismatic speaker who shies away from sound bites; an Orthodox rabbi who legitimizes other branches of Judaism; a fervent Zionist who is deeply liberal; a centrist with passion; a theorist who is pragmatic; a thinker who can act.

Many girls and their parents eagerly awaited a school that not only offers academic excellence, is open to the wider world, encourages leadership and social awareness but also teaches girls to lead prayer, read from the Torah and be leaders not just in general society but also in Jewish life. 

This was the first time I’d been invited to a dialogue with settlers. And not just "any" settlers, but the ideological hard core. The offer was made to me a year ago by the initiators and moderators of the project: Sharon Leshem-Zinger of Kibbutz Urim, head of the counseling school run by the Voices in the Negev organization at Sapir Academic College, and a teacher in the conflict management program at Ben-Gurion University; Dr. Avinoam Rosenak, head of the department of Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a research fellow at the Van Leer Institute; and Dr. Alick Isaacs of the Hartman Institute and the Hebrew University’s Melton Center for Jewish Education. Both of the latter are observant Jews.

Isaacs told how the idea of an internal Jewish dialogue on the religious meaning of the term "peace" began percolating in his mind following the crisis of the disengagement from Gush Katif and the Second Lebanon War, in which he took part as a reservist soldier.

 

"The standard peace dialogue in Western culture is based mainly on the conflict resolution by way of compromise and on the basis of hierarchies of interests," he explained. "In many circles in our region, compromise is perceived as a inferior cultural alternative; some even see it as a betrayal of their religious principles. Making peace in a religious dialogue means achieving an ideal that is connected to God’s name and presence. We believe that without broad public support that includes a religious – Jewish peace dialogue and Muslim salaam – there can be no peace and Israeli society will not be able to emerge from the crisis it has fallen into."

In the conversation Sunday morning with four liberal rabbis, two journalists and the president of the North American division of the Shalom
Hartman Institute, who convened the meeting, Livni stayed laser-focused on what she sees as one of the critical questions of our time.

 

“What are the Jewish values that unite all Jews as a society, as a people?” she asked at the outset, assuring us that she was interested in an authentic and open dialogue. 

Yehuda Kurtzer, the young scholar recently appointed president of the North American division of the Jerusalem-based Shalom Hartman Institute, later told me that the institute engaged dozens of academics in Israel to address the Israel-diaspora divide this year in the hopes of translating their ideas into educational projects throughout the country.

 

Kurtzer, winner of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies’ “big idea” award several years ago, said his goal is to create a smaller version of that project here.

 

“We can’t take for granted” that the Israel-diaspora relationship will endure without analyzing and nourishing it, he said.