Jewish Priorities

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With the unprecedented Jewish Priorities: Sixty-five proposals for the future of our people, writer and author David Hazony brings together voices from across the Jewish world for a no-holds-barred debate on the future.

With essays from thought leaders including Natan Sharansky, Dara Horn and Fania Oz–Salzberger and featuring rabbis, scholars, activists and novelists, the collection explores everything from philanthropy and Torah study to Zionism and Jewish intimacy. Here he is joined by two of the book’s most illustrious contributors: leading scholar of Yiddish literature and Jewish history Ruth Wisse and Israeli author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi.

Buy a copy of Jewish Priorities edited by David Hazony

In Association with The Rabin Chair Forum, George Washington University

Speaker biography

Yossi Klein Halevi

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He co-directs the Institute's Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI), which teaches emerging young Muslim leaders in North America about Judaism, Jewish identity and Israel. Over 150 Muslim leaders have participated in the unique program. He is co-host, together with Donniel Hartman and Elana Stein Hain, of the Hartman Institute’s podcast, “For Heaven’s Sake.”

Halevi’s 2013 book, Like Dreamers, won the Jewish Book Council's Everett Book of the Year Award. His latest book, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, is a New York Times bestseller and has appeared in a dozen languages.

He moved to Israel in 1982 and lives in Jerusalem with wife, Sarah, who helps direct a center for Jewish meditation. They have three children.

Image © Ethan Roberts

Speaker biography

Ruth Wisse

Ruth R. Wisse was Professor of Yiddish literature and Comparative Literature at Harvard University 1993-2014, and before that at McGill University in Montreal. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Center in New York. She has published several books on literature, culture, and politics, including The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Literature and Culture (2000), No Joke: Making Jewish Humor (2013), Jews and Power (2007; 2020) and most recently Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self- Liberation. 

Image © Joyce Ravid

Speaker biography

David Hazony

David Hazony is an award-winning editor, translator, and author. His newest work, Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People (Wicked Son, 2023), brings together a remarkable array of new essays from across the Jewish world. He is the former editor-in-chief of the journal Azure. His book The Ten Commandments (Scribner, 2010) was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. His translation of Uri Bar-Joseph’s The Angel (Harper-Collins, 2016) was a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. He has a Ph.D. in Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University and lives in Jerusalem.

Book Week supporters

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Genesis Foundation
Klein Family Foundation
The National Library of Israel
Pears Foundation
The Edith & Ferdinand Porjes Charitable Fund