Full Name Moshe Halbertal Role Professor Name Moshe Halbertal | Website Moshe Halbertal Nationality Israeli | |
 | ||
Books Maimonides: Life and Thought, On Sacrifice, People of the Book: Canon - M, Concealment and revelation, Idolatry Similar People Avishai Margalit, Asa Kasher, Tamar Ross | ||
Moshe halbertal maimonides life and thought book launch
Moshe Halbertal (Hebrew: משה הלברטל; born Montevideo, Uruguay, 1958) is a noted Israeli philosopher, professor, and writer, and a noted expert on Maimonides. He is co-author of the Israeli Army Code of Ethics.
Contents
- Moshe halbertal maimonides life and thought book launch
- Professor Moshe Halbertal at Facing Tomorrow 2011
- Biography
- Orthodoxy
- Religion and State
- Democracy
- Publications
- References
Professor Moshe Halbertal at Facing Tomorrow 2011
Biography
Born in Uruguay, he made aliyah to Israel. He is a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at Hebrew University, and a faculty member at the Mandel Leadership Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. From 1988-1992, he was a fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows (1988–1992). Halbertal has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and New York University Law School. He received his B.A. in Jewish Thought and Philosophy from Hebrew University, cum laude, in 1984, and his PhD from Hebrew University in 1989.
Halbertal was reared in Israel in a modern Orthodox family. His father was a Holocaust survivor from Łańcut, Galicia (Central-Eastern Europe), his mother an Israeli who had come to Uruguay to teach Hebrew.
He received the Rothschild Foundation's Bruno Award and the Goren Goldstein Award for the "Best Book in Jewish Thought" in the years 1997-2000. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Jewish Review of Books.
Orthodoxy
According to Halbertal, what "distinguishes between the so-called ultra-Orthodox point of view and a modern Orthodox or modern approach (is) that tradition doesn't monopolize all of value, all of truth".
Religion and State
Halbertal believes that the Israeli government ought to finance and subsidize religious education, synagogues, and mikvahs, but not impose doctrinal tests on these institutions. In his view, individuals should have an equal opportunity to form Orthodox, Reform, or other kinds of congregations with the same access to state funding.
Democracy
Halbertal is profoundly committed to the democratic process. "Democracy is a non-violent form of adjudicating different ideologies. It's very easy to be non-violent when stakes are low; in Israel, we are in a condition where the stakes are very high. It's a tribute to Israel that it has managed to maintain democracy under such conditions of diversity and high political stakes. I would like to see other Western states deal with this condition without becoming fascistic."
Publications
translated from Hebrew by Jackie Feldman as Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and its Philosophical Implications (Princeton University Press, 2007)