Harvard Book Store Presents:

Noah Feldman

presenting

To Be a Jew Today:
A New Guide to God,
Israel, and the Jewish People

Harvard Book Store welcomes NOAH FELDMAN—Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law at Harvard University—for a discussion of his new book To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People.

Ticketing

There are two ticket options for this event.

Book Included: Admission for one and one hardcover copy of To Be a Jew Today pre-signed by the author.

Admission Only: Admission for one.

About To Be a Jew Today

What does it mean to be a Jew? At a time of worldwide crisis, venerable answers to this question have become unsettled. In To Be a Jew Today, the legal scholar and columnist Noah Feldman draws on a lifelong engagement with his religion to offer a wide-ranging interpretation of Judaism in its current varieties. How do Jews today understand their relationship to God, to Israel, and to each other—and live their lives accordingly?

Writing sympathetically but incisively about diverse outlooks, Feldman clarifies what’s at stake in the choice of how to be a Jew, and discusses the shared “theology of struggle” that Jews engage in as they wrestle with who God is, what God wants, or whether God exists. He shows how the founding of Israel has transformed Judaism itself over the last century—and explores the ongoing consequences of that transformation for all Jews, who find the meaning of their Jewishness and their views about Israel intertwined, no matter what those views are. And he examines the analogies between being Jewish and belonging to a large, messy family—a family that often makes its members crazy, but a family all the same. Written with learning, empathy and clarity, To Be a Jew Today is a critical resource for readers of all faiths.

Praise for To Be a Jew Today

“To Be a Jew Today is a beautiful book, a necessary and important book. Written with learning, insight, and anguish, it is a provocation to be argued over (I certainly did) and wrestled with, but it cannot be ignored.” ―David Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles, and author of David: The Divided Heart and Why Faith Matters

“More than with any book I’ve read in years, Jewish readers will draw new insights into their own Judaism from Noah Feldman’s fresh, fascinating, and compelling analyses of contemporary Jewish life. Feldman exhibits the gift of all great teachers and influential public intellectuals: the ability to take even the most complex ideas and convey them with clarity, context, and honesty.” ―Rabbi David Saperstein, director emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom

“To Be a Jew Today is an instant classic, not only because it explains being Jewish in our lifetime, but also because it talks about timeless universal Jewish themes in a magnetic and accessible way.” ―Rosalie Silberman Abella, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and Pisar Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Chairman of the Society of Fellows, and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law, all at Harvard University. He specializes in constitutional studies, with particular emphasis on power and ethics, design of innovative governance solutions, law and religion, and the history of legal ideas.

A policy & public affairs columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, Feldman also writes for The New York Review of Books and was a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine for nearly a decade. He hosts the Deep Background podcast, an interview show that explores the historical, scientific, legal and cultural context behind the biggest stories in the news.

Through his consultancy, Ethical Compass, Feldman advises clients like Facebook & eBay on how to improve ethical decision-making by creating and implementing new governance solutions. In this capacity, he conceived and architected the Facebook Oversight Board, and continues to advise the company on ethics and governance issues. Feldman is the author of 10 books, including his latest forthcoming title, To Be A Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel and the Jewish People.

Photo Credit: Mark James Dunn