Torah from Israel

Join us for a new Sunday morning learning program following Morning Minyan. Sessions will be led by a rabbi or a prominent partner or friend of BJ, who will teach a monthly Torah class live from Israel. Each class will touch on a different topic that has been carefully chosen by the teacher to create an opportunity for enrichment and learning.

This month, Rabbi Dr. Rani Jaeger will speak on the topic, “The Question of the Upcoming Israeli Election—an Unexpected Answer.” The legendary mayor of Tel Aviv and founder of the political party “the Israelis” was asked about the name he chose for his party. What was his answer? How does that help us understand the undercurrents of the Israeli political arena?

Dr. Rani Jaeger is a research fellow, faculty member, and head of the recently formed Ritual Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He was one of the founders of the Institute’s Be’eri Program for Pluralistic Jewish-Israeli Identity Education. Rani received his doctorate from Bar-Ilan University on Jewish-Israeli culture as perceived by the poet Avraham Shlonsky. He was a participant in the first cohort of the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis and received rabbinical ordination from the Shalom Hartman Institute and HaMidrasha at Oranim in September 2016. Rani is one of the founders of Beit Tefilah Israeli, a secular synagogue in the heart of Tel Aviv. He spent a year at Paideia, the European Institute of Jewish Studies in Stockholm, as scholar in residence.