Interviews

An Interview with Simon Goldberg

Note to Readers: Simon Goldberg graduated from YC in 2012 with a major in History. He is the founder of the Student Holocaust Education Movement (SHEM) at YU, and, for the past four years, has served as the Executive Director at Triangles of Truth, a non-profit organization that aims to honor ... Read more →

An Interview with Rabbi Dan Marans

  Rabbi Dan Marans is the executive director of the Zomet Institute.  Zomet is a non-profit, public research institute dedicated to seamlessly merging halakhic Judaism with modern life.  For over thirty years, Zomet’s staff of rabbis, researchers, and engineers has devised practical and ... Read more →

An Interview with Rabbi Ronald Schwarzberg

Note to readers: Rabbi Ronald Schwarzberg has served as the director of the Morris and Gertrude Bienenfeld Department of Jewish Career Development and Placement for Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future since 2005. After serving as associate rabbi at the Hebrew Institute of ... Read more →

An Interview with Rabbi Dr. Dov Zakheim

Rabbi Dr. Dov Zakheim served as the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief Financial Officer for the U.S. Department of Defense from May 2001 to April 2004.  He also served in various Department of Defense positions during the Reagan administration, including Deputy Undersecretary ... Read more →

Interview with Ruth Messinger

Note to readers: Ruth Messinger has been the president and CEO of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), an organization that advocates for human rights and works to end poverty around the world, since 1998. Previously, she served for twelve years on the New York City Council and for eight years ... Read more →

An Interview with Dr. Micah Goodman

Note to readers: Dr. Micah Goodman is Rosh Midrashah of Ein Prat- The Academy for Leadership, lectures on Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University, serves as a senior fellow in Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and teaches on numerous Tikvah Fund programs. In recent years, Dr. Goodman has ... Read more →

An Interview with Dr. Stephen Glicksman

GB: Jews have played major roles in the founding of major branches of psychology. A partial list of contemporary Jewish psychologists includes: personality psychologist Alfred Adler, Polish Gestalt psychologist Solomon Asch, facial expert Paul Ekman, ethicist Carol Gilligan, humanistic ... Read more →

Interview with Rabbi David Bigman

GB: Do you view your yeshivah as having a distinct mission or credo that sets it apart from the other yeshivot hesder? If so, what is it?   RDB: Let me first discuss what we have in common with the rest of the yeshivah world. First, in terms of the broad yeshivah world, we share [...]

An Interview with Rabbi Zevulun Charlop

AC: What do you remember about the Rabbis’ March that your father helped organize to protest the Allies’ inaction regarding the massacre of European Jewry? Do you think that the Jewish community should utilize similar methods of activism to support the causes of other oppressed groups ... Read more →

Kol Hamevaser War and Peace Interview- R. Aharon Lichtenstein

Kol Hamevaser asked R. Aharon Lichtenstein to present a Jewish perspective on the morality of war. The following is his discourse on the subject, transcribed by R. Dov Karoll of Alon Shevut.   If one is to deal with the issue of war, there are two primary axes which need to be taken into ... Read more →

An Interview with Rabbi Yosef Adler

AC: You function both as an educator/administrator in a flourishing yeshivah high school, the Torah Academy of Bergen County (TABC), and as the rabbi of the relatively large Congregation Rinat Yisrael. Both of these sound like daunting commitments; together they are undoubtedly difficult to ... Read more →

An Interview with President Richard M. Joel

SZ: Can you describe your career trajectory- how you went from a career in law to a career in Jewish leadership? RJ: I can’t really say whether I ever had a career trajectory, and I’m not sure if I have a career in Jewish leadership.  I often tell people that I am in no way [...]

An Interview with Mrs. Mali Brofsky

What would you say are the basic goals of the shanah ba-arets for American students?   I think the age at which people embark on this shanah alef experience is really a time of self-development and identity formation, and the year gives people an opportunity to think seriously about the ... Read more →

An Interview with R. Daniel Rapp

In your opinion, what is the most important impact that the year in Israel has had on the Jewish community in the Diaspora?   In my opinion, the biggest impact is that members of our community recognize the value of full-time learning.  I think the key to the year in Israel is that we ... Read more →