Shalom Hartman Institute - History

History

Rabbi Professor David Hartman, founded Shalom Hartman Institute in 1971. His wife Bobbi and their five children, made aliyah to Israel, leaving his congregation in Montreal. Rabbi Hartman’s home in Jerusalem became a beit midrash for young people attracted to Rabbi Hartman’s philosophy. By 1976, the group was moved to a local synagogue, and the Shalom Hartman Institute was born - named for the memory of Rabbi Hartman’s father.

After several changes of location, Teddy Kollek, former mayor of Jerusalem and a longstanding supporter of Rabbi Hartman, offered the Institute more than three acres of land in the city’s "Cultural Mile," which comprises the Jerusalem Theater, the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art and other cultural and educational centers and institutes.

The Institute established a variety of programs for teachers, rabbis, and lay leaders. Under Rabbi Hartman and his son, Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman, the Institute has become a training center whose programs reach thousands of participants every year. Rabbi Dov Gartenberg of Los Angeles wrote in his blog in 2005 that the Institute, "enables us to reflect on cutting edge issues facing modern Judaism." In 2009, Donniel Hartman was named President of Shalom Hartman Institute, and David Hartman was named Founding President. In 2010 the Shalom Hartman Institute was called "prestigious" by a website covering San Francisco Bay Area Jewish affairs.

Shalom Hartman Institute's campus houses an advanced research center, provides a home to more than 50 scholars, including Moshe Halbertal, Israel Knohl, Moshe Idel, Menachem Lorberbaum, and others. The campus is also home to Charles E. Smith High School for Boys, grades 7-12, with more than 350 students, an in-house publications department that is publishing a series of books on Jewish thought with UK-based publisher Continuum International Publishing Group, theology and philosophy conferences, and centers for training educators, rabbis and lay community leaders.

In 2008, Internet industry website ReadWriteWeb said the Hartman website "makes good use of current trends."

In May 2010, Israel's opposition party leader Tzipi Livni of Kadima called upon the Hartman Institute to organize the speakers for a daylong conference at the Israeli Knesset on Jewish identity in Israel.