Tikvah Summer Seminars

The Tikvah Fund sponsors and produces a variety of academic seminars every summer. You will find them listed below. Students may apply to and (if the timing permits) attend multiple Tikvah summer seminars.

Jewish Thought and Enduring Human Questions at Princeton.

Program Dates: July 24 – August 4.
Academic Director: Leora Batnitzky
Contact: gwertman@princeton.edu
Eligible: Undergraduate and graduate students at U.S., Israeli, and international colleges and universities, including current undergraduates who will have completed their undergraduate degrees by the time the program takes place.
Students from universities in North America, Israel and elsewhere around the world convene in Princeton for two weeks in the summer to study Jewish texts, Jewish thought, and Jewish perspectives on the great questions of human life. Students read and discuss classic Jewish and Western texts, hear lectures by renowned professors, and have opportunities for advising sessions with visiting faculty. A brief description of past programs can be found on the left side of this page. For more details, and information on the 2011 program, click the link above.
The Tikvah Fund is proud to announce a new supplementary offering to the program in Jewish Thought and Enduring Human Questions: This summer, Middlebury Language Schools will pilot an intensive four-week program in Classical and Modern Hebrew. Students who are accepted to the Princeton program will be able to enroll in the Tikvah Hebrew Program at MLS at no cost (space permitting). No prior knowledge of classical or modern Hebrew is required. See this flyer for more information.

Tikvah-Hertog Summer Institute on Law and National Security at Columbia University.

Program Dates: July 31 – August 10.
Academic Director: Philip C. Bobbitt
Contact: tikvahlaw@tikvahfund.org
Eligible: Students pursuing J.D. degrees at U.S. law schools; students pursuing undergraduate or graduate law degrees at Israeli universities; students pursuing graduate or undergraduate degrees at other international institutions. Class of 2011 or later (including entering students).
Rising national security threats are creating new tensions among the right to self-defense and the right to freedom. Western nations need legal scholars and practitioners who are educated in the law, philosophical principles, and policy considerations that must inform the ways we understand and deal with such tensions. The aim of the Tikvah-Hertog Institute on Law and National Security, which takes place from July 31 – August 10, is to help meet this need. For more details, click the link above.

Tikvah-Hertog Summer Institute on Economics and the Human Good at Columbia University.

Program Dates: July 31 – August 10.
Academic Directors: James Otteson, Charles Calomiris, Stephen Haber
Contact: tikvahecon@tikvahfund.org
Eligible: All undergraduates at U.S., Israeli, and international colleges and universities, including current undergraduates who will have completed their undergraduate degrees by the time the Institute takes place.
This summer institute seeks to understand how the basic facts of economic history and philosophy illuminate historical and current questions about human social life, and how these facts can guide our thinking about deep and enduring questions of material well-being, moral virtue, and the human good. It takes place at Columbia University from July 31 – August 10. For more details, click the link above.

The Tikvah Summer Institute on Religion and Politics at Oxford.

Program Dates: August 12 – 26
Academic Director: Suzanne Stone
tikvah@ochjs.ac.uk
Eligible: Current students at UK, European, Russian, and North American colleges and universities.
What does religion have to do with politics and politics with religion? The question is as old as civilization itself and lies at core of today’s greatest governmental and leadership challenges. An international group of outstanding students will gather at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies to learn with a cohort of world renowned scholars how the great texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam address both the enduring and timely questions of Religion and Politics. For more details, click the link above.

The Tikvah Program in Political Leadership at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel.

Program Dates: August 30 – September 27.
Academic Director: Peter Berkowitz, Alisa Rubin Peled
Eligible: All Israeli undergraduates, including current undergraduates who will have completed their undergraduate degrees by the time the program takes place.
The Tikvah Program in Political Leadership aims to educate the future leaders of Israel in the realms of political thought and political leadership. It takes place at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, over four weeks in August. For more details, click the link above.

The Tikvah Israel Fellows at Ein Prat, Israel.

Program Dates: June 20 – July 26.
Academic Director: Micah Goodman
Contact: tikvahisraelfellows@tikvahfund.org
Eligible: Undergraduates, post-graduates and graduate students from the U.S., Canada, and the UK.
The purpose and meaning of the State of Israel lie at the center of one of the world’s most passionate debates. For five weeks in the summer of 2011, a select group of undergraduates, post-graduates and graduate students from the U.S., Canada and the UK will gather at the Israeli Academy for Leadership at Ein Prat for intensive study of this topic. Drawing on the canonical texts of Judaism and the great works of Western civilization, the Fellows will explore the origins of Zionism, the challenges facing the Jewish State, and a range of visions for Israel's future. For more details, click the link above.

Tikvah Seminar on Jews and the American Ethos in Washington, DC.

Program Dates: August 14 – 21.
Academic Director: Jack Wertheimer
Contact: jsiev@tikvahfund.org
Eligible: full-time rabbinical students across the denominational spectrum.
The seminar is designed to explore the ways political, philosophical and literary thinkers have understood the American creed, and how American Jews have adapted to America, re-thinking the nature of Jewish life, identity and their relationship to the larger society.

Tikvah Seminar on Philosophy, Economics and Strategy at Bar Ilan University, Israel.

Program Dates: August 29 – September 27, 2011.
Academic Director: Ran Baratz.
Eligible: Graduate and early Ph.D. students who are fluent in both English and Hebrew.
The summer institute in ‘Political Thought, Economics and Strategy’ aims to broaden the horizons of graduate students by discussing foundational texts, ideas and worldviews of Political Thought, Economics and Strategy, with a focus on republicanism, political conservativism, and realist thought.

Hertog Political Studies Program in Washington, DC.

Program Dates: June 13 – July 22
Academic Director: Diana Schaub and Adam Schulman
Contact: admissions@hertogprogram.org
Eligible: Any college undergraduate.
The Hertog Political Studies Program will offer forty exceptional college students a unique learning experience focused on the serious study of politics. Students will read fundamental texts in political thought with outstanding faculty from institutions throughout the country and closely examine political leadership with prominent men and women who shape American public policy. For more details, click the link above.