From Hartman to Shavit
As my wife and I were getting ready for our annual trip to Israel which this year would start with the Community Leadership Program (CLP) at the Shalom Hartman Institute (SHI) in Jerusalem, we were aware of the uncertain situation in the area. One June 15th we were notified by email that SHI was canceling CLP for 2025. The next day we were notified that our airline, Air Europa, had cancelled its flights to Tel-Aviv. In short, our plans had been moved one year.
Israel was closed for over two weeks. Some Israelis got stuck all over the world, other people got stuck in Israel. But, and most important in spite of the success of operation ‘Rising Lion’, Israel was under attack. For days on, Israelis couldn’t get a good night sleep. Our concern abroad was their nightmare daily. Until, after twelve days, it all stopped.
What do you do when your calendar is planned around one traveling event? For a year your calendar was showing ‘closed’ during the month of July 2025, and suddenly it was open. But empty; we had to fill the void.
At the same time, we had been wondering for months what the central theme of CLP would be this year, all things considered. Until we realized, and learned, that it was also a big question for the Institute. How can you agree on one topic when so much is going on at the same time all the time?
But if you’ve been to the SHI before you know that CLP week will always strive for depth, inspiration, and commitment to Jewish values. Last year we hadn’t been able to attend for personal reasons, so our expectation this year was big. More than ever before, we needed depth, inspiration, and values.
It finally came together through the Hartman podcasts and zoom sessions by the faculty. But we missed Jerusalem. We Jews have grown too used not only to Torah coming from Zion, but to being able to reach Jerusalem both geographically and as a state of mind.
It is no coincidence that at some point during these last twenty months we had picked up from the shelve Ari Shavit’s book ‘My Promised Land’ (2013) (MPL), which had been such a success a decade ago. The field trip to Lod as part of the SHI’s CLP every year is a living testimony of the impact the book had at the time and for years ahead.
As we read it for a second or third time, may be picking some chapters over others, we came to realize its premonitory quality. The term ‘prophetic’ is too charged with doom and sorrow, but Shavit’s insight then, seen from the perspective of today, gave us the chills. Go, take a look. Read it again. It’s all there.
So we decided to go ahead with a postponed project from last year: a workshop in which to read ten selected chapters, comment on them, and try to contribute in understanding the times we are going through. As one tries to put together a coherent and relevant reading of a well and over documented text, pinpointing the author’s insights as well as the protagonists he interviewed over his long career as a journalist, one cannot help being moved by the depth, empathy, and understanding of Israel today.
As we move forward during the following weeks, by the time we plan to finish, maybe we can compare Shavit’s view then not with his view today (we cannot do that, he’d have to write a sequel) but with reality today, as complex as it is. None of the issues Shavit deals in his book is easy; most of them are paradoxical. We believe they are so today, too.
But if History is a good way to understand the present and somehow speculate about the future, Shavit’s ‘MPL’ is the book to read. In the meantime, while we engage in this intellectual but mostly emotional endeavor, we can look forward to CLP at SHI next year. Somehow, every Jew of our time has to find a way to cope with the new challenges the tides of History bring. Hopefully, not tides of fear but tides of hope, depth, inspiration, and values.
Next year in Jerusalem!