Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): CAN YOU TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE NEW JEWISH ACADEMY? The New Jewish Academy is a center for teacher-training and human sciences research, launching as a 501(c)(3) in January 2027, and currently building its financial resources with your help. All donations to The New Jewish Academy are tax deductible. Our mission is to set a teaching and learning movement in motion – to every desiring person an opportunity to belong to the life of Torah, in a community of friends, to every desiring educator an opportunity to participate in a teaching profession, not merely as a career, but with fellow teachers and learners as a way-of-life. Who serves on the Board of Trustees for the New Jewish Academy? Elkan Gamzu, … [Read more...] about Frequently Asked Questions about our Torah Chevre Program for the Boston Friends of The New Jewish Academy
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New Monthly OnLine Meet-Up Opportunity for Teachers and Scholars of Religious Studies/Jewish Studies
April 27, 2026/ 10 Iyar 5786 What makes higher education 'higher' is that we cultivate the love of learning for its own sake, that we provide participants with a time to reflect critically on what they believe in and why, to reflect on what purposes and life ambitions are worthy of them. We should be places of moral and civic growth that cultivate...the ability to think and reason together and argue about hard ethical and civic questions. Adapted from Michael Sandel, Harvard Magazine, 2026 Join me, and your fellow and aspiring teachers for a monthly online meet-up. These will be informal, heartfelt conversations about the teaching life. First Mondays: Our next meeting is May 4, 6:30PM to 7:45PM. Each meeting I will be joined by a … [Read more...] about New Monthly OnLine Meet-Up Opportunity for Teachers and Scholars of Religious Studies/Jewish Studies
After Cataclysm: MacIntyre, Marburg, and the Circle of Life
After a cataclysm: that defines our moment, claims Alasdair MacIntyre in his classic 1981 work, After Virtue. Yes, now is after a cataclysm: the grinding down – almost total annihilation – of ways of life that offer an orientation to what matters most, and of institutions – think the family, or even more concretely, the family dinner, or less prosaically, how to live with death (and not to flee from it, or try to cover it over): how do we spend time with someone who is mourning the loss of their spouse just moments before? We once knew. The wrecking ball we call modernity, and the fuel that powers it, capital, MacIntyre declares again and again – and continuing to speak this way well after having ceased to call himself a Marxist – has … [Read more...] about After Cataclysm: MacIntyre, Marburg, and the Circle of Life