Naftali Rothenberg

Rabbinic traditions viewed study and knowledge as open to all and opposed the recurrent attempts to consolidate hegemony over knowledge. Committed to the Democratization of knowledge and Exegetical Freedom, Rothenberg established in 1995 a national project of lectures series and publications at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and at over 20 other venues throughout Israel. The lecturers and the writers in the series represent a broad range of interpretations and approaches to the canon. Also in 1995, he established dozens of “Learning Communities” as frameworks for study and social activities totally independent from the rabbinic establishment. He worked extensively on frameworks and expressions of secular Jewish culture, including the right to secular expression alongside the religious expressions in the official memorial ceremonies for soldiers who fell in Israel's wars. Rothenberg criticizes the fact that Reform Judaism and other streams are not officially recognize in Israel: “Israel is the Jewish nation state and a democratic country; hence every single Jewish community should be allowed to express itself and uphold its culture and customs.” A rare voice to be heard from an Orthodox rabbi and a member of the state rabbinate. Since the beginning of his long rabbinic career, Rothenberg participates in interface dialog. His main efforts were to reduce religious tensions in the Middle East and to prevent the conflicts from being based on religious disputes. He is a strong voice to the rabbinate majority position prohibited Jews to step on Temple Mount. Rothenberg was one of the initiators and signatories of the Declaration of the Orthodox Rabbis on a new era in the relations between the Jewish people and Christianity. At the 50th anniversary of the Nostra Aetate he said: “First World War and more even the Second World War and the Holocaust caused severe subversion to the ideas of humanism and progress as the foundations for moral behavior and hope for better future…. It is in this crucial juncture that The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council reflected tremendous importance for humanity as a whole as the Nostra Aetate becomes foundation for reality-changing process. We are witnessing one of the main cultures: The Catholic Church goes beyond its own particularity, beyond the limits of religious discourse and inner spirit. The Nostra Aetate process teaches us brave, revolutionary and fascinating of presenting "The Other", even opposer, even seemingly competing in a particular religious discourse.” (Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg lecture at the Episcopal, Warsaw 26 of November 2015).

As a response to the increased polarization within Israeli society as a reaction to the Oslo Accords, Rothenberg established in 1984 an Active Learning Program: Learning the Peace Process, implemented weekly in 500 high-schools throughout the country. This program gave the opportunity to students, teachers and parents, from all political backgrounds and sectors, to learn and discuss the process in real-time, and express their fears, hope and opinions. Rothenberg argue that the underlying problem in Israeli democracy is the absence of a shared civic language. The way to create a situation in which groups that differ in their ethnic origin, ideology, religion or attitude towards religion, or political views can share the same civic concepts is the formal education system. Rothenberg established a team at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute of Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, holders of diverse political views—who took it upon themselves to address the challenges that face Israeli democracy and lead a process of change and improvement by writing a civics textbook. Their joint effort has been approved in 2014 by the Israeli Ministry of Education. Thousands of pupils in Israeli public schools—both secular and religious—are being using his book to study civics every year.

In 1973 Rothenberg was ordained at Yeshivas Kaminetz of Jerusalem and in 1980-1984 studied philosophy and Jewish thought at the Hebrew University. He served as the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi community in Lima, Peru (1974-1978) and chaplain and senior education officer in the IDF (1978-1989). Served as an Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at the School of Management of Touro College in the Jerusalem branch (1997–2003). He is the Rabbi of Har Adar township (since 1986), and a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute (since 1994). Since 2014 he has been an associate of the Program on Law and Religion and co-investigator in the Project on Love in Religion at the Center for Religion and Culture at Oxford University. His main fields of studies are: the wisdom of love; democratic education; halakha and state. Rothenberg is the 2011 laureate of the Liebhaber Prize for the encouragement of religious tolerance in Israel.

Naftali Rothenberg (born 14 July 1949) is an Israeli scholar, rabbi and author. He is known for his studies on the wisdom of love in Jewish Canonical literature and his inclusive leadership in the Israeli rabbinate.