Jewish Ideas

Moses Mendelssohn

Herald of the Jewish Enlightenment.

Rabbi Soloveitchik

A teacher, writer, and community leader who helped to shape modern Orthodoxy in America.

Emmanuel Levinas

A 20th-century philosopher whose Jewish sensibility influenced his encounter with Western thought and ethics.

Rabbi Louis Jacobs

Scholar and leader known for his prolific writing and intellectual integrity.

Rationalism

Can faith and reason coexist in Jewish thought?

Martin Buber

The creation of a Jewish existentialism--and a Jewish state.

Judah (Yehuda) Halevi

A Spanish poet, philosopher and proto-Zionist.

The Influence of Non-Jewish Thinking on Jewish Thought

Jewish thinkers have both embraced and directly reacted to foreign ideas and philosophies.

Medieval Jewish Philosophy: Reason in a Religious Age

The philosophers of the Middle Ages believed they were unearthing existing wisdom, not creating new ideas.

Jewish Thought and Philosophy 101

Jewish thought is not a single continuous tradition, but rather a varied mix of works, which reflect the specific ideological and historical positions of those who wrote them.