Philosophy and Leadership in Dark Times

with Dr. Yaniv Feller, University of Florida

This talk introduces the thought of Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck (1873–1956), one of the most prominent Jewish public intellectuals of his era and the official leader of German Jewry under Nazism. After briefly discussing Baeck’s biography, we will examine how his understanding of the essence of Judaism developed in conversation with Christianity, before moving to the impact of the rise of Nazism on Baeck’s thought, and the moral dilemmas he had to face.

Yaniv Feller is an assistant professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. He is the author of The Jewish Imperial Imagination: Leo Baeck and German-Jewish Thought (Cambridge University Press, September 2023) and a co-editor of Covenantal Thinking: Essays on the Philosophy and Theology of David Novak, to be published by the University of Toronto Press in March 2024. Yaniv published articles on various topics in Jewish thought and culture, including Jewish-Christian relations, post-Holocaust theology, and Christmas trees.

Please click here to register online. Zoom information will be shared a few days before program.