Application for the Edward Fein Winter Student Seminar 2026 

The Edward Fein Winter Student Seminar is the premier program for select students to engage with the challenges and opportunities facing Israel and the Jewish people through the lens of Jewish texts, values, and ideas. This year we will be exploring the most pressing issues facing our Jewish community across North America. Our ideologically, religiously, and politically pluralistic community of Jewish students from college and university campuses across North America address these important questions with depth and nuance. Students will have the opportunity to learn from and with the world class scholars of the Hartman Institute.

Flourishing Communities, Shared Peoplehood

We will explore what it means for Jewish life not only to endure but to thrive in the United States and Canada. Participants will grapple with the balance between integration and distinctiveness, considering how Jews can belong fully to society while sustaining a strong sense of difference and purpose. Through discussions of responsibility, civic engagement, and the role of Torah in public life, we will examine how Jewish values shape both internal communal life and outward-facing commitments. Ultimately, participants will engage with a vision for flourishing, one rooted in meaningful practice, vibrant institutions, and a clear sense of what success looks like for Jewish communities. As we discuss Jewish communities in North America, we will also engage with the importance of the connection of those communities to the state of Israel. Our learning will be rooted in a deep sense of Jewish peoplehood, animated by the belief that maintaining meaningful relationships with our fellow Jews in Israel and embracing our shared responsibility for one another enhances our own communities as well as theirs.