What it means to be a Jew today feels more urgent than ever. For some, Jewish identity has become a source of connection and belonging; for others, it prompts searching questions about who we are and how we show up in the world. In this timely and thought-provoking conversation, Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman sits down with Rabbi Charlie Schwartz, Director of Lehrhaus, to explore this enduring and pressing question. Drawing on a lifetime of deep engagement with Judaism, Feldman offers a wide-ranging and nuanced reflection on Jewish identity, examining how Jews navigate their relationships to God, to Israel, and to one another in an era of profound change and challenge.
Noah Feldman specializes in constitutional studies, with particular emphasis on the relationship between law and religion, constitutional design, and the history of legal theory. Professor of law at Harvard Law School, he is also a contributing writer for *The New York Times Magazine* and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He received his AB summa cum laude in near eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University in 1992. Selected as a Rhodes Scholar, he earned a D.Phil in Islamic Thought from Oxford University in 1994. He received his JD from Yale Law School in 1997, serving as Book Reviews Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He is the author of four books: *The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State*; *Divided By God: America's Church-State Problem and What We Should Do About It*; *What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation building*; and *After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy*.
Rabbi Charlie Schwartz is the director of Lehrhaus: A Jewish Tavern and House of Learning in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is also the director and co-founder of Not-a-Box Media Lab, a leader in the field of Jewish educational technology. Previously, he was the senior director of Jewish Education for Hillel.
