Academic Committee

Professor Moshe Halbertal, Committee Chairperson
Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Thought, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Professor Halbertal was visiting professor at Harvard Law School and Fellow at the Society of Fellows, Harvard University. His publications in English include Idolatry and People of the Book both published by Harvard University Press. In 1999 he was the first recipient of the newly instituted Bruno Prize established by the Rothschild Foundation, that parallels the coveted MacArthur prize in the United States.


Professor Robert Alter
Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley. Author of seventeen books, focusing on such topics as the European novel from the 18th century to the present, the literary aspects of the Bible, and modern Hebrew literature. His book The Art of Biblical Narrative won the National Jewish Book for Jewish Thought. Other books include: Hebrew and Modernity, The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age, and Genisis: A New Translation with Commentary.

Professor Steven E. Aschheim
Steven E. Aschheim Professor of History, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Major fields: German-Jewish History, European Cultural and Intellectual History, Modern Jewish History. He has published seven books, including those on the German-Jewish dialogue, the Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, and European Culture of the ÇcÇath Century, including Culture and Catastrophe: German and Jewish Confrontations with National Socialism and Other Crises.

Professor Pierre Birnbaum
Pierre Birnbaum Professor at the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. One of France’s most eminent political sociologist and a widely recognized authority on the political history of Jews in France. Author or co-author of seventeen books and numerous articles, including The Jews of the Republic: An History of State Jews from Gambetta to Vichy (Stanford, 1996) and Anti-Semitism in Modern France: A Political History from Leon Blum to the Present (Oxford, 1992).

Professor Lars Dencik
Lars Dencik Professor of Social Psychology at Roskilde University. His books and many articles include Modernity and Welfare (Swedish), and Children and Family in the Post - Modern Society. He is engaged in several transnational research projects on the development of modern society and its impact upon the needs and social development of children. He has taught at the University of Konstanz, Germany, Lund University, Stockholm University, and the Hebrew University.

Professor Arnold Eisen
Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University. One of the world's eminent experts on the sociology of Jewish life, he has authored Galut:Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Homecoming; Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community and A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology.

Professor Moshe Idel
Moshe Idel Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University. He has served as visiting professor at many universities and institutions worldwide, including Yale, Harvard and Princeton Universities and Ecole des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His publications include Kabbalah: New Perspectives, Messianic Mystics, and Hassidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic. In 1999, Prof. Idel received the prestigious Israel Prize for excellent achievement in the field of Jewish Philosophy.

Professor Michael Ignatieff
Michael Ignatieff is Chancellor Jackman Visiting Professor in Human Rights Policy at Toronto University. He is also a fellow of the Munk Centre for International Studies. He holds a PhD in History from Harvard University, is a commentator for BBC and CBC radio, and has authored Isaiah Berlin: A Life; The Needs of Strangers: An Essay on the Philosophy of Human Needs; The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience and Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment.

Dr Diana Pinto
Diana Pinto Historian and writer living in Paris. PhD. in Contemporary European History from Harvard University. She is a consultant to the Political Directorate of the Council of Europe.

Professor Hilary Putnam
Hilary Putnam Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. Past president of the American Philosophical Association, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He has written extensively on the philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of natural science, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. Many of his papers are collected in three volumes of Philosophical Papers, Realism with a Human Face, and Words and Life. He is the author of several books, the most recent Renewing Philosophy and Pragmatism. He has developed a position on truth and justification which he calls ’internal realism’, and in recent years his interests have centered on the relations between scientific and nonscientific knowledge.

Professor Ruth Anna Putnam
Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Wellesley College. Her primary areas of scholarship are moral philosophy, ethical theory, American philosophy, and William James. She is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to William James, and has published widely on the fact-value distinction in meta-ethics.

Professor Hanne Trautner-Kromann
Professor of Jewish Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Author of books and articles in Danish and Swedish about the history, religion and culture of the Jewish people and Jewish-Christian relations. Her publications in English includes Shield and Sword: Jewish Polemics against Christianity and the Christians in France and Spain from 1100 - 1500. President of The Scandinavian Society for Jewish Studies, Editor of Nordisk Judaistik. Scandinavian Jewish Studies, and Secretary for The European Association for Jewish Studies.

Professor Michael Walzer
Michael Walzer Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University. He has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy: political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice and the welfare state, and has authored nineteen books, two of which have been translated into Swedish, Spheres of Justice and On Toleration. He has played a part in the revival of a practical, issue focused ethic and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. He is currently working on the toleration and accommodation of ‘difference’ in all its forms, and also on a project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.

Paideia Board of Trustees

Jan Eliasson, Sweden's minister for foreign affairs and president of the U.N. General Assembly, Sweden & USA

Lord Greville Janner, Great Britain

Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein, Israel

Paideia US Inc

Judith Stern Peck, Chairperson
JUDITH STERN PECK has had extensive experience as both a family therapist and a consultant to family businesses, family foundations and family offices. She is actively involved in the asset management of her own family's business. She is Director of a project team at the Ackerman Institute for the Family to research, educate and consult on Money , Values and Family Life. She has been selected as a participant in the consultant referral service on the Council on Foundations' Family Foundation Services department. She is also principle of JSP Associates, a firm designed to provide educational and consultation services to family businesses and family foundations.

Judith has been actively working in the voluntary sector since the 1970s. She is immediate past President of the Israel Policy Forum, an organization whose primary focus is PEACE in the Middle East. She serves on the FOJP Board as well as the Jewish Communal Fund Board. At UJA -Federation, she is the immediate past Chair of the Board. In recent years she has been Chair of the Jewish Continuity Commission as well as Founding Chair of "Partnership 2000" - a program that seeks to transform the Diaspora-Israeli relationship. She also served on the Board and Executive Committee of the newly formed United Jewish Communities and just completed her tenure as Chair of the Board of Overseers of the Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Previously, at first the 92nd Street Y and subsequently, at UJA-Federation, in addition to being a member of both Boards, she chaired a variety of Task Forces and Committees. She has served as President of B'nai Jeshurun, a conservative synagogue on the Upper West Side and served on the Capital Campaign Council for the JCC of the Upper Westside. Her most exciting and confirming endeavor has been as a member of the Dialogue Project, a group of American Palestinian and Jewish women leaders who have met in dialogue since 1989 to help move the peace process forward. Her educational background includes a BA from Finch College and M.S.W. from Yeshiva University. She attended the Ackerman Institute for the Family for her post-graduate training.