{"id":34842,"date":"2025-12-14T09:47:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T09:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/?page_id=34842"},"modified":"2025-12-14T09:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T09:47:08","slug":"who-is-a-leader-new-article-by-ono-ethiopian-scholar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/who-is-a-leader-new-article-by-ono-ethiopian-scholar\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is a Leader?: New Article by Ono Ethiopian Scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, the founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry at Ono Academic College, recently wrote an article in the \u201cMakor Rishon\u201d newspaper, entitled \u201cWho is a Leader?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, Rabbi Shalom engages deeply with Professor Tova Hartman\u2019s new book, using her readings of biblical and rabbinic texts to explore the enduring tension between religious authority and moral critique. Through stories from Tanakh, Midrash, and Talmud, he highlights how Jewish tradition preserves not only dominant voices of power, but also marginal figures who challenge, resist, and expose the ethical dangers inherent in unchecked leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rabbi Shalom describes Hartman\u2019s approach as one that listens attentively to those pushed to the edges of the canon\u2014women, family members, and dissenters\u2014whose perspectives reveal the human cost of absolutist religious obedience. Figures such as Isaac in the Binding narrative, Tamar in her encounter with Judah, Hannah before Eli, Beruriah in the study hall, and Imma Shalom in the story of the Oven of Akhnai all serve as moral counterweights to authoritative figures who confuse power with righteousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A central theme of the article is the gap between declared Jewish values and their lived realization. Rabbi Shalom emphasizes Hartman\u2019s insistence that loyalty to tradition does not require silence in the face of injustice. On the contrary, the rabbinic canon itself preserves internal critiques of leaders who misuse divine language, suppress dissent, or fail to hear the suffering of others. True faith, the article suggests, is measured not by blind obedience, but by ethical responsibility and the courage to confront wrongdoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this interpretive framework, Rabbi Shalom turns to the Ethiopian Jewish experience in Israel. He draws a powerful parallel between the marginalized voices in classical Jewish texts and the lived reality of Ethiopian Jews, whose ancient religious tradition was often dismissed as folkloristic or illegitimate upon their arrival in Israel. Like Isaac, Hannah, or Beruriah, Ethiopian Jews found themselves unheard by religious authorities who claimed exclusive ownership of authenticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rabbi Shalom argues that the marginalization of Ethiopian halakhic leadership\u2014particularly the undermining of the Kesim\u2014reflects the very dangers that the rabbinic canon warns against: moral blindness, institutional arrogance, and the silencing of alternative religious truths. He calls for a fundamental shift in how Israeli society and its religious establishment relate to Ethiopian Jewish tradition\u2014not as an artifact to be admired from a distance, but as a living, authoritative strand within the broader Jewish mosaic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article concludes with a note of moral urgency and hope. In a time of ethical confusion, blurred boundaries between truth and falsehood, and widespread distrust of leadership, Rabbi Shalom echoes Hartman\u2019s call for accountability, humility, and self-examination. Jewish tradition, he reminds us, has always contained multiple voices. The challenge of our generation is not to erase that diversity, but to listen to it\u2014and to allow it to reshape both our leadership and ourselves.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom, the founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Ethiopian Jewry at Ono Academic College, recently wrote an article in the \u201cMakor Rishon\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-34842","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34844,"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34842\/revisions\/34844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ono.ac.il\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}