Prof. Tova Hartman

Professor Tova Hartman is the Dean of Humanities at Ono Academic College, the largest private college in Israel. Her last book, Are You Not a Man of God?: Devotion, Betrayal, and Social Criticism in Jewish Tradition (Oxford), brought feminist theory and relational psychology to bear on Jewish theology and culture. Her prior book, Feminism Encounters Jewish Tradition: Resistance and Accommodation (Brandeis), won a National Jewish Book Award. Her first book, Appropriately Subversive: Modern Mothers in Traditional Religions (Harvard), based on her doctoral thesis under Carol Gilligan, was a comparative study of the experiences of traditional Catholic and Jewish women as mothers and as agents of socialization in their communities and cultures. This brought her into the world of interfaith research and social action, where she maintains a vital presence as a speaker and teacher at conferences relating to scholarship, religion, and social change. Tova is one of the founders of Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, the first Orthodox egalitarian synagogue. She continues to publish scholarly and popular articles and speaks regularly at a diverse range of venues across North America, Europe, and Israel.