Uri L'Tzedek: Orthodox Social Justice

Rabbanit Sarah Segal-Katz received rabbinic ordination from Beit Morasha (2016); Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis — a joint program of the Shalom Hartman Institute and HaMidrasha at Oranim (2024); and Yeshivat Maharat (2025). She holds an MA in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University's Revivim program (2005). She founded the Gluya Center (2010) and the Gluya Magazine website (since 2020), an online knowledge center featuring over 3,000 texts on Jewish life. Since October 7th, the site has published hundreds of coping resources and multiple anthologies. She has been providing life-cycle mentoring for women and couples for more than 17 years, and has published dozens of guidance articles on the subject. She has published research on din hargasha - examining the question of trusting women's reports about their own bodies, drawing on data from more than 1,400 Israeli women - as well as an ethnographic article, co-authored with Prof. Tsipy Ivry, on the tension between religion and public health in mikvaot during the pandemic.
She has edited more than ten anthologies, publishes scholarly articles, op-eds, poetry, and prayers in journals and the Israeli press. 

She is one of six petitioners in a landmark Israeli Supreme Court case — filed by ITIM, the Rackman Center, and Kolech — that opened the Chief Rabbinate's halakhic certification exams to women.

She headed Kolech's department for the prevention of sexual assault. Together with Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, she co-founded Brit Emunim and the Dinah Partnership, a coalition advancing safeguarding and sexual harm prevention in Jewish communal spaces.

She co-founded Forum Advot to pioneer discussions about mikveh rights in Israel, and co-founded Tovlot BeNachat, a Facebook community of 10,000+ women advocating for unattended ritual immersion. She served as a balanit (mikveh attendant) for 11 years.

Rabbanit Sarah, a native Jerusalemite, currently lives with her family in Riverdale, New York

About Rabba Daphne Lazar Price 

Rabba Daphne Lazar Price is a rabbi, educator, writer, and nonprofit leader whose work focuses on Jewish leadership, Orthodox feminism, Israel engagement, and the intersection of Jewish tradition and contemporary life.

Ordained by Yeshivat Maharat in 2025 as one of the institution’s first 100 graduates, Daphne most recently served as Executive Director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA), where she led initiatives advancing women’s Torah learning, spiritual leadership, and communal participation. Among her signature accomplishments was helping launch the Devorah Scholars initiative, which supported Orthodox synagogues across North America in hiring women for paid spiritual leadership positions.

Prior to JOFA, Daphne spent seventeen years at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and has also held leadership roles with the Shalom Hartman Institute and West End Strategy Team. She currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches Jewish Law.

A frequent speaker and published writer, Daphne’s work has appeared in The Times of Israel, eJewishPhilanthropy, and JTA. Raised in a Chabad-Lubavitch family in Toronto, she brings a lifelong commitment to Torah, Zionism, Jewish peoplehood, and building communities that are both deeply rooted in tradition and responsive to the challenges of the modern world.

Daphne lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband, David, and is the proud mother of two daughters and a son-in-law.

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Rabbi Haim Ovadia, born and raised in Jerusalem, was shaped by strong Zionist ideals and a rich Sephardic rabbinic tradition that values Tanakh, Hebrew poetry, and the sciences alongside the study of Talmud and Halakha, and promotes a humane, inclusive approach to Judaism. He was ordained by Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, studied Talmud at Bar-Ilan University, and earned an MA in Hebrew Literature from UCLA. Over more than thirty years, he has served as a community rabbi in diverse communities across Israel, South America, and both coasts of the United States, and has been a faculty member at the Academy for Jewish Religion of California since 2002. Alongside his rabbinic leadership, he has been active in social advocacy, promoting inclusion and practical, empowering halakhic solutions, and has reached thousands worldwide through teaching, podcasts, YouTube, and distance learning. He is currently teaching at Ramaz High School in Manhattan.

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Source sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bNtaQDKh677B0j5GUq0b1fKgnhEw2yZg/view

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Rabbi Dr. Yakov Nagen is Head of the Beit Midrash for Judaism and Humanity and Executive Director of the Ohr Torah Interfaith Center. He holds a BA and MA from Yeshiva University, rabbinic ordination from RIETS, and a PhD in Jewish Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  A leading advocate of religion as a force for peace, he has been deeply involved in interfaith ,  between Judaism and Islam, for over two decades.

He is the author of ten books and numerous articles on Jewish spirituality, Talmud, and interfaith relations. He was featured in Tablet magazine as one of the “Ten Israeli Rabbis You Should Know.” His recent books include God Shall Be One: Reenvisioning Judaism’s Approach to Other Religions and That They May Live Among You: Minorities in a Jewish State: An Ethic of Responsibility and Partnership.

Source Sheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r2Nh1FGlRDG9t4DTB7hWPRxZ8DeV9Zvd/view?usp=sharing

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The Community of Israel (Knesset Yisrael) aspires to Tikun Olam-the rectification of the world in its full entirety… it seeks a comprehensive rectification for the very cause of sins…Everything, everything must be rectified; everything must be purified... 

Israel’s aspiration for the building of the nation and the return to the Land is an aspiration of the depth of Goodness that permeates all of existence at its root to emerge fully into the world. …. and a new world shall be built.” (Orot:Lights from Darkness: Israel and Its Resurrection, Chapter 10)

For Rav Kook, Tikkun Olam (the rectification of the world) is not a series of "good deeds" layered onto a broken world. Instead, it is a cosmic reunification. He explained  that the world is currently "fractured"—spirit is separated from matter, the sacred from the secular, and the individual from the collective.

Torat HaRav Kook outlines a multi-layered approach for the individual and the nation of Israel to effect complete rectification.

In our text-based shiur, we will review Rav Kook’s foundational teachings that outline what Am Israel must do in the world in order to fix it completely.    

BeMhera Be'Yamenu/Quickly In Our Days

Rabbi Itzchak Evan-Shayish  (Marmorstein) is a passionate student and teacher of the illuminated teachings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook ZT”L. He is the gabbai and an educator at Beit HaRav Kook Synagogue in Jerusalem. He is the Chairman of ‘Ohr LeRayah’- a Jerusalem creative educational project devoted to sharing Rav Kook’s universal illuminations with the world.

Rabbi Zachary Truboff is the author of Zionism In Crisis: Jewish Power and Moral Responsibility After October 7. He serves as the Director of the International Beit Din Institute for Agunah Research and Education. His first book was Torah Goes Forth From Zion: Essays on the Thought of Rav Kook and Rav Shagar. Before making aliyah, he served as a synagogue rabbi in Cleveland, Ohio for nearly a decade. He lives with his wife, Jen, and four children in Jerusalem. 

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Rabbi Yonatan Neril founded and directs the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD), which reveals the connection between religion and ecology and mobilizes faith communities to act. ICSD's Jewish Eco Seminars branch engages and educates the Jewish community by revealing the powerful connection between Israel, ecology, and Jewish values.  Yonatan is a member of the World Economic Forum's Faith In Action working group. He authored the bestselling book Eco Bible: An Ecological Commentary on the Hebrew Bible. He speaks internationally on religion and ecology, including at the World Economic Forum in Davos, multiple UN climate conferences, and the Parliament of World Religions. Through his work at ICSD, he engages on the cutting edge of digital storytelling on faith and ecology together with Nas Daily's 1000 Media, a top-tier video production firm. Since 2024, they have created 80 videos, which received over ten million views. In 2023 he initiated and co-organized the first-ever Faith Pavilion at a UN climate conference (COP28 in Dubai), which included 70 sessions with 325 speakers. Yonatan has also co-organized twelve interfaith environmental conferences in the U.S. and Israel. Raised in California, Yonatan completed his M.A. and B.A. from Stanford University where he conducted research on renewable energy in India, and on genetically modified corn in Mexico. He received rabbinical ordination in Israel and lives with his wife, Shana, and their two children in Jerusalem. He enjoys hiking and being in nature.

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Avidan Freedman is one of the founders and the director of Yanshoof, an organization dedicated to ending Israel's arms sales to human rights violators, as well as an educator at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is also an activist who has offered a religious voice on issues relating to Israel and its moral responsibilities. He received semicha from the Israeli chief rabbinate and from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, and lives in Efrat with his wife and their 5 children.

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A descendant of seven generations of Danish Rabbis, Rabbi Melchior was born in Denmark, is an ordained Orthodox rabbi and immigrated to Israel in 1986. He serves as the Chief Rabbi of Norway and as Av Beit Din of the Scandinavian Countries and is the rabbi of a vibrant orthodox community in Jerusalem. He was elected to the Knesset in 1999 and served for 10 years in roles including: Minister for Social Affairs and World Jewry; Deputy Minister of Education & Culture; and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In addition, he was the founding chairman of Birthright Israel.

Rabbi Michael Melchior is the founder and chairman of The Mosaica Center for Religious Conflict Transformation in the Middle East and The Jerusalem Center for Mediation and Consensus-Building. This Initiative aims to discreetly respond to and alleviate crisis situations behind the scenes while also cultivating a web of relationships between religious and political leaders to advance religious peacebuilding. By acting as an “insider religious mediator,” Rabbi Melchior has made strides in helping to advance a warm ‘religious peace’ in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as conflicts around the world. This work includes mitigating violence in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in Israel as well as helping to facilitate religious rulings that promote human sanctity and dignity. 

In addition to founding Mosaica, which actively works to build a religious peace between leaders of all religions in the Middle East and  offers professional mediation services adapted to the particular needs of a wide range of sectors, populations, cultures, languages, and religions in Israel Rabbi Melchior has founded Meitarim, a network of over 170 inclusive Jewish schools and communities in Israel enabling diverse populations on the Jewish – Israeli sequence to live together and to study jointly in an optimal educational climate that allows each and every one to devise their identity. The network assists in establishing and accompanying mixed communities and inclusive educational frameworks. 

Another organization Melchior founded is The Citizen's Accord Forum, which promotes the building of bridges of coexistence and justice between Israeli Jews and Israeli-Arabs.  

Rabbi Melchior is also an internationally renowned Jewish leader, thinker and activist and a leading advocate for social justice in Israel, interfaith dialogue and a voice for peaceful co-existence.

http://www.rabbimichaelmelchior.org

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Recorded on May 5, 2026
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Sources used in today's class:
Agunah.odp: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1okwvvpqrQfwjJg1UMwoqW2MvRXUAZQ87/view
Agunah We have a Solution.pdf: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nmvmMDJIheFNgUeAgTHuS2rqvvZsUBDK/view?usp=sharing
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Rabbi Haim Ovadia, born and raised in Jerusalem, was shaped by strong Zionist ideals and a rich Sephardic rabbinic tradition that values Tanakh, Hebrew poetry, and the sciences alongside the study of Talmud and Halakha, and promotes a humane, inclusive approach to Judaism. He was ordained by Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, studied Talmud at Bar-Ilan University, and earned an MA in Hebrew Literature from UCLA. Over more than thirty years, he has served as a community rabbi in diverse communities across Israel, South America, and both coasts of the United States, and has been a faculty member at the Academy for Jewish Religion of California since 2002. Alongside his rabbinic leadership, he has been active in social advocacy, promoting inclusion and practical, empowering halakhic solutions, and has reached thousands worldwide through teaching, podcasts, YouTube, and distance learning. He is currently teaching at Ramaz High School in Manhattan.
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Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz is a Jerusalem-based rabbi, activist, and institutional change-maker whose work has reshaped the landscape of religious life in Israel. He currently serves as CEO of Chuppot, the pioneering Orthodox wedding organization he founded in 2018 to provide halachically rigorous marriages independent of the Chief Rabbinate - an initiative that has now served over 2,000 couples. He is also a member of the leadership team of Rabanut Yisraelit, the groundbreaking pluralistic rabbinic training and network program at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he teaches weekly.

Rabbi Leibowitz has spent his career building alternatives to institutional monopolies in Israeli religious life. In 2012, he founded Hashgacha Pratit, Israel's first independent kashrut organization and the first to employ women as supervisors - a project that broke the Chief Rabbinate's exclusive hold on kosher supervision and was later transferred to Tzohar. In 2018, he launched Chuppot on the same premise: that Israeli couples deserve a dignified, high-quality religious marriage outside the Rabbinate's jurisdiction.

Ordained by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin and Rabbi Chaim Brovender in 1996, he serves as the Rabbi of the Va'ani Tefillah community in Nachlaot, Jerusalem. From 2015 to 2018, he served on the Jerusalem City Council, representing the pluralistic Yerushalmim party and holding the education portfolio.

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