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Bernie Steinberg, 78, a Harvard Hillel director who promoted pluralism, and courted controversy, to the end
(JTA) — “My goal,” wrote Bernie Steinberg when he won the prestigious Covenant Award for Jewish educators in 2010, “is to motivate the most energetic, talented, and idealistic young Jews to assume responsibility for the future.”
As the director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010, the campus organization became “known for the scope and depth of its programs, as a model pluralistic community, as a voice for Israel, and as a leader in interfaith work,” the Covenant Foundation, which presented the award, explained.
Steinberg, who was remembered by former colleagues and students as a master teacher and attentive mentor, died Sunday at age 78. Steinberg was also a faculty member at the Pardes Institute of Jerusalem — a pluralistic yeshiva — and a founding fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute think tank in Jerusalem.
“I have rarely if ever met anyone so committed to the sacred art of nurturing young adults and encouraging them to blossom,” wrote his friend and former colleague, Rabbi Shai Held of the Hadar Institute, in a Facebook tribute.
Steinberg came to Harvard Hillel after 13 years living in Israel, where he directed the Wesleyan University Israel Program and taught at the Hebrew University. Harvard Hillel had just completed Rosovsky Hall, a 19,500-square-foot building designed by the Israeli architect Moshe Safdie that was intended to place Jewish life squarely at the center of a campus that in a previous era had restricted its Jewish enrollment.
During Steinberg’s tenure, he helped create a new leadership education program to foster interaction between diverse communities within the Ivy League university. He also created Netivot (Pathways), an intensive, year-long program in Israel for undergraduates at Harvard, Yale and New York University.
His time at Harvard was marked by a commitment to welcoming Jewish voices from across the political and religious spectrum, courting controversy on the right when Hillel hosted a photo exhibit by the far-left Israeli group Breaking the Silence, and criticism from the left when he included the hawkish Yiddish professor Ruth Wisse on a panel commemorating the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
“I see pluralism as a value rooted in Jewish ideas,” he said in 2010. “Every person is unique in an absolute and precious sense, as testimony to God’s greatness. Every person experienced the revelation of Torah in his or her own way. Every Jewish movement and individual is part of a truth whose totality is beyond our grasp.”
In one of his last public acts, this past December Steinberg wrote an op-ed for the Harvard Crimson that some Jewish critics said pushed this pluralism beyond acceptable limits. In the weeks before the oped, the campus had been riled by accusations by Jewish groups and others saying the school’s handling of the fallout of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — especially a statement by campus groups holding “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” — failed to protect Jews from a hostile environment. Steinberg countered that critics of the administration and those calling for the ouster of then president Claudine Gay were “manufacturing an antisemitism scare, which, in effect, turns the very real issue of Jewish safety into a pawn in a cynical political game.” He encouraged Jewish students to be “boldly critical of Israel.” (Gay later stepped down amid the criticism and plagiarism charges.)
Harvard Hillel, Rosovsky Hall, on Mt. Auburn Street in Harvard Square, designed by Moshe Safdie. (Courtesy of Safdie Architects)
Some called the essay courageous, while others, including Harvard Hillel’s current campus rabbi, called it out of touch and said it failed to grapple with the antisemitic intent and effect of anti-Israel speech on campus.
Hillel also drew unwelcome controversy in 2008 when an accounting contractor hired by Hillel was charged and later pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $78,000 from the nonprofit. Steinberg wasn’t implicated in the affair.
Bernard Steinberg was born March 10, 1945, and grew up in St. Louis. After receiving a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. from Brandeis University, he taught at the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies and Case Western Reserve University and founded the department of Jewish Education at the Jewish Community Centers of Cleveland. He wrote his doctoral dissertation at the Hebrew University on the Jewish philosophers Hermann Cohen and Nahman Krochmal.
“He was a true lamdan [scholar], a superb director, a mentsch, and a deeply passionate lover of Torah,” wrote the Dartmouth University Jewish studies professor Shaul Magid, whom Steinberg hired in 1993 as the rabbi of the egalitarian minyan at Harvard Harvard.
Michael Simon, the Hillel executive director at Northwestern University, was associate director at Harvard under Steinberg, who officiated his wedding.
“Early on in my time at Harvard Hillel, I asked Bernie what traits we should look for when hiring people to work there. He said, simply, we should look for candidates who love people and love Torah,” Simon recalled on Facebook. “I don’t know of anyone else who epitomized that combination quite like Bernie.”
After leaving Harvard, Steinberg moved in 2012 to Berkeley, California, where he served as vice president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and later a visiting scholar at the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He was a member of Congregation Beth Israel, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Berkeley. Most recently, he lived in Chicago, where his son Avi is an author and lecturer in nonfiction writing at the University of Chicago. He is also survived by his wife, Roz; a daughter, Adena; and a granddaughter.
“I miss an Abba with whom I communicated in a short-hand very few but we could understand, whose greatness, humbleness, goodness, sharpness, optimism, moral clarity, and unconditional love were integrated truths which he wielded with fluency and flexibility,” Adena, a clinical psychologist, wrote on Facebook. “I hope that different parts of him continue to live on in the many many people he loved so much, especially his granddaughter, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, grand-nephews, dear friends, colleagues and students.”
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The post Bernie Steinberg, 78, a Harvard Hillel director who promoted pluralism, and courted controversy, to the end appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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