Moshe Halbertal (Hebrew: משה הלברטל; born Montevideo, Uruguay, 1958) is an Israeli philosopher, professor, and writer, a noted expert on Maimonides, and co-author of the Israeli Army Code of Ethics.[1] He currently holds positions as the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem[2] and Gruss Professor of Law at NYU School of Law.[3] In 2021 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.[4]
Born in Uruguay, he made aliyah to Israel. Halbertal was reared in Israel in a modern Orthodox family. His father was a Holocaust survivor from Łańcut, Galicia (Central-Eastern Europe), his mother an Israeli who had come to Uruguay to teach Hebrew.[5]
He received his B.A. in Jewish Thought and Philosophy from Hebrew University, cum laude, in 1984, and his PhD from Hebrew University in 1989. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the topic '"Values as interpretative criteria in Jewish law" under the supervision of Menachem Elon and Avishai Margalit.
From 1988 to 1992, he was a fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Halbertal has been a visiting professor at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a faculty member at the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem.
He received the Rothschild Foundation's Bruno Award and the Goren Goldstein Award for the "Best Book in Jewish Thought" in the years 1997-2000.
He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Jewish Review of Books.
He was married to Dr. Tova Hartman, and they have three daughters.
According to Halbertal, what "distinguishes between the so-called ultra-Orthodox point of view and a modern Orthodox or modern approach (is) that tradition doesn't monopolize all of value, all of truth".[5]
Halbertal believes that the Israeli government ought to finance and subsidize religious education, synagogues, and mikvahs, but not impose doctrinal tests on these institutions. In his view, individuals should have an equal opportunity to form Orthodox, Reform, or other kinds of congregations with the same access to state funding.[5]
Halbertal is profoundly committed to the democratic process. "Democracy is a non-violent form of adjudicating different ideologies. It's very easy to be non-violent when stakes are low; in Israel, we are in a condition where the stakes are very high. It's a tribute to Israel that it has managed to maintain democracy under such conditions of diversity and high political stakes. I would like to see other Western states deal with this condition without becoming fascistic."[5]
2013: National Jewish Book Award in the Scholarship category for Maimonides: Life and Thought[6]
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