In the Spring 2026 semester, the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought is offering numerous courses for Straus Scholars and Yeshiva University students to study the great texts and traditions of Judaism and the West. 

Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, the director of the Straus Center, is teaching two courses on the Beren campus: “Jews of Early America” and “Mitnagdic Jewish Thought.” On the Wilf campus, Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik is teaching “Jewish and Western Legal Theory.” 

Clinical Assistant Professor Rabbi Dr. Dov Lerner and Resident Scholar Dr. Shaina Trapedo are also pulling double duty on the Wilf and Beren campuses. Rabbi Dr. Dov Lerner is teaching “Philosophy of Rabbi Sacks” on both campuses and co-teaching “Dante” with Dr. David Lavinsky, associate professor of English, at Yeshiva College. Dr. Trapedo is teaching “Hamlet and the Hebrew Bible” on the Beren campus and the “Value of Verse,” featuring several guest lectures by Yeshiva University President’s Professor of Practice Douglas Murray, on the Wilf campus. Dr. Tevi Troy, Straus Center senior scholar, is co-teaching “Presidents and American Culture” with Dr. Matthew Incantalupo, assistant professor of political science. 

Other Straus Center courses by affiliated YU faculty include “Formation of the Talmud” with Rabbi Dr. Ari Bergmann; and “Theory of Knowledge” with Rabbi Dr. Itamar Rosensweig, Rosh Yeshiva and associate professor of philosophy at Yeshiva College. Rabbi Dr. Rosensweig is also teaching “Analytic Philosophy and Judaism” at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies for students pursuing the Straus Center’s Graduate Certificate in Jewish Political and Social Thought. 

In addition to its course offerings, the Straus Center is also convening weekly extracurricular reading groups that cover great Jewish and Western texts. Rabbi Dr. Halpern and Dr. Troy are offering writing workshops that offer guidance on writing about Jewish topics for a wider audience and bring in various journalists and academics as guest speakers, while Rabbi Dr. Rosensweig is leading an advanced Jewish philosophy group. Other reading groups include “Essayists as Artists: Aesthetics and Ethics” with Dr. Trapedo; “The Blueprint of Torah U'Madda” with Straus Center Rabbinic Intern Rabbi Yonatan Kurz; and “Humanism on Trial: Lewis and Lichtenstein” with Straus Scholar alum Rabbi Ezra Seplowitz.  

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