David Hartman

David Hartman was born in 1931 in New York City

David Hartman was born in 1931 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, to a Haredi family with roots in the Old Yishuv of Jerusalem. He studied at Yeshiva Chaim Berlin, the Lubavitch Yeshiva and Lakewood Yeshiva.

He became a student of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and received rabbinical ordination from Yeshiva University in 1953. He kept studying with him until 1960 while working toward a graduate degree in philosophy at Fordham University. He later earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at McGill University in Montreal.

From 1955 to 1960 he served as a congregational rabbi in the Bronx, and then led Congregation Tiferet Beit David Jerusalem in Montreal. In 1971 he moved to Israel with his wife Barbara and their children.

In 1976 he founded the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, and he also founded a high school beside it. He taught Jewish thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and advised Education Minister Zevulun Hammer from 1977 to 1984. His work focused on religious pluralism and the place of the State of Israel in Jewish life.

In 2009 he became founding president of the institute, and his son Donniel became president. He died in Jerusalem in 2013 and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.