Scienceמשה הלברטל

Moshe Halbertal

Moshe Halbertal is an Israeli philosopher and professor of Jewish thought, known for his work on Maimonides and as a co-author of the IDF code of ethics.

born 1958Scholarship on MaimonidesCo-writing the IDF code of ethicsThe book Idolatry

Occupation: philosopher, writer, university teacher, religious studies scholar
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Moshe Halbertal was born in 1958 in Montevideo

Moshe Halbertal was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1958. His father, Meir Halbertal, was a Holocaust survivor from Łańcut in Galicia, and his mother came from Jerusalem. In 1961 the family moved to Israel, where he grew up in a modern Orthodox home.

He studied at the Har Etzion hesder yeshiva and did his army service through it. He then studied Jewish thought and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned his B.A. in 1984 and his PhD in 1989, under Menachem Elon and Avishai Margalit.

From 1988 to 1992 he was a fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. He joined the Hebrew University faculty in 1992 and became a full professor in 1999. In 2002 he became Gruss Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, and he has taught as a visiting professor at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.

His research covers Jewish law, medieval Jewish thought, Kabbalah, ethics and political thought. He co-founded the religious left movements Oz VeShalom and Netivot Shalom and helped write the IDF code of ethics. He was elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2010 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2021.