About Us

Legacy

The vision guiding the Global Lehrhaus is inspired by the Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus (Free House of Jewish Learning) founded a century ago, in 1920, in Frankfurt a.M., Germany by Franz Rosenzweig. As a center for continuing education, Rosenzweig’s House of Learning was ‘free’ in the study of Jewish sacred texts one was utterly free to pose questions, no matter how heretical. Rosenzweig averred that the texts attain a vital, existential immediacy when read not only with the intellect but also with the soul. 

According to Martin Buber, who assumed directorship of The Lehrhaus following Rosenzweig’s death, the education they offered was not merely the preservation of tradition but a “ceaseless begetting and giving birth to the same single spirit, and its continuous integra­tion into life.” 

Inspired by the Frankfurt Lehrhaus, this global Lehrhaus encourages questions without answers, tradition without tethers, and a continuous integration of learning into life.

Recent History

The immediate origin of this institute was a global discussion of forty participants from over fourteen countries that met over the course of ten weeks in 2020. 

Convened by Paul Mendes-Flohr, this seminar was initiated by Matthew Katz, a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. Matthew Katz sought to create a forum in the memory of friend and colleague Nick Shafrer (1990-2020). A social activist, poet, and former graduate student at the University of Chicago, the seminar had to be true to Nick–prescient, vital, urgent–with no separation between spirit and soul.

After the success of that first seminar, participants encouraged another. Out of those conversations emerged The Lehrhaus Institute. Our first initiative is a seminar entitled “Topographies of Exile: Horizons of Hope and Healing.” This seminar is held in memory of Richard “Dick” Kaufman (1927-2018) who upheld the Judaic ideal of Torah le-Sh’ma—learning for its own sake and as the fount of human dignity.