Aspen Jewish Conversations brings together leading thinkers, leaders, and seekers for evenings of honest, generous dialogue about the ideas shaping Jewish life — identity, peoplehood, public life, and what comes next. We’re not just here to talk. We’re here to leave differently than we arrived.
WED, JUL 29 at 5:30 pm, Paepcke Auditorium
An evening of reflection, resilience, and hope, this conversation invites our community into one of the most urgent and human questions of our time: what comes next. Through personal story, moral courage, and Jewish wisdom, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin — whose son, Hersch, was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023 — will help us explore grief, responsibility, and the possibilities that emerge even in uncertainty.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin
Jon Frankel
Moderator
Broadcast Journalist
WED, AUG 5 at 5:30 pm, Paepcke Auditorium
What does it mean to make people laugh right now? Alex Edelman and Liz Glazer happen to be Jewish. While that’s not the entirety of their act, it’s never not true. Both have built careers in the broad American comedy world, and both are grappling with what it means to be visibly Jewish in that space in this particular moment. This conversation explores comedy, identity, and the strange necessity of laughter when the world feels like it’s a lot.
Alex Edelman
Comedian
Liz Glazer
Comedian
Jacques Berlinerblau
Moderator
Author of “Can We Laugh at That? Comedy in a Conflicted Age”
Comedy on Trial: Comedy, Controversy, and Free Speech
August 6, 11 am – 12:30 pm, Explore Books, Aspen
Jacques Berlinerblau will lead a small-group learning session that explores the rise of controversial comedy and asks why “mere” jokes have suddenly become the subject of such heated contention.
WED, AUG 12 at 5:30 pm, Paepcke Auditorium
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, this conversation examines the enduring relationship between Jewish life and the American experiment. Through historical reflection and contemporary insight, speakers will explore how Jewish tradition and democratic ideals have shaped one another — and what that long story asks of us now.
Rabbi Sharon Brous
Founder and Senior Rabbi
IKAR
Eric Cohen
President and CEO
Tikvah
Jeffrey Goldberg
Moderator
Editor-in-Chief
The Atlantic
On the Curiosity Deficit, and How We Might Find Our Way Back to One Another
August 12, 11 am – 12:30 pm, Explore Books, Aspen
Rabbi Sharon Brous leads an exploration of a little-known Talmudic story that awakens us to the way that a wonder— about ourselves, the other, the world—can birth deeper understanding and help us live with a greater sense of possibility.
Can the Jews Save America?
August 13, 11 am – 12:30 pm, Explore Books, Aspen
Eric Cohen leads this discussion of how Jewish ideas and Jewish leadership can help renew the American project and solve society’s cultural, political, and moral challenges.
