Dr. Ruth Calderon
Chair
Dr. Ruth Calderon, deputy speaker of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, is an educator and Talmud scholar. As part of her work promoting a Hebrew, Israeli and Jewish culture that draws on traditional sources but looks to the future, she co-founded Elul (a pioneering pluralist beit midrash) with Moti Bar-Or and founded and directed the Alma nonprofit organization for teaching and nurturing Hebrew culture.
After 18 years as director of Alma, Calderon was appointed head of the Culture and Education Department at the National Library of Israel. She completed her master’s degree and doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s department of Talmud. In recognition of her work, Calderon was awarded the AVI CHAI Prize for Jewish Education and honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, Hebrew College in Boston and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. Calderon studied at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and is a graduate of the first cohort of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership.