Jews don’t have a pope, and we don’t have a clear religious outlook on artificial intelligence. But Jewish tradition does have a lot to say about how we might engage ethically with this new, evolving technology. And maybe the advent of AI can refresh our notions of what really makes Judaism feel personal, meaningful and alive.
Last night, Sinai and Synapses and The Forward brought together leading voices in Jewish thought, technology, and ethics to explore what a distinctly Jewish approach to artificial intelligence might look like. Moderated by The Forward‘s Louis Keene, the conversation featured Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman, Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses; Dr. DZ Kalman, Sinai and Synapses Senior Technology Advisor and host of Belief in the Future; and Rabbanit Sara Wolkenfeld, Chief Learning Officer at Sefaria and a member of Sinai and Synapses’ Jewish Thought and Jewish Education for the Digital Future working group.
Watch the Conversation
More about our panelists:
Louis Keene is a general assignment reporter for the Forward based in Los Angeles. An award-winning investigative journalist and feature writer, he chronicles the negotiation of American Jewish identity in the modern world, including LGBTQ+ Jews’ struggle for acceptance in Orthodox spaces, the tentative adoption of generative artificial intelligence in religious communities, the experiences of Jewish athletes and the evolution of Chabad-Lubavitch into a powerful force in American society and politics.
Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman is the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the scientific and religious worlds and is being incubated at CLAL, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. His writings on the intersection of religion and science have been widely published and he served as the co-editor of the Fall 2025 of the CCAR Journal on the “AI and the Rabbinate.”
Dr. DZ Kalman is a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for the Internet and Society, is the senior tech advisor at Sinai and Synapses and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He hosts the Belief in the Future podcast and blogs at Jello Menorah.
Rabbanit Sara Wolkenfeld is the Chief Learning Officer at Sefaria an online database and interface for Jewish texts. She is a member of Sinai and Synapses’ working group on Jewish Thought and Jewish Education for the Jewish Future, and an advisor for AI & Faith. Her current research and writing focus on the intersection between Jewish ethics and advancements in technology.
This event was presented by the Forward and Sinai & Synapses.
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