In his clarion call for ethical behavior, Rabbi Hillel tells us, “In a place where there is no humanity, strive to be human.” But what exactly does it mean to be human, especially in an age of rapid transformation? Striving to Be Human: Jewish Perspectives on Twenty-First-Century Challenges
confronts this question with boldness, hope, and a foundation of Jewish wisdom. The volume begins with “Challenges from Within Us,” addressing such topics as moral justice, belonging, queer theology, and good and evil. In part two, “Challenges from Beyond Us,” the authors delve into artificial intelligence, robotics, reproductive technologies, and the animal-human relationship. The result is a profound conversation about Jewish values and human dignity in our evolving landscape.

Rabbi Leah Cohen Tenenbaum, DMin, BCC-PCHAC (HUC-JIR 2000), serves as the inpatient palliative care chaplain and as a member of the Ethics Committee at Yale New Haven Hospital. She is a faculty member of FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics) and has served on the CCAR Board of Trustees, the CCAR National Ethics Taskforce, and currently the CCAR Press Council. She has written chapters for The Sacred Struggle: Jewish Responses to Trauma (CCAR Press, 2025) and Fragile Dialogue: New Voices of Liberal Zionism (CCAR Press, 2018) and is the coeditor with Rabbi Douglas Kohn of Striving to Be Human: Jewish Perspectives on Twenty-First-Century Challenges. She frequently teaches and presents on spirituality, serious illness, and medical ethics.

Rabbi Douglas Kohn serves Temple Beth Jacob in Newburgh, New York, having previously served congregations in Buffalo, Baltimore, Chicago, and Southern California, and is happily busy in all aspects of congregational and community endeavors. In addition to coediting Striving to Be Human with Rabbi Leah Cohen Tenenbaum, he is the editor of two other volumes, Life, Faith, and Cancer: Jewish Journeys Through Diagnosis, Treatment, and Recovery (URJ Press, 2008) and Broken Fragments: Jewish Experiences of Alzheimer’s Disease Through Diagnosis, Adaptation, and Moving On (URJ Press, 2012), and has written and spoken widely on the themes of illness, medical ethics, and being human. Rabbi Kohn has served on numerous CCAR, URJ, and communal commissions, committees, and boards, while still savoring time to read, write, and paint, as well as exercise, cook, and travel with his wife, Cindy, and their children and grandchildren.

Foreword
     Rabbanit Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld
Acknowledgments 
Introduction
     Rabbi Douglas Kohn
     and Rabbi Leah Cohen Tenenbaum, DMin, BCC-PCHAC

Part I: Challenges from Within Us
1. Empathy, Power, and Tzedakah: Is Moral Justice at the Core of Humanity? 
     Rabbi Sarah Bassin
2. The Human Question: Choosing Between Good and Evil 
     Rabbi Lucy H. F. Dinner
3. Belonging: You Are Who You Are With 
     Rabbi Jan Katzew, PhD
4. In Memory of the Wayward Son: Meditations in Queer Jewish Theology 
     Rabbi Hilly Haber, PhD
5. The Feeling Being: Was the World Created for My Sake? 
     Rabbi Ellen Lewis

Part II: Challenges from Beyond Us
6. Your Mercies Extend Even to a Bird’s Nest: The Animal-Human Relationship 
     Rabbi Alexandria Shuval-Weiner
7. Moving the Goalposts: Beyond the Beginning and End of Life 
     Rabbi Jonathan K. Crane, PhD
8. When Artificiality Collides with Humanity: Can AI Develop a Soul? 
     Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman
9. From Creation to Creator: Humans Making Humans, Humanoids, Cyborgs, and Clones 
     Rabbi Douglas Kohn
10. Medium, Message, and Humanity in the Newest Information Age 
     Rabbi Dan Medwin

Conclusion: Tensions Between the Good and the Perfect
     Rabbi Leah Cohen Tenenbaum, DMin, BCC-PCHAC
Contributors