Jewish teaching and practices regarding death, burial, mourning, and consoling the bereaved have provided comfort to Jews facing death for millennia, yet every person facing the end of life and every mourner must walk “in the valley of the shadow of death” in their own way.  New Lehrhaus is offering a multi-session program addressing key topics including preparing for death, traditional and contemporary Jewish burial practices, sitting Shiva, how to comfort mourners, and support for families coping with suicide.  A stellar group of teachers who have worked in this field for decades will lead the sessions (mostly virtually) with deep knowledge and profound compassion.

Are there Jewish variants of the Arabic language? Do Arabic-speaking Jews say "in sha' Allah"? Is Arabic one language, or something else? These and other questions will be addressed in the first session of "Judeo Arabic and the Jews of North Africa," taught by Rabbi Tsipora Gabai and me. After the initial discussion of "Judeo-Arabic," we will explore the customs and history of North African Jewry. Rabbi Gabai will share stories of her experience as a Moroccan Jew in Israel, and how she came to be the first female rabbi of Moroccan descent on record (and one of only four female Mizrahi/Sephardic rabbis worldwide).

By Stewart Florsheim Recently, I had the pleasure of leading a poetry workshop at New Lehrhaus called “Poems on Paintings: A Workshop Using One Art to Explore Another.” The formal name for this form of writing is “ekphrastic poetry” which, simply stated, is the art of writing poetry that has been inspired by a work of art. The work of art is usually visual, e.g., a painting, but it could also be a piece of music, or dance.

Amos Oz (1939-2018) was for many readers worldwide Israel’s post 1948 canonical writer. His 40 books, including novels, short story collections, essays and reportage, and children’s books, translated into 45 languages, and his journalistic articles and public appearances made him Israel’s best-known writer and an icon of its peace movement.

We have a plethora of new programs starting right after Labor Day. Here's the list: details and registration here (//newlehrhaus.org/learn-with-us).

I recently attended Natan Meir's lecture, Kiev: Jewish Metropolis, offered by New Lehrhaus.  Most of my maternal grandmother's family emigrated from outside Kiev, Ukraine between 1902 and 1905.  As a child, I asked my great grandmother many questions, but she answered very few.  I often learned more about the pogroms, anti-Semitism and other traumas from what she didn't say than from what she did.  So, I could hardly wait to attend the lecture, hoping for more information.  I was really delighted that Prof. Meir filled in many gaps for me and offered explanations for seemingly contradictory information I had.

In the 1990s, when I was directing the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, a most unusual PhD student walked into my office: a former yeshiva bocher (Orthodox seminary student) who could recite both complex Talmud passages and entire Seinfeld episodes from memory – in one and the same breath!  Ron Reissberg completed his doctorate and went on to teach both rabbinic and high school students in several institutions. But his true calling, I suspected, but as his PhD supervisor couldn't say, was as stand-up comic, if only there were a comedy club where rabbinic pilpul (nuanced hermeneutics) was the order of the day (or night).

Nu, what do you think about Intermarriage? Image by Marvin Steindler (marvinsteindler.com) On January 19th Professor Bruce Phillips (Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, and USC: https://crcc.usc.edu/people/bruce-phillips/) will present: How Interfaith Marriage is Changing the American Jewish Community – But Not Necessarily in the Ways We Think/Fear. This is a topic that every Jew,  should find intriguing and important, not just those who have married non-Jews.

Whether you were born Jewish and never learned Hebrew (perhaps despite hours warming the chair at Hebrew School...) or you chose Judaism as an adult, tackling a new language IN A NEW ALPHABET is daunting. Yet mastery of even the alef-bet and some words of Hebrew is tremendously empowering and, the way our teachers teach, great fun! Over the years Lehrhaus had offered numerous Hebrew and Yiddish classes. Many of the teachers are lifers, and will be teaching for New Lehrhaus until someone pries the chalk from their hand!

Naomi Seidman is one of our most popular teachers and we are thrilled she is returning this fall with this remarkable class.