“It is not a coincidence,” says photographer Penny Wolin “that Jews are attracted to the alchemy of photography and photography has found its storytellers in Jews.” Over six years, Wolin had in-person encounters with 70 leading American Jewish photographers, including Robert Frank, Annie Leibovitz, and Arnold Newman. With a visual and verbal discussion, we will explore the motivations of Jews in photography.

Mathematicians, theologians, and even children ponder the inspiring and surprising nature of the infinite. Dr. Lesser will explore—in a lively, interactive way—how math concepts can help illuminate some big ideas in Judaism, including the value of life, the value of commandments, and the coexistence of God's transcendence and immanence. While parts of this realm can get technical, have no fear: our session will maintain a liberal arts, general adult audiences sensibility to keep it accessible to a broad diversity of backgrounds in mathematics and in Judaism.

Program Video: https://youtu.be/FEzwnh37xBY

In partnership with The East Bay International Jewish Film Festival, Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, and A Wider Bridge

The Land-as-Woman is one of the most deeply rooted metaphorical systems in Jewish as well as Western and Middle-Eastern cultures, used to support the discourses of colonialism and nationalism throughout history. It has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. In modern Hebrew poetry modernist women poets critique a tradition that views women always as metaphors, never as literal subjects, developing a new erotics of the address to the land that calls into question patriarchal models of conquest and subjugation.

The abortion debate has just reached fever pitch following the leak of the Supreme Court majority opinion suggesting the demise of Roe vs. Wade. If it is overturned, what other personal freedoms are already/will be in danger: transgender health services, gay marriage, contraception?

Explore the cultural, social, and economic forces that led to a remarkable phenomenon:  although the Jewish population in America has rarely exceeded 2%, over 80% of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley songwriters have been Jewish. How are Jewish religion and tradition and the qualities inherent in the Yiddish language reflected in the songs written by those lyricists, including Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Ira Gershwin, Yip Harburg, Dorothy Fields, Sheldon Harnick, and Alan Jay Lerner.

The Land-as-Woman is one of the most deeply rooted metaphorical systems in Jewish as well as Western and Middle-Eastern cultures, used to support the discourses of colonialism and nationalism throughout history. It has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. In modern Hebrew poetry modernist women poets critique a tradition that views women always as metaphors, never as literal subjects, developing a new erotics of the address to the land that calls into question patriarchal models of conquest and subjugation.

The Land-as-Woman is one of the most deeply rooted metaphorical systems in Jewish as well as Western and Middle-Eastern cultures, used to support the discourses of colonialism and nationalism throughout history. It has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. In modern Hebrew poetry modernist women poets critique a tradition that views women always as metaphors, never as literal subjects, developing a new erotics of the address to the land that calls into question patriarchal models of conquest and subjugation.

In Partnership with Congregation Beth El, Berkeley

Learn about the aesthetic-theology of kabbalistic diagrams—full of trees, circles, spirals, lines, and letters—and use these as models to map your own relation to that which is essential but intangible (what might be called spirit, soul, or the divine). Our first two classes will focus on the history of these diagrams, and the final sessions on how to create your own kabbalistic diagram. 

3 sessions

Apparently uncomfortable with various portions of the Torah, the rabbis provide interpretations that tend to neutralize the troubling aspects of those texts.  In this class, we will engage in close readings of texts from the Torah and corresponding Talmudic passages.

While we follow the Russian invasion of Ukraine with heartbreak and grave anxiety and hold ALL Ukrainians in our hearts and thoughts, we step back in history with Prof. Natan Meir, to the days when Kyiv - Kiev was a flourishing Jewish Metropolis. Populated by urbane Jewish merchants and professionals as well as new arrivals from the shtetl, imperial Kiev was acclaimed for its opportunities for education, culture, employment, and entrepreneurship but cursed for the often pitiless persecution of its Jews.