Join us for the Radical Jewish Reading Circle: three evenings of reading, thinking, and conversation about radical thinkers of Jewish origin.

This month we turn to Rosa Luxemburg, starting with her famous 1917 letter to Mathilde Wurm, in which she declared: "I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears." Born in 1871 to a Jewish family in Russian-controlled Poland, Lux... Read more

Join us for an engaging series of conversations led by acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and educator Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell exploring the music, narratives and histories behind his 2018 EP covering a century of African American and Ashkenazic Jewish music, Convergence.

In this three-part seminar, led by novelist and poet Moriel Rothman-Zecher, we will focus on both reading and writing poetry and fiction that deal with themes of grief and surrender. Each class will begin with a grounding check-in, and a discussion of what roles reading and writing poetry and fiction, in particular, can play in grieving, and what roles grief can play in our art-making. In other words, we will examine the two-directional street of transforming “my pain” into a part of “the p... Read more

Back in Europe, Yiddish-speaking Jews traditionally let loose on Christmas Eve with feasting, drinking, dancing, and gambling. Scholars have previously assumed that this Christmas Eve vacation from Torah study was some sort of antagonistic counterculture to Christians celebrating Christmas. But Jordan Chad’s recent book Christmas in Yiddish Tradition: the Untold Story* reveals that the Christmas traditions ... Read more

Brave Maccabees defeat the evil Seleucid Empire and rededicate the Temple; miracle oil burns for eight days (thus the latkes). Not really...the Books of the Maccabees tell a far messier tale.

Yes, Hanukkah celebrates a stirring victory of Jewish forces, led by Judah Maccabee, over those of the Greco-Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes, who had sought to stamp out the religion, rituals, and institutions of the Jewish nation. But the historical record is more complicated. It was no... Read more

This session explores two radical innovations in Jewish culture and education that have their roots in the 1920s: the legacy of the Jewish People's Fraternal Order and Yiddishkayt Los Angeles, alongside Franz Rosenzweig's "New Learning" and today's New Lehrhaus.

The JPFO was one of Los Angeles's most important Jewish organizations in the early 20th century, centering anti-racist organizing and Yiddish culture. After its McCarthyist destruction in 1950, former ... Read more

In this multimedia talk, author Seth Rog... Read more

A Jew raised in a predominantly Protestant section of mostly Catholic Montreal, Leonard Cohen understood "outsiderness" as well as community. From a family of Torah scholars and synagogue founders, he even used the synagogue's choir on his last album. Yet, Leonard was a maven of world religions, especially as they pointed to the majesty and wonder of human life and provided rich imagery for his songs. In this class, we will focus on Leonard's Jewish identity and themes with a nod toward his... Read more