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.

We will explore, via lecture and discussion, stories written by major Jewish American authors of the post-World War II period.  What does their fiction reveal to us about major motifs of Jewish identity and Jewish values and why is their work of ongoing importance? Authors will include Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Jody Hirsh: Bible, Midrash, Art: The Richness of Bible Narratives (Virtual on Zoom)

In partnership with JCCSF and Congregation Sha'ar Zahav

In partnership with and a part of The JFCSC Holocaust Center Day of Learning and with the Jewish Studies Program at UC Davis

Jody Hirsh: Bible, Midrash, Art: The Richness of Bible Narratives (Virtual on Zoom)

In partnership with KlezCalifornia

In partnership with KlezCalifornia

Learn this rich and colorful language in a relaxed, irreverent and heimishe atmosphere.

Eleanor Shapiro: Jewish Music Matters