What is New Lehrhaus?

New Lehrhaus is California's cultural institute for Jewish culture, civilization, and thought. We offer nondenominational adult learning in Jewish languages (Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic), history, arts, literature, and contemporary thought through expert-led courses and cultural programming.

Is New Lehrhaus religious?

No. New Lehrhaus is a secular, nondenominational cultural institute. We study Jewish civilization from academic and cultural perspectives, not religious practice or observance.

Who can take classes at New Lehrhaus?

Anyone interested in Jewish civilization, regardless of background, heritage, or beliefs. Our courses are open to Jewish and non-Jewish learners alike.

Upcoming Programs - New Lehrhaus - The Bay Area Hub for Adult Jewish Education

Starts on - Pacific Time Series

Stranger than a Golem: The Hidden World of the Maharal of Prague

Virtual Program

Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel (1524-1609)—the Maharal of Prague—is famous for the Golem legend, but his actual philosophical and theological system is far more complex and daring than the myth suggests. Together, we will explore selections from the Maharal’s prolific writings, examining his ideas about language, Torah study, the nature of time, and the relationship between the divine and the material world. The Maharal's unique blend of rationalism and mysticism has much to offer the modern ... Read more

Instructor

Rabbi David Kasher

Register ➜Total Program Fee: $54.0069 spaces open

- Pacific Time

Critical Perspectives on Israel & Palestine: Feminism & Activism in the Knesset

Virtual Program

Critical Perspectives on Israel & Palestine consists of five stand-alone sessions, each requiring separate registration. These sessions invite participants into serious, pluralistic engagement with sharply different analyses and visions for the future of Israel/Palestine. We'll also examine the moral and political frameworks that shape those visions.

Instructor

Aida Touma-Sliman

- Pacific Time

Critical Perspectives on Israel/Palestine: Diplomacy, Poetry, and the Druze Experience

Virtual Program

Critical Perspectives on Israel & Palestine consists of five stand-alone sessions, each requiring separate registration. These sessions invite participants into serious, pluralistic engagement with sharply different analyses and visions for the future of Israel/Palestine. We'll also examine the moral and political frameworks that shape those visions.

In each session, we feature a scholar, organizer, or public leader offering a distinct criti... Read more

Instructor

Reda Mansour

- Pacific Time

Critical Perspectives on Israel & Palestine: New Jewish Narrative

Virtual Program

Critical Perspectives on Israel & Palestine consists of five stand-alone sessions, each requiring separate registration. These sessions invite participants into serious, pluralistic engagement with sharply different analyses and visions for the future of Israel/Palestine. We'll also examine the moral and political frameworks that shape those visions.

In each session, we feature a scholar, organizer, or public leader offering a distinct critical le... Read more

Instructor

Hadar Susskind

Starts on - Pacific Time Series

Reading Biblical Texts: Prophets and Prophecy in the Biblical World

Virtual Program

Who were the prophets and prophetesses, how did they come to be so, and how were their visions expressed and received? Our class will explore these and other questions, not only for prophets of the Bible, but also for the prophetic profession in the rest of the ancient Near East. Then we'll explore specific Biblical texts that inform our understanding of the prophet and his role in society. A special focus will be the endemic problem of the 'false prophet' in Biblical Literature. In the pro... Read more

Instructor

Jehon Grist

Register ➜Total Program Fee: $115.0085 spaces open

Starts on - Pacific Time Series

Prayerbook/Biblical Hebrew 2

Virtual Program

The second semester of a three-semester sequence, this course is designed for those who have completed New Lehrhaus Hebrew 1 or equivalent, have a working Hebrew vocabulary of 75–100 words and are familiar with the grammar of nouns, adjectives, possessive endings and simple participles. It’s also a great choice for students with basic sight-reading skills who need a general review.

What you'll learn:

Prepositions
W... Read more

Instructor

Jehon Grist

Starts on - Pacific Time Series

A Tour of Ancient Israel

Virtual Program

This richly illustrated class explores the lifeways, places, and events of ancient Israelite civilization, from the Age of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs to the early rabbinic era. We'll visit the region's most important ancient sites, covering the millennia from 1500 BCE to 500 CE. We'll discover daily life in ancient times: what people ate and drank; how, where, and what they worshipped; the battles won and lost; and the kings, queens, and prophets who shaped this history. Studying this an... Read more

Instructor

Jehon Grist

Starts on - Pacific Time Series

Radical Jewish Reading Circle: Rosa Luxemburg

Virtual Program

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

Instructor

Robby Adler Peckerar

Starts on - Pacific Time Series

Convergence in Conversation: Music, Narratives, and History

Virtual Program

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.

Instructor

Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell

Starts on - Pacific Time Series

Reading and Writing Grief and Surrender

Virtual Program

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

Instructor

Moriel Rothman-Zecher

- Pacific Time

Jordan Chad · Christmas in Yiddish Tradition

Virtual Program

In partnership with KlezCalifornia

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

Instructor

Jordan Chad

- Pacific Time

Miriam Udel · Modern Jewish Worldmaking Through Yiddish Children’s Literature

Virtual Program

What would you do to make the world better for the children in your life? Around the turn of the twentieth century, a group of Yiddish-speaking educators, authors, and cultural leaders undertook a bold project: creating a corpus of nearly one thousand books and several periodicals, which flourished in conjunction with the secular Yiddish school systems that spanned th... Read more

Instructor

Miriam Udel

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