Beyond the Treasures: Exploring Ancient Egypt

Most of us picture Judaism and Christianity as two distinct religions from the moment Christianity appeared. For several centuries the two were entangled, overlapping, and often hard to tell apart. This course follows their shared history from the Babylonian exile in 586 BCE to the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. We begin with the rebuilding of Jewish life after the exile and the upheavals that followed: Hellenism, the Hasmonean revolt, and the arrival of Rome and Herod. We then turn to the many Second Temple “Judaisms,” the sects, movements, prophets, and revolutionaries among whom Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught, and to the Jewish revolts of 66–73 and 132–135 CE, which reshaped Jewish life and hastened the rise of both rabbinic Judaism and the early Jesus movement. The final sessions follow the two traditions as they move apart. On one side are the codification of the Mishnah and the beginnings of rabbinic Judaism; on the other, the Jesus movement through persecution, martyrdom, and fights over orthodoxy and heresy, up to Constantine and the Church as an imperial institution. Drawing on recent scholarship, including the work of Daniel Boyarin, we’ll see how long the ties between the two communities lasted and how each came to define itself, and be defined, as separate from the other. Who this is for: Anyone curious how Judaism and Christianity began and how they separated Readers interested in Second Temple Judaism, the historical Jesus, or early rabbinic Judaism Anyone who assumes the two were always separate religions and would like to see that assumption tested What you'll leave with: An outline of Jewish history from the Babylonian exile to the Mishnah A picture of Jesus of Nazareth within the Jewish world of his time An account of when Judaism and Christianity became separate religions and who drew the lines between them Four Mondays: October 5, 12, 19 and 26, 7–8:30pm Pacific Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Erich Gruen (UC Berkeley), has spent decades studying Jews in the Greco-Roman world, and much of his work questions popular assumptions about Jewish isolation, religious purity, and political resistance in antiquity. In four sessions he takes up some of the most debated episodes in ancient Jewish history. Each session takes on a question that has divided scholars and puzzled general readers alike: Were Jews in antiquity accused of ritual murder, the charge later known as blood libel? Did they reject Greek mythology as incompatible with their traditions, or engage with it in surprising ways? And what is the history behind Hanukkah? Who this is for Anyone curious about Jews in the ancient world Students of classical antiquity who want to go past the standard accounts Anyone who has wondered where Hanukkah comes from What you'll leave with Answers to four contested questions about ancient Jewish history, and the evidence behind them A way of telling historical evidence apart from later myth-making Four Sundays: November 1, 8, 15, and 22, 2–3:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

What happens when a novelist writes himself into his own novel, then sends a double to impersonate him in Jerusalem? That’s the premise of Philip Roth’s 1993 novel Operation Shylock , set during the First Intifada and the Jerusalem trial of John Demjanjuk. The book brings Jewish powerlessness and Israeli power face to face, and it keeps blurring fiction and fact, memory and history. In this reading circle we’ll look at how Roth uses fiction to get at “the truth,” how the novel has aged, and what it means to read it now. Who this is for Readers of Philip Roth and twentieth-century American Jewish fiction Anyone interested in how fiction has handled Israel, the First Intifada, and Holocaust memory First-time readers and rereaders alike What you'll leave with A close, discussion-based reading of the novel A sense of how Roth uses doubles and unreliable narration to write about Jewish identity Four Wednesdays: October 28, November 4, 11 and 18, 12:30–1:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

This four-session course introduces Sigmund Freud’s thought through his 1905 book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious . The book is full of jokes from the world of Freud’s father: Jewish Central Europe rather than cosmopolitan Vienna, a land of matchmakers, schnorrers, and ambivalence about assimilation. We will focus on Freud's own texts in order to understand him as a Jewish thinker hoping to operate in a universalistic scientific idiom, trying to produce a science of the mind out of the material of Jewish experience. We will, of course, think about the jokes themselves, and about what they do for us. Freud said they provide "victory," but he never said over what, leaving us to answer that question for ourselves. Who this is for: Anyone curious about Freud's Jewish background and how it shaped his thought Readers interested in Jewish humor, jokes, and Central European Jewish culture Students of psychoanalysis, Freud, or the history of ideas Anyone who enjoys close reading; no background required What you'll leave with: A close reading of Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious A way of reading Freud as a Jewish thinker as well as a “universal” scientist Your own answer to Freud’s open question: what victory do jokes provide? Four Thursdays: November 12, 19, December 3 & 10, 1–2:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

J. Robert Oppenheimer led the scientific work at Los Alamos, helped bring about the atomic age, and later became one of the best-known victims of the Red Scare. In Robert Oppenheimer: The Sphinx Without a Secret, his new biography in Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives series, David Rieff looks past the public story to Oppenheimer’s inner life: his childhood, his personal relationships, and his deeply ambivalent relation to being Jewish. Rieff joins Steve Wasserman, publisher of Heyday Books and former editor-at-large for Yale University Press, to talk about the man behind the legend and why Oppenheimer still fascinates more than eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Image: Ben Shahn, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1954. © 2026 Estate of Ben Shahn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Who this is for Anyone who wants more of Oppenheimer’s story than the recent film told Readers curious how his Jewish background shaped him What you'll leave with A fuller picture of Oppenheimer’s inner life, from childhood on The chance to put your own questions to the author Sunday, October 25, 1:30–3pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Where is a stateless culture at home? Yiddish is the language of one of the largest and longest-lasting diasporic cultures in the world, often defined by its lack of a homeland. But what if Yiddish speakers, artists, and writers did feel at home in diaspora, whether in a town their family had lived in for generations or a new city they'd just arrived in, an at-homeness with no claim to sovereignty or state? This course explores four spaces of Yiddish life and writing: Dos Shtetl (The Town) · Market days and mud, but also railways, factory work, political argument, and people planning their departure. Generally rooftop-fiddler-free Di Shtot (The City) · Where millions went, wandering busy streets where technology, politics, economics, and art combined into new and disorienting possibilities Der Hoyf (The Courtyard) · The urban courtyard that defined local life across central and eastern Europe, and reappeared as far away as Buenos Aires Di Svive (The Natural World) · The forests of Belarus, the steppes of Siberia, the mountains of Quebec and New York,where writers turned their attention from people to landscape Through close reading, discussion, and weekly writing prompts, the course asks what these spaces can teach about diasporic belonging and the meaning of home without a state. Who this is for: Readers curious about Yiddish literature, Jewish diaspora history, or modern Jewish culture Anyone interested in place, migration, and belonging in literature What you'll leave with: A map of Yiddish literature's key imaginative geographies: the shtetl, the city, the courtyard, the natural world Firsthand familiarity with major modern Yiddish writers in translation Your own short pieces of writing from the course's weekly prompts Readings include Avrom Karpinowitz, Moyshe Kulbak, Mendel Mann, Anna Margolin, Mimi Pinzon, Fradl Shtok, Avrom Sutzkever, Miriam Ulinover, and more, all in English translation. No prior knowledge of Yiddish required. Four Thursdays: October 8, 15, 22 and 29 at 12–1:15pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Join New Lehrhaus at Berkeley Repertory Theatre for Liberation , Bess Wohl’s play about feminism, memory, and social change. Set partly in 1970s Ohio, the play follows a group of women who meet in a recreation-center basement to imagine new possibilities for their lives. Decades later, the daughter of one of them returns to that history and its hopes, conflicts, and unanswered questions. The Berkeley Rep production, directed by Whitney White, comes to the Bay Area after an acclaimed Broadway run. We’ll gather before the performance for a short introduction to the play and its historical context, then again afterward to talk about what we saw. Who this is for: Theatergoers interested in women’s history and the women’s liberation movement Anyone who enjoys seeing a play with a group and talking about it afterward What you'll leave with: Historical context for the women’s liberation movement before the curtain goes up A post-show conversation with fellow New Lehrhaus participants Please note: Because this special program includes a discounted ticket to a Berkeley Rep performance, New Lehrhaus members will pay only the discounted cost of the theater ticket. Nonmembers will pay the full program fee of $72. Tuesday, November 10, 6:30–10pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Two hundred fifty years ago, American revolutionaries reached for the words of the Hebrew Bible to make their case for independence. The phrase engraved on the Liberty Bell itself, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof," comes directly from the Book of Leviticus. In this course, we'll trace how biblical texts including Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy shaped the political imagination of the Revolutionary generation, from sermons and pamphlets to the imagery Franklin and Jefferson proposed for the Great Seal of the United States. We’ll also go back roughly 2,500 years to ask what these passages meant when they were written: who wrote them, why, and what ideas of liberty, covenant, and peoplehood they carried for ancient Israel. Who this is for: Anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible’s place in American history Readers curious how ancient texts get reinterpreted across centuries No prior Bible study needed What you'll leave with: A close reading of key passages in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy in their ancient context An understanding of how Revolutionary-era sermons and pamphlets used those passages, down to the proposals for the Great Seal Nine Sundays: October 11, 18, 25, November 1, 8, 15, 22, December 6 & 13, 5:15–6:45pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.