Ancient Jews, Modern Myths: What We Get Wrong About the Jewish Experience in Antiquity

Conversations about antisemitism often go badly. Some build understanding; others leave people feeling isolated. Why do arguments that persuade within the Jewish community so often fail outside it, and can familiar approaches make understanding harder? How can people talk about Jewish identity, Israel, Zionism, and antisemitism without every conversation turning into a fight? This two-session online workshop works through real situations from schools, workplaces, civic organizations, and everyday relationships. Participants will look at where people agree and where they genuinely disagree, and practice responses that invite curiosity without minimizing legitimate Jewish concerns. The workshop is open to Jewish and non-Jewish participants alike. Underneath it is one question: can relationships across political, religious, and communal divides make Jews safer, and how do we reach people who see the world differently? Who this is for: Anyone who has struggled to answer a hard question about antisemitism, Israel, or Zionism People addressing antisemitism in schools, workplaces, or community organizations Non-Jewish friends and colleagues who want to know how to help What you'll leave with: Ways to answer hard questions that keep the conversation open A clearer sense of where people agree and disagree about when criticism of Israel or Zionism becomes antisemitism Practice with responses that don’t ask Jews to minimize their own experience Two Wednesdays: October 21 & 28, 6–7:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

This two-part illustrated class introduces ancient Egyptian history, religion, and daily life, with special attention to the periods and objects in the de Young Museum’s Treasures of the Pharaohs . We’ll begin with an overview of Egypt’s thirty dynasties, then turn to religious belief and everyday life, ending with the Lost City of Amenhotep III, a special feature of the exhibition. The class works whether or not you’ve seen the show. Who this is for: Anyone planning a visit to the exhibition or who has already been Anyone curious about ancient Egypt; no background in Egyptology needed What you'll leave with: Where the exhibition’s objects fit in Egypt’s long history What the Lost City of Amenhotep III reveals about life in ancient Egypt Two Thursdays: October 15 & 22, 6–7:30pm Pacific Time Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

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.

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.

California has passed a law requiring state agencies that collect ancestry or ethnicity data to include a separate category for Jewish ancestry or ethnicity beginning in 2029. What changes when the state counts Jews as an ethnic group? The panel brings together Ari Y. Kelman, director of the Berman Archive at Stanford; Keith Feldman, professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley; Aliya Saperstein, professor of sociology at Stanford; and David Bocarsly of Jewish California, who helped draft Senate Bill 1387 . Asaf Elia-Shalev, editor in chief of J. The Jewish News of Northern California , moderates. After the panel, each table continues the conversation with a facilitator. Presented with J. and cosponsored by Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies, the Berman Archive, and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Who this is for: Anyone curious how governments define and count Jewish identity Californians who want to know what SB 1387 does Anyone who would rather join a small-group conversation than listen to a lecture What you'll leave with: A clear account of what SB 1387 changes in how California collects demographic data Several views on whether, and how, Jewishness works as an ethnic category Monday, November 2, 5:30–7pm 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.