On July 30, 1902, tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of New York’s Lower East Side to bid farewell to the city’s chief rabbi, the eminent Talmudist Jacob Joseph. All went well until the procession crossed Sheriff Street, where the six-story R. Hoe and Company printing press factory towered over the intersection. Without warning, scraps of steel, iron bolts, and sca... Read more

The John Muir Trail runs 212 miles along the crest of California's High Sierra, from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney. Did you know that its creator was the direct descendant of the only Jewish clergyman in attendance at George Washington's inauguration in 1789? Michael Hoberman tells the story of Theodore Seixas Solomons' explorations of the Sierra in the 1890s, as well as of his tireless (and largely unreco... Read more

The history of San Francisco Jewry tends to be told in terms dominated by the experience of Jews from German-speaking lands who settled in California in the mid-nineteenth century with great success. Less attention is given to the lives of Jews from Eastern Europe who arrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This presentation will focus on these immigrants through the prism of Yid... Read more

There has been discussion over the past thirty years about the vision of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, as well as the compatibility of observant Jewish life and American democracy. Can the two—Jewish and democratic—be reconciled? The two presenters, one a Jewish historian, the other a scholar of American law, will explore the consonances and tensions between Jewish and democratic values in Israel and ... Read more

Writer Mary Antin’s 1912 book The Promised Land, the first autobiography of a Russian Jewish immigrant to the United States, brought her national fame. But only a few years later, Antin abandoned celebrity in favor of exploring non-Jewish religious groups. Her spiritual journey reveals the resilience of Jewish identity, connections between health and religious practice, and the boundaries of religious communities.

Wednesdays, February 26 & March 5 @ 7-8:30pm... Read more

Biblical Israel’s legacy from its ancient neighbors is not just a saga of conflict. Law, literature, early religious practices, and even food and drink owe much to the surrounding ancient cultures. Mesopotamia's cultures contributed to the foundational tales of the Torah—the Garden of Eden, Noah’s ark, the Tower of Babel and the Abraham narrative, the Jewish calendar, and the Hebrew language. Egypt’s hieroglyphs morphed into the Hebrew alphabet and Egyptian art influenced the iconography of... Read more

Discover the foods of the Biblical world and how they were produced. We’ll learn about farming in Biblical Israel and neighboring lands, and how the basic foods were processed from the crops. Then we’ll look into everything from cooking methods to the seasonings and other ingredients that made Biblical cuisine s... Read more

Moses has long been the prototype of the successful revolutionary leader who must cajole his willful followers to cut ties with tyrants and embark on the painful journey from bondage to freedom. The most well-known student of leadership is Niccolo Machiavelli, whose name is synonymous with cunning, amoral political machinations. Yet, he regarded Moses as his model for the ideal leader in The Prince, his famous study of leadership. Join us in an examination of this surprising pairing,... Read more

German Jews since Moses Mendelssohn have struggled with their self-definition: are they German Jews (Jews first) or Jewish Germans (Germans first)? We will chart this complex road from the stirring music of Felix Mendelssohn, Moses' grandson who converted to Christianity, through 19th and 20th-century attitudes towards conversion to Phillip Kuttner's own family history.

Watch the fascinating documentary film ... Read more