Resistance to authoritarian, oppressive regimes is as old as those regimes themselves. We will examine the historical record for resistance efforts and movements around the world with particular emphasis on the ordeal and role of Jews, as victims and/or defiers.

Sessions will be recorded, so if you miss one you can find the recording in our video library the following day.... Read more

Join us as Rabbi David Cooper discusses Burt Jacobson's search for the Baal Shem Tov. For three decades, between his radical political activism and his rabbinic responsibilities, Burt Jacobson, founder of Kehilla Synagogue, investigated and drafted notes on the teachings and life journey of the 18th-century founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov. Those notes became the 600-page Living in the Presence, published posthumously last year. Jacobson's own journey is a key eleme... Read more

And Now Can Love Begin is an imagined memoir, ventriloquizing the author's parents, based on 100 love letters exchanged in Palestine from 1945-46. Join us as Rachel Biale describes a fascinating glimpse into an epistolary romance set just after WWII in Palestine by two Jewish refugees from Europe.

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These preparatory lectures for a New Lehrhaus/Tiyul Jewish Journeys September trip are open to anyone interested in the history of the region, not just trip participants.

Fred Rosenbaum will describe the millennia-long importance of the Rhine River to the economy, culture, and geopolitics of Western Europe with a focus on Frankfurt and the fraught Jewish experience in the region. The lecture will encompass medieval persecution and ghettoization, the ast... Read more

This multimedia program takes audiences on a journey via music, visuals, and storytelling, tracing klezmer's evolution and development from Old World shtetls to New World nightclubs and concert stages. The program includes insights into the sound and shape of klezmer and introduces many of the great heroes who helped transform Eastern European Yiddish wedding music into the vital form of world music it is today.

New Lehrhaus is co-presenting this heartfelt film which brings long-overdue recognition to Henrietta Szold, a Jewish American humanitarian whose legacy includes advocating for binational cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians. In Labors of Love, the filmmaker honors Szold's legacy and brings her story to life as a touching historical portrait as well as a roadmap for confronting the continued challenges of our... Read more

Freedom fighter, double agent, femme fatale—Tamar said she was all three. Decades after her death, a page she wrote in a diary from a Nazi-run women's camp reveals a hidden identity, leading her daughter on a global reckoning with secrets she took to her grave. 

The film uniquely addresses Holocaust sexual trauma and agency, and gives women survivors the platform to tell thei... Read more

This program is based on Daniel Matt's book The Essential Kabbalah, an anthology of teachings from various stages of the Jewish mystical tradition, including Sefer Yetsirah, the Bahir, Spanish Kabbalah (including the Zohar), Lurianic Kabbalah, and Hasidism.

Please register directly with Daniel Matt using the link below. The cost is on a sliding scale from $150-$300, depending on what you can afford.

For methods of payment,... Read more

KlezCalifornia is rebooting their klezmer and Yiddish culture festival! KlezCalYidFest kicks off Friday Sept 12 with a weekend of concerts, workshops and dancing with local and international artists from the klezmer and contemporary Yiddish culture scene. New Lehrhaus is sponsoring two lectures:

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Jews in the ancient world were everywhere a subordinate people, a footnote or afterthought in the grand sweep of history featured by the empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. How did Jews conceive of their own place in this larger world? And how were they perceived by the greater powers? Did Jews see themselves as a distinctive people apart or as somehow participants in a broader society and culture? This class consists of four lectures tha... Read more