In partnership with Berkeley Hillel and KlezCalifornia

Sing along with the movie!

"Jewish Christmas?" You bet! Join us for a Fiddler singalong complete with a kosher-style Chinese dinner buffet at Berkeley Hillel.

Eli Gumener’s 1921 Yiddish memoir, A Ukrainian Chapter: Two Years in Podolia (A Kapitl Ukraine. Tsvey Yor in Podolye), is set in a region in southwest Ukraine. The memoir depicts the fate of Jews caught in the middle of the Russian Civil War and the challenges of providing aid to Jewish communities. Gumener (1886-1941) was Michael Nutkiewicz’s uncle and worked for all the major aid organizations in the interwar period. Nutkiewicz was unaware of Gumener’s story until he discovered the book in his parents’ library after they passed away. Translated into English by Nutkiewicz and published in 2022, Gumener’s memoir is a highly valuable and rare historical source that focuses on the two most devastating years of pogroms in Ukraine, 1918-1920. Eli Gumener was a communal activist right up to the time that he himself became a victim during the Holocaust.

Most likely you remember the 1989 classic Driving Miss Daisy starring Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy and Dan Aykroyd. The film takes place in 1950s Atlanta. Award-winning historian Fred Rosenbaum will explore Black-Jewish relations in America's South at our next Around the World with Fred event.

In partnership with Urban Adamah

In this richly illustrated course, we’ll start by searching out the beginnings of Jewish Spain over 2,000 years ago, including the Roman and later Visigothic centuries. Then we’ll focus on the Muslim invasion and the Golden Age of Islamic Spain that followed. This was the era of La Convivencia, when Jews, Christians and Muslims lived largely in peace and shared and contributed to a common culture far advanced beyond the rest of Europe’s states. From there, we’ll chronicle the slow but steady advance of Christian armies, finally leading to the Expulsion of Jews (and Muslims) from Spain in 1492 and later years. We’ll close with a look at the fate of Sephardic Jews after the Expulsion as well as the fate of Spain in those centuries right up to today.

In this richly illustrated course, we’ll start by searching out the beginnings of Jewish Spain over 2,000 years ago, including the Roman and later Visigothic centuries. Then we’ll focus on the Muslim invasion and the Golden Age of Islamic Spain that followed. This was the era of La Convivencia, when Jews, Christians and Muslims lived largely in peace and shared and contributed to a common culture far advanced beyond the rest of Europe’s states. From there, we’ll chronicle the slow but steady advance of Christian armies, finally leading to the Expulsion of Jews (and Muslims) from Spain in 1492 and later years. We’ll close with a look at the fate of Sephardic Jews after the Expulsion as well as the fate of Spain in those centuries right up to today.

Partnership program with Contra Costa JCC's Under One Tent

We are proud to partner in the Second Annual Eva and Martin Libitzky Memorial Lecture

In partnership with Congregation Emeth

In partnership with and at BASE-Bay, Rockridge