Drought, famine, established powers on the edge of collapse, mass migrations from failed states to other countries: you may be thinking of the Middle East in 2022. Try 1180 BCE! 

Since our beginnings, the ache of exile and longing to come home have run through Jewish life and writings: our poetry is rich with them. We will read Biblical, Golden Age Spain, Modernist and contemporary texts, and write our own pieces in response. For writers of any experience level—come prepared to generate some material!

From its very beginning, Judaism has been an evolving spiritual tradition shaped, in part, by contact with other cultures and belief systems, and designed to meet the spiritual needs of the Jewish communities of the time. While some Jews find a spiritual home in the different Jewish denominations, so many others are yearning for a Jewish spirituality that will speak to their hearts, minds, and souls and will reflect the psychological, spiritual, and political understandings of our time.

While synagogues and sacred books were rarely illustrated, Medieval Jews commissioned and created marvelously illustrated Haggadot (Haggadahs). The pictures in these 14th - 16th century books can tell us a lot about both how their illustrators and viewers imagined the Biblical story and the clothing, buildings, food, celebrations and humor of their own day. We will examine several of the most beautiful and interesting examples of the illustrated medieval Haggadah, comparing the variety of styles, images and artistry among them.

In partnership with Cong. Beth Israel

In partnership wit Cong. Chevra Thilim, San Francisco

Hebrew Writers: Film Biographies and Text Reading (Virtual on Zoom)

The Land-as-Woman is one of the most deeply rooted metaphorical systems in Jewish as well as Western and Middle-Eastern cultures, used to support the discourses of colonialism and nationalism throughout history. It has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. In modern Hebrew poetry modernist women poets critique a tradition that views women always as metaphors, never as literal subjects, developing a new erotics of the address to the land that calls into question patriarchal models of conquest and subjugation.

The Land-as-Woman is one of the most deeply rooted metaphorical systems in Jewish as well as Western and Middle-Eastern cultures, used to support the discourses of colonialism and nationalism throughout history. It has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. In modern Hebrew poetry modernist women poets critique a tradition that views women always as metaphors, never as literal subjects, developing a new erotics of the address to the land that calls into question patriarchal models of conquest and subjugation.

The Land-as-Woman is one of the most deeply rooted metaphorical systems in Jewish as well as Western and Middle-Eastern cultures, used to support the discourses of colonialism and nationalism throughout history. It has its origins in the Hebrew Bible. In modern Hebrew poetry modernist women poets critique a tradition that views women always as metaphors, never as literal subjects, developing a new erotics of the address to the land that calls into question patriarchal models of conquest and subjugation.