Many of the creators of early German cinema (1918 - 1933) were Jewish immigrants to Berlin from Eastern Europe. German Expressionist cinema, a revolutionary innovation, found Jews both in front of or behind the camera. The class features cinematic masterpieces...
In partnership with KlezCalifornia During the 1950s, as Yiddish culture was fading from public view, Mickey Katz (1909-1985) gave it a second wind. A clarinetist, bandleader, and comedian, he performed his “Yinglish” musical parodies to sold-out crowds across North America...
We will examine how Israeli men are portrayed in such popular Israeli TV series as Fauda, Shtisel, and When Heroes Fly, and explore how these portrayals could serve as a lens through which we explore Israeli society and the Zionist...
East Bay Jewish Film Festival presents (in partnership with New Lehrhaus) presents: David Grossman: Documentary Film and Discussion Dr. Vered Weiss (New Lehrhaus teacher in Spring 22) will discuss the film and Grossman’s literary works with viewers of the documentary...
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...
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...
Eleanor Shapiro: Jewish Music Matters Music offers a unique means of engaging emotion and spirituality, social solidarity, and cultural affirmation. It also demonstrates the mutual influences experienced by cultures living in proximity to one another over time. Spread throughout the world over two...
Jody Hirsh: Bible, Midrash, Art: The Richness of Bible Narratives (Virtual on Zoom) So many Bible stories have captured our imaginations and have fascinated humanity throughout all the generations: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Jacob's Ladder, Joseph in Egypt,...
Jody Hirsh: Bible, Midrash, Art: The Richness of Bible Narratives (Virtual on Zoom) So many Bible stories have captured our imaginations and have fascinated humanity throughout all the generations: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Jacob's Ladder, Joseph in Egypt,...
Learn about the aesthetic-theology of kabbalistic diagrams—full of trees, circles, spirals, lines, and letters—and use these as models to map your own relation to that which is essential but intangible (what might be called spirit, soul, or the divine). Our...
Explore the cultural, social, and economic forces that led to a remarkable phenomenon: although the Jewish population in America has rarely exceeded 2%, over 80% of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley songwriters have been Jewish. How are Jewish religion and...
“It is not a coincidence,” says photographer Penny Wolin “that Jews are attracted to the alchemy of photography and photography has found its storytellers in Jews.” Over six years, Wolin had in-person encounters with 70 leading American Jewish photographers, including Robert...
