Zipperstein - Biale Friendship as Old as Lehrhaus Judaica

I asked three of our New Lehrhaus leaders, Rachel & David Biale and Steve Zipperstein to reflect on their longtime friendship. Rachel Biale says this:

David and I met Steve Zipperstein at UCLA in 1973, when we were all studying with legendary professor, Amos Funkenstein.* There we became life-long friends.

In Santa Monica we lived about a mile apart. After grad school our academic and personal lives led us far and wide. Then to our mutual delight we ended up again living a mile from each other in Berkeley!

It’s exciting to join forces in creating New Lehrhaus (with many others!) and we are delighted to be teaching fall courses that may seem far apart yet, in some ways intersect. Steve will teach: “Phillip Roth: Still Crazy After All These Years?” based on a Roth biography he is currently working on for the Yale Jewish Lives series. The class is two sessions, 11/9 & 12/7.

David and I (Rachel) will teach “Torah from the Bedroom: Sexuality in Jewish Tradition,” based on our respective books, Eros and the Jews, and Women and Jewish Law. The class is four sessions beginning Nov. 2nd but jumping over Thanksgiving week.

From Rav Kahana** to Alexander Portnoy, the two courses will open your eyes to new perspectives on Jewish tradition and culture.

*Funkenstein is a real person; yes, I know what you’re thinking (and we don't mean the 1970's rock band, Dr. Funkenstein either.)  Learn more about him here.

** Rabbi Kahana lay under the bed of his teacher to see how he made love, proclaiming: "It is Torah and I must study it."

(That beautiful background shot of the Bay taken from Grizzly Peak is by Joe Parks from Berkeley,  CA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)