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 abortion debate has just reached fever pitch following the leak of the Supreme Court majority opinion suggesting the demise of Roe vs. Wade. If it is overturned, what other personal freedoms are already/will be in danger: transgender health services, gay marriage, contraception?

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 tradition and the qualities inherent in the Yiddish language reflected in the songs written by those lyricists, including Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Ira Gershwin, Yip Harburg, Dorothy Fields, Sheldon Harnick, and Alan Jay Lerner.

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.

In Partnership with Congregation Beth El, Berkeley

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 first two classes will focus on the history of these diagrams, and the final sessions on how to create your own kabbalistic diagram. 

3 sessions

Apparently uncomfortable with various portions of the Torah, the rabbis provide interpretations that tend to neutralize the troubling aspects of those texts.  In this class, we will engage in close readings of texts from the Torah and corresponding Talmudic passages.

While we follow the Russian invasion of Ukraine with heartbreak and grave anxiety and hold ALL Ukrainians in our hearts and thoughts, we step back in history with Prof. Natan Meir, to the days when Kyiv - Kiev was a flourishing Jewish Metropolis. Populated by urbane Jewish merchants and professionals as well as new arrivals from the shtetl, imperial Kiev was acclaimed for its opportunities for education, culture, employment, and entrepreneurship but cursed for the often pitiless persecution of its Jews.

We will explore, via lecture and discussion, stories written by major Jewish American authors of the post-World War II period.  What does their fiction reveal to us about major motifs of Jewish identity and Jewish values and why is their work of ongoing importance? Authors will include Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.