Andrew Porwancher
Andrew Porwancher is the Wick Cary Professor of Constitutional Studies at the University of Oklahoma. His book, The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, was published by Princeton University Press and won the Journal of the American Revolution Book-of-the-Year Award. He has held fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford, and holds a PhD from Cambridge. His first book, The Devil Himself, was adapted for the stage in Ireland.
Welcoming New Lehrhaus’ FIRST staff member
A “she-hecheyanu moment:” Jim Mavrikios joins New Lehrhaus as our Program Manager. We are thrilled to welcome our first staff member (yes, up until now everything had been managed by volunteers)! Jim brings more than 20 years of continuing education experience to his role at New Lehrhaus. In 2001 he founded Pacific Arabic, a language school in downtown San Francisco. As director and registrar…
Care to Make it Interesting
In the 1990s, when I was directing the Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, a most unusual PhD student walked into my office: a former yeshiva bocher (Orthodox seminary student) who could recite both complex Talmud passages and entire Seinfeld episodes from memory – in one and the same breath! Ron Reissberg completed his doctorate and went on to teach…
Upcoming Program on Intermarriage by Dawn Kepler, New Lehrhaus Board Member
Nu, what do you think about Intermarriage? On January 19th Professor Bruce Phillips (Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, and USC: https://crcc.usc.edu/people/bruce-phillips/) will present: How Interfaith Marriage is Changing the American Jewish Community – But Not Necessarily in the Ways We Think/Fear. This is a topic that every Jew, should find intriguing and important, not just those who have married non-Jews. Prof. Phillips, or as I…
Happy Hanukah – Banishing the Darkness
David Waksberg, recently shared these thoughts with me. These days, the reminder that goodness can prevail against seemingly impossible odds helps to keep despair at bay. This story is from former Soviet prisoner Ari Volvovsky. Among the things I like about this story (contra to what some take away from the Hanukah tale) is the cooperation among prisoners of different faiths and backgrounds. This was...
Standing on the shoulders of our predecessors
Board member David Waksberg reflects on his participation in New Lehrhaus My earliest memory of Jewish schooling was learning about Abraham smashing his father’s idols. No surprise, this midrash about Abraham as a child is accessible and relatable for young children and it introduces the foundational Jewish concept of monotheism. It is a common bible story for young children. After learning about how our patriarch challenged the beliefs...
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...
Hebrew & Yiddish Classes!
Whether you were born Jewish and never learned Hebrew (perhaps despite hours warming the chair at Hebrew School...) or you chose Judaism as an adult, tackling a new language IN A NEW ALPHABET is daunting. Yet mastery of even the alef-bet and some words of Hebrew is tremendously empowering and, the way our teachers teach, great fun! Over the years Lehrhaus had offered numerous Hebrew...
Reading Yiddish Lit with Naomi Seidman
Naomi Seidman is one of our most popular teachers and we are thrilled she is returning this fall with this remarkable class. You've no doubt heard of Sholem Aleichem, but perhaps not the other Yiddish writers she will discuss. I'm excited to see two women poets included here. Reading Yiddish is a time traveling experience. Using language, you step into the world of Ashkenazic Jewry,...