In partnership with JCCSF and Congregation Sha'ar Zahav An interactive workshop that looks at the challenges and opportunities of the aging process through a Jewish lens. We will explore our own lives, and our preconceptions and feelings about age while...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
In Partnership with Congregation Beth El, Berkeley Long before people like Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg began protesting in favor of the legalization of marijuana, this popular plant had been a part of Jewish life for millenia. From the Bible...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
