Work-Life Balance in Ancient Times:
Why the Rabbis Left Their Homes to Study Torah
Aug 9, 2021 By Rachel Rosenthal | Public Event video | Video Lecture
We often think of questions about how to balance work and family as modern ones. However, a series of stories in聽Ketubot聽show that people have been struggling with these issues for hundreds of years. In these stories, the rabbis leave home to learn Torah, and often return to domestic chaos. Dr. Rachel Rosenthal聽explores these stories to better understand how the rabbis understood their obligations to Torah, to themselves, and to their families.聽聽
Read More
The Early Modern Travel Pass:
Controlling the Plague and Jewish Mobility in 16th Century Tuscany
Aug 2, 2021 By Stefanie B. Siegmund | Public Event video | Video Lecture
In the wake of the Black Death, governments in the Italian states began to enlarge their departments of health and sanitation in an effort to control the plague. Over time they experimented by banning travel to and from suspect regions and quarantining merchants鈥� goods. Italian Jews, heavily invested in local and regional commerce, were among the merchants affected, attracting the attention of the authorities.
Read More
The Spectacular Story Of S. Ansky鈥檚
The Dybbuk and How it Transformed American Jewish Theatre
Jul 26, 2021 By Edna Nahshon | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Since its premiere in 1920聽The Dybbuk聽has been revived countless times in both Jewish and non-Jewish languages and inspired a substantial corpus of works in various media: it was famously filmed in Yiddish 1936 in Warsaw, and to this day has fired the imagination of artists and writers around the globe. Join聽Dr. Edna Nahshon聽to聽discuss this unique play and its various interpretations, focusing on its two foundational productions and the 1936 Polish Yiddish film.聽
Read More
Finding Hijar: A Scholar鈥檚 Quest to Uncover the History of Her Jewish Community Through the Journey of Its Books
Jul 19, 2021 By Marjorie Lehman | Public Event video | Video Lecture
With聽Dr. Marjorie Lehman聽and聽Dr. Lucia Conte Aguilar聽of聽Universitat聽Pompeu聽Fabra
Read More
Flight, Return, and Emigration:
The Wanderings of a Yiddish Writer During and After the Holocaust
Jul 12, 2021 By David Fishman | Public Event video | Video Lecture
The Yiddish poet Chaim Grade fled his native city of Vilna,聽 known to Jews as 鈥渢he Jerusalem of Lithuania鈥�, in late June 1941, as the Germans invaded the city. He spent the next four years as a refugee in the Soviet Union, homeless and malnourished. When Grade returned to Vilna in 1945, he聽 found the city in ruins 鈥� and learned from survivors of the Vilna ghetto that his wife, mother, friends and colleagues had been murdered by the Nazis. We will follow his journey of exile and redemption through selections from his works.聽
Read More
Judah Halevi: Poet and Pilgrim
Jun 28, 2021 By Raymond Scheindlin | Public Event video | Video Lecture
In the summer of 1141, Judah Halevi, a distinguished doctor, poet, and religious thinker sailed from his homeland, Spain, for the Holy Land, leaving behind his family, his medical practice, and his position as a distinguished leader of the Jewish community. Although little is known of his life before the pilgrimage, we can trace his journey in detail thanks to letters preserved in the Cairo聽Geniza. More importantly, we can follow Halevi鈥檚 inner religious journey through the stirring poems that he composed in anticipation of and during the voyage. In this session with聽Dr. Raymond Scheindlin, we will touch on both the external and internal journeys by drawing on the letters and the poems, all in translations by Dr.聽Scheindlin.聽
Read More
Preparing for the Final Journey:
The Tahara Ritual and its Significance
Jun 21, 2021 By Eliezer B. Diamond z”l | Public Event video | Video Lecture
The period between death and burial is understood in Jewish tradition as a moment of transition in which the deceased is suspended between this world and the next. Join聽Rabbi Eliezer Diamond聽to study the ritual known as Taharah, which prepares the body of the deceased for burial. It will show us that Jewish tradition assumes the continued existence of our individual identities even after death. The Taharah ritual, through word and action, radically transforms our understanding of the body of the deceased as we prepare it for the journey to the next world.
Read More
Home and Exile, Center and Periphery: Ambivalent Journeys in the Torah
Jun 14, 2021 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
The theme of the journey鈥攖o home, and from home鈥攑lays a prominent role in the Torah. But repeatedly, these stories force us to wonder what is home and what is exile. Join聽Dr. Benjamin Sommer聽to read narratives from Genesis and Exodus that present a tangled-up view of center and periphery. This persistent ambivalence about the nature of a journey carries weighty implications for biblical understandings of God as nearby but hard to grasp, and about authority and autonomy in religious Judaism.聽
Read More