Brotherhood/Adult Education Breakfast Lecture Series - 2010-2011
Oct. 31, 2010: Orthodox Judaism in Contemporary Jewish American Literature and Culture/Dr. Donald Weber, Mt. Holyoke College
Dr. Weber will explore how recent novelists and filmmakers (Tova Mirvis, Allegra Goodman, Shalom Auslander, Sandi Simcha Dubowski, among others) explore the meaning and claims of Jewish orthodoxy as their characters turn toward or away from traditional forms of Jewish religious identity.
Nov. 14, 2010: The History of Jewish Ceremonial Objects/Frann Addison
Frann Addison will explore the origin of Jewish ceremonial objects used in the home. The presentation also reviews rituals, superstitions, and religious requirements for individual pieces.
Through her lecture she hopes to educate both Jews and non-Jews about this aspect of Jewish cultural heritage. The 50-minute presentation includes approximately 100 slides.
Jan. 23, 2011 (Jan. 30 snow date): An Introduction to American Jewish Humor/Professor Steven Whitfield, Brandeis University
Professor Whitfield will explore the ways that jokes give access to the values, the impulses, the sensibility that drive Jewish experience in the United States . Humor should be taken seriously as a means by which, for example, revenge can be taken at the rest of the world, or by which the concealed and the forbidden can find an outlet. Freud saw jokes as a form of acceptable aggression. But they can be understood more broadly as evidence for what is peculiar and what is significant in the history of the Jewish people.
Feb. 13, 2011 (Feb. 20 snow date): Rabbi Berger/topic to be determined
March 27, 2011: You Never Call! You Never Write! A History of the Jewish Mother/Professor Joyce Antler, Brandeis
Professor Antler traces the image of the Jewish mother in popular culture from the nurturing Yiddishe Mama of the early 20th century to the smothering stereotype which has persisted as a comic device ever since. The Jewish mother has finally achieved a more complex and nuanced image in the hands of today's feminist performers, writers, and scholars.
Adult Hebrew
It’s Never Too Late!
Adult Hebrew – B’nei Mitzvah
Do you want to learn Hebrew? Are you interested in participating more at services?
Are you in the process of Conversion? Would you like to become an adult Bar/Bat Mitzvah?
Adult Hebrew – Level Alef
Level Alef is designed for those who cannot read Hebrew or are just beginning in their Hebrew studies.
This course can also serve as the first step in a two-year process that leads to becoming an adult B’nei Mitzvah in May/June 2012.
Adult Hebrew – Level Bet
Level Bet is for graduates of Level Alef or those with some degree of Hebrew reading fluency.
This course focuses on increasing reading fluency, grammar and comprehension. Graduates of Level Bet will become adult B’nei Mitzvah during a Shabbat morning service on April 30, 2011.
Classes for new students will begin October 4, 2010
This learning opportunity is being supported by a generous grant from the Temple Emanuel Sisterhood Foundation
Temple Emanuel Welcomes Our Freedanler Scholar in Residence
Professor Fred A. Lazin
April 1-3, 2011
The Lynn & Lloyd Hurst Family Professor of Local Government
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Professor Lazin was born in Boston and grew up in Sharon Massachusetts. He was an Eagle Scout. In high school he served as New England Regional President of Young Judaea and attended Camp Tel Yehuda. After high school he participated in the Young Judaea Year Course in Israel.
At the University of Massachusetts in Amherst he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated Cum Laude in Government and History. He also served as president of Hillel. He received his MA and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He joined the faculty at Ben Gurion University (BGU) in Israel in 1975. At BGU, he established an Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies and the Department of General Studies and chaired the Department of Behavioral Science. He served as the Director of the Hubert H. Humphrey Center of Social Ecology and the Overseas Student Program (OSP). During his tenure at OSP, the student body increased five fold. In 1991 Fred became the Lynn and Lloyd Hurst Family Professor of Local Government. He recently completed two terms as Chair of the Department of Politics and Government at BGU.
During 2008-2010 he is the Natan Visiting Professor in the Taub Center for Israel Studies at the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. In January February 2009 he was the first incumbent of the Michel Vaisan Chair on Israeli Society and Politics at the Institute of Politics at Bordeaux University in France. In March 2008 he will give the David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish Affairs at the Frankel Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Michigan. In April 2010 he will be the Mandelbaum Scholar in Residence in Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia .
Fred has taught at the Hebrew University, New York University, University of California at Los Angeles, George Washington University, Cornell University, Tufts and City University of New York (John Jay College and Hunter College). He has served as a Visiting Scholar at universities in Sweden, France, China, Czech Republic, Canada and the US.
Professor Lazin has authored over sixty scholarly articles and chapters in books. He has written and edited ten books dealing with public policy in the United States, Israel and developing countries, Israeli politics and society and Jews in American politics. He received the Israel Political Science Association's award for the outstanding English language book on politics in 2005 for The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics; Israel versus the American Jewish Establishment. His pioneering research on the response of American Jewish organizations to German Jewish refugees in the 1930s opened a new field in Holocaust Studies. In 2010-2011 he will be the Seymour and Lillian Abenshohn Visiting Professor of Israel Studies at American University in Washington, DC.
Torah Study
ללמוד! To Learn!
Come to Torah Study on Shabbat Mornings!
Discuss the week's Torah portion -
Enjoy bagels and coffee
Engage in lively discussions like the sages of times past
Saturday mornings in the Sisterhood Room
8:45 Bagels, Coffee, & Tea
9:00 Torah Study
10:30 Shabbat Minyan in the Rose Chapel or Sisterhood Room
Weekly Torah Portion
Conversion
The Reform Movement welcomes and supports those who choose to explore Judaism. Jews by Choice are a gift to our people and to our communities. While each person's path into Jewish life is unique, there are shared questions and experiences that are common to many. We hope to help you find answers to some of your basic queries and to point the way to additional sources.
About 2,000 years ago, a famous rabbi named Hillel was asked if he could teach the entire Torah, everything there is to know about Judaism, on one foot. Hillel replied, “What is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the Torah; the rest is commentary, go and learn it.”
As Hillel explained, at the core of Judaism is a strong emphasis on personal ethics. This emphasis on ethics is especially true in Reform Judaism due to the movement's strong commitment to social justice issues. Our movement took root in North America more than 130 years ago and is now the largest Jewish movement in North America, with more than 900 congregations and 1.5 million members. The quest to discover the entirety of the Jewish story will take you across centuries and continents.
Please contact Rabbi Berger at mberger@temple-emanuel.org if you are interested in learning more about the process of conversion.
Learning Opportunities
TheAdult Education Committee, Brotherhood, and Social Action Committee present
2009-2010 Breakfast-Lecture Series
The breakfast-lecture series has been made possible by a grant from the
