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Gender Identity in Rabbinic Literature

Mar 27, 2023 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Great fans of ambiguity, the sages of the Mishnah and the Talmud loved to problematize what people of their day considered the most deeply ingrained of binaries, including gender and sex identity. For them, human understandings were imperfect, and every perspective was up for debate. Torah was Divine and perfect, but its interpreters were not. Long ago, our sages debated questions of sex difference and the extent of our capacity to know what we are. We explore some of these debates and ask if they still hold relevance for us.

Between Words and Pictures: Medieval Illuminated Haggadot from the JTS Library

Mar 23, 2023 By Marcus Mordecai Schwartz | Public Event video | Pesah

This session explored some of the priceless treasures in JTS’s collection of Haggadah manuscripts. We consider how the text of the Haggadah and the accompanying hand-drawn illustrations are—or are not—in conversation with each other and make some other unexpected discoveries between the covers of these rare medieval manuscripts.

On the Margins: Conversos and the Question of Jewish Belonging Throughout History

Mar 20, 2023 By Jonathan Ray | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Jewish law provides relatively clear standards for who is, and who is not, a member of Jewish society. But popular Jewish acceptance – or rejection – of certain people as “Jews” has often run counter to these legal definitions. From medieval Spain to the Ottoman Empire to modern day America and the State of Israel, conversion out of, or into, the Jewish community has raised tensions over who is (and isn’t) considered Jewish. We discuss the question of Jewish belonging throughout history by looking at groups of converts and the liminal space they inhabited on the margins of the Jewish world.

Between the Lines: Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy

Mar 14, 2023 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

SHANDA: A MEMOIR OF SHAME AND SECRECY Part of Between the Lines: Author Conversations from The Library of JTS The word “shanda” is defined as shame or disgrace in Yiddish. This book, Shanda, tells the story of three generations of complicated, intense 20th-century Jews for whom the desire to fit in and the fear of public […]

Jewish-American, American-Jew: The Complexities and Joys of Living a Hyphenated Identity

Mar 13, 2023 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The Pew Reports and many scholars use the first description of who we are; JTS (and I myself) prefer the second. It matters a great deal to a person’s identity whether “Jew” and “American” are adjective or noun; it matters still more how Jews and non-Jews understand the hyphen that links the two parts of these (and other religious and ethnic identities) one to another. We explore that “liminal space” of the self through analysis of a wide range of books, essays, films and literary characters.

Between the Lines: Sephardic Food and Culture

Mar 8, 2023 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Dr. Hélène Jawhara Piñer and Dr. Benjamin Gampel discuss how the mass conversion of Iberian Jews in the late 14th and 15th centuries, initially triggered by the anti-Jewish riots that swept Castile and Aragon in 1391, led to distinctive and identifiable food and eating practices among those Jews who were compelled to embrace the Christian faith.

Between Obligation and Free Choice

Mar 6, 2023 By Gordon Tucker | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Jewish tradition prizes hiyyuv, the obligation to follow Jewish law, whereas modern culture places a great emphasis on making autonomous choices, and commitments that are voluntarily chosen. How do we find a comfortable space in between?

Between Law and Narrative in the Talmud

Feb 27, 2023 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture

This session presents the history of the law vs. narrative distinction in reference to the Talmud, and will show how this categorization became central to how Jews think about Jewish texts and Jewish learning more generally. We consider the limits of this binary by looking at some texts from the Talmud that seem to defy categorization, raising the question of what possibilities open up when we read Jewish legal texts as literature.

The Tent of Meeting: Central or Marginal?

Feb 13, 2023 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The Tent of Meeting is described at great length in the Torah as the elaborate sacred tent located in the center of the Israelite encampment that travelled through the wilderness for forty years. But several passages in the Torah describe the Tent of Meeting differently, as a tiny structure located outside the Israelite camp. Why does the Torah include both historical memories of this structure? How does each structure reflect a particular religious worldview, and what does the presence of both in the Torah tell us about Judaism?

Between the Lines: We Are Not One

Feb 7, 2023 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

In We Are Not One, historian Eric Alterman traces the debate about the fate of the state of Israel, and the Zionist movement that gave birth to it, from its 19th-century origins. Following Israel’s 1948/49 War of Independence (called the Nakba or “catastrophe” by Palestinians), few Americans, including few Jews, paid much attention to Israel or the challenges it faced. Following the 1967 Six Day War, however, almost overnight, support for Israel became the primary component of American Jews’ collective identity. Over time, Jewish organizations joined forces with conservative Christians and neoconservative pundits and politicos to wage a tenacious fight to define Israel’s image in the US media, popular culture, Congress, and on college campuses. We Are Not One reveals how our consensus on Israel and Palestine emerged and why, today, it is fracturing.

Between This World and the Next: Rabbinic Visions of Purgatory

Feb 6, 2023 By Rachel Rosenthal | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Gehenom is often thought of as the Jewish version of hell, but an examination of the places it appears in the Talmud presents something more nuanced. Part purgatory, part hell, part passageway, Gehenom becomes a place for punishment and redemption. Through a close reading of the texts concerning Gehonom, we will gain a clearer understanding of what, exactly, its purpose might be, and what it might tell us about rabbinic views of what happens after we die.

The World as Liminal: Genesis and the Incompleteness of Creation

Jan 30, 2023 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The story of creation in the first chapter of the Torah is one of the most familiar but least understood texts in the Bible. When viewed within its historical context it is a very strange story, because it lacks the expected ending. We will look for the proper ending of the story elsewhere in the Torah. Finding it will allow us to understand a core aspect of biblical theology: that the world God created is incomplete. Poised between chaos and perfection, creation itself is designed to be liminal. That aspect of biblical theology, surprisingly enough, will remind us of a famous idea articulated more than two millennia later in kabbalistic literature.

Searching for the Sacred: Why Jewish Theology Still Matters

Jan 25, 2023

Can Jewish thought help us understand our role in confronting climate change? Can it guide us when facing the loss of a loved one? In our modern, technology-saturated society, are there ways to feel close to God, to sense and appreciate sacred moments? Can Jewish theology speak to issues we care about and bring greater meaning to our lives? Rabbi Neil Gillman (z”l)—who taught theology at JTS and at countless synagogues during his long and distinguished career—believed that Jewish theology should be the province of all Jews and that it should honestly address the challenges of the day.

The Space In Between: Thresholds and Borders in Jewish Life and Thought

Jan 12, 2023 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In this series, JTS scholars will delve into the idea of liminality—the time or space in between—which we encounter often in Jewish ritual, identity, law, and life. Join us to consider what these many manifestations of “in-between-ness” can teach us about ourselves and about Judaism, and to explore how we might find strength and meaning in an orientation not of “either/or” but of “both/and.”

Mishnah Study in Observance of the Yahrzeit of Abraham Joshua Heschel (z”l)

Jan 11, 2023 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

The evening of January 10, 2023/18 Tevet 5783 marked the fiftieth yahrzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (z”l). It is a traditional custom, especially in the Hasidic world in which Rabbi Heschel was nurtured, to study mishnah on a yahrzeit, focusing on mishnayot beginning with letters that spell out the name of the departed soul. It is considered to be anעילוי נשמה –a way of giving the soul yet another ascension (noting that in Hebrew, “mishnah” is an anagram of “neshamah” [soul]).

Where Do We Draw the Line? The Importance of Highlighting Multiple Perspectives in Jewish Education

Dec 19, 2022 By Meredith Katz | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Jewish educators address many goals, including building Jewish literacy and Jewish identity. To these ends, they make decisions constantly as curricular gate-keepers, or censors with a purpose. Why and how should they introduce students to the perspectives of those with whom they might not agree, both within and outside the Jewish community? This session explores the importance of highlighting multiple perspectives and helping students develop the skills to navigate conversations with those with whom they disagree, as a key component of civic education in Jewish settings.

Between the Lines: The Stories They Tell

Dec 13, 2022 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Dr. Judith Hauptman upends the long-held theory of the immutability of halakhah, Jewish law. In her detailed analysis of over 80 short halakhic anecdotes in the Babylonian Talmud, she shows that the Talmud itself promotes halakhic change. She leads the reader through one sugya (discussion unit) after another, accumulating evidence for her rather radical thesis. Along the […]

The Hollywood Blacklist and the Whitewashing of American Culture

Dec 12, 2022 By Ellie Gettinger | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The Hollywood Blacklist is one censorious aspect of the larger Red Scare that limited the freedoms of speech and assembly through the 1950s. Yet the political policing and litmus tests required for screenwriters, actors, and producers in this period led to a monumental shift in the way that American culture was represented on screen (both large and small). This session explores the political climate that led to the blacklist and how it fundamentally changed the film industry.

JTS Rabbinic Convocation, December 2022

Dec 5, 2022 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Honor a Rabbi with a Donation to JTS We invite you to make a contribution to JTS in honor of your rabbi or one of the other Conservative rabbis recognized for over 25 years of distinguished service. Your gift helps educate a new generation of spiritual leaders for the Jewish people. Program PROCESSIONAL (0:00)Opening niggun […]

Between the Lines: The Object of Jewish Literature

Dec 5, 2022 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

THE OBJECT OF JEWISH LITERATURE: A MATERIAL HISTORY JTS Professor Barbara E. Mann discusses her latest book, The Object of Jewish Literature, a history of modern Jewish literature that explores our enduring attachment to the book as an object. With the rise of digital media, the “death of the book” has been widely discussed. But the physical object […]

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