A Single Life

A Single Life

Feb 18, 2021 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

A discussion with author, rabbi, and scholar Daniel Ross Goodman about his novel, A Single Life, which blends a literary style and a Talmudic sensibility with the romance tradition.

Read More
A Tour of Medieval Cairo

A Tour of Medieval Cairo

Feb 9, 2021 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Medieval Fustat-Cairo was a burgeoning metropolis that sat strategically astride the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and trans-Saharan trade routes, its fabulous wealth due in part to the Fatimid caliphs having founded their capital there in 969. But what was daily life like for its middling inhabitants? Marina Rustow discusses this question using fragments of the Cairo Genizah found in our collection at The JTS Library.

Read More
Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Land of the Soviets

Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Land of the Soviets

Feb 1, 2021 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

A discussion with author and historian Elissa Bemporad about her book, Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms, and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets

Read More
Speaking Out Against Hate

Speaking Out Against Hate

Jan 19, 2021 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Acclaimed Polish poet and musician Grzegorz Kwiatkowski speaks to the Library’s Dr. David Kraemer about his public condemnation of Holocaust denial, genocide, and the rise of populism, xenophobia, and nationalism in Poland and beyond.

Read More
Communings of the Spirit, Vol. III

Communings of the Spirit, Vol. III

Dec 7, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

A discussion with Dr. Mel Scult: Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism, and the rabbi who initiated the first Bat Mitzvah, also produced the longest Jewish diary on record. In 27 volumes, running from 1913 to 1978, Kaplan shares with us not only his reaction to the great events of his time, but also his very personal thoughts on every aspect of religion and Jewish life. In this volume, editor and Kaplan biographer Mel Scult presents Kaplan contemplating the momentous events of the 1940s. 

Read More
Bound in the Bond of Life

Bound in the Bond of Life

Dec 1, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

A discussion with author Dr. Beth Kissileff: On October 27, 2018, three congregations were holding their morning Shabbat services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood when a lone gunman entered the building and opened fire. He killed 11 people and injured six more in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. The story made international headlines for weeks following the shooting, but Pittsburgh and the local Jewish community could not simply move on when the news cycle did.

 

Read More
Tales of the Holy Mysticat

Tales of the Holy Mysticat

Nov 12, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

In Tales of the Holy Mysticat, Rabbi Adler, a professor of Modern Jewish Thought and one of our generation’s most profoundly creative scholars, uses a collection of whimsical stories, interspersed with cleverly drawn black-and-white illustrations, to provide unique insights into Jewish mysticism. And it’s all portrayed through the life of her cat. In this online conversation, Rabbi Adler discusses how, just as the Holy Mysticat became Adler’s teacher, so too can the Holy Mysticat teach us all.

Read More
Remix Judaism

Remix Judaism

Nov 9, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

Relying on modern Jewish sociology, in addition to narratives running the gamut from the Talmud to timely interviews and personal stories, Remix Judaism shows how a Jewish tradition open to personal meaning can substantially deepen one’s connection to Jewish tradition. 

Read More
The Art of the Jewish Family: A History Of Women In Early New York In Five Objects

The Art of the Jewish Family: A History Of Women In Early New York In Five Objects

Jun 22, 2020 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

An online discussion with Dr. Laura Arnold Leibman about her recent book.

Read More
Abraham Joshua Heschel: Mind, Heart, Soul

Abraham Joshua Heschel: Mind, Heart, Soul

Dec 10, 2019 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

A discussion with author Edward K. Kaplan about his biography of one of the most outstanding Jewish thinkers of the 20th century.

Read More
Translating the Book of Job

Translating the Book of Job

Nov 14, 2019 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

A discussion with renowned scholar Dr. Edward Greenstein about his revelatory new translation of the Book of Job.

Read More
Confronting Hate

Confronting Hate

Oct 24, 2019 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

A discussion about the social justice work of the late Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, with his widow Dr. Georgette Bennett, a humanitarian and philanthropist.

Read More
Four Rabbis at Lunch: Candid Conversations Among American Clergy

Four Rabbis at Lunch: Candid Conversations Among American Clergy

May 28, 2019 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

Four rabbis from a local community—one Orthodox, two Conservative, and one Reform—meet each week at a local kosher deli to discuss Jewish law, theology, and synagogue business. This new work of fiction from Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins is an opportunity to be the proverbial fly on the wall and find out what rabbis talk about when no one else is listening. 

Read More
The Paris Photo

The Paris Photo

Mar 14, 2019 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

A discussion with author Dr. Jane S. Gabin about her historical novel.

Read More
Movies and Midrash

Movies and Midrash

Dec 4, 2018 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

Dr. Wendy Zierler’s Movies and Midrash pioneers the use of cinema as a springboard to discuss central Jewish texts and matters of belief. 

Read More
The Poet’s Hand

The Poet’s Hand

Jun 29, 2018 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

Beginning with Siddur Sim Shalom, Conservative prayer books began including a slightly different version of the much-loved Sabbath evening hymn Yedid Nefesh. The changes, though mostly slight, caused—and sometimes still cause—confusion, disrupting those who learned the traditionally printed version of this hymn with different grammatical forms and a few different words. What caused the change and why was it deemed sufficiently important that it should supersede the better-known version?

Read More
The Beauty of the Word

The Beauty of the Word

Jun 1, 2018 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

Take a look at these pages from a volume in our collection that includes the Pentateuch and Psalms, along with Masoretic notes and a grammatical introduction. It will not surprise you to learn that it was written in Yemen in 1325. Locating the manuscript in this time and place doesn’t surprise, because, stylistically speaking, it is so similar to Islamic art of the same period. As you may know, Muslims overwhelmingly avoided representation of living creatures in their art (the same cannot be said of Jews, who habitually ignored the second commandment), preferring to create their “images” with the words of scripture (in their case, the Quran).

Read More
Waking Lions

Waking Lions

Apr 24, 2018 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

Important next-generation Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s gripping novel narrates the aftermath of an Israeli neurosurgeon’s accidental killing of an Eritrean migrant. Newly translated from Hebrew, this tightly crafted story is as timely as it is riveting.

Read More
If All the Seas Were Ink

If All the Seas Were Ink

Mar 13, 2018 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio

At the age of 27, alone in Jerusalem in the wake of a painful divorce, Ilana Kurshan decided to begin learning daf yomi, the “daily page” of the Talmud. By the time she completed the Talmud after seven and a half years, Kurshan was remarried with three young children.

Read More
A Precious Hebrew Manuscript

A Precious Hebrew Manuscript

Feb 23, 2018 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Commentary

Knowing almost nothing about this beautiful manuscript, what would you guess it is? Finely decorated with gold leaf, Hebrew, small for easy carrying (these qualities are all obvious from the photo)—all of these characteristics suggest that it is a dear personal item, one that a wealthy Jew commissioned because of the importance of what it records. Knowing that it is a fifteenth-century manuscript, produced in Spain—before the age of printed books—would only highlight for us how rare it was.

Read More
Reset Search

SUBSCRIBE TO TORAH FROM JTS

Our regular commentaries and videos are a great way to stay intellectually and spiritually engaged with Jewish thought and wisdom.