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Alexander, Was He Great?
Rabbinic Criticism of Rome through Alexander Narratives
Aug 15, 2022 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture
The rabbis of late antiquity did not write books of theology or political treatises. Rather, they composed stories that would draw the heart and guide the mind to communicate those ideas and practices they deemed essential to Jewish continuity and growth after the destruction of the Second Temple. To accomplish this the sages often redesigned existing literature from the surrounding culture. In “Alexander, was he great?” Ben Levy explores the ways that the rabbis of late antiquity lampooned stories of Alexander appearing in the popular Greek Alexander Romance to criticize Roman imperialism and creatively resist their rule.
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The Protest Literature of Mizrahi Writers
Aug 8, 2022 By Beverly Bailis | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Download Sources With Dr. Beverly Bailis, Adjunct Associate Professor of Jewish Literature Dr. Bailis discusses protest literature written by different generations of Mizrahi writers and examine how these literary works give voice to these writers’ experience in Israeli society, from the Great Immigration in the 1950s to today. In particular, considering how the stories these writers […]
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What Six Short Stories in the Babylonian Talmud Tell Us About Jewish Law and Life
Aug 1, 2022 By Judith Hauptman | Public Event video | Video Lecture
By reading six very short stories in the Babylonian Talmud, we discover that not just rabbinic pronouncements established Jewish law, but so did reports of rabbinic performance of the law. We will see Rabbis complying with, and sometime rebelling against, earlier stated rules. As we read these texts, we will tease out details of everyday life and relations between the sexes. Whether these anecdotes actually took place or not makes no difference. They are an invaluable source for understanding how the Rabbis viewed and modified transmitted traditions.
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A Jewish Doctor in Medieval Spain and His Demon:
The Book of Delight by Joseph Ibn Zabara
Jul 25, 2022 By Raymond Scheindlin | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Joseph, the protagonist of this proto-novel, at the urging of a mysterious companion, undertakes a journey that takes him to the land of the demons. We will read and discuss some of the stories that the travelers tell each other along the way and will attempt to unravel who the mysterious companion actually is.
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Passion and Violence:
The Sacrifice of Isaac as a Philosophical Story
Jul 18, 2022 By Miriam Feldmann Kaye | Public Event video | Video Lecture
The Sacrifice of Isaac is a paradigmatic episode in Jewish philosophy, ethics, and interpretation. But new ideas in modern and postmodern philosophy call us to re-read this narrative, and change the ways we have often read the story. We will re-tell this story according to an “old-new” method, amalgamating historical and emblematic ways of viewing the story, but also bringing new ideas to the fore, especially around the ideas of passion and holiness in Jewish thought. Dr. Miriam Feldman Kaye proposes important suggestions for reading the Sacrifice of Isaac in our contemporary world.
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How Jewish Storytelling Shapes the Religious Imagination
Jul 11, 2022 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
When we tell the story of coming out of Egypt, it is not a story of then and there; it is a story of here and now. We ourselves came out of Egypt. The eternal immediacy of the telling invites us to understand our lives inside the timelessness of Jewish experience. We will explore the drama of living in this story enriched by narrative theory that helps us understand the redemptive role that sacred stories can play in our lives.
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Telling Difficult Stories
Jun 27, 2022 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
If stories express and transmit values and identities, contested values or identities will find expression in complex, challenging stories. This is certainly true of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock, which gives expression to discomforts in Diaspora identities vis-à-vis Israel during the first intifada—and beyond. Join David Kraemer in exploring Roth’s recounting of the conflicts of this time, as Jews asked questions that are as pertinent today as they were then.
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(Far From) All About Eve
Jun 20, 2022 By Alan Cooper | Public Event video | Video Lecture
the diverse ways that readers fill those gaps engender remarkably divergent interpretations. What do we learn about biblical storytelling when we confront a text that can be interpreted in diametrically opposite ways? And what do we learn about ourselves from the interpretive decisions that we make?
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Jewish Theology in America, Today and Tomorrow
May 23, 2022 By Arnold M. Eisen | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Professor Eisen explores recent developments in Jewish thought about God and what God requires of us as Jews and human beings against the background of past Jewish thought, recent work by non-Jewish thinkers, and Professor Eisen’s own theological reflections in the age of COVID.
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Watering the Soul in Times of Faith and Doubt
May 16, 2022 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
together—is central to a life of faith and often plunges people into doubt. We will make space for the “watering of the soul,” both metaphorically and through exploration of the connection between resurrection and water—in the form of rain and dew.
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Expanding the Canon: Transforming Judaism in the 21st Century
May 15, 2022
Jewish learning has long focused on texts by an elite group of ancient rabbis. What would it mean to radically expand our canon, incorporating the voices of women, Jews of Color, people with disabilities, and other historically marginalized groups? JTS scholars will introduce new voices and also offer new lenses through which to read ancient texts. Together we will explore how diversifying our canonical texts can help us create a more inclusive Jewish community.
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Reaching for the Heavens:
The Music of Composer Gerald Cohen
May 10, 2022 By Gerald Cohen | Public Event video
Download Program Amid the Alien Corn Text Reaching for the Heavens featured the vibrant and compelling music of Gerald Cohen, a leading composer of concert and Jewish music, and a faculty member of the H. L. Miller Cantorial School for nearly 30 years, as well as the Cassatt String Quartet and other renowned performers. The […]
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Does Faith Matter? The Ancient Jewish Debate About Faith and Mitzvot
May 9, 2022 By David C. Kraemer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
One often hears it said that “Judaism cares what one does, not what one believes.” But this is a distortion, an oversimplification. When one looks at sources from the period of the birth of Rabbinic Judaism (including early “Christian” writings), one finds that there was an active debate about this matter. In this session, we will begin by considering the arguments of those ancient Jews—Paul and James—who raised the important question of faith vs. mitzvot. We will then examine echoes of the same debate in early rabbinic sources.
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The Gender of God in Ancient Israel
May 2, 2022 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Public Event video | Video Lecture
How did the biblical authors, and other Israelites, view the gender of God? Did they perceive God to be male? Did any of them perceive God as female? To answer this question, we examine both several biblical texts as well as archaeological evidence.
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Between the Lines: Hélène Jawhara Piñer on the History of Sephardi Cuisine
Apr 27, 2022 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
Scholar and author Hélène Jawhara Piñer discusses her unique books about Sephardi cuisine and demonstrates how to make a delicious muleta
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Because You Hear the Prayers of Your People Israel in Mercy
Apr 25, 2022 By Rachel Rosenthal | Public Event video | Video Lecture
We often think of God’s choice to respond to our prayers as an act of mercy, but the rabbis in the Babylonian Talmud believed that God was powerless to ignore certain prayers. We look at five models of people whose prayers God answers and consider how they act as messengers on behalf of their communities.
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Writing Jewish: A Discussion with Nicole Krauss and Joshua Cohen
Apr 25, 2022 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
Part of JTS’s Opening Season Jews have always been writers of books—from books for Jews with self-consciously Jewish content to books with no obvious Jewish consciousness directed toward the general reading public. But there are also authors who create worlds filled with Jews (and others) who embody human experiences with a Jewish twist for readers […]
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The Still, Small Voice: A Journalist and Her Rabbi on Regaining Intimate, Authentic Conversation
Apr 6, 2022 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
Two years ago, when the pandemic first hit, good friends Dahlia Lithwick and Rabbi Jan Uhrbach decided it was time to begin the weekly Jewish study session they’d been talking about for a while.
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Mandatory Fun: The Commandment of Joy
Apr 4, 2022 By Sarah Wolf | Public Event video | Video Lecture
Usually we think of the mitzvot, the commandments of Jewish law, as involving specific actions. Yet the Torah also commands us to feel certain emotions, including love for God and joy on the festivals. Dr. Sarah Wolf to explores rabbinic texts that grapple with questions about what fulfillment of such a commandment should look like.
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Hate on Trial: The Charlottesville Case
Mar 30, 2022
In August 2017, white nationalists orchestrated a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—with torch-carrying marchers chanting, “Jews will not replace us.“ The result was intimidation, violence, and death. In November 2021, at a landmark trial in Charlottesville, a jury found the rally organizers liable and awarded more than $25 million in damages.
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