Community Lectures and Events

An extraordinary day of learning with Drisha: Yom Iyyun on the topic of the book and the people.
Featuring Drisha faculty and others

Price: $

“A Day of Expiation: The Essence of Yom Kippur Atones”

Located at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, 125 E 85th St, New York, NY.

Price: $ 0.00

“A Time to Tear and a Time to Mend: Re-Imagining Teshuvah in light of Rabbinic Narratives”

Price: $ 0.00

Location: A private residence on the Upper West Side, details provided upon registration

Thursday, February 7 , 7:00 PM – A Simple Story by S. Y. Agnon.

A Simple Story is one of the celebrated Hebrew novelist, S. Y. Agnon’s, greatest achievements. If the story is at all simple, it is only in the seeming effortlessness of relating a physiological and countercultural tale about bittersweet romance, bourgeous expectations, and madness. Most striking are the allusions to classical Jewish literature found on nearly every page. Rather than representing innocuous, commonly held values, these texts are provocative, destabilizing, and worthy of careful study.

Click here for more information on the Book Salon & Beit Midrash series.

Price: $ 15.00

How did the Pesach Seder become a Family Affair?

This lecture will explore the origins and development of how Pesach was celebrated, starting with biblical sources that describe a Pesach sacrifice, second temple sources, Mishnah Pesahim, later rabbinic sources, and our earliest haggadot. It will also connect reflections and photos from my visit to the Samaritan Passover sacrifice last year; ideas of time and memory as they are incorporated into the Seder ceremony; connections between the Seder / Haggadah and developing Christian festivals in late antiquity; and others.

The idea would be to think about how Pesach was imagined to originate as a family ritual, then how it took a detour as a scholarly men’s endeavor, and then how it circled back in new ways to the family table. There would also be nice ways of tying it to people’s contemporary experiences and also practical ideas about making it a meaningful way for generations to gather together around a table to tell a story of a shared past.

Located at: Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun
125 East 85th Street

Free and open to the public
(But please RSVP)

Price: $ 0.00

POETIC MYTHOLOGY FOR OUR AGE OF ANGER: The Wisdom of the Zohar and Its Relevance for the 21st Century

Celebrate the publication of Dr. Nathaniel Berman’s new book, Divine and Demonic in the Poetic Mythology of the Zohar: The “Other Side” of Kabbalah (Leiden: Brill, 2018)

The Culture Center ( 410 Columbus Ave , at W 80th St)

 

Dr. Berman will be teaching a weekly class on the Zohar in the weeks following the lecture.

Price: $ 15.00

This course will explore the centuries which bridge the Israelite religion and the normative Judaism of the rabbis, a time when Jews living throughout the Greco-Roman world freely expressed their Jewish pride by integrating aspects of the Greco-Roman world in which they lived and thrived. By exploring Jewish novellas, apocalypses, biblical interpretations, and historical records, we will gain new insight into the lives of the earliest Jews, who wrote religious texts in Antioch, the “gateway to the east;” in Rome, the political capital of the Empire; in Alexandria, the cultural crown jewel of the Greco-Roman world; and in the foothills of the Judean desert.

In partnership with Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue
Location: Skokie Valley, 8825 E Prairie Road, Skokie, IL (Chicagoland Area)

Click here for flyer

Suggested Donation: $60 for the series. Click here to make a donation.

Price: $ 0.00

Co-sponsored by Drisha, The Jewish Publication Society and Sixth Street Community Synagogue
November 29th, 7:00 PM
Sixth Street Community Synagogue
325 East Sixth Street

$10/students free of charge.

Please join us for an evening to celebrate the publication of Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich’s new book, Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2018).

Talks will be given by Dr. Lawrence Schiffman (Judge Abraham Lieberman Professorship in Hebrew & Judaic Studies at New York University) and Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich (Drisha Faculty member and Crown-Ryan Chair of Judies Studies at Catholic Theological Union.) 

We will explore the Jewish literature and communities of Alexandria and the Dead Sea Scrolls in Greek and Roman times, as Jews navigated as a minority through worlds dominated by powerful cultures.

Light refreshments will be served. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Click here for the event flyer.

Click here for the Facebook event.

Price: $ 10.00

Sponsored by their grandchildren, Elissa Shay Ordan and Daniel J. Ordan

Rabbi Menachem Leibtag on
Holidays and Theology in the Biblical Calendar: From a ‘Holy Land’ to a ‘Holy People’
Co-sponsored by Lincoln Square Synagogue
180 Amsterdam Avenue
Free and open to the public

Many of the practices of the festivals seem odd or out of place. The imagery of being “judged” in Tishrei, the practice of saying ya’ale ve-yavo on holidays and Rosh Hodesh, our counting both days and weeks in the omer – all of these take on new significance in light of the agricultural roots of the Jewish festivals and the biblical calendar. We will explore those, in order to better appreciate the way the calendar has evolved together with the world, and yet preserves its eternal sanctity.

 

Click here to listen to the recording

Price: $ 0.00

Sunday, November 18, 6:00 PM
Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun

Dedicated in memory of Terry Satinover Fagen.

Join Ilana Blumberg and Devora Steinmetz as they discuss the ethical challenges and moral potential of education. Dr. Blumberg will share insights from her experience teaching in settings as varied as an early childhood classroom in a New York City day school, an inner-city public school in Detroit, and universities in the United States and Israel. Dr. Blumberg will also read excerpts from her new book, Open Your Hand: Teaching as Jew, Teaching as an American (Rutgers University Press, 2018).

Dr. Ilana M. Blumberg currently teaches at the Department of English, Bar Ilan University where she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing. She is the author of Victorian Sacrifice and Houses of Study: A Jewish Woman Among Books.

Dr. Devora Steinmetz serves on the faculty of Drisha in the United States and Israel as well as one the faculty of the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership. She is the founder of Beit Rabban, a Jewish day school profiled in Daniel Pekarsky’s Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban. She is the author of scholarly books and articles on Talmud, Midrash, and Bible.

Price: $ 0.00

Thursday, November 22, 9:30 am

Join Drisha, Congregations Shearith Israel, the West End Collegiate Church, The Jewish Center and The Church of Latter-day Saints in this community-wide service event.

For more information and to register, click here.

Price: $