Recorded On:
March 16, 2023
SPEAKERS:
Mikhael Manekin
Rula Hardal, Ph.D.
Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D.
The recent election in Israel has provoked massive protests in Israel and a surge of commentary in the United States. But what does this moment represent for progressive Israeli Jewish and Palestinian activists? Is the current government a new and unprecedented threat to Israeli democracy, or the latest stage in a long story? And how should Israelis and Palestinians committed to justice and equality -- and their American allies -- respond? Join Mikhael Manekin and Rula Hardal to engage these urgent questions.
Recorded On:
March 8, 2023
SPEAKERS:
Rabbi Ben Spratt
Rabbi Joshua Stanton
Betsy S. Stone, Ph.D.
Awakenings: American Jewish Transformations in Identity, Leadership, and Belonging, by Rabbis Stanton and Spratt, has sparked important conversations about the revisioning Jewish practice and connection. Who are the Jews of the present and future? How can we co-create and adapt Reform Judaism? Who are our leaders and supporters? How might seminary education adapt to Jews of today and tomorrow?
Recorded On:
February 6, 2023
SPEAKERS:
Dr. Sonia Gollance
Rabbi Wendy Zierler, Ph.D.
Barry Wimpfheimer, Ph.D.
Dance is an important yet largely unrecognized motif in modern Jewish literature that helps us read and interpret these texts. This talk demonstrates how dance scenes in I. J. Singer’s Yiddish-language family epic Di brider Ashkenazi (The Brothers Ashkenazi)–a novel that chronicles Jewish life in Łódź–juxtapose late nineteenth-century dreams of embourgeoisement with the reality of early twentieth-century antisemitism. By examining seemingly disparate dance scenes, it is possible to gain a deeper perspective into the ways acculturation and antisemitism operate on the Polish-Jewish body.
Recorded On:
January 20, 2023
SPEAKERS:
Chana Kronfeld
Wendy Ilene Zierler
Barry Wimpfheimer
Co-Presented with Prooftexts
Chana Kronfeld, Bernie H. Williams Professor Emerita, Comparative, Hebrew and Yiddish Literature, University of California, Berkeley; Speaker
Rabbi Wendy Zierler, Ph.D., Sigmund Falk Professor, Modern Jewish Literature and Feminist Studies, HUC-JIR/NY; Co-Chair, Prooftexts; Co-Moderator
Barry Wimpfheimer, Ph.D., Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University; Co-Chair, Prooftexts; Co-Moderator
Join Chana Kronfeld as she speaks about her article in Prooftexts 39:2, which deals with the biblical convention of female personification of the land from the Bible to modern Hebrew poetry.
Recorded On:
January 18, 2023
SPEAKERS:
Sarah Bunin Benor
Bruce A. Phillips
Steven Windmueller
Joshua Holo
Sarah Benor, Ph.D., Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Linguistics; Vice Provost, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles
Bruce Phillips, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology; Jewish Communal Service, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles
Steven Windmueller, Ph.D., Interim Director of HUC’s Zelikow School; Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Studies, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles
Joshua Holo, Ph.D., Dean, Jack H. Skirball Campus; Associate Professor of Jewish History, HUC-JIR/Los Angeles
In 2021, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, in partnership with the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University and NORC at the University of Chicago, sponsored and conducted The Study of Jewish LA, an examination of major trends in LA Jewish demography and sociology. Join HUC faculty in a discussion, hosted by the LA Federation, about this long-overdue study and its novel approach to gauging Jewish life, questioning our traditional interpretation of intermarriage, diversity, religiosity, and identity.
Recorded On:
January 12, 2023
SPEAKERS:
Lilliana Mason, Ph.D
Andrew Marantz
Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., President, HUC-JIR
Lilliana Mason, Ph.D., SNF Agora Institute Associate Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University
Andrew Marantz, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D., President, HUC-JIR
We are joined by Professor Lilliana Mason and New Yorker staff writer, Andrew Marantz. Both writers have worked to understand what has changed in our democracy over the last decade, as extremists have utilized the power of social media to amplify their positions and our politics have become increasingly polarized. In her recent work, Dr. Mason has argued that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, she suggests, they tend to view one another with distrust and to work for party victory above all else. Andrew Marantz reason that that technology companies have profited off the most extreme voices. In his writing, he has charted how Silicon Valley has unwittingly contributed to both the rise in white nationalism and our polarized politics. In their conversation, Mason and Marantz will invite the community of HUC to consider how we arrived at our current state of political polarization, and what we might do about it.