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JUNE 2022 PROGRAMS
CSP
The Walnut Street Synagogue is pleased to be a partner congregation of the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program. Please join us at an upcoming program!
Evolve, a Children’s Book for Adults
Thursday, June 30, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
In the follow up to his critically acclaimed first book, The Well of Being, Jean-Pierre Weill’s EVOLVE: A Children’s Book for Adults takes readers on a philosophical journey that explores the age-old question — who am I? Join us we unpack three foundational stories from the book of Genesis in the hopes of answering where we come from and where we might choose to go.
Jean-Pierre Weill is a painter and writer of picture-books for adults that explore philosophical and spiritual ideas. Weill was born in France and raised in New York, and he received his BA from St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD. Weill is the creator of vitreography, a unique mode of painting and drawing in 3-dimensional multi-level glass paintings; his work has sold in hundreds of galleries and museum outlets throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and he has designed original works for Disney Art Editions, Inc., Warner Bros Co., and Coca-Cola, Inc. Weill published his first book, The Well of Being: A Children’s Book for Adults (Macmillan, 2013) to critical acclaim. Weill currently lives in Jerusalem.
The Most Momentous Year! Annual Supreme Court Review
Wednesday, June 29, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
God, guns, abortion, affirmative action, vaccine mandates, unprecedented leaks, Ketanji Brown Jackson… – join us for a discussion as Dean Erwin Chemerinsky takes us through a most momentous year of cases decided (and still to be decided) by the Roberts Court and tells us what to expect in the coming term.
Erwin Chemerinsky, who currently serves as President of the Association of American Law Schools, became the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law. Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law. Before that he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004 was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He is the author of fourteen books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction, and is the author of more than 250 law review articles. Dean Chemerinsky frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court. In 2017, National Jurist magazine named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States.
Program video
Dancing with Fire: The Hasidic Masters
Session 1 – Tuesday, June 7, 3:30 pm EDT
Session 2 – Tuesday, June 14, 3:30 pm EDT
Session 3 – Tuesday, June 21, 3:30 pm EDT
Session 4 – Tuesday, June 28, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
In a series of four sessions with Danny Maseng, we will learn what propelled the Jewish revolution of the 18th century as it swept through Eastern Europe and changed the Jewish religious landscape forever. We will encounter the great Hasidic masters, hear their stories, share their wisdom, and open our hearts with their music. We will dance with the Hasidic masters and we will venture into a world of time-travelers and miracle workers, of reincarnated souls, of portentous dreams and visiting angels.
Born in Israel to American parents, Danny Maseng first came to the United States to star on Broadway in Only Fools Are Sad. A playwright, actor, singer and composer, Danny has served as Evaluator of New American Plays/Opera-Musical Theater for the National Endowment for the Arts, as the Director of the Spielberg Fellowships for the FJC, as Spiritual Leader of URJ Congregation Agudas Achim in NY and as Cantor of Temple Israel of Hollywood in California. Danny is most excited to now be the Chazzan and Spiritual Leader of Makom LA, a newish, Jewish, dynamic, post-denominational community, in Los Angeles. Danny’s critically acclaimed off-Broadway musical Wasting Time with Harry Davidowitz: The Musical Journey of a Jewish Soul, along with his innovative Soul on Fire and Let There Be Light productions, are just three exciting projects that have earned Danny accolades. He has been the invited guest of the American Conference of Cantors, the Cantor’s Assembly, as well as the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.
Program video – Session 1
The Essential Klezmer – Jewish Roots and Soul Music, from the Old World to the Jazz Age
to the Downtown Avant-Garde
Sunday, June 26, 7:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Seth Rogovoy’s multimedia program “The Essential Klezmer” takes audiences on a journey via music, pictures, videos, and storytelling, tracing klezmer’s evolution and development from Old World shtetls to New World nightclubs. The program includes insights into the sound and shape of klezmer and introduces many of the great heroes who helped transform Eastern European Yiddish wedding music into a living, breathing popular form of American music.
Seth Rogovoy is a writer, radio commentator, lecturer, and concert and record producer. Termed “American Jewry’s greatest Dylan scholar” by Religion News Service, Seth is the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet (Scribner, 2009) a full-length analysis of Bob Dylan’s life and work, and The Essential Klezmer: A Music Lover’s Guide to Jewish Roots and Soul Music (Algonquin Books, 2000), the all-time bestselling guide to klezmer music, and which has been translated into Chinese and Korean. For over three decades, Seth’s work has appeared in the English-language national Jewish newsweekly, the Forward, to which Seth is a contributing editor. Seth is the recipient of a 2016 Simon Rockower Award from the American Jewish Press Association for excellence in arts and criticism, for his portrait of musician Leonard Cohen published in Hadassah Magazine in its April/May 2015 issue. Seth is editor and publisher of The Rogovoy Report – an online magazine of cultural and critical news and observations, also available in the form of a weekly e-newsletter. Seth also does cultural, editorial, and marketing consulting. He is the programming consultant for the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., where he curates the center’s annual YIDSTOCK: Festival of New Yiddish Music, which debuted in Summer 2012, and which continues under his artistic direction.
An Adventure to Bultoscandia: Norway, Sweden & Estonia
Part 1 – Norway – The Land of the Midnight Sun – Thursday, June 9, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 2 – Sweden – The Pop Music Capital of the World – Thursday, June 16, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 3 – Estonia – The Singing Nation – Thursday, June 23, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Part 1 – Norway – The Land of the Midnight Sun – Jewish History in Norway dates back to the 19th century. Today, approximately 1,500 Jews still live in Norway. Join CSP and tour guide Evgenia Kempinski as we explore the beauty of Norway and learn about this country’s brief yet tragic Jewish history. Topics we will address on our virtual adventure to Norway include: the first Jewish community established in Oslo back in the 19th century, the growth of Jewish life in Norway in the first half of the 20th century; Norwegian Jews during WWII, the miraculous survival of an Oslo Synagogue during the War, the reestablishment of the Jewish community and the revival of Jewish life in Norway, and modern-day antisemitism and views towards Israel.
Part 2 – Sweden – The Pop Music Capital of the World – Sweden today is home to about 15,000 Jews, making it one of the larger Jewish communities in Europe. Though Jews were not very welcome in Sweden in the 18th century (Jews had to practice Jewish rituals in secret), within 100 years from the establishment of the first Jewish community, Jews received Royal protection and civil rights. Join us for a virtual adventure to the “Pop Music Capital of the World” when we will visit synagogues, Jewish properties and monuments in Stockholm and several other Swedish towns, learn about the unique role Sweden played in saving Jews from the neighboring countries during the Holocaust, and hear the story of how Sweden saved Jewish refugees fleeing from Communist countries after the WWII. We will also examine the similarity and difference of Jewish destiny in Sweden and Finland and address the subject of modern antisemitism in Scandinavia.
Part 3 – Estonia – The Singing Nation – We will travel to Estonia – a small country between the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea that is known for its woods, lakes, islands and medieval fortresses. Tallinn, the capital of Estonia and where we will spend most of our tour time, is often called as “the best-preserved medieval town in Northern Europe”. Although there is some evidence of Jewish presence in Estonia already back in the 14th century, the community was only formed after 1865, as a result of the reforms of the Russian Tsar Alexander II. TOUR ITINERARY – We begin our tour of 150 years of Jewish life in Estonia with the Jewish community’s commercial success of late 19th century. Next, we learn about a phenomenon of Jewish cultural autonomy in the independent Estonia of 1920s – 1930s. We then examine the impact that the Holocaust and Soviet repression had on Jewish life in Estonia, touching on stories of Jewish refuseniks in Estonia in the late Soviet time. Finally, we come to the modern times, when the Jewish community was reestablished in the independent Estonia. We’ll visit the synagogue and Jewish Museum in Tallinn and learn about the modern Estonian attitude towards Jews, Israel, Holocaust and other sensitive subjects.
Our guide, Evgenia Kempinski is a Russian Jew born and raised in St. Petersburg. Her family was originally from the Pale of Settlement – Poland, Ukraine and Belorussia – and endured the suppression of Judaism in the Soviet Union then the rebirth of Jewish culture and religious life in today’s St. Petersburg. She has been an official St. Petersburg tour guide for over 15 years and is the founder and owner of St. Petersburg Jewish Tours, a company offering Jewish travelers a unique experience of showcasing the best of Russia from a Jewish point of view. She currently lives in Haifa, Israel, still keeping close connections with St. Petersburg and its Jewish community.
Cultural Icon, Talk Show Host, Rock Star: A Conversation with Yair Nitzani
Wednesday, June 22, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Join us for a conversation with Israeli rock star, songwriter, comic, television host and cultural icon Yair Nitzani. We’ll explore his distinctive take on life, his work with the hit Israel band T-Slam, his Jon Stewart-inspired news satire television show and the strange reality of being a rock and television star in the land of Israel.
Yair Nitzani: Known as the Israeli Jon Stewart, Yair Nitzani is a musician, writer, comic, and TV personality. Nitzani uses satire and comedy to present his distinctive take on life, fusing cynicism with endless optimism, moving forward while yearning for the good old times, and balancing his career in music production with the tribulations of being an 80s rock star. In recent years, Yair has entertained audiences all over Israel with his intimate and intelligent comedy. He is the host of the weekly television culture show A Bit High, and previously hosted the television show Yanshufim, for which he won the award for “Best TV Show” in 2011 and 2012. From 2003-2005, Nitzani wrote and hosted three seasons of Ahorei HaChadashot, or Behind the News, which was nominated for “Best Entertainment Show of the Year.” In the past, Yair has also joined the judges on Kohav Nolad, the Israeli version of American Idol. He is the writer of a popular satirical column, Raising an Eyebrow, in the daily Hebrew-language newspaper, Israel Hayom, and which led to the publication of a successful book by the same name. Yair also supports a program for lone Israeli soldiers that was founded by his wife Drorit Nitzani.
Program video
Jewhooing the Sixties: American Celebrity and Jewish Identity
Sunday, June 19, 7:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
The 1960s saw a quantum leap in the status of Jews in American life, mediated in large part by the treatment of Jewish celebrities by Jews and gentiles alike. As comedian Lenny Bruce put it, it was suddenly “in” to be Jewish. Celebrities like Lenny Bruce, Sandy Koufax, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand and their contemporaries were significantly more transformative than their predecessors. What was it about the 60s that allowed this to happen?
Dr. David E. Kaufman is a scholar and teacher of American Jewish history and a lifelong Jewish educator. A born and bred New Yorker, he spent a decade living in southern California while serving on the faculty of the Hebrew Union College in LA. In addition to many articles, he is the author of two books: Shul with a Pool: The ‘Synagogue-Center’ in American Jewish History (UPNE/Brandeis, 1999) and Jewhooing the Sixties: American Celebrity and Jewish Identity [Sandy Koufax, Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, and Barbra Streisand] (UPNE/Brandeis, 2012). David is currently building an online resource center entitled: “NEW YORK JEW: Center for New York Jewish History, Culture, and Community.”
Program video
Secrets of the Torah Revealed: Part 4 – Numbers / BeMidbar
Trials and Tribulations of the Desert
Monday, June 13, 2:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
God may have taken the Jews out of Egypt, but how to take Egypt out of the Jews? The Book of Numbers recounts the difficulties of what can only be termed the adolescence of the Israelite people, and like everyone’s teenage years, it is not a pretty picture. What skills, what sustaining ideas, what resiliencies are put into play when the Israelites, having escaped Egypt, must face both the effects of enslavement on their national character, and the threats of growing up in the desert, an environment arguably more hostile than the slavery to which they—ironically— end up begging to return.
Winner of the 2015 Jewish Book Award in Visual Arts for Skies of Parchment, Seas of Ink: Jewish Illuminated Manuscripts, Marc Michael Epstein is the product of a mixed marriage between the scions of Slonimer and Lubavitcher Hassidim and Romanian socialists, and grew up, rather confused, but happy, in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently Professor of Religion at Vassar College, where he has been teaching since 1992, and was the first Director of Jewish Studies. At Vassar, he teaches courses on medieval Christianity, religion, arts and politics, and Jewish texts and sources. He is a graduate of Oberlin College, received the PhD at Yale University, and did much of his graduate research at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
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Moral Philosophy, Spiritual Psychology and A Crisis of Consciousness
Wednesday, June 8, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Our time is defined by a crisis of consciousness and broken spiritual connection. Driven by a materialist, zero-sum approach to everything, we seek answers in ego, money, power and consumption. It’s an addiction that’s wreaking havoc on the planet—and
ultimately leaves us empty. It is this terrain that we tread with spiritual psychologist, historian, philosopher, wisdom counselor and the world’s only rabbi with a black belt in jiu-jitsu, Rabbi Mordecai Finley, Ph.D. In our one-hour session Rabbi Finley will be in dialogue with Rabbi Elie Spitz. We will learn about Rabbi Finley’s life and work and explore what it means to pursue a life of virtue, wisdom, depth, purpose, and meaning beyond the material.
The co-founder of Ohr HaTorah Synagogue in Los Angeles, Rabbi Mordecai Finley holds a doctorate in Religion and Social Ethics from the University of Southern California. He has taught Holocaust Studies, Talmud, Rabbinic Literature, Jewish Law
and Ethics, and other courses at USC, USC School of Law, and Loyola Law School. And he is a founder and the former president of the Academy for Jewish Religion. Through his doctorate in Religion, as well as his own spiritual search, he has
familiarity with other religious-spiritual traditions: Hindu (especially Patanjali and Raja Yoga), Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Sufi Mysticism. Rabbi Finley was born and raised in Southern California. After high school, he served three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was discharged with the rank of Sergeant in 1976. He then spent a year in Israel on a kibbutz. After his stay in Israel, he attended the School of Religion at USC and completed his BA in 1980.
Program video
Peggy Guggenheim’s Special Relationship with the Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Thursday, June 2, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Peggy Guggenheim is well known as the collector who discovered and promoted many of the Abstract American artists. She is credited for bringing the first paintings by Jackson Pollock to Europe and introducing him at the Venice biennale in 1948. What is less known is that, in 1953, she donated 36 works by many of her gallery artists to the Tel Aviv Museum. The lecture will discuss Guggenheim’s immense influence on the art scene during the middle of the 20th century and her incredible donation that gifted to the Museum some of its most prominent art works by Jackson Pollock, Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy.
Since 2016, Sophia Berry has been working as an Assistant Curator of Modern Art at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (TAMA). Currently, she is on a two-year sabbatical in Denver, CO. Her position at TAMA includes responsibilities of managing exhibitions from our collections and external loans, researching the museum’s collections, overseeing outgoing loans, writing catalogue texts, and leading restoration projects. Sophia also works with international and local donor groups, frequently giving lectures, aimed at supporting the Museum’s programs and maintaining and growing its collection. Sophia’s latest project was a special exhibition of works by Amedeo Modigliani in honor of the centenary of his death. Sophia has also curated a special display dedicated to Joseph Israel’s From Darkness and Light (1871), which was recently discovered to have been Jewish property before the War. Before entering her position at TAMA, Sophia studied Photography at the Art College at Beit Berl (2003), and later completed a certificate in Curatorial Studies at the Kibbutzim College (2007). Sophia has worked as an art educator at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, as an Assistant to the Chief Curator at the Petah Tikva Museum of Art and as a guide and workshop facilitator in the Education Department at TAMA.
Program video
Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Budapest
Wednesday, June 1, 12:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
In a city that has seen extremes of both ruin and redevelopment in the last 100 years, Budapest’s Jewish Quarter is a perfect depiction of past and present cohabiting and is a must-see for its unique contrasts of old and new–and sometimes, old as new. The Jewish Quarter is a network of lively, connecting streets that sit in amongst the central District VII, a neighborhood scattered with historical relics, as well as all manner of trendy drinking holes buried within the ruins of the old city. On this live, virtual walking tour with our guide Agi Antal, we’ll explore the heart of the historic Jewish quarter of Pest, visit the neighborhood’s “Golden Triangle” and get an introduction to the main synagogues, including an outside visit of the magnificent Dohany Street Synagogue, Europe’s largest. We’ll explore the origins of Pest’s Jewish community and will learn why its congregations separated and the differences between the Neolog and Orthodox communities. And we’ll hear the stories of some of the Righteous Among the Nations who saved Jews in Budapest during the Holocaust. You’ll be fascinated by the rich heritage of this thriving community, still 100,000 strong.
Agi Antal was born in Budapest in 1964, earned her BA in the Budapest Business School, and immediately started working as a guide. After having spent a year in Israel (1993), she decided to learn more about Judaism, as she was brought up in a completely assimilated family in Communist Hungary. She received her MA in the Hungarian Jewish University in the faculty of History of Jewish Culture. She specializes in guiding Jewish heritage tours in Budapest for groups like the JDC, Kivunim, DAAT, and Gil Travel.
Program video
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Boston – Yom Sport 2022
Sunday, June 12, 11:00 am EDT
(MacDowell Field at Babson College, Wellesley)
Jewish Big Brother Big Sisters of Greater Boston is holding their 26th Annual Yom Sport at MacDowell Field on the campus of Babson College in Wellesley. Yom Sport is a day of sports for adults with disabilities. They are seeking athletes and volunteers.
More information and Registration here
COMMUNITY PROJECTS
Ukraine Emergency Fund
Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) has launched the Ukraine Emergency Fund to provide humanitarian assistance to the Jewish Community of Ukraine. All funds will go to partners on the ground in Ukraine to help with food, housing, medicine and other basic needs.
Learn more and Donate here
Chelsea Gateway Project
Yad Chessed
Sponsor meals for those in our community who are struggling with economic hardship and isolation and help to support other needs through Yad Chessed. Yad Chessed serves as a safety net for Jewish individuals and families and is rooted in the Jewish values of kindness (chessed) and charity (tzedakah). They are committed to helping those in need navigate a path toward financial stability while preserving their privacy and dignity. Questions can be directed to info@yadchessed.org.
Support Yad Chessed