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SEPTEMBER 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!
Siberian Jews
Thursday, September 29, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Siberia is a giant region of Russia that extends from the Ural Mountains in the West to the Pacific Ocean in the East. Usually, it is only associated with frost, snow, prisons and woods. The first Jews in Siberia were those exiled from Moscow as early as the 17th century. Next to arrive were Jewish soldiers who were sent to serve in Siberia by the Russian Tsar Nicolas I. Some Jews even came to Siberia by their own choice trying to escape pogroms and poverty of the Pale of Settlement. To avoid the official prohibition some obtained fake documents to state themselves as criminals sentenced to Siberian exile. In this session with Evgenia Kempinski we will visit the private homes and synagogues of Siberian Jews to discuss and explore Jewish life in Siberia. We will pay respect to the Jews exiled to Siberia from Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania by the Soviet government in 1939 – 1940 and those Polish Jews who ran to the East, crossing the border with the USSR, to escape from the Shoah.
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.
Wartime North Africa
Wednesday, September 21, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Under the Nazi, Vichy, and Italian fascist regimes, Jews as well as some Muslims, were subject to race law and internments in North Africa. Join UCLA professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein, co-editor (with Aomar Boum) of The Holocaust and North Africa and the forthcoming Wartime North Africa as she discusses the experiences of North African Jews during World War II, why their histories have been marginalized and the relationship between Jews and Muslims during that period and how it reverberates today.
Sarah Abrevaya Stein is the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director of the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, and Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies at UCLA. She is the author and editor of ten books, including, most recently, Wartime North Africa: a Documentary History 1934-1950 (Stanford University Press, with the cooperation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2022) and Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (FSG/Macmillan, 2019). Stein’s books, articles, and pedagogy have won numerous prizes, including two National Jewish Book Awards, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. Stein is also co-editor (with David Biale of UCD) of the Stanford University Press Series in Jewish History and Culture.
Rabbis Behaving Badly: The Lure of Temptation
Part 1 – The Lure of Temptation – Tuesday, September 6, 1:00 pm EDT
Part 2 – We All Make Mistakes – Tuesday, September 13, 1:00 pm EDT
Part 3 – Making Amends – Tuesday, September 20, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
While we often place the rabbis on a moral pedestal, the Talmud is filled with humanizing stories in which the rabbis sometimes get it wrong. In this three-part master class, we’ll dive into the agadot (stories) of the Talmud and explore the ways in which the Rabbis struggle to get it right, just like the rest of us.
Part 1 – The Lure of Temptation – In this session, we’ll explore several stories in which the rabbis struggle to resist the urge of sexual temptation. We’ll see them try to resist the yetzer hara (the evil inclination), sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, as they figure out how to survive in a world of temptation.
Part 2 – We All Make Mistakes – In this session, we’ll see two of our greatest leaders go head-to-head in a duel to be right. As Rabban Gamliel wrestles to reconcile arrogance with humility and the need to be right with the willingness to be wrong, we’ll use these stories to reflect on our abilities to admit when we’ve made a mistake and rectify our actions.
Part 3 – Making Amends – In this final session, we’ll look at several stories in which great scholars fall prey to sinful behavior. What happens when a leader makes a grave moral mistake? Can we still learn from them? Should they continue to serve the community as moral exemplars? Through these stories, we’ll explore what happens when leaders get it wrong and if/how they should be allowed to resume positions of authority.
Rabbi Avi Strausberg is the Director of National Learning Initiatives at Hadar, and is based in Washington, DC. She received her rabbinic ordination from Hebrew College in Boston and is a Wexner Graduate Fellow. She also holds a Masters in Jewish Education. Energized by engaging creatively with Jewish text, she has written several theatre pieces inspired by the Torah and maintains a Daf Yomi haiku blog in which she writes daily Talmudic haikus.
Program video – Part 1
Program video – Part 2
Program video – Part 3
The Shtetl: A Jewish Universe
Part 1 – Thursday, September 1, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 2 – Thursday, September 8, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 3 – Thursday, September 15, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 4 – Thursday, September 22, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Shtetl – a market town located in the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and later the Russian Pale of Settlement. Usually small and self-contained, for centuries Shtetls were vibrant centers of Jewish life and tradition. These simple definitions do not explain the importance and the influence of the Shtetl on the Jewish life and culture. In the first two sessions in our series, we explore answers to many questions about the phenomenon of the Shtetl: What was so unique about the Shtetl? Why do some researchers call the Shtetl a “Jewish Atlantis”? What made the life of the Jewish Community in a Shtetl so special? What makes a town a Shtetl? What did the Shtetl look like and who actually lived there? Were there any non-Jews in the Shtetl? Was there any culture in the Shtetl? What did Shtetl Jews value? How was Shtetl life organized? We will also discuss food, traditions, language, beliefs, jobs, community structure and other important elements of the Shtetl’s everyday life.
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.
Program video – Part 1
Program video – Part 2
Program video – Part 3
Program video – Part 4
Living in English, Writing in Hebrew
Israeli-American Author Ruby Namdar in Conversation with Basmat Hazan
Sunday, September 18, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Join us for a special program in honor of Dr. Rachel Korazim, winner of CSP’s second annual Maimonides Award for Excellence in Jewish Education for her work in bringing Israeli poetry to life. In conversation with Basmat Hazan, a noted Israel theater director, playwright, author and educator, award-winning author Ruby Namdar will discuss his sources of inspiration, his new-found relationship to the great Jewish-American authors of the previous generation and the rewards–as well as the challenges–of living in one language while writing in another. Winner of the 2014 Sapir Prize, Israel’s most prestigious literary award, The Ruined House was translated into English by Hillel Halkin, and recognized by the NY Times as a “masterpiece of modern-religious literature.”
Ruby Namdar was born and raised in Jerusalem to a family of Iranian-Jewish heritage. His first book, Haviv (2000), won the Ministry of Culture’s Award for Best First Publication. His novel The Ruined House has won the Sapir Prize, Israel’s most prestigious literary award. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters and teaches Jewish literature, focusing on Biblical and Talmudic narrative.
Basmat Hazan is an award-winning theater director, playwright, author and facilitator of text study. She studied Jewish thought and theater at Hebrew University and the School of Visual Theater in Jerusalem. A cultural entrepreneur, Basmat is the founder of “LABA” – a Jewish house of study and culture laboratory located in New York city. She is also co-founder artistic director of “Here and now” “B’Zman Emet” program for artists in Jerusalem as well as the host of the television program Leshem Shinui on the community channel in Jerusalem.
Program video
“Heavens Give Me Patience” – R. Yishmael, King Lear, and the Divine Tragedy
Wednesday, September 14, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
What’s the difference between the God of the Bible and the God of the Talmud? Who was the last man to see God? And how do we balance love and fear in our relationship with the Divine? Join us as we explore the omnipotence and vulnerability of God, through the talmudic tale of R. Yishmael and Shakespeare’s King Lear.
Gila Fine is a teacher of Aggada at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, exploring the tales of the Talmud through philosophy, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and pop-culture. She is also a faculty member of the London School of Jewish studies, the Nachshon Project, and Amudim Seminary, and has taught thousands of students at conferences and communities across the Jewish world. Gila’s dynamic literary method and unique intertextual approach – ranging from folktales to fiction to film – bring the stories of the Talmud to life, revealing their relevance for our time. Haaretz has called her “a young woman on her way to becoming one of the more outstanding Jewish thinkers of the next generation.
The Four Kingdoms
Sunday, September 11, 3:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had a dream – a vision of the kingdoms that would succeed and surpass Babylon in world domination. Babylon was conquered by the Persians, the Persians by the Greeks, and the Greeks by the Romans. These Four Kingdoms shaped the world as we know it. These Four Kingdoms dominated and influenced Jerusalem in different ways, and their history is intertwined with our history.
Nachliel Selavan, originally from Jerusalem’s Old City, is back in Israel after seven years of teaching full-time in the United States, developing his unique and engaging method of learning Torah through tour, travel and archaeology. During his undergraduate degree studies in Tanach and Mass-Communications at Lifshitz Teachers College, Nachliel hosted a local weekly radio show on 101.6 FM. Nachliel completed his first MA through the Melton Blended Masters in Jewish Education at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is studying for his second MA in Ancient Jewish History at Bernard Revel Graduate School, Yeshiva University.
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.
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