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MARCH 2023 PROGRAMS

PURIM

CELEBRATE

Join Temple Tifereth Israel of Winthrop, Tobin Bridge Chabad and the Walnut Street Synagogue for –
Brisket, Bourbon and Big Laughs:  A Purim Feast to Remember

Tuesday, March 7, 4:15 pm – 7:00 pm EST
(event to be held at Temple Tifereth Israel, 93 Veterans Road, Winthrop)

Tobin Bridge Chabad, Tifereth Israel of Winthrop, and the Walnut Street Synagogue of Chelsea are getting together to celebrate PURIM! Join us as our communities come together for a historic night of Purim feasting and festivities!  Enjoy a delicious brisket dinner, musical comedy show, whiskey tasting, and of course a Megillah reading, inspiration and lots and lots of hamentaschen!

4:15 pm – Doors Open
4:30 pm – Megillah Reading
5:00 pm – Hamotzi – Purim Feast Begins
5:30 pm Musical Comedy and Whiskey Tasting

GIVING TO THOSE IN NEED

From now until Purim Day (11am on Tuesday, March 7, 2023), our community is partnering with Yad Chessed to raise funds to fulfill the mitzvah of Matanot LaEvyonim (gifts to people in need on Purim Day). If you would like to help people in need buy food on Purim Day, donations can be made online or through the mail.
Online  – Donations can be made ONLINE HERE.  Please insert “Walnut Street Synagogue” in the “Synagogue/School Affiliation” box.
USPS – Checks can be sent in advance of Purim to Yad Chessed at 440 Totten Pond Road, Suite 401, Waltham, MA 02451. Please include “Walnut Street Synagogue” in the memo line of the check.
To learn more, please visit yadchessed.org/purim.

ONLINE LEARNING (FROM CSP IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE WALNUT STREET SYNAGOGUE)

Dangerous Beauty: Esther and the Righteous Temptress of the Bible

Sunday, March 5, 1:00 pm EST
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

Why does the Bible always affect redemption through sexual transgression? Who are the women who seduce and redeem? And how do they tempt their prey? Exploring the stories of the six righteous temptresses through the Bible and Midrash, Bavli and Yerushalmi, Victor Turner and Simone de Beauvoir, Rabbi Soloveitchik and Game of Thrones.
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 TASTE OF JEWISH CULTURE

The Walnut Street Synagogue is pleased to present The Taste of Jewish Culture series.  Join us for our third program, Crackers, Crepes and Cheese: Jewish Culinary Traditions From Passover to Shavuot, on Wednesday, March 15 at 7:00 pm EDT.

Please visit our event webpage for more details and to register.
The Taste of Jewish Culture details

 

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!  See the Purim section for Purim-related programming.

The Jewish American Paradox – Embracing Choice in a Changing World

Thursday, March 30, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

Who should count as Jewish in America? What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel? Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity? The situation of American Jews today is deeply paradoxical. Jews have achieved unprecedented integration, influence, and esteem in virtually every facet of American life. But this extraordinarily diverse community now also faces four critical and often divisive challenges: rampant intermarriage, weak religious observance, diminished cohesion in the face of waning anti-Semitism, and deeply conflicting views about Israel. Can the American Jewish community collectively sustain and pass on to the next generation a sufficient sense of Jewish identity in light of these challenges? Who should count as Jewish in America?  What should be the relationship of American Jews to Israel?  Join us on March 30th for a special CSP event with Prof. Robert Mnookin celebrating the paperback publication of his book, The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World.
Robert H. Mnookin is the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, the Chair of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and the Director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project. A leading scholar in the field of conflict resolution, Professor Mnookin has applied his interdisciplinary approach to negotiation and conflict resolution to a remarkable range of problems, both public and private. Prof. Mnookin began teaching law at Boalt Hall, U.C. Berkeley, in 1972 and was on the Stanford faculty from 1981 until 1993. He has been a visiting fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford University; a visiting professor of law at Columbia Law School; and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Before joining the Harvard faculty, he was the Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the Director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. Professor Mnookin has written or edited nine books and numerous scholarly articles. His books include – The Jewish American Paradox, Bargaining with the Devil, Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in Deals and Disputes (with Scott Peppet and Andrew Tulumello) and Negotiating on Behalf of Others.
Program video

 

The Fourth Plague – Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

Wednesday, March 29, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

What exactly was the plague of Arov? Why is it the only plague referred to as a miracle? And what about it made it the critical turning point of the Exodus story? Exploring the fourth plague of Arov in light of biblical, rabbinic, and medieval literature, Egyptian mythology, Christian commentaries, and Haggadah art.
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, bringing the stories of the Talmud to life and 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 Ultimate Modern Illuminated Haggadah –  A Conversation with Artist Leon Fenster

Tuesday, March 28, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

As a Jewish artist who sees himself as a visual storyteller, it is not surprising that Leon Fenster has, in recent years, become rather obsessed with Judaism’s ultimate storytelling vehicle, the Haggadah. Following on from the success of his earlier Beijing Haggadah, Fenster is finally ready to share with the world his ultimate illuminated Haggadah which has been in the works for several years and is now close to completion. It is a book bursting with detail and meaning on every page, capable of revealing new insights year after year and staggeringly ambitious in its breadth. In the pages of this new work of art, Jewish superheroes meet Freudian psychologists, artistic depictions of Jerusalem through the ages collide to create a new city, characters from famous Haggadot through history join forces, and a pyramid of matzah boxes from around the world gives us an insight into the cutthroat new world of global Matzah mass-production. The illuminations meander between the comical, the profound and the personal. Join us for a journey through this new expansive work with designer and artist, Leon Fenster, in conversation with Prof. Marc Michael Epstein.
Leon Fenster is an artist from London, based in China. His art joyfully re-imagines and reinvents the familiar, taking the viewer on whimsical journeys through real and imagined cities, family histories, alternative architectural worlds and midrashic Jewish stories. Widely exhibited, his art form emerges from a combination of his love of storytelling, architecture, community building and Jewish ritual and music. Fenster has been interested in illustrating the essence of the Jewish Diaspora since he was in college. Trained as an architect at University College London, he won a Presidential Medal Award given by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2014 for his drawings on how synagogues should reflect the Jewish diasporic condition. In 2015 he moved to Beijing as a scholar in residence at Tsinghua University, where he drew his first non-architectural drawing: a Haggadah concept.
Program video

 

Protests, Identity and Israel at 75 – Behind the Scenes of What’s Happening Now in Israel

Sunday, March 26, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

What are the deep issues that are stirring the current situation in Israel and coming to the surface?  How is what we’re seeing now a reflection of the changes happening over the last three decades?  What might be possible outcomes of the current situation (in Israel, in relation to the international community), and what does this mean to the future of the state? 
Over the last three decades major changes have transformed the Jewish religious and social field in Israel, facilitating the liquidation of traditional barriers and the formation of novel ways of conceiving and expressing Jewish identity. Secular Zionism has lost its cultural and social hegemony, while Religious Zionism, at first evincing a triumphant settler movement, has lost its ideological center, and now holds power without a vision. Meanwhile the Ultra-Orthodox are going through a process of Israelization, making them more integrated and also more nationalistic. We shall analyze and understand the many and varied Jewish voices emerging today in Israel, and how the two major political camps in the state, the Secular-Liberal and Traditional-Populist, fit both into the global populist wave and the conflicting dynamics of Jewish identity in Israel.
Dr. Tomer Persico is a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Rubinstein Fellow at Reichman University and a a Senior Research Scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Between 2018 and 2021 he was the Koret Visiting Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies. His fields of expertise include contemporary spirituality, Jewish modern identity, Jewish renewal, and forms of secularization and religiosity in Israel. His first book, The Jewish Meditative Tradition (Hebrew) was published by Tel Aviv University Press, and his second book, In God’s Image: the Making of the Modern West (Hebrew) was published by Yedioth.
Program video

 

 

Judaica: A Love Affair with Non-Jewish Culture

Thursday, March 23, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

While Jewish ritual objects and images are most surely “Jewish”, in most instances the source of style and image that define them have roots in the non-Jewish world. Join us for examples of this phenomenon from the private collection of renowned Judaica collector William Gross.
American by birth and Israeli by choice since 1969 and with degrees from Harvard University in History and Business, William Gross has been a collector, researcher, cataloger, writer, lecturer, appraiser and advisor in the field of Judaica objects of Jewish historical and ritual interest for over 60 years. William has served as an official appraiser for more than 15,000 objects in both public museum and private collections and many more than that have passed through his hands. He has written more than 30 contributions to books and journals and lectures widely on many topics regarding his view of Judaic objects not just as aesthetic creations but as documents illuminating Jewish history. The Gross Family Collection has been represented in more than 170 public exhibitions throughout the world.
Register here

 

How To Read the Bible: Maimonides vs. Spinoza

Tuesday, March 21, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

Should every passage of the Hebrew Bible be read literally? Is the Bible a source of not just religious inspiration but historical, scientific and theological truths? These are questions on which two of the greatest Jewish philosophers ever — Maimonides and Spinoza, both arch-rationalists — disagreed. Spinoza, in fact, explicitly criticizes Maimonides over his account of the interpretation of Scripture, making a comparison of the two thinkers especially interesting.
Steven Nadler is the Vilas Research Professor and William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die (Princeton, 2020),  A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton, 2011), The Philosopher, the Priest and the Painter: A Portrait of Descartes (Princeton, 2013), Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge, 1999; 2nd ed. 2018; winner of the Koret Jewish Book Award for Biography), and Rembrandt’s Jews (Chicago, 2003, which was named a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction). He also published, with his son Ben Nadler, the graphic book Heretics! The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy (Princeton, 2017). He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, the University of Amsterdam, the Ecole des hautes études en science sociales (Paris), and the Ecole normal supérieure (Paris). He has also been a scholar-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome. His biography of Menasseh ben Israel was published in the “Jewish Lives” series (Yale University Press) in the fall of 2018. In 2020 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Program video

 

 

Golda, Why Now?

Sunday, March 19, 3:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

In recent years, there’s been a revival of interest in Golda Meir, both in the US and in Israel. A new movie about Golda is due to be released this summer starring Helen Mirrenre and a television series produced by Barbra Streisand is in production. In Israel, after many decades of deliberate disregarding her term of office as a prime minister her legacy as a state’s woman and labor minister is being re-examined and gaining recognition. Furthermore, in contemporary pop culture her figure appears frequently, suggesting a new role model in a gender aware society.  In this session, join us as we explore why Golda ran away from her parents’ home in Milwaukee to live with her sister Shayna, brother-in-law Sam at a certain modest brick duplex located at 1606-1608 Julian Street in Denver, Colorado. The importance of Golda’s Denver experience is documented in her 1975 autobiography My Life, where she states, “It was in Denver that my real education began…”. Through the examination of unique artifacts from the Denver house, including pictures and documents, we will explore Golda’s  political legacy as a one of the only woman diplomats at the time and her relevance to today’s culture.
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’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.
Program video

 

 

The Neo-Hasidic Renewal of Judaism: Learning from the Hasidic Masters

Thursday, March 16, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

Across the Jewish world, in every denomination, there is a revival of the spiritual teachings of the 18th and 19th century Hasidic masters in a pluralistic context, hence the term “Neo-Hasidism.”  Join Rabbi Ingber as he samples these radical and deep sources, exploring our Jewish community’s need for this kind of spiritual nourishment.
Rabbi David A. Ingber serves as the founding rabbi of Romemu, the largest Renewal synagogue in the United States. Rabbi Ingber founded Romemu in NYC in 2006, following his ordination by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. Over the past decade plus, Romemu has grown into a weekly home for thousands of people, a growing membership of over 1,000 in its two physical locations (Manhattan and Brooklyn) and a growing online global membership. Rabbi Ingber also founded Romemu Yeshiva, the first fully egalitarian Yeshiva (immersive learning center), dedicated to mystical and meditative Jewish learning and practice. Raised Modern Orthodox in New York, Rabbi Ingber studied at Ramaz, Yeshiva University, Beit Midrash L’Torah, Yeshivat Chaim Berlin, and Yeshivat Chovovei Torah Rabbinical School. He also studied philosophy, psychology and religion at New York University. Rabbi Ingber’s distinct approach to Torah, rabbinical teaching, and ritualistic practice is informed by his own personal seeking and learning from a wide cross-section of sacred traditions and faiths. Rabbi Ingber was named by Newsweek as one of the top 50 most influential rabbis in the United States as well as by The Forward as one of the 50 most newsworthy and notable Jews in America.
Program video

 

Mainly Jewish: The Blessings and Challenges of Small Town Judaism

Tuesday, March 14, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

After growing up in a major Jewish community on the Jersey shore and attending Wellesley college, Rabbi Rachel Isaacs was the first openly lesbian Rabbi to be ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She began her career in the rabbinate in a place she never could have imagined with more moose and blueberries than Jews. In this session Rabbi Isaacs will discuss her unexpected path to the rural rabbinate, its unique challenges and blessings, the establishment of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby college, and the connection between the thriving of small town Jewish communities and the health of American democracy.
Rabbi Rachel Isaacs Rabbi Rachel Isaacs made history as the first openly lesbian rabbi admitted and ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative movement’s flagship institution. Named one of “America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis,” by The Forward in 2014, Isaacs was invited to offer the final Hanukkah benediction of the Obama administration in 2016. Isaacs serves as the spiritual leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, Maine and is the inaugural holder of the Dorothy “Bibby” Levine Alfond Chair in Jewish Studies at Colby College. She is also founder and Executive Director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby College, a groundbreaking institution committed to supporting small town and rural Jewish communities. Isaacs was born and raised in central New Jersey and graduated from Wellesley College. She lives in a 150 year old turquoise and lavender house in Waterville, ME with her wife, Melanie, and their daughters, Nitzan and Hadas.
Program video

 

Jews of Argentina, Part II: Recent History

Thursday, March 9, 3:30 pm EST
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

Before WWII many Jews came to Argentina. In a country of immigrants, it became a very important and strong community. What happened in Argentina during and after the Holocaust? Who was Perón, what was his policy towards the Jews? Did he really help the Nazis come to Argentina? Many other countries in Latin America welcomed Nazi criminals too. Who were they? What happened to them? Did they have any influence in Latin American society and politics? In the 60s there were half a million Jews in Argentina, now there are only 200,000. What happened? In this session we will explore the modern history of Jewish Argentina and the many political, economic and social crises Argentina and the Jewish community experienced and survived.
Claudia Hercman is an Argentinian tour guide and translator. She is also a sculptor and painter, whose main subjects are “Memory” and “Uprooting”, in honor of her four grandparents who emigrated from Poland to Argentina in the 1930s. Claudia was born and raised in Buenos Aires. Twenty years ago, she became bored of translating books with a computer as her only company, so she decided to study tourism and history. She has been conducting City, Art and Jewish tours ever since, and enjoying every single moment of it. And then 2020 arrived, and with it the pandemic, which forced her to go back to spending time with her computer. So she decided to create these virtual lectures as an excuse to be able to talk to people and meet new friends from all over the world.

 

COMMUNITY PROGRAMS

Israel at 75

Part 5 – What’s in Store for Israel’s Next 75 Years? – Tuesday, March 14, 7:30 pm EDT
(online series presented by the Lappin Foundation)

The Walnut Street Synagogue is pleased to be a community partner of the Israel at 75  series, presented by the Lappin Foundation.  In advance of Israel’s 75th anniversary, Ido Aharoni, Global Distinguished Professor for International Relations
at NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science, will look back at influential leaders and take a peek at what may lie ahead.  Everyone is welcome thanks to a generous grant from the Dr. David M. Milch Family Foundation.
Israel at 75 (Event flyer)

 

YAD CHESSED

Yad Chessed helps Jewish individuals and families who struggle with financial hardship pay their bills and buy food. As a social services agency 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.  They provide emergency financial assistance, grocery gift cards and compassionate advice for those trying to make ends meet. Hundreds of families and individuals throughout the state rely on Yad Chessed to provide for their essentials, and even at times, a Jewish burial for a loved one.  Members of our community, as well as others in the Jewish community, who need assistance may contact Yad Chessed by phone at 781-487-2693 or by Email at intake@yadchessed.org for a confidential conversation.    Questions can be directed to info@yadchessed.org.
Support Yad Chessed

 

 

COMMUNITY PROJECTS

CJP Plan to Combat Antisemitism

Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) has developed a five-point plan to combat rising antisemitism in Massachusetts.  They are seeking stories for their mobilization campaign to fight back. If you have experienced antisemitism in any form at any time, join them and say enough is enough!  Stories can be of any length and can be submitted anonymously.
Learn more and submit your story