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APRIL 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!
The Holocaust in Israeli Art
Thursday, April 28, 1:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Starting as early as the late 1930s and all the way up to today, artists (from those who experienced the horrors themselves, to second and third generation survivors) have avoided, danced with and directly engaged with the trauma of the Shoah. Join us on Yom Hashoah 2022 as we examine the fascinating and convoluted relationship between Israeli art and the Holocaust. Our historical, visual journey will address how we approach memory of the tragedy, on the politics of images and on the possibility of art to touch on what seems to be impossible to describe in words.
Through sculpting, drawing and sound, our speaker Shirel Horovitz’s installations and performances explore the relations between cities and communities. She earned her BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, her MA from the Interdisciplinary Art Program at Tel Aviv University and has been studying and practicing Zen-Buddhist inquiry meditation since 2007. Her works have been exhibited in museums and galleries across Israel and the US. She is currently working on new sculptures and etchings in her studio in Tel Aviv.
The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of Jewish life and
Culture in Russia
Part 1 – St. Petersburg from the Jewish Perspective: Life, History, Art – Monday, April 25, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 2 – Jewish Moscow: A Century and a Half of Upheaval and Resurgence – Tuesday, April 26, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 3 – Art of Jewish Interest in the Hermitage Museum – Wednesday, April 27, 3:30 pm EDT
Part 1 – St. Petersburg from the Jewish Perspective: Life, History, Art – St. Petersburg, the city which was a capital of the Russian Empire for 200 years, is known for its unique beauty and rich cultural heritage. Museums, palaces, bridges, squares, classical and modern architecture can be found all over. The city of White Nights is visited by millions of travelers each year. We will see the beauty of the city and much more through a Jewish lens. We will learn about the Jewish history and heritage of St. Petersburg and about the ‘maskilim’ – enlightened, educated Jews who led the community in the 19th century. We will explore the role of Jews in the Russian Revolutionary events of 1917 and discuss the position of the Soviet Jews. We will learn about some well-known ‘refusniks’ and witness the miraculous changes and rebirth of Jewish life in St. Petersburg after the fall of the USSR. While touring the city through images, we will learn the history and present-day life of our Jewish community. If you have never been to St. Petersburg, this tour will give you a good taste of what the city is. If you have already visited St. Petersburg, this tour will show you the city and its Jewish Heritage in a new and unusual way.
Part 2 – Jewish Moscow: A Century and a Half of Upheaval and Resurgence – Moscow is home to the largest Jewish community in Russia, numbering some 250,000 people. Today Jewish life here flourishes and the community is known for its rich religious and cultural life. But it was not the same in the past. Our talk will cover the period of about 140-150 years, from the time when Jews were first allowed to settle in Moscow to the present days and we will pay a visit to all the Jewish highlights of the city: old and new synagogues, the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue, and much more.
Part 3 – Art of Jewish Interest in the Hermitage Museum – Founded in 1764, the Hermitage Museum is the second-largest art museum in the world and among the most visited. Join us as we traverse its ornate galleries for a tour highlighting art works of Jewish interest from its renowned collection. Find out what Hebrew inscriptions on Italian paintings can tell us about Jewish community life, see the stories of Jewish history represented by the greatest artists, and understand how political situations are reflected in art.
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.
Part 1 – Program video
Part 2 – Program video
Part 3 – Program video
Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures
Tuesday, April 19, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and “the greatest of American screenwriters” (according to New Yorker critic Pauline Kael), Ben Hecht wrote the Hollywood we know today. In this exploration of Hecht’s life and work, we’ll look at his most notable screenplays, as well as his roles as outspoken crusader for the imperiled Jews of World War II-era Europe and fierce propagandist for pre-1948 Palestine’s Jewish terrorist underground. Whatever the outrage he stirred, this renaissance man and self-declared “child of the century” came to embody much that defined America — especially Jewish America — in his time.
Adina Hoffman’s books include House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood and My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century, which was named one of the best twenty books of 2009 by the Barnes & Noble Review and won the UK’s 2010 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize. She is also the author, with Peter Cole, of Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, winner of the American Library Association’s Brody Medal for the Jewish Book of the Year. In 2016, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published her Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City, which the Los Angeles Times called “brave and often beautiful” and Haaretz described as “a passionate, lyrical defense of a Jerusalem that could still be.” Her critically acclaimed Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Prize for Biography and was named one of the best paperbacks of 2020 by the Sunday Times, which dubbed it “a revelation.” Formerly a film critic for the American Prospect and the Jerusalem Post, she is recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and was one of the inaugural winners of the Windham Campbell prize. She lives in Jerusalem and New Haven.
Zionism, Shamanism, and Literary Fiction in Israel
Thursday, April 14, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Eshkol Nevo, the grandson of the third Prime Minister of Israel – Levi Eshkol, is one of Israel’s most critically and commercially acclaimed writers and also co-runs the biggest creative writing school in Israel. All of his books have been bestsellers in Israel, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. His novels have sold over a million copies globally and won or been nominated for several literary prizes. Join us for a program with Nevo in which he will discuss the literary motifs in his novels – the wish for healing, the wish for home, and innate exploration found in Israeli society.
Born in 1971 in Jerusalem, Eshkol Nevo is the author of five novels. His best-selling debut novel Homesick (2004) was awarded the Reimond vallier prize in France, shortlisted for the Sapir prize in Israel, and longlisted for the independent prize in the UK. His second bestselling novel World Cup Wishes (2007) won the Golden Book Prize in Israel and was awarded the Adei-Wizo Prize in Italy. His novel Neuland (2011) sold more than 130,000 copies in Israel and was awarded the Steimatzky Prize for Book of the Year. Nevo’s fourth bestselling novel Three Floors Up, was adapted into a film by the renown Italian director Nanni Moretti titled ‘Tre Piani’. Nevo’s fifth novel The Last Interview came out in English in October 2020. Several of his books have been adapted to the stage.
Program video
The Wolloch Haggadah: A Conversation with the Artist
Tuesday, April 12, 7:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
The beautiful and moving Wolloch Pesach Haggadah In Memory of the Holocaust, a unique manuscript “infused with hope and compassion,” features full-page illustrations by American artist David Wander and illuminated calligraphy by Rabbi Yonah Weinrib. It was commissioned by Zygfryd and Helene Wolloch in memory of their parents who died in the Holocaust. After being completed in 1984, it was published in bound-book form for the benefit of Yad Vashem. Copies of the original portfolio, containing 59 hand-printed pages, have been presented to major libraries and collections of Judaica. Join us as we explore the Wolloch Haggadah with designer and artist, David Wander, in conversation with Rabbi and scholar, Dr. David Kraemer. Some questions we will explore include, What ideas informed the creation of this Haggadah? What is the significance of its symbols? How does consideration of the Holocaust enhance our experience of the Exodus, and vice versa? And finally, how can this unique Haggadah be used at your seder?
Program video
Modern Egypt: Renaissance on The Nile?
Tuesday, April 12, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Our second pre-Passover virtual visit to Egypt covers the period from when Napoleon conquered the country in 1799 and continues through today. This dynamic era includes the rapid development of Cairo, discovery of the Ben Ezra Geniza, independence from British colonialism, and both war and peace with Israel. Reflecting on the political change of the Arab Spring, we will conclude with the conflict with Ethiopia and Sudan regarding the Grand Renaissance Dam, a new high dam on the Nile River.
Dr. Benny Furst earned his B.A., M.A., and a doctoral degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in political sciences, geography, and urban planning, respectively. A geographer, he worked for many years at the planning division of the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, and today he is a teaching fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in the Technion. He is a leading guide in Egypt, teaching about its many-layered history.
Program video
A Taste of Passover, Indian-Style
Sunday, April 10, 7:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Join us for a special program featuring the rich Passover traditions, distinctive foods and lively melodies from the Baghdadi, Bene Israel and Cochini communities of India, with Rahel Musleah, a journalist and educator who was born in Calcutta and now lives in Roslyn Heights, NY. Rahel is the author of Why On This Night: A Passover Haggadah for Family Celebration, and founder of Explore Jewish India, which offers in-person Jewish heritage tours of India and virtual programs. Her CD of Shabbat and holiday melodies, Hodu: Jewish Rhythms from Baghdad to India, includes a recording of Passover melodies.
Inside the Mind of God: Plato’s Influence on Ancient Judaism and Christianity
Thursday, April 7, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Drawing on the most famous philosopher of the day, both ancient Jews and ancient Christians understood creation in nearly identical ways. Guaranteed: You’ll never read Genesis 1:1 the same way again!
Rabbi Joshua Garroway, Ph.D., serves as the Sol and Arlene Bronstein Professor of Judaeo-Christian Studies and Professor of Early Christianity and Second Commonwealth at HUC-JIR’s Skirball Campus in Los Angeles. Rabbi Garroway earned his doctorate from the Religious Studies Department at Yale University and was ordained at the Cincinnati campus of HUC-JIR in 2003. His first book, Paul’s Gentile-Jews: Neither Jew nor Gentile, but Both (2012), explores the ways in which Paul’s epistle to the Romans constructs Jewish identity, and the role played by this construction in the ensuing emergence of Christianity. His second book, The Beginning of the Gospel: Paul, Philippi, and the Origins of Christianity (2018), offers a revisionist understanding of the origins of the Greek term euaggelion, usually translated “gospel,” in earliest Christianity. He is currently working on a book-length project about antinomianism in Jewish history. Rabbi Garroway is a native of Rochester, New York. He currently lives in Pasadena, California, with his wife, Kristine Henriksen Garroway, and their three boys.
Program video
Ancient Egypt: The Land of The Pharaohs
Tuesday, April 5, 3:30 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Join us for a pre-Passover journey through the old kingdoms of the Pharaonic kings who established one of the most fascinating civilizations in human history. Dr. Benny Furst will guide us through these ancient sites – from the Giza pyramids to the Abu Simbel temple – with a focus on the culture and their unique architecture.
Dr. Benny Furst earned his B.A., M.A., and a doctoral degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in political sciences, geography, and urban planning, respectively. A geographer, he worked for many years at the planning division of the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, and today he is a teaching fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in the Technion. He is a leading guide in Egypt, teaching about its many-layered history.
Program video
American Jews and their Music
Sunday, April 3, 7:00 pm EDT
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)
Acculturation is a dynamic two-way street. For Jewish immigrants in America (and their offspring), the arts and entertainment provided one of the few opportunities for employment without racial quotas. Throughout the twentieth century, Jews played a major role in American music, quite disproportionate to their demographic share. At the same time, the Jews’ own music was radically transformed through exposure to American popular culture. We will explore the characteristic traits of American culture and its music, and see how they began to color Jewish music—liturgical, folk, popular and “classical.” We will also look at characteristics of traditional Jewish music and see its effect on the mainstream music of this country.
Dr. Joshua R. Jacobson holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music from Harvard College, a Masters in Choral Conducting from the New England Conservatory, a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati, and a Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa from Hebrew College. Before retiring in 2018, Dr. Jacobson served 45 years as Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Northeastern University, including nine years as Music Department Chairman and six years as the Bernard Stotsky Professor of Jewish Cultural Studies. He is also Visiting Professor and Senior Consultant in the School of Jewish Music at Hebrew College. He is also the founder and director of the Zamir Chorale of Boston, a world-renowned ensemble, specializing in Hebrew music. In 1994 Hebrew College awarded him the Benjamin Shevach Award for Distinguished Achievement in Jewish Educational Leadership, in 2004 the Cantors Assembly presented him with its prestigious “Kavod Award,” in 2016 Choral Arts New England presented him the Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2018 Chorus America selected him for its Distinguished Service Award.
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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