Part 4 – The Jewish Jesus in Art – Thursday, December 5, 3:30 pm EST (online)
Part 5 – Jewish Spaces in Christian Art – Thursday, December 12, 3:30 pm EST (online)
Part 6 – From Anti-Judaism to Antisemitism – Echoes in Modernity and Postmodernity – Thursday, December 19, 3:30 pm EST (online)
(online in partnership with the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program)

Join us for  a captivating six-part online series led by renowned scholar Professor Marc Michael Epstein. This thought-provoking journey delves into how Jews, Jewish stories, and Jewish spaces have been portrayed throughout history.  Whether you’re passionate about art, history, or Jewish culture, this series offers profound insights into how images shape identity and influence perception across time.
Winner of CSP’s 4th Annual Maimonides Award for Excellence in Adult Jewish Education”as well as 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. He has written numerous articles and three books on various topics in visual and material culture produced by, for, and about Jews.  His book, The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination (Yale, 2011) was selected by the London Times Literary Supplement as one of the best books of 2011.  During the 1980s, Epstein was Director of the Hebrew Books and Manuscripts division of Sotheby’s Judaica department. He continues to serve as consultant to various libraries, auction houses, museums and private collectors throughout the world, among them, the Herbert C. and Eileen Bernard Museum at Temple Emanu-El in New York City, for which he curated the inaugural exhibition, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. He is the Director of Beit Venezia, the home for International Jewish Studies in Venice, Italy.
Register here

When Age Doesn’t Matter – Two best friends, 30 years apart

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

Join us for a captivating conversation featuring Deborah Vankin and Loraine Despres Eastlake, inspired by Vankin’s recent Los Angeles Times article about their unique friendship, despite a 30-year age gap. They’ll explore the nuances of intergenerational friendships, sharing insights into their bond that has thrived for over two decades. Loraine will reflect on her groundbreaking career as a TV writer in the 1980s, where she often stood as the only woman in the writers’ room on iconic shows like Dynasty and Dallas. She’ll also discuss her upbringing in a small southern town near New Orleans, navigating antisemitism as part of the only Jewish family in the area, and how she reinvented herself as a novelist and poet after Hollywood deemed her “too old” for television. Don’t miss this opportunity to delve into the role of art in sustaining friendships and hear more about their remarkable journeys. Come for the stories, stay for the inspiration!
Loraine Despres Eastlake is a novelist and recovering screenwriter. Her first novel, The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc, now in its 25th printing, was a national best seller, a Literary Guild Selection, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick. It engendered The Southern Belle’s Handbook, Sissy Leblanc’s Rules to Live By and was followed by The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell, all published by HarperCollins. Before novels, she wrote screenplays, pilots, and numerous TV episodes for shows such as the Love Boat (her break-in episode), the Equalizer, Highlander and many others, but she’s best remembered for that icon of pop culture, the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of Dallas. She taught screenwriting at the UCLA Professional Screenwriting Program for seven years and has worked as an international screenwriting consultant in Spain, Sweden and Germany. In Berlin she gave workshops on screenwriting and supervised the writing shop for Grundy UFA’s successful TV series, Hinter Gittern (Women Behind Bars). Loraine lives in Beverly Hills with her husband, writer-producer Carleton Eastlake.
Deborah Vankin is a features writer for the Los Angeles Times covering the $4-trillion world of Wellness. She was the paper’s arts and culture reporter for more than a decade, chronicling the city’s new museum boom and gallery expansion. She’s interviewed or profiled many of the leading artists of our time, including Mark Bradford, Catherine Opie, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, Ai Weiwei and many others. She has also written about television, film, comedy, books and nightlife for the paper and been a correspondent at the Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes. Her work has won nearly two dozen local and national awards. In 2021, she was named a finalist for the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction’s Best American Newspaper Narrative. Vankin’s work has also appeared in The New York Times, LA Weekly and Variety, as well as in numerous book anthologies. She is the author of the graphic novel, Poseurs, and teaches at Emerson College.
Program video