The tensions of this moment over democracy and Zionism have reopened basic questions regarding Jewish and American values. To what extent do we as a Jewish community identify with American values? To what extent does a commitment to Zionism challenge those values? To what extent do we understand the challenge to long-held democratic norms in America as a challenge to Jewish ideals? In honor of the American Jewish community’s 250 years of participation in American democracy, Hebrew College is hosting a lecture and conversation series featuring five public intellectuals.
Each lecturer will reflect on a text or texts from the Jewish American experience which shed light on the present tensions within American Judaism and democracy. Join us as we reach back through our American Jewish history to explore and interrogate some of the most urgent questions of our era. Each 90-minute session will combine lecture, and the opportunity for reflection and questions.
Speakers: Rabbi Dan Judson, Dr. Jonathan Sarna, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Professor Noah Feldman
• November 11 – “To Bigotry No Sanction, To Persecution no Assistance”: George Washington’s Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, RI, presented by Dr. Jonathan Sarna
• November 18 – The Words that Remade America: The Gettysburg Address presented by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum
• December 2 – Not Spectators at a Dreary Pageant: Generational Change in the Jewish Community presented by Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
• December 9 – “No Aristocracy and No Snobocracy: In God’s House All Must be Equal”: Synagogue Seating, Egalitarianism, and the Changing Jewish Ideas of Democracy presented by Rabbi Dan Judson, Ph.D.
• December 16 – Divided By God: Judaism and the Separation of Church and State presented by Professor Noah Feldman
+ More... - Less...* Registration closes on November 11th
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