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October 2024
Lunch and Learn: Why is That in the Bible?
Working remotely? Retired? Stay-at-home parents? Taking a day off? Please join Rabbi Kalmanofsky for a monthly lunch-and-learn program to study some of the stranger passages in the Hebrew Bible. You'll meet giants and sea monsters, psychedelic visionaries and stone-cold killers. We'll retell the Torah's dirty jokes, sexy poems and gruesome horror stories. Some of this material will raise important religious or moral questions. Most will be fun and funny. Bring your lunch, according to the AC Kashrut policy, and we…
Find out more »Heading to the Polls: American Jewish Civics in a Post-October 7 World
The second session, Good for the Jews, Good for America?, will be taught by Elana Stein Hain and held at Ansche Chesed. Enlightened self-interest is the ethical concept that serving oneself can serve others and vice versa. Given the challenges confronting both Israel and American democracy today, and the very real emerging partisanship around Israel in U.S. politics, what might an American-Jewish version of enlightened self-interest look like? How do solidarity with and advocacy on behalf of Israel align with…
Find out more »November 2024
Three Great Hebrew Poets, with Rachel Korazim
Join us for a series exploring Hebrew poetry with the great poetry teacher Rachel Korazim, who will join us for three Zoom sessions from Tel Aviv. Our next session will focus on Leah Goldberg. Born and raised in Eastern Europe, educated mainly in Germany, Leah Goldberg (1911-1970) emigrated to pre-state Israel in 1935, composing beautiful, musical poems bridging the distance between her European childhood and her new homeland. Scarred by World War I and the unfolding Shoah, she wrote lyrics…
Find out more »Jewish Values vs. Jewish Interests: Preventing America from Becoming Merely “Diaspora”
With the elections over, where are American Judaism and the American Jewish community heading? Long-developing polarization and hyper-partisanship, amplified by local discourse around October 7 and the Israel-Hamas war, have led many to wonder if liberalism, American Jewish values, and Zionism are truly compatible, and if the Jewish community can survive as a collective enterprise. Join Shalom Hartman Institute president Yehuda Kurtzer as he reflects on the post-election moment and offers a new framework for how American Judaism might continue…
Find out more »February 2025
CANCELLED: Wednesday Night Talmud with Rabbi Kalmanofsky: Holy Books and Holy Time
This year we will study tractate Shabbat, Chapter 16, which addresses how to write and care for sacred texts. If you want to purchase a copy of this text it is Artscroll vol. 4 or Koren vol 2F. We will also share electronic copies of the material. This class is best in person -- so please come! Also available via Zoom (Meeting ID: 817 7824 4159 | Passcode: chesed)
Find out more »April 2025
No Talmud Class Tonight
There will be no Talmud class tonight (Wednesday, April 9) as we prepare for Pesach.
Find out more »May 2025
Playing Hide and Seek with God in the 21st Century: A Theological Shabbaton with Minyan M’at
“This is not 'theology' to prove that God exists or answers your prayers immediately. My aim is to offer one Jewish believer’s account of how Judaism makes sense of our current world, post Oct 7th, post Holocaust, in our current American milieu.” In his book Seeking the Hiding God: A Personal Theological Essay, former JTS Chancellor Arnie Eisen delves into the profound mystery of divine hiddenness, presenting a compelling exploration of how this central theological dilemma resonates within modern Jewish life.…
Find out more »Strength and Hope in Times of Crisis, with Ayala Dekel of BINA
BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change (or as they call themselves in Hebrew "The Home of Israeli Judaism") is an extraordinary educational institute in Tel Aviv, with branches around the country and along the Asian routes popular with Israeli trekkers. Many AC kids have studied there on gap years and we have cooperated on programs for years. We are excited to host Ayala Dekel, Head of BINA's Secular Yeshiva, explore our Jewish tradition of transforming broken pieces into something bold…
Find out more »June 2025
Rebuilding Trust and Opportunity: Arab-Jewish Partnership in Israeli High-Tech
Please join Ansche Chesed and The Task Force on Arab Citizens of Israel for a conversation with Maisam Jaljuli, CEO of Tsofen-Tashbik, and Ifat Baron, founder and CEO of itworks— leaders advancing inclusive employment in Israel’s high-tech sector. Their work to sustain high-tech as a space for Arab economic mobility and Jewish-Arab partnership in Israel is both more challenging and important under the strains of a polarized and war-strained society. As government and international funding declines and public discourse grows increasingly polarized,…
Find out more »September 2025
Alan Mintz Memorial Study Session
Join Minyan M'at for the annual Zoom teaching session in memory of our dear friend Alan Mintz, z”l. Alan was the Kekst Professor of Hebrew Literature at JTS and a longtime member of Ansche Chesed and Minyan M’at. This session commemorates Alan’s 8th yahrzeit. Teaching this year's session will be Alan’s friend Rabbi Daniel Lehmann. Rabbi Lehmann received his doctorate in Jewish Studies and Jewish Education from NYU and has served as the president of Boston Hebrew College and president…
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