#JewishLearningforJewishLiving - Adult Education
Members of Temple Beth Israel take adult education very seriously. Life long learning is a goal and a priority. The Adult Education Committee led by the Vice President of Education plans a robust year of programming for all interests. See below for upcoming events and sign up.
We thank the Jewish Book Council for the help and assistance with speakers during this year.
An Evening with James Carroll
Sunday Morning Learning
"Chai" Lights of our school Curriculum (Taught for adults)
Sunday, December 9, 2018; January 13, 2019; March 17, 2019 (10:00AM)
Curious about what the kids are learning in Sunday school? Join Rabbi Weinberg for this three part series for discussion and conversation about three key tenets of the Temple Beth Israel Religious school "Chai Curriculum" - Torah, Avodah (Worship), and G'milut Chasadim (acts of loving kindness).
The Jewish Founding Founder: Alexander Hamilton’s Hidden Life - Meet the author: Prof. Andrew Porwancher
Sunday, February 24, 2019 (10:00AM)
The Jewish Founding Founder: Alexander Hamilton’s Hidden Life; Professor Porwancher will present fresh evidence that Alexander Hamilton was, in fact, born Jewish and explore Hamilton's ongoing relationships with Jews throughout his lifetime. Although Hamilton cast off any Jewish identity in his adulthood in the United States, he never forgot his origins. He emerged as a singular champion of American Jewry against the forces of anti-Semitism.
Meet the Author: Michael David Lukas
Sunday, May 19, 2019 (10:00AM)
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo: Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled history that binds the two sides of his family. For generations, the men of the al-Raqb family have served as watchmen of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, built at the site where the infant Moses was taken from the Nile. Joseph learns of his ancestor Ali, a Muslim orphan who nearly a thousand years earlier was entrusted as the first watchman of the synagogue and became enchanted by its legendary—perhaps magical—Ezra Scroll. The story of Joseph’s family is entwined with that of the British twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 depart their hallowed Cambridge halls on a mission to rescue sacred texts that have begun to disappear from the synagogue.
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo is a moving page-turner of a novel from acclaimed storyteller Michael David Lukas. This tightly woven multigenerational tale illuminates the tensions that have torn communities apart and the unlikely forces—potent magic, forbidden love—that boldly attempt to bridge that divide.
Adult Education Series - 2018-2019
Havdalah and a Movie!
POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE - Jan 5, 2019 – Epilogue – Based on archive material, the film reveals the final years of Israel’s founder, David Ben-Gurion. Excluded from leadership, he allowed himself a hindsight perspective on the Zionist enterprise. A deli dinner will be served. RSVP for dinner.
March 9, 2019 – Arranged – ARRANGED centers on the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who meet as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. Over the course of the year they learn they share much in common – not least of which is that they are both going through the process of arranged marriages.
Sign up here for the entire series or just one film!
"Soup"er Study is back!
12/17/18 -"The Politics of the Pantry""Soup"er Study- Emily Miller
The history of women's political involvement has focused heavily on electoral politics, but throughout the twentieth century women engaged in grassroots activism when they found it increasingly challenging to feed their families and balance their household ledgers. Politics of the Pantry examines how working- and middle-class American housewives used their identity as housewives to protest the high cost of food. In doing so, housewives' relationships with the state evolved over the course of the century. Shifting the focus away from the workplace as a site of protest, (TBI Member and author) Emily E. LB. Twarog looks to the homefront as a starting point for protest in the public sphere.
1/21/19 - Defending Israel and advancing democratic values in an age of discontent"Soup"er Study - Daniel Elbaum
As Senior Associate Executive Director and Chief Advocacy and Program Officer, Dan Elbaum works to focus and align AJC’s programs and initiatives for greater impact. His specific responsibilities include supervision of AJC’s 22 regional offices; its college campus activities; its pioneering young leadership programs; national political outreach; global interfaith and interethnic work; marketing and communications; and media relations, all major components of the 112-year-old agency’s policy agenda. Elbaum has appeared in media outlets ranging from NBC Dateline to Al Jazeera, and has published opinion pieces in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and other publications in the U.S. and Israel. Prior to assuming his current position, he was AJC Director of Regional Offices, and before that Regional Director of AJC Chicago. He came to AJC after six years as Civil Rights Counsel and Director of Development for the Anti-Defamation League’s Midwest Region. Prior to entering Jewish communal life, Elbaum was a felony prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law.
2/18/19 - "Jocie: Southern Jewish American Princess to Civil Rights Activist""Soup"er Study -Jocelyn Dan Wurzberg
Jocelyn Dan Wurzburg grew up in Memphis going to Vollentine, Snowden, Central, then Rhodes College where she received her B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology; J.D. from University of Memphis. A fifth generation Memphian, married with three children, she thought her life was set - until the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968 shattered her belief system. That was a transformative event that raised her consciousness to racism and its role in society. She founded the local Panel of American Women that year to address prejudice and celebrate differences. She started the Concerned Women of Memphis and Shelby County, credited with averting a second sanitation workers' strike a year after Dr. King's death. Jocelyn jumped into civil rights, women's rights, and social justice activities serving on the Social Action Commission of Reform Judaism.