Jewish Online Resources 1/24/25

By Reporter staff

A variety of Jewish groups are offering educational and recreational online resources. Below is a sampling of those. The Reporter will publish additional listings as they become available. 

Roundtable will hold several courses. The cost to attend each course is $132: “Gems of the Zohar” on Mondays, February 3-24, from 3-4 pm (available here); “The Jews of Renaissance Florence: From Tuscany to Ghetto, 1400-1650” on Thursdays, February 6-20, from 11 am-noon (available here): and “Spinoza and Jewish Modernity” on Fridays, February 14-28, from noon-1 pm (available here).

The Museum at Eldridge Street will hold a virtual talk “The Purim Story: Esther Then & Now” on Wednesday, March 12, at 6 pm. The cost to attend is pay-what-you-wish. In honor of Purim and Women’s History Month, Eldridge Street’s Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. Regina Stein, will explore the heroine of the Purim story. For more information or to register, click here.

Ritualwell will hold the virtual class “Exploring the Truth of This Moment” on Thursdays February 6 and 13, from noon-1:30 pm. The cost to attend is $54. Rabbi Ora Nitkin-Kaner will use talmudic and aggadic midrash in translation and creative practices to help people find courage, resilience and a sense of ease in a changing world. For more information or to register, click here.

The Institute for Jewish Spirituality will hold a virtual conversation between Rabbi Josh Feigelson, IJS president and CEO, with Andrés Spokoiny, the author of “Tradition and Transition: Jewish Communities and the Hyper Empowered Individual,” on Thursday, January 30, at 1 pm. For more information or to register, click here.

The BAS Scholars Series will hold the virtual talk “Nation Oracles in Prophetic Books: Can we Continue to Pretend they Don’t Exist” with Steed Davidson, McCormick Theological Seminary, on Thursday, March 20, from 8-9 pm. The cost to attend is $10. For more information or to register, click here.

The Braid will offer two Zoom performances of its new show “Traveler’s Prayer” on Sunday, February 2, at 2 pm, and on Thursday, February 6, at 7 pm. The cost to attend is $49; the cost for students is $23. “Traveler’s Prayer” offers true Jewish travel stories about visiting places around the world. For more information or to register, click here.

The iCenter offers a curricular resource collection, “The Pulse of Israel,” that uses questions to unpack current events and historical phenomena in Israel. The collection seeks to “helps learners recognize the importance of questions as a timeless value of learning and as a timely tool to engage with current events.” To view “The Pulse of Israel” click here.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold the three-part course “Jews Across the Americas” on Sundays, February 23-March 9, from 1-2:30 pm. The cost to attend is $108. Dr. Adriana M. Brodsky will use “historical documents to reconstruct their presence on the continent, starting with their persecution by the Inquisition in Spanish America, and ending with Jewish reactions to the Holocaust.” For more information or to register, click here.

My Jewish Learning will hold the virtual class “From Knishes to Kreplach: Ashkenazi Classics Made Simple” with Micah Siva on Thursdays, February 4-25, at 8 pm. The cost to attend is $75, which includes recipes and recording of the class. Siva will show traditional and more contemporary ways of making knishes, blintzes, kreplach and gefilte fish. For more information or to register, click here.

Ritualwell will hold the virtual class “Writing with Rebbe Nachman: Creating our own Spiritual Stories” on Mondays, February 1-24 and March 3-24, from 1-2:30 pm. The cost to attend is $250. Rabbi Daniel Raphael Silverstein will discuss some of Rebbe Nachman’s key stories, discovering the meaning they can hold today. Then participants will have time to create their own stories. For more information or to register, click here.

The Blue Dove Foundation offers resources based on “Choni HaMe’aggel: The Talmud’s Model for Overcoming Climate Anxiety.” They can be found here.

The PJ Library and NAPPA and Parent’s Choice Awards-winning podcast “Have I Got a Story for You!” has relaunched with a 10-episode Torah Stories drop. According to the PJ Library, the “stories, which illuminate the morals and messages of Bible characters from a Jewish perspective, will help bring to life Jewish traditions, culture and history for kids ages 5-plus.” For more information or to access the podcast, click here.

The Jewish Book Council will hold the virtual program “Unpacking the Book: You Don’t Own Me: Queer Discovery Within the Jewish Community” on Thursday, February 20, from 7–8 pm. Authors Sara Glass and Eli Zuzovsky still talk about their writing that talks about “discovering yourself and your queerness in an Jewish community.” For more information or to register, click here

Roundtable will hold the virtual four session “Global Jewish Book Club: Banned Books” on Wednesdays, February 5, March 5, April 2 and May 7, from 12:30-2 pm. The cost to attend is $160. Amherst professor Ilan Stavans will lead discussions on Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” Philip Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint,” Maimonides’ “The Guide for the Perplexed,” Yishai Sarid’s The Third Temple” and “Apocrypha: The Book of Enoch and Pseudepigrapha: Life of Adam and Eve.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Jewish Theological Seminary will hold a series of virtual talks called “What’s Next? New Ways of Engaging Jewish Sources” on Mondays, February 3-March 24 (except for February 17) from 1–2 pm. For a complete list of talks or to register, click here.

Uri L’Tzedek will hold the virtual class “End of Life Conversations and Advance Healthcare Directives” with Rabbi Shlomo Brody and Rabbi Jason Weiner on Thursday, January 30, at 1 pm. Included in the discussions will be an exploration of how Jewish law and custom can influence end-of-life care. Click here to view.

The American Jewish University will hold the eight-part class “Angels and Demons in Jewish Tradition: Stories of the Spiritual Realm” on Tuesdays, February 4-March 25, from 3-4:30 pm. The cost to attend is $320. The class will “explore the evolution of angels and demons in Jewish tradition and discover their stories that bring them to life in the Torah and Talmud.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute will offer a variety of hybrid programs in February and March, including “”Will Draw Our History? Graphic Witnessing by Jewish Women Holocaust Survivors”on Monday, February 10, at noon; “A Selfie of Her Own: Gender Identity in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women’s Contemporary Art” on Monday, February 24, at noon; Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series Featuring Tova Mirvis, author of “We Would Never,” on Wednesday, February 26, at 4 pm; “The Rebellious Daughters of Abraham: Global Feminism across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, A panel discussion to launch ‘Holy Rebellion: Religious Feminism and the Transformation of Judaism and Women’s Rights in Israel’” on Monday, March 3, at 4 pm; “Birthing Authority: Early Modern Jewish Midwives and their Records” on Tuesday, March 4, at noon; Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights with Dr. Samira K. Mehta, “God Bless the Pill: Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion” on Sunday, March 9, from 7-8:30 pm; “Confusion Between the Language of Hesed and the Language of Passion: Misidentification of Sexual Abuse among Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women” on Monday, March 24, at noon; and “Humans and Honeybees: Gender and Human-Animal Relations in the Jewish Community Farming Movement”on Monday, March 31, at noon. For more information, including the cost of attending a program, or to register, click here.

For additional resources, see our Current IssuesArchived Issues, or Jewish Online Resources pages.