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.
The Jewish Theological Seminary is holding its Spring 2023 Learning Series: “The Space In Between: Thresholds and Borders in Jewish Life and Thought” on Mondays from 1-2:30 pm. Classes include “The Tent of Meeting: Central or Marginal?” on February 13; “Between Law and Narrative in the Talmud” on February 27; “Between Obligation and Free Choice” on March 6; “Jewish-American, American-Jew: The Complexities and Joys of Living a Hyphenated Identity” on March 13; “On the Margins: Conversos and the Question of Jewish Belonging Throughout History” on March 20; “Gender Identity in Rabbinic Literature” on March 27; “Between Marriage and Freedom: The ‘Chained Wife’ in Modern Hebrew Literature and Culture on April 10; “Defying All Categories: Witches in the Talmud” on April 17; “The Blasphemer in Leviticus: A Marginal Figure” on April 24; “Sarah’s Laugh: Doubt, Trust, and the Ambiguity of the Womb” on May 1; “Talmudic Writings on the Passage from This Life to the Next” on May 8; “Between Suns: Twilight in Rabbinic Sources” on May 15; and “Kiddush and Havdalah: Marking the Boundaries of Sanctified Time” on May 22. There is no cost to attend, but those attending at least three lectures are requested to make a donation. For more information or to register, click here.
Uri L’Tzedek, Orthodox Social Justice, will hold two seminars: “ Social Justice in Kashrut Law” with Shayna Abramson on Thursday, February 23, at 2 pm (available here); and “The Jewish Jail Lady and the Holy Thief” with Rabbi Mark Borovitz and Harriet Rossetto on Tuesday, March 28, at 3 pm (available here).
Keeping It Sacred will hold the virtual “Rosh Chodesh Racial Justice Book Review” on Tuesday, February 21 (available here); Tuesday, March 28 (available here); and Tuesday, April 25 (available here). All discussions will take place at noon.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold a book talk “Arthur Miller: American Witness” author John Lahr and John Guare on Tuesday, February 21, at 12:30 pm. Lahr will discuss his book about Arthur Miller, the playwright who is said to have “almost singlehandedly brought 20th century American theater to a new level of cultural sophistication.” For more information or to register, click here.
The Braid will hold three spring theatrical events virtually or in-person: “The Matzo Ball Diaries” on Thursday, February 23, from 7-8:30 pm; “Remembrance of Things Present” on Thursday, April 20, from 7-8:30 pm; and “Out Loud: Queer Stories Through a Jewish Lens” on Thursday, June 22, from 7-8:30 pm. The cost for those livestreaming is $18/per show or $454 for the series for non-members and $13/per show or $30 for the series for members of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. For more information or to buy tickets, click here.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold “The Rosenstrasse Protest: Commemorating the 80th Anniversary” on Sunday, February 26, at 3 pm. The program commemorates the “Rosenstrasse Protest of 1943, which was held to protest the incarceration and potential deportation of roughly 2,000 people who were arrested by the Gestapo on February 27, 1943. It will feature discussions by Nathan Stoltzfus, the Dorothy and Jonathan Rintels Professor of Holocaust Studies at Florida State University; Ruth Wiseman, daughter of Dr. Rita Jenny Kuhn, who was detained at RosenstraBe; and Mordecai Paldiel, former head of the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem. For more information or to register, click here.
Maven will hold the virtual program “Pre-State Photographic Archives and the Zionist Movement” on Thursday, March 9, from 5-5:45 pm. Rotem Rozental and Sagi Refael will discuss “the Jewish National Fund’s use of the Zionist photographic archive impacted Israel’s claim to the land from the early 20th century through today.” For more information or to register, click here.
Melton will hold the virtual class “What Makes Jewish Art Jewish?” on Tuesday, February 21, from 7-8:30 pm. The cost to attend is $18. Dr. Linda Sandhaus will discuss how to define Jewish art. For more information or to register, click here.
Tablet magazine will present Bernard-Henri Lévy and Natan Sharansky on “Freedom and Tyranny” on Sunday, February 12, from 3-4:30 pm. There is no cost for virtual admission. The two men will discussion Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. engagement with Iran. For more information or to register, visit click here.
Project Zug will hold its third annual Pesach (Passover) course with a focus on “The Stories We Tell and What Stories Tell Us: Storytelling on Passover and Beyond.” It will investigate the role of storytelling in the seder and beyond. Registration closed Friday, March 3, at 5pm. There will be weekly learning with partners from March 12-April 16. There will also be two live virtual lectures on Tuesdays, March 14 and 28, at 7:30 pm. The lectures will be tapes for those who can’t view them live. There is a sliding scale cost of $36-180 per person. For more information, click here.
The Jewish Grandparents Network will hold the virtual program “How to Bring Purim to Life for Grandchildren” on Tuesday, February 21, at 7 pm. Jonathan Shmidt Chapman will present a range of activities that “use creativity, theater and play to activate Purim” with children ages 3-8. For more information or to register, visit click here.
The creator of the Jewish Food Hero website and newsletter is looking for kosher dessert recipes that are dairy or pareve. Those submitting a recipe need not be a professional cook and recipes should be easy for home-cooks to follow and make at home. For more information and how to submit a recipe, click here.
The Sapir Journal will offer the following virtual programs: “A Conversation with John Podhoretz and Bret Stephens” on “our current culture, and 21st century antisemitism’ on Monday, February 13; “A Conversation with Allegra Goodman and Bret Stephens” on what it means to be a Jewish writer in the 21st century on Monday, February 20; and “A Conversation with Rokhl Kafrissen and Felicia Herman” on how Yiddish can continue to enrich Jewish culture in the 21st century on Monday, February 27. All the programs being at noon. For more, information or to register, click here.
The books for the Yiddish Book Center’s 2023 Great Jewish Books Club have been announced: “Have I Got a Story for You: More Than a Century of Fiction from The Forward,” edited by Ezra Glinter (starting February 6); “The Glatstein Chronicles by Jacob Glatstein,” edited by Ruth Wisse (starting May 1); “Girl with Two Landscapes: The Wartime Diary of Lena Jedwab, 1941-1945” (starting July 24); and “The Forgotten Singer: The Exiled Sister of I.J and Isaac Bashevis Singer” by Maurice Carr (starting October 16). There is no fee to take part. For information on how to take part, click here.
The Women’s Initiative of the Orthodox Union’s Torat Imecha Nach Yomi program has started studying Tehillim. For more information, click here.
Tikvah is holding the eight-lecture course “New York Intellectuals,” taught by Ruth Wisse. Among those Wisse will discuss are Irving Kristol, Saul Bellow, Norman Podhoretz and Cynthia Ozick. For more information or to register, click here.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold the virtual program “The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe” on Thursday February 16, from 6:30-8 pm. Bonnie Siegler will discuss her book, which has been described as “a kaleidoscopic tale of hope and reinvention, of daring escapes and fake identities, of big dreams and the magic of movies, and what it means to be a real-life Superman.” For more information or to register, click here.
Maven will hold “The Diary Keepers: Untold Stories of WWII in the Netherlands” on Tuesday, February 21, from 3-3:45 pm. Journalist and author Nina Siegal will discuss her book that “explores her family’s history and shares her quest to learn what happened to the Jewish people of the Netherlands.” For more information or to register, click here.
For additional resources, see previous issues of The Reporter on its website, For additional resources, see previous issues of The Reporter or our other Jewish Online Resources here.