Jewish Resources 5/23/25

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 the virtual course “History of the Jewish Ghetto: Venice, Warsaw, New York” on Wednesdays, June 4-18, from 3-4 pm. The cost to attend is $132. Daniel Schwartz, Jewish historian and author of “Ghetto: The History of a Word,” will discuss how the terms symbolic meaning extends beyond its historical origins. For more information or to register, click here.

The American Jewish University will hold several virtual talks: “Ancient Wisdom for a Modern Jewish Life” on Thursday, June 12, at 3 pm, with Rabbi Shira Stutman discussing her book of that name (available here); “Hope Between Us: What Connects Muslim and Jewish Communities in America” on Monday, June 16, at 3pm, with authors Samuel Heilman and Mucahit Bilici speaking about their book (available here); and “The Human Scale: Lawrence Wright on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” on Tuesday, June 24, with Wright discussing his new novel (available here). 

The Blue Dove Foundation offers a “Mental Health College Toolkit” found here. The toolkit offers “college students with a comprehensive explanation of common mental health disorders, resources, definitions, and so much more” so they will better understand when they need to seek help if they experience mental health challenges.

The NY Jewish Week will hold the virtual program “Jews on Broadway: A Night of Song and Theater History” on Tuesday, May 27, at 7 pm. The cost to attend is $20. Ari Axelrod looks at “some of the key parts of the American Jewish songbook, singing and discussing works by Bernstein, Sondheim, Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein.” For more information or to register, click here.

Roundtable will hold the virtual course “Machers and Failures: The Jews Who Financed New York, 1870-1930” on Tuesdays, June 24-July 15, from noon-1 pm. The cost to attend is $176. Rebecca Kobrin, editor of “Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism,” will discuss “the lives of the men who financed immigration, the real estate boom and the systems that still power New York.” For more information or to register, click here.

The New York Jewish Week will hold the virtual program “Four Creative Jewish Giants: A Conversation with David Denby” on Wednesday, May 28, from 7-8 pm. The cost to attend is $10. New Yorker critic David Denby will talk about his book “Eminent Jews,” which offers a lot at Leonard Bernstein, Mel Brooks, Betty Friedan and Norman Mailer. For more information or to register, click here.

Roundtable will hold the virtual course “The Jewish American Short Story: Bellow, Schwartz, Paley, and Beyond” on Thursdays, July 10-31, from 2-3 pm. The cost to attend is $176. The course will explore “why even the most ambitious of novelists turned to this fragmented genre in order to face the shifting challenges of Jewish American life.” Work to be featured were written by Saul Bellow, Delmore Schwartz and Grace Paley. For more information or to register, click here.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold several virtual book talks. A donation of $10 is requested: “Stories Survive: ‘Two Sisters’ Book Talk” on Tuesday, June 10, at 2 pm (available here); “‘Paris Undercover’ Book Talk” on Monday, June 16, at 7 pm (available here); and “‘A Calculated Restraint: What Allied Leaders Said About the Holocaust’ Book Talk” on Sunday, June 22, at 3 pm (available here). 

CIESJ will present the hybrid panel discussion “The Use and Misuse of ‘Antisemitism’” on Thursday, May 29, from 7-9 pm. The “panel will discuss the key aspects of defining what is and is not antisemitism, including its use in dealing with anti-Israel protests on college campuses, elimination of DEI programs and offices of civil rights, and cancelling funding for universities.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Museum at Eldridge Street will hold the virtual program “An American Girl Anthology: The Lower East Side” on Tuesday, May 27, from 6-7 pm. The program is pay as you wish. Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler and KC Hysmith will discuss their forthcoming collection “An American Girl Anthology.” For more information or to register, click here.

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will hold the hybrid two-day conference “YIVO in America” on Sunday, June 22, from 7-9:30 pm, and Monday, June 23, from 10 am-9:30 pm. The conference will focus “on how YIVO’s founding vision for Jewish social sciences has been realized in America since its headquarters shifted to New York City in 1940.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Jewish Literacy Foundation has launched JLF Player Literary Library, https://jewishliteraryfoundation.co.uk/jlf-player, which will feature lectures, conversations and musical performances from Jewish Book Week’s events.
Sefaria is offering a Timeless Topics weekly newsletter. The newsletter will “explore a facet of human experience through the lens of Jewish texts.” For more information or to sign-up for the newsletter, click here.

Literary Modiin will hold its June 2025 author event on Sunday, June 22, at 4 pm. The event will feature authors Danny Goodman (“Amerikaland”), Margot Singer (“Secret Agent Man”) and Emanuela Barasch Rubinstein (“Intimate Solitude”). For more information or to register, click here.

Ritualwell will hold the virtual program “Writing Postcards from the Heart” on Wednesday, June 17, from 12-1:30 pm. Poet and Professor Lisa Grunberger will hold an interactive workshop that will help people “write postcard to loved ones, younger version of themselves or God. For more information or to register, click here.

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