Jewish Online Resources 4/7/23

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. 

Aish.com is offering free 68 daily e-mail lessons from historian and author Rabbi Ken Spiro. For more information or to register, click here

The Biblical Archeology Society will hold the virtual lecture “A Wise Woman and a Bearded Man: Seven Seasons of Excavation at Tel Abel Beth Maacah” with Nava Panitz-Cohen, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on Sunday, June 4, from 3-4 pm. The cost is $10 and registration must be done by Friday, June 2. A recording of the lecture will be available for participants to watch until Monday, September 4.

Hey Alma is holding a fiction contest. The winner will be published on Hey Alma this spring and awarded a $250 honorarium and a Hey Alma sweatshirt. Submissions will be open until April 24. For more information about the contest and how to submit a story, click here.

Melton will hold the virtual program “Injustice Illuminated: The Holocaust Art of Arthur Szyk” on Monday, April 17, 7-8 pm. There is no cost to attend. For more information or to register, click here.

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Melton will hold the virtual course “Joint Decisions: Rabbinic Perspectives on Weed” on Thursday, April 20, from 1-2:15 pm. The cost to attend is $18. Rabbi Michele Faudem will explore the moral and legal issues surrounding the use of marijuana. For more information or to register, visit click here.

Melton will hold the virtual course “Israeli Pop Jamz” on Mondays, May 8-22, from 7-8:30 pm. There is a sliding scale cost to attend. Cantor David Lipp will survey decades of Israeli pop music with an ear for how these “jamz” reflect modern Israeli identity. For more information or to register, click here.

Melton will hold “Our Animals, Our World, and Ourselves” on Tuesdays, May 9-30, from 1-2:30 pm. There is a sliding scale cost to attend. Jewish Initiative for Animals’ Executive Director Rabbi Jonathan Bernhard will explore the fundamentals of Jewish animal ethics from a variety of perspectives. For more information or to register, click here.

Melton will hold “Jewish Genealogy 101” on Wednesdays, May 10-31, from 1-2:30 pm. There is a sliding scale cost to attend. Yale University professor Dr. Dan Oren will offer the building blocks to begin an exploration into Jewish genealogy. For more information or to register, click here.

Melton will hold “Moses Meets Madison: Comparing Jewish and American Law” on Tuesdays, June 6-27, from 7-8:30 pm. There is a sliding scale cost to attend. Harman Grossman will offer a text-based exploration of the similarities and differences between the Jewish and American legal systems. For more information or to register, click here.

Jewish Women’s Archive and POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews will offer the five-part lecture series “Women and Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto” on Tuesdays, April 18-May 16, at noon. Each session is stand alone: on April 18, “Warsaw Ghetto Through Women’s Eyes” with Katarzyna Person; on April 25, “Rachela Auerbach at the Frontline of the Struggle” with Karolina Szymaniak; on May 2, “Dorka Goldkorn and other Communists in the Ghetto” with Joanna Ostrowska; on May 9, “The Interwar Roots of Military Resistance of Jewish Women in the Ghetto” with Katarzyna Czerwonogóra; and on May 16, “Herstories of Resistance” with Zuzanna Hertzberg. For more information or to register, click here and scroll down to “Women and Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto.”

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research’s YIVO Yiddish Club will hold the virtual talk “Yiddish Hip Hop with Josh ‘Socalled’ Dolgin” on Sunday, April 16, at 2 pm. This session features Josh “Socalled” Dolgin, a pianist, accordionist, producer, journalist, photographer, filmmaker, magician, cartoonist and puppet maker who is based in Montreal, Quebec. Knowledge of Yiddish is not necessary to attend, although it is recommended. The program will be interactive. For more information or to register, click here.

The Jewish Grandparents Network will hold the virtual program “How Grandparents Can Navigate Family Relationships with the Help of Jewish Tools” on Tuesday, April 18, at 7 pm. Alicia Jo Rabins, Torah teacher, musician and writer, will lead a conversation that will explore what Jewish stories, traditions and concepts mean for people’s personal journeys. For more information or to register, click here;

The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion will hold the virtual program “The Chaser & The Chased: Stella and the Poetry of Had Gadya” on Thursday, April 13, at 4:30 pm. Anne Hromadka Greenwald, HUC-JIR, will explore at Frank Stella’s prints through the light of traditional and modern re-readings of the popular Seder folksong, “Had Gadya.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Tenement Museum and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will hold the virtual concert “Songs of Yiddish New York” on Monday, April 24, from 6:30-7:45 pm. A donation is requested. The music will feature songs about being an immigrant and living on the Lower East Side, popular Yiddish and a performance of Pulitzer prize-finalist Alex Weiser’s song cycle, “Coney Island Days.” The concert will take place on Youtube Live. For more information or to register, click here.

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will hold “A Virtual Tour of Jewish Berlin: Part 1 – From the Early Settlers to its Heyday” on Monday, April 24, from 7-8:30 pm. The tour will discuss the history of Jews in Berlin. There is a sliding scale cost to attend. For more information or to register, click here.

The Jewish Theological Seminary will hold the virtual panel “How to Confront Anti-Religious Bigotry: The Annual John Paul II Lecture on Interreligious Understanding” on Thursday, April 20, from noon-1:15 pm. Speakers include Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi, executive director, Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers; Rabbi Esther Lederman, director of congregational innovation, Union for Reform Judaism; and Kathryn Lohre, assistant to the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. For more information or to register, click here.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold two virtual book programs: “‘Maus Now’: Spiegelman’s Graphic Novel and the Present Tense” with Hillary Chute on Monday, April 24, from 6-7 pm (available here); and Aharon Applefeld’s “Poland: A Green Land” with Altie Karper on Thursday, April 27, from 6-7 pm (available here). 

Ritualwell will hold several online classes this spring: “The Access Code: Naming God and Opening to Prayer” on Wednesday, May 3, from noon-1:30 pm (available here); “Creating Jewish Liturgy for Juneteenth” on Thursday, May 11 and 18, from noon-1:30 pm (available here); and “Gathering Waters: Mikveh Ritual Creation Workshop” on Friday, May 12, from noon- 1 pm (available here).

JewishFiction.Net’s latest issue is available here. It features 12 stories originally written in Danish, Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, English and Albanian. 

The Women’s Initiative of the Orthodox Union will hold the “Counting Toward Sinai” audio series featuring daily short, inspirational thoughts on weekdays from April 16-May 25. Register for the e-mail here/.

Maven will hold the virtual eight-session class “History of Ancient Israel, Part 2” with Rabbi Mark Goodman on Tuesdays April 18-June 6, from 3-4:40 pm. The cost to attend is $280. The class will investigate the emergence of the ancient Israelites by examining archaeological findings. For more information or to register, click here.

For additional resources, see previous issues of The Reporter or our other Jewish Online Resources here.