Blue 32
We are all born with a creative soul. Yet often in our lives we experience blocks that prevent our creativity from flourishing. In this session, we learn to recognise our 'creative blocks' - and discover how to transform them into tools that facilitate us producing our creative masterpiece!
Red 7
The family novel was wildly-popular in Yiddish culture. Although, primarily a short story writer, Bashevis wrote several family chronicles about Polish Jews. The session will examine how The Family Moskat was transformed from a serialised Yiddish newspaper version via a Yiddish book and translation into English.
Yellow 22
Social scientists criticise the Israeli education system for its "Neo-Liberal" practices which allowed free market perceptions into the system. While reviewing the system over the years, this session will present an opposite claim - the Israeli education system has always been a nationalised, centralised system, under both right and left wing coalitions.
Red 2
Discussing Jewish representation in theatre with a particular focus on Falsettogate and the cultural appropriation, erasure and exclusion of Jewish artists in work about Jews. We discuss examples of things going wrong and debate how to build models of meaningful inclusion.
Jacqueline Nicholls April Baskin Mekella Broomberg
Blue 33
During these chaotic political times, we take a tongue in cheek look at how female politicians and leaders in the UK, USA and Israel have been portrayed in cinema. And ask why despite being able to make an alien invasion plausible, a Madame President seems beyond credibility for mainstream Hollywood.
Orange 10
What does Jewish law (halachah) and tradition teach us about autonomy and self-determination? What then is the impact on decision-making regarding our bodies, ranging from tattoos to donating organs, abortion and transgender sex reassignment surgery?
Orange 14
Named “The Divine Sarah” by her fans, Bernhardt became an international star of stage and screen. We will explore her career, consider the ways in which she was viewed by her contemporaries and think about the meaning of her public declaration, in the face of intense antisemitism, that “I am a daughter of the great Jewish race”.
Green 25
Wagner's music generates fanatical fawning and loathing. His antisemitic pamphlet "Judaism in Music" is infamous. His operas were revered by Hitler but remain amongst the greatest achievements of Western music. Can the paradox be resolved? Can Jews listen to Wagner? Perform his music? Should they? This session will attempt to find an answer.
Red 4
Letters preserved in Maccabees assert kinship between Spartans and Jews in the Hellenistic period. What could lie behind such a claim? This lecture will examine the relations between Greeks and the Middle East from the 8th to the 2nd centuries BCE, and specifically within the history of the post-Alexander Seleucid kingdom.
Green 26
Look in the mirror and what do we see - someone who looks older than we feel inside? Someone we think is beautiful, or not? Using the book, Wise Aging, we will explore how we feel about our changing bodies as we age. We will study texts, sociology and physiology and use humour to help us appreciate these bodies of ours.