The Foundation for Jewish Studies

Speaker: Dr. Geraldine Gudefin Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Speaker Series Location: Ohr Kodesh Congregation, Chevy Chase, MD Date: April 28, 2019 Bordeaux, as most Americans know, is one of the most important wine regions of France. Less known is the fact that for several centuries, Bordeaux and its region hosted a vibrant Jewish community, which made numerous contributions to the history of France. Join us to retrace the history of this unique Jewish community...

Speaker: Professor Pamela Nadell Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Speaker Series Location: JCC of Northern Virginia Date: February 6, 2019 This lecture was also given on March 11, 2019 at Kol Shalom in Rockville, Maryland. In her groundbreaking new history, Pamela Nadell asks what does it mean to be a Jewish woman in America? Weaving together stories from the colonial era’s matriarch, Grace Nathan, and her great-granddaughter, poet Emma Lazarus, to union organizer,...

Speaker: Professor Jonathan D. Sarna Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Speaker Series Location: Ohr Kodesh Congregation, Chevy Chase, MD Date: November 11, 2018 The first U.S. President who actively sought to attract support from Jewish voters was none other than Abraham Lincoln. Renowned historian Jonathan D. Sarna will reveal how Lincoln’s remarkable relationship with American Jews impacted both his path to the presidency and his policy decisions as president. Using...

Speaker: Professor Marsha Rozenblit Series: Special Event Location: Washington Hebrew Congregation, Washington, DC Date: December 9, 2019 Our community came together to honor the legacy of our organization's founder, Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman, z"l. We learned about the world that influenced Rabbi Haberman's life and teachings through Professor Marsha Rozenblit's lecture, "At Home in the Austian Capital: Viennese Jews Before World War II." Then the President of the Board of Directors,...

Speaker: Professor Kenneth Seeskin Series:Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Speaker Series Location: Beth Shalom Congregation, Columbia, MD Date: December 10, 2018 The first two commandments of the Decalogue are the primary sources for our Jewish monotheism. How do we understand the commandments? Is belief in one God all that is required to make one a monotheist? If not, what else is needed? Why does the third commandment prohibit us from making images of God? Professor Seeskin, a...

Speaker: Professor Hasia Diner Series: Day of Learning Location: Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, Bethesda, MD Date: September 3, 2018 Immigration is one of the hottest topics in our country today. In this full day program, Professor Diner, one of the foremost historians of American immigration, will delve into the following topics: • Causes, nature, demographics, and effects of immigration • The human dimension: immigrant stories • The effects of changing government...

Speaker: Rabbi Vanessa Ochs, Ph.D. Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Scholar Series Location: Congregation Olam Tikvah, Fairfax, VA Date: November 18, 2018 Derived from Jewish texts, traditions, laws, practices, rituals, and experiences, “Jewish Sensibilities” are ways in which Jews (religious and secular alike) act “Jewishly,” whether consciously or not. Understanding such Jewish sensibilities, rooted in a combination of tradition, law and culture, can help us understand...

Speaker: Professor Michael Brenner Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Scholar Series Location: Adas Israel Congregation Date: October 23, 2018 The 19th Century German Jewish community was the first to attempt to integrate Jewish traditions into a modern European society. Today, it might appear that this attempt failed as a result of the rise of Nazism, and the tragic events of World War II and the Holocaust. But from a distance of almost 80 years, perhaps this conclusion...

Speaker: Professor David Kraemer Program Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Speaker Series Location: B'nai Israel Congregation, Rockville, MD Date: October 7, 2018 In many respects, Islam is Judaism's closest "relative." It is a religion of law, based upon both Judaism and other inherited near eastern traditions. Professor David Kraemer, a prolific author and commentator who oversees the most extensive collection of rare and contemporary Judaica in the Western Hemisphere,...

Speaker: Professor Arieh Saposnik Program Series: Jewish Enrichment Location: Kehilat Shalom, Gaithersburg, Maryland Date: Monday, April 9, 2018 "If the Jews wish to become a nation of 'Jewish Culture,'" Eliezar Ben-Yehuda wrote in 1904, "they must first become truly a nation." Throughout the subsequent decade, Ben-Yehuda and other Zionist activists in Palestine attempted to transform a small, divided, economically depressed and demographically declining Yishuv into the foundation of...

Speaker: Dr. Christof Koch Rabbinic Response: Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt Program Series: The Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Scholar Series Location: Adas Israel Congregation, Washington, DC Date: Tuesday, April 3, 2018 A top neuroscientist's stimulation explanation of the physical qualities of consciousness, followed by a distinguished rabbi's response on how that science might relate to descriptions of spiritual encounters with the Divine in traditional and contemporary Jewish...

Speaker: Rabbi Lee Levine Program Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Scholar Series Location: Ohr Kodesh Congregation, Chevy Chase, MD Date: November 21, 2017 The study of ancient Jewish art is a relatively new field fueled by ongoing archaeological discoveries. Only in Late Antiquity (third to seventh centuries CE) did Jewish art begin to flourish in a dramatic fashion. By the Byzantine era (fourth to seventh centuries CE), religious symbols, biblical motifs and even...

Speaker: Rabbi Sid Schwarz Program Series: Jewish Enrichment Location: Adat Shalom, Bethesda, MD Date: January 24, 2018 Rabbi Sid Schwarz does pioneering work uncovering organizations across North American that re-inventing conceptions of Jewish identity and Jewish life. This session provides insight into the people and ideas that make these "Covenantal Jewish Communities" exciting, hopeful and inspiring.

Speaker: Rabbi Reuven Hammer Program Series: Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Speaker Series Location: Tifereth Israel Congregation, Washington, DC Date: November 16 Since the rise of Christianity, the God of Judaism has often been depicted as a God of vengeance, while the God of Christianity is portrayed as the God of love. Rabbi Hammer discusses the Jewish and Christian concepts of God, and shows the error in describing the two religions' concepts of God as opposites in this manner.

Presenter: Yale Strom Vocalist: Elizabeth Schwartz Location: Tikvat Israel, Rockville, MD Date: October 28, 2017 Man From Munkacs: Gypsy Klezmer, one of many award-winning films directed by Yale Strom, explores the symbiotic relationship between the Rom Gypsies and the Jews who lived together before and after World War II in the Carpathian region of Eastern Europe. Prior to the Holocaust, whenever there was a Jewish celebration, the klezmer musicians were usually not Jews, but the Rom....

Speaker: Izabella Tabarovsky Program Series: Jewish Enrichment Location: Ohev Shalom - The National Synagogue, Washington, DC Date: September 27, 2017 While many of us know Babi Yar, this was not the first such massacre, nor was it unique in its scale. This story is asking to be told.

Speaker: Professor Jacques Berlinerblau Program Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Speaker Series Location: Washington Hebrew Congregation Date: September 12, 2017 Georgetown Professor and Director of the Center for Jewish Civilization, Jaques Berlinerblau talks about what the college experience is like today - an experience radically different from the one that parents of high school seniors might be familiar with.

Speaker: Dr. Samual Kassow Program Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Scholar Series Location: Kehilat Shalom, Gaithersburg, MD Date: April 2, 2017 The Ringelblum archive in the Warsaw Ghetto buried thousands of documents. But of the 60 people who worked on this national mission, only three survived. Dr. Kassow tells their story.

Speaker: Dr. Michael Brenner Program Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Scholar Series Location: Congregation Olam Tikvah, Fairfax, VA Date: March 19, 2017 Dr. Brenner tells the story of the rebuilding of Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust and until today.

Speaker: Dr. Christine Hayes Program Series: Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman Distinguished Scholar Series Location: Congreation B'nai Tzedek, Potomac, MD Date: March 5, 2017 Dr. Hayes steps back 2000 years to explore the diverse attitudes towards the divine character of the Torah, and highlights the surprisingly radical approach of the talmudic rabbis.