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When Torah Feels Problematic: Confronting The Complexities Of Jewish Texts
What do we do when we come across texts that hurt us or put forth claims that go against fundamental truths we hold about the world, Torah, justice, and even God? Learning from the practices the early rabbis used when they encountered such texts, we can make space for inclusion of all Jewish peop...
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The Best Minds: A Story Of Friendship, Madness, & The Tragedy Of Good Intentions
Named a Top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic, and one of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2023, The Best Minds is a haunting and deeply moving memoir that investigates the forces that led author Jonathan Rosen's closest childhood friend, Mi...
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Becoming Elijah: Prophet Of Transformation
Explore the figure of Elijah and his transformation from zealous prophet to compassionate hero and how he became one of the most popular figures in Jewish folklore.
Daniel Matt is a leading authority on Kabbalah. His nine-volume annotated translation, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition, was honored wit...
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Reading Jewish Lives - Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter
Betty Friedan, author, activist, and champion for women’s rights, was both a powerful and polarizing figure. As a journalist covering racism, sexism, and antisemitism, and later as the author of the groundbreaking work The Feminine Mystique and co-founder of the National Organization of Women, Fr...
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From Memorial to Celebration: Israel's 75th Birthday
As night falls and Israel’s Memorial Day ends, mark the momentous occasion of transition to Israel’s 75th Independence Day. We will celebrate with music, remarks, and moments of blessing to mark this most auspicious birthday.
Join in person live from the PAS Sanctuary following our dialogue wit...
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Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader
How did Theodor Herzl, a cosmopolitan and assimilated European Jew, become the leader of the Zionist movement? With his often-conflicting personas (artist and a statesman, rationalist and an aesthete, and stern moralist who also possessed deep, and at times dark, passions), why did scores of thou...
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Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel
Casting a great shadow during his lifetime, David Ben-Gurion's legacy continues as one of the most important Zionist icons and the founder of modern Israel. As we prepare to celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary of statehood, explore the story of Ben-Gurion's life anew with master historian Anita S...
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Jerome Robbins: A Life in Dance with Wendy Lesser
Jerome Robbins, born in New Jersey to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, declined to join the family business and instead pursued a life in the theater, where he went on to become a renowned dancer, choreographer, writer, producer, and director. His work in ballet, Broadway, and film on such proje...
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Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement with Julian Zelizer
“When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” From his words spoken in 1965 to this day, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel remains a model of the intersection between religion and progressive politics in mid-twentieth-century America. Explore Heschel’s early years and foundational influences...
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Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream
In a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-twentieth-century family of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas. In this captivating portrait, author Micha...
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Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World
Julius Rosenwald rose to meteoric wealth at the helm of Sears, Roebuck and Co., yet his most important legacy stands on the pioneering changes he introduced to the practice of philanthropy. His passionate support of Jewish and African American causes continues to influence lives to this day, thou...
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Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures
Ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and “the greatest of American screenwriters” (according to the New Yorker), Ben Hecht wrote the Hollywood we know today. In this exploration of Hecht’s life and work, Adina Hoffman in conversation with Rabbi Savenor look at his most not...
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Stan Lee: A Life in Comics
The creative mind of Stan Lee provided American pop culture with comic book heroes and imaginative worlds that will forever be his legacy. Stan Lee: A Life in Comics focuses on both Lee’s ideas and his unlikely rise to stardom. Was Spider-Man just a reincarnation of Cain? Is the Incredible Hulk s...
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Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life
Author Vivian Gornick and Rabbi Witkovsky talk about the life of Emma Goldman, a modern radical who believed that the first business of social revolution is inner liberation. She mounted public protest movements that demanded freedom of thought and speech and rejected arbitrary use of power. Gorn...
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Houdini: The Elusive American
Missed the live show? Break away from your everyday with the world’s greatest escape artist. Author Adam Begley unlocks the Master Mystifier’s rise to fame and his legendary death-defying feats to uncover why he risked his life again and again.
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Reading Jewish Lives: Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death
As the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, Harvey Milk became one of the most recognizable faces of the nascent LGBTQ civil rights movement. A man of many talents, he drew deeply from the values of his Jewish heritage to create a political platform focused on helping the ...
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Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn't Want to Be One
During a summer without baseball, get club seats to hear the inspiring story of a Bronx ballplayer turned role model. Discover Greenberg’s spectacular discipline as an aspiring rookie, the complexity of his decision not to play on Yom Kippur, and the cultural context of virulent antisemitism in w...