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. 

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute has announced its next Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series: Joy Ladin, author of “Shekhinah Speaks,” on Wednesday, January 25, from 7-8 pm; Pnina Lahav, author of “The Only Woman in the Room: Golda Meir and Her Path to Power,” on Wednesday, February 15, from 7-8 pm; Paula Birnbaum, “Sculpting a Life: Chana Orloff between Paris and Tel Aviv” on Wednesday, March 15, from 7-8 pm; and Elizabeth Graver, “Kantika,” on Wednesday, May 3, from 7-8 pm. For more information or to register, click here.

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute has announced upcoming programs in its Studio Israel series: Gil Yefman on Thursday, February 9, from noon-1 pm; and Zoya Cherkassky on Thursday, March 30, from noon-1 pm. For more information or to register, click here.

Maven will hold “Origins of Antisemitism in Visual Art” on Tuesday, February 7, from 3-3:45 pm. The cost to attend is $21. Artist and guide Claudia Hercman will examine why Jews have been portrayed as monsters, animals and demons in visual art since the Middle Ages. For more information or to register, click here.

The December issue of JewishFiction.Net is available here. It contains 12 stories, originally written in Yiddish, Hebrew and English. There is no charge to read the stories.

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute has announced upcoming programs in its Seminar Series: “Lady Killers: Jewish Female Assassins in late 19th Century Russia” with Rachel Barenbaum, writer and HBI scholar in residence, on Monday, January 23, from noon-1 pm; “An Oral History of the Women of Enkash – The Zar and the Mergem Gojo (Blood Hut) as Spaces for Resistance” with Shula Mola, HBI scholar-in-residence, on Monday, February 27, from noon-1 pm; “Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy” with Samantha Pickette, University of Texas at Austin, on Monday, March 13, from noon-1 pm; and “Preaching the Promised Land: Mary Antin’s American Religions” with Rachel B. Gross, San Francisco State University, HBI scholar-in-residence, on Tuesday, March 28, from noon-1 pm. For more information or to register, visit click here.

The Community Bookstore will hold a virtual event with Ross Benjamin presenting a new translation of the “Diaries of Franz Kafka” on Thursday, January 12, from 7:30-8:30 pm. For more information or to register, visit click here.

Maven will hold the eight-part virtual class “History of Ancient Israel” on Tuesdays, starting January 10 and ending February 28, from 3-4:30 pm. The cost to attend is $280. Mark Goodman will explore the origins of the ancient Israelites through archaeological evidence and biblical references. For more information or to register, click here.

Sefaria has added four texts of Chabad Chasidut – Tanya, Torah Ohr, Likkutei Torah, Derekh Mitzvotekha – to its website. There is no charge to access these or other texts. The texts include footnotes and reference links for the first time ever in a digital text format.

Maven will hold several virtual programs: Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins will discuss his book “Peter Bergson’s Fight to Save the Jews From Nazi Germany” on Wednesday, January 25, from 3-3:35 pm (available here); Joseph Sassoon will discuss his book “The Sassoons: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Dynasty” on Thursday, February 9, from 3-3:45 pm (available here); and “Confronting Antisemitism in the Entertainment Industry” with Ari Ingel, president of Creative Community for Peace, to learn how his organization is making strides to combat antisemitism in the entertainment industry today (available here).

The Union for Reform Judaism and RootOne LLC at The Jewish Education Project will provide up to $3,250 to each URJ b’nai mitzvah teen to put toward immersive Israel travel experiences through select RootOne-affiliated trips. For more information, click here.

Ritualwell will offer new courses beginning in January, including “Miracles and the Strange: Writing Inspiration from Sephardic Folktales and Modern Speculative Fiction” (available here); and “Dreamwork as a Window to the Soul” (available here). For information on additional courses, click here.

The Yiddish Book Center will hold several programs: “Yiddish Publishing around the World: A Few Highlights,” with Zachary Baker, on Thursday, January 19, at 7 pm; “Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made the Art World Modern,” with author Charles Dellheim, on Thursday, February 2, at 7 pm; The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire,” with Joseph Sassoon, on Thursday, February 16, at 7 pm; “The Global Reach of the Yiddish Theater – The Vilna Troupe, ‘God of Vengeance’ and Yiddish Performance the World Over,” with Caraid O’Brien and Debra Caplan, on Thursday, March 2, at 7 pm; and “Have I Got a Story for You,” with editor Ezra Glinter, on Thursday, March 16, at 7 pm. For more information or to register, visit click here.

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will hold the virtual event “Funny Girls – A New Talk on Zoom About the Funny Jewish Women of Film” on Monday, January 30, from 7-8:30 pm. Film historians Irv Slifkin and Laurence Lerman, the founders of FilmShul, will “focus on the history and role of Jews involved in the field of entertainment – since much of the industry’s success can be attributed to their association with it since its earliest days.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy will hold the virtual class “Jewish Pride: A Jewish Revolution” with Ben M. Freeman on four Sundays, January 8-29, at 11 am. The course “will offer an understanding of historical and contemporary Jew-hatred as well as its impact on Jews, while focusing on inspiring and empowering Jews to see their Jewishness as a source of pride and not shame.” The cost to attend is $100. For more information or to register, click here.

The Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning will hold several virtual classes: “Animal Welfare, Not Warfare: Reconciling Human Needs with Our World’s Stability” on Monday, January 9, from 7-8 pm (available here); “Living Forward and Becoming Our Elders,” a four-part course on Wednesdays, January 11-February 1, from 2-3:30 pm (available here); “A Prophetic Journey: Exploring the Balance Between Fate and Free Will,” a four-part course on Thursdays, January 12-February 2, from 1-2:30 pm (available here); “Cracking the Code: How to Read a Jewish Tombstone” on Tuesday, January 24, from 1-2 pm (available here); “Perfect Pitch: Music’s Role in Jewish History,” a four-part class on Thursdays, February 9-March 2, from 1-2:30 pm (available here); “A Musical, Mystical, and Mouthwatering Indian Tu B’Shvat Seder” on Monday, February 6, from 11:30 am-12:30 pm (available here). There is a cost to attend. 

The Braid will hold the virtual program “Meet Letty Cottin Pogrebin” on Sunday, January 8, at 2 pm. Pogrebin will discuss her memoir “Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy.” There will also be a performance of an autobiographical story, “Counted,” written by Pogrebin and performed by Bari Hochwald Cagnola. For more information or to register, click here. 

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