Jewish Online Resources 3/23/23

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. 

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will hold the virtual talk “Irving Berlin – one of America’s most prolific songwriters” on Thursday, March 30, from 7-8:15 pm. Paul M. Kaplan, author of “Irving Berlin: From Penniless Immigrant to America’s Songwriter” will discuss Berlin’s life and work. There is a sliding scale cost to attend. For more information or to register, click here.

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will hold the virtual talk “The New York Settlement House and The Transformation of America” with urban historian Justin Ferate on Tuesday, April 18, from 7-8:45 pm. Ferate will discuss how settlement houses can into being and their effect on the community. There is a sliding scale cost to attend. For more information or to register, click here.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency will hold several “Israel at 75: Where We Go from Here” events, including “U.S. Jews & Israel” on Wednesday, March 15, at noon; “ The evolution of Israeli cuisine” on Wednesday, May 3, at noon; “Parched no more? How Israel is turning lemons into lemonade” on Tuesday, May 16, at noon; and “It’s getting crowded in here” on Tuesday, May 23, at noon. For more information or to register, click here.

The Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University will hold the virtual program “Haggadah Insights from R. Jonathan Sacks” with Dr. Erica Brown and Dr. Shira Weiss on Tuesday, March 28, from 8-9 pm. To register, click here.

Maven will hold the five-week course “Essential Travel Phrases For Your Trip to Israel” on Wednesdays, April 19-May 17, from 1:30-3 pm. The cost to attend is $173. No prior knowledge in Hebrew is required. For more information or to register, click here.

The Bender JCC of Greater Washington will hold the following lectures as part of its Biblical Archaeology Forum: “Reconstruction of the (Dead Sea) Temple Scroll” on Wednesday, April 26, at 7 pm; “How to Speak to Kings in Cuneiform (The Amarna Letters)” on  Wednesday, May 17, at 7 pm; and “Emperor in Rome, Deity in the Provinces” on Wednesday, June 14, at 8 pm. There is a cost to attend. For more information or to register, click here

The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center will hold the following virtual programs: Jewish Dynasties: Edmond Safra “A Banker’s Journey from Aleppo” with Daniel Gross on Tuesday, March 28, at 6:30 pm; Daniel Gordis in conversation with Abigail Pogrebin, “On Fulfilling Israel’s Impossible Dreams” on Wednesday, April 19, at 6:30 pm; “The Devil’s Confession; The Lost Eichmann Tapes” screening and discussion on Thursday, April 20, at 6:30 pm; Chita Rivera in conversation with Nathan Lane on Monday, April 24, at 7 pm (there is a cost of $36 for this program); and Simon Sebag Montefiore, “A Family History of Humanity” on Tuesday, May 16, at 6:30 pm (a cost of $36 includes a copy of the book). For more information on these and other program or to register, visit click here.

Hadassah Magazine will hold the virtual talk “One Book, One Hadassah: ‘Code Name Sapphire’” on Thursday, April 20, from 7-9 pm. Hadassah Magazine Executive Editor Lisa Hostein will interview best-selling author Pam Jenoff about her latest historical fiction book, “Code Name Sapphire.” The event is open to all. To register, click here.

The Center for Jewish History will hold the hybrid symposium “American Jews and Zionism: Bringing Us Together and Pulling Us Apart” on Sunday, April 30. The cost for those livestreaming is $5. There will be five session: “What is Zionism?” at 10 am; “Zionism Before Statehood: Between Hostility and Advocacy” at 11:15 am; “Zionism After Statehood: The Legacy of 1948” at 12:30 pm; “Zionism Today: Religion and Culture” at 2:30 pm; and “Zionism’s Future: Whither Israel-Diaspora Relations?” at 3:45 pm. For more information or to register, click here

Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger has opened a virtual Hunger Museum that looks at the past 100-plus years of hunger and anti-hunger public policy in the United States. It includes immersive and interactive exhibits bout the political, economic and cultural story of the expansion and dismantling of the American social safety net. 

The 92nd Street Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association will hold the hybrid program “Israel in the Press: Bret Stephens, Ronen Bergman, Anshel Pfeffer, and Lucy Aharish in Conversation with Roni Kuban” on Sunday, Apr 23, at 7:30 pm. The cost to attend is $18. For more information or to register, click here

Holistic Jew will hold the virtual “Kabbalah, Prayer, and Meditation” course on Wednesdays, April 19-May 31, except for May 24, from 8-9:30 pm. The cost to attend is $180. For more information or to register, click here

The Biblical Archaeology Society will hold its BAS Summer Seminar 2023 at St. Olaf in hybrid form from July 16-22. There is a cost for the event. For a complete listing of lectures, pricing information and more, click here.

HUC Connects will hold a virtual spring session, including the lectures “What’s the Matter With American Democracy?” on Thursday, April 20, at 2 pm; “The Crisis of Democracy and the Attractions of Authoritarianism” on Tuesday, April 25, at 1 pm; “Art and Protest” on Tuesday, May 2, at 2 pm; and “Exploration of the Oxford Annotated Mishnah” on Tuesday, May 9, at 1 pm. For more information or to register, click here.

Tikvah will hold the online course “Menachem Begin’s Jewish Soul” taught by Daniel Gordis. In six lectures, Gordis will explore the life and legacy of Menachem Begin, from his time as an underground freedom fighter to his premiership of the state of Israel. For more information or to register, click here.

POLIN: Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Jewish Women’s Archive will hold the virtual course “Women and Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto” on Tuesdays, April 18-May 16, at noon. Lecture topics include “Warsaw Ghetto Through Women’s Eyes,” “Rachela Auerbach at the Frontline of the Struggle,” “Dorka Goldkorn and other Communists in the Ghetto,” “The Interwar Roots of Military Resistance of Jewish Women in the Ghetto” and “Herstories of Resistance.” For more information or to register, click here.


The Jewish Museum for Jewish Heritage will hold two virtual programs commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: 

1) “The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Resistance and Survival in the Holocaust” on Wednesday, April 19, from 2-3 pm Dr. Zachary Mazur will reflect on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as an example of Jewish resistance and action in the face of Nazi oppression during the Holocaust. For more information or to register, click here

2) “To Paint the Earth” on Thursday, May 4, from 7-8:30 pm. “To Paint the Earth” is the Richard Rodgers’ Award-winning musical that tells the story of the Jewish Underground in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. This performance is the first-ever orchestrated concert version of the full musical. View here.

Maven will host a virtual event featuring “Unorthodox” creator Anna Winger speaking about her new Netflix mini-series “Transatlantic” on Thursday, April 20, from 3-3:45 pm. According to Netflix, the series plot focuses on two Americans who, in 1940, attempt to rescue refugees fleeing Europe during World War II. For more information or to register, click here.

The Center for Jewish History will hold the virtual 10-session course “All in the Mishpocheh: Intro to Jewish Genealogy” on Tuesdays, April 18-June 20, from 6-7:15 pm (available here) or Fridays, April 21-June 30, from 10-11:15 am (available here). Topics will include family trees, online search strategies, immigration, DNA, Holocaust, finding ancestral towns, name changes, obtaining records from other countries and more.

The Yiddish Book Center is offering free streaming of the award-winning documentary film, “Beyle: The Artist and Her Legacy.” The film tells the story of the Yiddish poet, artist and activist Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman. The film explores her influence on contemporary Yiddish culture and features recorded oral history interviews in both English and Yiddish with family, friends and colleagues. For more information and to stream the film, click here.

Maven will hold the virtual talk “The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: The Tale of Yalta the Shrew” with Pardes Lecturer Gila Fine on Monday, May 22, from 3-3:45. The cost to attend is $21. Fine will look at the talmudic tale of Yalta through the lens of authors and thinkers such as Aristotle and Aelian, William Shakespeare and William Congreve, Washington Irving, Charles Dickens and more. For more information or to register, visit click here.

Maven will hold several Global Jewish Life virtual tours: Majorca on Thursday, April 27 (available here); Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday, May 11 (available here); and Egypt on Thursday, June 8 (available here). All tours take place from 3-4 pm and cost $21. 

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.