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 Yiddish Book Center will offer the virtual course “Confessions of a Yiddish Writer: The Life and Work of Chava Rosenfarb” on Wednesdays, January 10-31, from 7-8:30 pm. The cost to attend is $75 for Yiddish Book Center members and $100 for non-members. Seb Schulman, translator Goldie Morgentaler and other guests will “delve into Rosenfarb’s short stories, essays, and novel excerpts, while considering questions of translation, literary portrayal of genocide and atrocity, and the challenges of being a woman Yiddish writer.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Roundtable at the 92nd St. Y will hold the December Global Jewish Book Club Fall 2023 program looking at “The Merchant of Venice” with Ilan Stavans on Wednesday, December 6, from 12:30-2 pm. The cost to attend is $45. For more information or to register, click here.

The American Jewish University will hold the virtual discussion “Gangsters vs. Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in WWII America” on Thursday, December 21, from 3-4 pm. Author Michael Benson will be in conversation with AJU’s Samuel Rosenbaum to discuss the untold saga of Jewish mobsters combating the rise of Nazism in 1930s and 1940s America. For more information or to register, click here.

Literary Modiin’s December 2023 Author Event will feature Linda Kass (“Bessie”), Daniel Victor (“The Evil Inclination”) and Tara Ison (“At the Hour Between dog and Wolf”) on Sunday, December 3, at 1pm. For more information or to register, click here.

The Mordecai Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood will hold the virtual discussion “The Hanukkah Gift to the Jewish People and World that Keeps on Giving” with Drs. Elias Sacks and Deborah Waxman on the significance of Kaplan’s work “Judaism as a Civilization” as it approaches the 90th anniversary of its publication in 1934. The event will take place on Sunday, December 10, at 3 pm. For more information or to register, click here. 

The Roundtable at the 92nd St. Y will hold the virtual four-part course “Reading Jewish Identity into Science Fiction” on Wednesdays, January 24-February 14, from 6:30-7:30 pm. The cost to attend is $176. The course will explore the connection between Jewishness and science fiction in 20th-century literature and film. For more information or to register, click here.

Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion will hold the virtual program “Illuminating Ecclesiastes” on Tuesday, November 28, at 7:30 pm. Artist Debra Band will speak about her visual interpretation of the text. Dr. Adriane Leveen will discuss how the text is still relevant today. For more information or to register, click here.

The Mordecai Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood will hold the virtual discussion “The Great Kaplanian Report Card: Valley Beth Shalom of California as a Kaplanian Playground” with Rabbis Amy Bernstein, Ed Feinstein and Jeffrey Schein on the successes and challenges of implementing the Judaism as a civilization program. The program will take place on Sunday, January 7, at 3 pm. For more information or to register, click here.

The Nosher will hold “Indian Sweets for Hanukkah with Joanna Nissim” on Sunday, December 3, from 7:30-9 pm. The cost to attend is $25. Joanna Nissim, a cooking instructor specializing in Indian cuisine, will teach how to make gulab jamun, deep fried dough balls flavored with sweet syrup, and zalebi, sweet, fried flour snacks shaped like pretzels or circles. For more information or to register, click here.

Literary Modiin’s January 2024 Author Event will feature Janice Weizman (“Our Little Histories”), Ruth Marks Eglash (“Parallel Lines”) and Jennifer Lang (“Places We Left Behind”) on Sunday, January 28, at 1 pm. For more information or to register, click here.

Aleph, Alliance for Jewish Renewal, will hold the virtual “A Jewish Renewal New Year’s Eve, hosted by Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael and friends, on Sunday, December 31, at 8 pm. There is a variable cost to attend. To register, click here.

Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion will hold the hybrid event “Backwards and Forwards: Facing Antisemitism through Looking Back” on Tuesday, December 12, at 12:30 pm. The panel discussion “will address the historical influence of antisemitic writings and propaganda on populations who went on to perpetrate or ignore heinous crimes against Jews.” For more information or to register, click here.

The Nosher will hold the virtual class “Hanukkah Doughnut Masterclass with Pastry Chef Fany Gerson” on Wednesday, December 6, from 7:30-9 pm. James Beard Award-nominated chef Fany Gerson, owner of Fan Fan Doughnuts, will teach how to make “the ultimate fried Hanukkah treat.” The cost to attend is $25. For more information or to register, click here.

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute will hold the hybrid lecture “At Home in the World: American Jewish Women Abroad, 1860-1920” on Monday, November 27, at noon. Dr. Melissa R. Klapper, professor of history and director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rowan University, will explore the topic of her upcoming book. For more information or to register, click here.

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will hold the virtual program “Explore the Jewish Communities of Brooklyn” on Tuesday, November 28, from 7-8:30 pm. The cost to attend is $10. Dr. David E. Kaufman will talk about Jewish Brooklyn in the 19th and 20th centuries. For more information or to register, click here. 

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute will hold a virtual program of the Sandra Seltzer Silberman HBI Conversations Series featuring Lea Taragin-Zeller, author of “The State of Desire: Religion and Reproductive Politics in the Promised Land” on Tuesday, November 28, at 11 am. For more information or to register, click here.

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