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 Jewish Languages website will hold two virtual lectures this winter: “Lishán Didán and Hulaulá: Jewish Neo-Aramaic in the Kurdish region of Iran” on Sunday, February 20, at 1 pm; and “Judeo-Persian in the 20th century: New Research” on Sunday, March 13, at 1 pm. For more information or to register, visit their events page.

The Yiddish Book Center will hold the virtual author talk “The Murders of Moisés Ville: The Rise and Fall of the Jerusalem of South America,” with Javier Sinay on Thursday, February 24, at 7 pm. The author will discuss the history of Moisés Ville, the “Jerusalem of South America,” and his personal connection to a little-known period of Jewish history in Argentina. Click here for more information or to register. There are a limited number of seat available, but a taped version of the program will be available later here.

Chutzpod! is a weekly podcast with Rabbi Shira Stutman and Joshua Malina. The show will include guests and explore a wide variety of questions. To listen to the podcast, visit their website.

The Jewish Theological Seminary will hold several online courses this winter, including “Jews and the Left: A History” on Mondays: February 7, 14, 21 and 28; March 7, 14 and 21; and April 4, from 7:30-8:45 pm (see more); and “Passover Journeys – From the Torah to Your Seder” on Tuesdays, February 22 and March 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29, from 7-8:30 pm (located here).

The Port Jewish Center will hold two virtual book talks in February: “A conversation with Naomi Ragen” on Wednesday, February 2, at 11 am (registration available here); and “A Conversation with Jonathan Boyarin” on Wednesday, February 16, at 8 pm (available here). 

The Forward will hold two events in February: “From the 1860s to 2022: Bringing the history of the Lower East Side to the digital age” on Thursday, February 3, at 3 pm (more event info) and “Local Live(s): the Forward” on Thursday, February 10, at 9 pm, with a focus on storytellers from the Los Angeles Jewish community (more info here).

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will hold “A Virtual Exploration of the Historic Henry Street Settlement” on Wednesday, February 2, from 7-8:30 pm. The tour will include a virtual look inside Lillian Wald’s historic former home at 265 Henry Street, the Settlement’s present-day headquarters. For more information or to register, see this page.

Tivkah will hold a weekly virtual program called “The Jerusalem Roundtable: A Weekly Conversation on Israeli Politics and Society,” on Tuesdays at 9:30 am. People who sign up can participate live and/or get access to the event videos to watch on-demand. For more information or to register, visit this page.

HIAS Book and Film Club will discuss “The Ungrateful Refugee” (2019) by Dina Nayeri on Friday, February 11, from noon-1 pm. It will be an interactive discussion so people are encouraged to read or listen to the book before the meeting. For more information or to register, visit their event description page.

The Center for Jewish History will hold the virtual book talk “Admiral Hyman Rickover: Engineer of Power,” featuring author Marc Wortman and Rabbi Bruce E. Kahn, on Thursday, February 17, at 6:30 pm. The book tells the story of Hyman George Rickover, who was born Chaim Godalia Rykower in a Polish shtetl and was an almost mythical figure in the United States Navy. For more information or to register, click here.

HUC Connect: The Webinar will hold four virtual lecture series. The lectures on “Arts and Culture” are “Breathing the Air of Freedom” on Tuesday, February 1, at 2 pm; “Finding Myself in Motel” on Tuesday, March 22, at 2 pm; and “Sacred Land: Israel Before and After Time” on Tuesday, May 3, at 2 pm. The lectures on “Civil Society” are “Israel, American Jewry, and 45” on Tuesday, March 15, at 3 pm; “More than a Monolith” on Tuesday, April 5, at 2 pm; and “Reparations and Jewish Thought” on Tuesday, May 10, at 2 pm. The lecture on “(Re)defining allyship” are “LGBTQ+ Rights” on Tuesday, April 26 (time to be announced); and “Women in the Rabbinate” on Tuesday, May 31, at 2 pm. The lectures on “Religion” are “Obligation, Social Justice, and Faith-driven Reform” on Tuesday, February 22, at 2 pm; “Natural Mystics” on Tuesday, March 8, at 2 pm; and “Grief, Death, and Mortality: Honoring Tradition and Exploring New Perspectives” on Tuesday, April 12, at 2 pm. For more information or to register for a series, see their webinars.

The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will hold two virtual tours: “Virtual Tour of Jewish Paris” on Monday, February 7, from 7-9 pm (available here); and “The History of Jewish Harlem” with Justin Ferate on Thursday, February 24, from 7-8:45 pm (register here). 

Fairfield University Centers and Institutes will hold several virtual events: “In Concert from Germany: Klezmer-Yiddish rocker, Daniel Kahn” on Tuesday, February 8, from 5-6:30 pm (more info here); the Joan and Henry Katz Lecture in Judaic Studies “Too Long, Too Foreign... Too Jewish? The Rise, Politics, and Fall of Jewish Name Changing in 20th Century New York” on Thursday, February 17, from 7:30-9 pm (see event here); and the Adolph and Ruth Schnurmacher Virtual Lecture titled “The Ancient ‘Gender Gap’: The Bible, Archeology, and Israelite Women” on Monday, March 7, from 7:30-9:30 pm (available here). 

Organic Torah will hold two virtual classes: “Reading the Rabbis: The Puzzle of Pesach” on Thursdays, February 10, 17 and 24; and March 3 and 10, from 7-8:30 pm, for $135 (more info here); and “Song of Songs in the Rabbinic and Mystic Imagination” on Thursdays, March 24 and 31, April 7 and 28, and May 5, from 7-8:30 pm, for $135 (see here). The cost to sign up for both classes at the same time is $270 (more here).

The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History will hold several virtual music events: “Suiting the Sound – The Jewish Rodeo Tailors of Country Music” on Tuesday, February 15, at 8 pm (see event); “Mark Rubin: ‘Jew of Oklahoma’” on Tuesday, February 22, at 8 pm (concert info); “Torah of Country Music” on Tuesday, March 1, at 8 pm (available here) and “Nefesh Mountain” on Tuesday, March 8, at 8 pm (more info here). 

The Jewish Book Council will hold two events: “Writing Europe Before the Holocaust: A Conversation with Rachel Kadish and Menachem Kaiser” on Thursday, February 10, from 7-8 pm (see event page); and “Virtual Unpacking the Book: Gal Beckerman and Talia Lavin – Where Do Radicals Come From?” on Thursday, February 24, from 7-8 pm (more info here).

The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU will hold the virtual talk “Barbra on Film: A Discussion about Barbra Streisand” on Thursday, February 3, from 7-8 pm. Dan Hudak will talk about Barbra Streisand’s films. Hudak is the former chairman of the Florida Film Critics Circle and a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association. For more information or to register, visit their event page.

Siegal Lifelong Learning will hold the virtual “Jewish Fur Traders and Their Native Wives” on Wednesday, February 9, from noon-1:30 pm. The lecture will examine stories of Jewish fur traders in North America and their Native wives from the Colonial Period through the 19th century. For more information or to register, click here.

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute will hold several virtual events: “‘Nobody Told Me’: The Loss of Family Through the Eyes of Wanda Albinska, a Child Holocaust Survivor from Warsaw” on Monday, February 7, from noon-1:30 pm; “Studio Israel with Dege Feder” on Thursday, February 10, from noon-1 pm; and ”Galleries, Guilds, and Graves: British Orthodox Jewish Women” on Monday, February 28, from 12:30-1:30 pm. For more information or to register for events, visit this link.

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