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 Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning will hold the four-class course “Beyond the Ashkenorm” on Wednesday, November 30-December 21, from 1-2:30 pm. There is a sliding scale for payment. Rabbi Johnny Solomon, who is Sephardic, will explore “the history, attitudes, customs and culture of the Spanish and Portuguese (Western) Sephardic community, the Iraqi/Indian (Oriental) Sephardic communities, the Moroccan Sephardic community and the Beta Israel Ethiopian Jewish community.” For more information or to register, click here.

YIVO Yiddish Club will hold virtual meetings in November and December: “Yiddish Songwriting Today” with Adah Hetko on Sunday, November 20, at 2 pm (to register, click here); and “Yiddish in Rio with Sonia Kramer” on Sunday, December 11, at 2 pm (register here). There is no cost to attend either meeting.

The Center for Jewish History will hold the virtual program “Jewish Paths to Emancipation: Struggles for Citizenship Across Revolutionary Europe,” featuring David Sorkin, Marsha Rozenblit, Daniel Schwartz and Ivy Weingram on Thursday, November 17, at 7 pm. For more information or to register, click here. 

Ruth Gruber, who saved nearly 1,000 Jews from the Holocaust, will be inducted into Jewish-American Hall of Fame on Sunday, November 13, starting at 12:30 pm. There is no charge to watch the induction ceremony on Zoom. To register, click here. 

The Institute for Jewish Spirituality will hold the virtual course “Shema: The Practice of Sacred Listening” on Mondays, November 14, 21 and 28, and December 12, and Wednesday, December 7, from 3-4:30 pm. Teaching portions of live sessions will be recorded and available for all participants. The cost of the class ranges from $99-199. The course is “designed to help you be more fully present in conversation, especially when emotions, differing values, or judgments may arise.” For more information or to register, click here.

Biblical Archaeology Society will hold a virtual lecture in the BAS Scholars Series “ Holy City Hotspot: Exploring Jerusalem’s Acropolis” with Andrew Lawler, journalist and author, on Wednesday, March 8, from 8-9 pm. Lawler will speak about Jerusalem’s Acropolis. For more information or to register, click here.

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion announced its virtual programs for November, including “Prophetic Leadership in a Time of Democratic Crisis” on Wednesday, November 16, at 1 pm; “Polarization or Authoritarianism? Diagnosing the Threats to our Fragile Democracy” on Tuesday, November 22, at 1:30 pm; and “New Angles on Los Angeles: The LA Jewish Community” on Wednesday, November 30, at 4 pm. For more information or to register, click here.

Maven will hold the virtual tour “Cape Town” as part of its “Tour Global Jewish Life” series on Thursday, December 1, from 3-4 pm. Craig Nudelman will offer photos and stories from the Jewish community of Cape Town. For more information or to register, click here.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold the virtual book talk “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele” on Thursday, November 10, from 7-8 pm. Olivier Guez will talk about this novel “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” which traces Mengele’s travels during his years in hiding. For more information or to register, click here.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold a series of virtual talks on “The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do,” which will meet on every other Monday from November 7-September 18, 2023, from 12:30-1:30 pm. The cost per talk is $18 for museum members and $36 for non-members. For more information or to register for individual talks, click here.

The Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project offers free online documentary films that tell personal stories about Yiddish culture. For more information or to view the films, click here.

The Jewish Theological Seminary will offer the virtual program “Between the Lines: Choosing Hope” on Monday, November 14, from 7:30-8:30 pm. Psychologist David Arnow will talk about his book “Choosing Hope,” which explored nine fundamental sources of hope in Judaism. For more information or to register, click here.

Maven will hold several events in November: “Jewish Miss Wyoming: Representing Jewish Women Across America” on Thursday, November 17, from 10-10:45 (available here); “Jewish Values in the CIA: Acts of Loving Kindness” on Wednesday, November 16, from 3-3:45 pm (available here); and “We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel” on Tuesday, November 29, from 3-3:45 pm (available here). All events are free.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold in-person and virtual theater performances of “When Zaydeh Danced on Eldridge Street” from Thursday-Sunday, November 17-20. The play is based on the award-winning picture book by Elsa Okon Rael. For times of performances, for more information or to register, click here.

The Jewish Language Project will hold the virtual program “Living Traditions: Women’s Songs in Endangered Jewish Languages” on Sunday, November 13, from 10-11:30 am. The program celebrates the online exhibit “A Millennium of Jewish Women’s Voices” (which can be found at www.jewishlanguages.org/women). For more information or to register, click here.

UJA and the Jewish Week will hold the virtual event “Signal Fires: A Conversation With Dani Shapiro” on Wednesday, November 9, at 6 pm. Shapiro will explore themes of family secrets unfolding across generations with Sandee Brawarsky, who will moderate the conversation. For more information or to register, click here.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage will hold the virtual program “The History of Blood Libel” on Tuesday, November 29, from 7-8 pm. The program will be a panel discussion about this history and the role it plays in contemporary antisemitism with Edward G. Berenson, author of “The Accusation: Blood Libel in an American Town”; Magda Teter, author of “Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth”; and Francois Soyer, author of “Popularizing Anti-Semitism in Early Modern Spain and its Empire: Francisco de Torrejoncillo and the Centinela contra Judios (1674).” It will be moderated by Sara Lipton, author of “Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography.” For more information or to register, visit click here.

The Mayerson JCC will hold a virtual talk in its Jewish Book Series, featuring Zack Bodner’s book “Why Do Jewish?,” on Monday, December 5, from 7-8:15 pm. Bodner will be in conversation with Rabbi Shena Potter Jaffee and Brian Jaffee. For more information or to register, click here.

To receive a free digital copy of Hillel International’s college guide, click here.

Maven will hold the virtual program “Music and the Holocaust” with Emanuel Abramovits on Wednesday, November 30, from 5-6 pm. The cost to attend is $21. He will discuss artists who died in the Holocaust, those who survived, the fate of their instruments that have been restored and how the musical world was affected. For more information or to register, click here.

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