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New Online Jewish Studies Summer Course: Jewish Existentialism (PHIL 183)
UC San Diego's Department of Philosophy is offering a new online summer course open to students from all UC campuses. The course entitled "Topics in Continental Philosophy: Jewish Existentialism" (PHIL 183) will be offered during UCSD's Summer Session 1 (approximately equivalent with UCSB's Summer Session A), from June 30th to August 2, 2025. Classes are 11 AM to 1:50 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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Talking Torah Despite Deep Differences: The Greatest Glue Between Us is an Ancient Book - Abigail Porgrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer
Hillel and Shammai did it. So did Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, Rashi and the Tosafists, and other rabbinic rivals stretching back centuries and reaching into the present. Walk past a traditional beis midrash (study hall) today and you’ll hear animated, even heated exchanges on interpretations of biblical passages and applications of halacha (Jewish law). In genuine Jewish tradition, everywhere there is machlokes, reasoned disputes aimed at spiritual growth.
Continue Reading Talking Torah Despite Deep Differences: The Greatest Glue Between Us is an Ancient Book - Abigail Porgrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer
Haredi Women in the Arts in the Digital Age: Contradictions and Paradoxes of a 21st-Century Phenomenon – Jessica Roda (UC Los Angeles)
Have you had a glimpse of the mesmerizing music videos of ultra-Orthodox women celebrities, Bracha Jaffe and Devorah Schwartz, captivating over half a million viewers on YouTube, or the myriad of films and Yiddish plays crafted by Hasidic girls in Montreal and New York? Probably not. This enduring lack of awareness persists because these spaces intentionally remain veiled in secrecy and privacy, and the prevailing image, as portrayed in productions like Netflix’s Unorthodox, perpetuates the notion of the Hasidic woman as uncreative and subservient to male authority.
Continue Reading Haredi Women in the Arts in the Digital Age: Contradictions and Paradoxes of a 21st-Century Phenomenon – Jessica Roda (UC Los Angeles)
Modern Permutations of an Ancient Antisemitic Myth: The Blood Libel during the Holocaust (UC Berkeley)
This talk traces the endurance and permutation of the traditional ritual murder accusation against Jews during World War II, in particular in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union. It examines the ways in which Nazi propaganda exploited the blood libel theme in conjunction with the myth of Judeo-Bolshevism in the midst of genocide as well as in its aftermath. By examining new archival material and press reports, this talk focuses on the ways in which the blood libel accusation became secularized.
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As the Dust of Earth: The Literature of Abandonment in Revolutionary Russia and Ukraine (UC San Diego)
“As the Dust of the Earth: The Literature of Abandonment in Revolutionary Russia and Ukraine” is about poetry and catastrophe, violence and relief work, artistic literature and documentation, injury and care. I discuss these topics through the lens of the Jewish concept of “hefker,” originating in property law, where it refers to objects that are ownerless and up for grabs.
All Consuming: Germans, Jews, and the Meaning of Meat (UC Berkeley)
In Judaism, meat is of paramount importance as it constitutes the very focal point of the dietary laws. With an intricate set of codified regulations concerning forbidden and permissible meats, highly prescribed methods of killing, and elaborate rules governing consumption, meat is one of the most visible, and gustatory, markers of Jewish distinctness and social separation.
Transnational Visions: Israeli Discourse on Cinema (UC Berkeley)
Israelis never hesitated to elaborate ideas, fantasies, critiques, and obsessions about their cinema and its place in the world. Well before a financially viable industry emerged in the late 1960s, filmmakers, government functionaries, critics, journalists, and cinephiles produced passionate essays and took part in heated debates about moving images.
No Place on Earth – Film Screening (UC Los Angeles)
While mapping out the largest cave system in Ukraine, explorer and investigator Chris Nicola discovers evidence that five Jewish families spent nearly a year and a half in the pitch-black caves to escape the Nazis. This is the story of the longest uninterrupted underground survival in recorded human history.
Sunday, April 6, 2025 • James Bridges Theater • 2 PM
No Place on Earth
The Barbara Roisman Cooper and Martin Cooper Jewish Film Series