How does trauma live in our bodies—and how might we begin to release it? Using My Grandmother’s Hands as our guide, this class explores the legacy of racialized trauma through a Jewish lens, weaving Resmaa Menakem’s insights with wisdom from our own tradition.

What can a silver Hanukkah lamp and a bronze medal reveal about Jewish women’s power, defiance, and survival? In this class, we’ll explore two extraordinary objects from the MFA’s Judaica collection as historical texts. With curator Simona Di Nepi as our guide, we’ll uncover the layered histories, identities, and acts of resistance embedded in these striking works of art.

In the mystical teachings of Kabbalah, the line between divine and demonic blurs. Demons aren’t just lurking in the shadows—they're active forces shaping reality. This session explores how Kabbalists and folk traditions understood and interacted with these powers, revealing a spiritually charged cosmos where good and evil intertwine.

We will wrap up our time together with a comparative look at recipes from divergent corners of the global dispersion of the Sephardic Jews after 1492. Through an exploration of Ladino music and proverbs as well as our own culinary experimentation, we will discuss how specific flavors and dishes come to be understood as quintessential Sephardic cuisine in the modern period.

Sefardi Jews have long used amulets and plants as tools for spiritual protection, adapting these practices across centuries of diaspora life. This class explores folk rituals involving materials like Algerian coral, Turkish rue, and symbolic foods, all used to ward off the evil eye and cultivate safety. We’ll also look at how natural elements like water and the ocean are invoked in Sefardi protective traditions, revealing deep connections between ritual, resilience, and place.

What happens when a centuries-old Yiddish folk song meets a synthesizer? How can a dusty archival recording become the heart of a dancefloor banger? What stories can we tell by blending the old with the new? Come make Kleztronica in this interactive workshop! We’ll dive into how musicians use archival recordings of Yiddish traditional music to create electronic dance music. No production experience necessary—just a desire to explore!

Tisha b'Av (the 9th of Av) is a specific date on the calendar, and a vessel for grief spanning past, present, and future. The haunting words of Eicha, Lamentations, are rooted in the specific tragedy of this date, and point to suffering and grief held across generations. Together, we will explore early rabbinic, medieval, and modern responses to Tisha b'Av, its canonical text, and its application for our own processes of grief.

Opening the day with mindfulness can change everything, helping us live our lives with more clarity, kindness, and ease. Join us Friday mornings as we open our doors early and practice together.

Since its thunderous arrival on Broadway in 1993, Tony Kushner’s seven-hour epic Angels in America has received worldwide acclaim for its progressive political vision and loving-but-conflicted portrait of Jewish-American ethnic identity. This three-part class will focus on a less-discussed but equally central element of the play: Kushner’s persistent usage of Jewish religious imagery to structure its action and meaning.

In the first session, we’ll learn about Kushner’s Jewish upbringing in Lake Charles, LA and see how questions of faith and doubt have trailed him into adulthood.

Join the Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center (JHC) at Lehrhaus to celebrate Tu B’Av, the ancient Jewish holiday of love, connection, and new beginnings. Join us any time between 7 and 9 p.m. for crafting, but come by 7 p.m. to learn more about Tu B’Av and the role of archives in recording and celebrating special moments in the Jewish calendar.

Herbal tea has long been a beloved source of nourishment, healing, and spiritual grounding in Jewish communities around the world. In this class, we’ll explore traditional Jewish teas and the rituals, remedies, and Psalms that have accompanied them—from digestion aids to protective brews. Come steep yourself in the wisdom of Jewish herbal practice.

How do Jewish women respond to and shape their traditions through text? Drawing from a variety of poems composed by Jewish women in the 20th and 21st centuries, we will explore the Torah of Jewish women's lived experiences in their own words. This event is supported by the Jewish Women's Archive.

Join two local Jewish farmers, Anna and Noah, as they share their journey cultivating the ancient Quishuim (cucumber melon), a fruit once grown by Mizrahi Jewish communities and now revived through the Jewish Seed Project. Through text study, reflection, and hands-on interaction with plants and fruits, they will facilitate an open space for exploring this question. Come ready to taste new fruits, new ideas and new connections.

The Sefat Emet—Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter, a 19th-century Hasidic master—often wove together mystical and midrashic (interpretive) traditions to uncover the sensory, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of Torah. In this class, we’ll explore the Sefat Emet’s evocative claim that “every creature can sense the fragrance of Torah.” Feel free to bring a favorite fragrant spice, flower, or perfume. This class aims to be accessible to all learners, regardless of background or prior knowledge!

Parshat Ve’etchanan contains some of the most iconic passages in the Torah—including Moses’ retelling of the Ten Commandments and the Shema. As Moses continues his final address to the Israelites, he revisits earlier moments with new urgency and emotion, inviting us to hear the familiar in a different key. And yet, for all its poetry, the parsha delivers precious little new information. What do we do with passages of Torah that loop back in on themselves? What can we glean when we feel we already know what is going on? How can the familiar surprise us? We will discuss these questions while looking in depth at the first few aliyot of the parsha. No prior experience needed!

Opening the day with mindfulness can change everything, helping us live our lives with more clarity, kindness, and ease. Join us Friday mornings as we open our doors early and practice together.

Since its thunderous arrival on Broadway in 1993, Tony Kushner’s seven-hour epic Angels in America has received worldwide acclaim for its progressive political vision and loving-but-conflicted portrait of Jewish-American ethnic identity. This three-part class will focus on a less-discussed but equally central element of the play: Kushner’s persistent usage of Jewish religious imagery to structure its action and meaning.

In the second session, we’ll examine Louis and Prior’s complex bedroom discussion of justice, God, and the Afterlife in Act I, Scene 8. How is Kushner both celebrating Talmudic modes of study here and showing their limits? Is Louis’s contention that “Justice is God” Jewishly-informed and theologically profound, or just a way, as Prior says, to “get off scot-free?”

How might your Jewish ancestry be shaping the way you’re reacting to this moment? In this supportive workshop, we’ll explore the impact of October 7th, rising antisemitism, and inherited trauma—and begin to reconnect with our bodies as a source of grounding, clarity, and resilience.

Glikl bas Leib (1646-1724) was an early modern Jewish woman who wrote seven “little books” over the years following her husband’s tragic death. While these books defy genre expectations and were creative and therapeutic endeavors, they were intended to be read by her children, as a type of ethical will. While we live In an age where so much data and information is preserved for posterity, Glikl’s memoirs prompt us all to consider which stories and ideas and values we want to transmit intentionally to future generations.

In this class on music of the Yiddish world, we will explore the cultural relationship between religious and secular music within historic Ashkenazy communities of Eastern Europe. We will examine the aspects and components of both religious and secular music, as well as non-Jewish music, to highlight their similarities and differences. Through historic recordings of singers and instrumentalists, the class will highlight various musical repertoires, from the synagogue to the Yiddish stage, to reveal the rich and diverse melting pot that creates what is known as Yiddish music. No ability to read music is necessary (but it wouldn’t hurt!). 

Advancements in reproductive medicine—like egg donation, sperm donation, and gestational surrogacy—have made it possible to build families in once-unimaginable ways. But these technologies raise complex halachic questions, especially around the Jewish status of children born through third-party reproduction. This class explores how rabbinic authorities navigate these challenges using key Talmudic texts and halachic principles.

Opening the day with mindfulness can change everything, helping us live our lives with more clarity, kindness, and ease. Join us Friday mornings as we open our doors early and practice together.

Since its thunderous arrival on Broadway in 1993, Tony Kushner’s seven-hour epic Angels in America has received worldwide acclaim for its progressive political vision and loving-but-conflicted portrait of Jewish-American ethnic identity. This three-part class will focus on a less-discussed but equally central element of the play: Kushner’s persistent usage of Jewish religious imagery to structure its action and meaning. As we delve together into scenes (and watch famous clips of them in performance) where such concepts are on display, students will be invited to see Angels as a work of surprising theological heft and Kushner himself as a formidable spiritual thinker.

In the third session, we’ll look closely at Prior’s hallucination in the nurse’s office (Act III, Scene 2), Harper’s Antarctic escape (Act III, Scene 3), and the Angel’s final words, all of which Kushner inflects with inventive Jewish mystical imagery.

What would a truly just and livable Jewish city look like? In this hands-on workshop, we’ll explore that question by engaging with traditional Jewish texts—from discussions of city planning to halachic principles about fairness, access, and communal responsibility—and applying them to the urgent challenges facing our communities today.

Join us for a heartfelt musical journey through the timeless songs of Arik Einstein, one of Israel’s most beloved and iconic artists. Known as “the voice of Israel”, Arik’s music shaped the cultural landscape of a nation—capturing joy, nostalgia, love, and the quiet beauty of everyday life. Whether you grew up on his gentle melodies or are discovering them for the first time, this evening is a chance to experience the soul of Israeli music through classic hits, personal stories, and lyrical moments that transcend language.

What is a "queer reading" of a text, anyway? Can you do a queer reading of Jewish texts, like...the Torah? (Spoiler alert: yes-- and there are many reasons you might!) In this interactive workshop, we will explore the whys and hows of different strategies for learning Torah through an LGBTQ+ lens.

As the summer winds down and we prepare literal or proverbial backpacks, what does Jewish tradition offer us at this threshold of new beginnings? Whether or not you or someone you love is going back to school, this interactive, text-based session, is for you to explore how Jewish wisdom—from ancient to modern voices—can help anyone approach the year with intention, meaning, and heart.

What happens when desire, power, and vulnerability collide in a rabbinic story? In this class, we’ll dive into the provocative tale of “Libertina” (Heruta) and Rabbi Hiyya from the Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 81b) with the help of Ruth Calderon's interpretation in A Bride for One Night, and draw on the insights of modern sex and couples therapist Esther Perel to explore questions of intimacy, control, and moral self-image.

Abraham Rathom and M. Mani were two Jewish composers working in Amsterdam in the 18th century. Although their music has been preserved in manuscripts, we know next to nothing about their lives. Come to experience this music, some of which probably has not been performed in over a century, with a historically informed ensemble of local singers and instrumentalists.

Did you know the Talmud calls dreams 1/60 of prophecy? In Torah, we meet dreamers who receive blessing and prophetic insight through dreams. In Kabbalah, dreams are considered to be journeys of the soul. We'll explore these texts together, as well as how we might connect more with our dreams in an intentional way. This class will be a mix of practice & study and is open to all.