adult education

Fall Adult Education Classes with Lehrhaus Judaica

In cooperation with Temple Sinai of Oakland and Lehrhaus Judaica, Beth El sponsors a year-long Introduction to Judaism class. This series is open to everyone, whether you are just learning about Judaism, seeking an adult level survey of core Jewish ideas and practices or considering conversion. Rabbi Ruth Adar is teaching the class this year and students can begin at any of the three sections.

This three-part course will equip students to engage with Jewish life and Jewish institutions. The course will follow the course of the Jewish year, preparing students for the holidays shortly before they occur. Students will explore not only intellectually but experientially: we will visit Jewish institutions, study with panels of local rabbis, and have many opportunities to experience Jewish life in the East Bay first hand.

Jews express our faith more by "doing" than by "believing." Jewish lifecycle celebrations and rituals express the relationship of the Jew to the world, and Jewish understandings of the Holy. This course will explore Jewish concepts of God and the world as they are expressed through the experiences of Jewish lifecycle events.

Dates: Wednesdays, Oct. 14 to Dec. 9

Time: 7:30pm at Beth El

As the Jews travel through history, we have recorded our experiences in various texts: Bible, Midrash, Mishnah, Talmud, Codes, and Responsa literature, and the Prayer Book, which Jacob Petuchowski, a scholar of Jewish liturgy, has described as "the diary of the Jewish people." This course will begin with an overview of Jewish history, followed by an examination of how those texts illuminate Jewish life in the past, as well as in the present day. The class will culminate in a study of the Haggadah, the "script" of the seder, and a model seder.

Begins Jan. 6, 2010 at Temple Sinai in Oakland

Who is a Jew? Who are the Jews? We will explore these questions by looking at Jewish life from many different angles: kashrut, Israel, the Movements of Judaism (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionism, Renewal), Jewish institutions, and the relationship of Judaism and its sister religions, Christianity and Islam.

Begins March 17, 2010 at Temple Sinai in Oakland

Tuition: all three 8 week sessions - $240; $195/members

each individual 8 wk session - $95; $80/members  

From the ghetto to the mellah to the shtetl to South Florida, Jewish communities have been characterized by unique spatial patterns. This class will first introduce the institutions, laws, and customs that structure Jewish space. Then we will explore how these ideas are realized in specific places from Babylon to the Bay Area.

Greg Newmark worked as a transportation planner for many years in the US and Israel before returning to graduate school. He holds a master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and is currently pursuing a doctorate at UC Berkeley. He likes to combine his interests in cities and Judaism.

The Talmud is a profoundly rich compilation of wisdom that has continued relevance to our contemporary search for meaning. It addresses eternal questions of ethics, human nature and our relationship to the Divine. Through its way of constructing arguments, the Talmud also teaches that there are many different ways of arriving at the truth. This class will provide a very user-friendly, spiritually-infused exploration of this classic of Jewish literature. Texts will be studied in English, with brief reference to Hebrew terms. Please join us as we enter into an ongoing conversation with the great sages of the Jewish tradition.

Rabbi Carol Caine was ordained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and also received the private smicha of Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi. She serves as visiting rabbi for B'nai Haaretz in Garberville, regular meditation service leader for Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, regular adult education instructor for Lehrhaus Judaica, and rabbi, workshop leader, and ritual facilitator, for congregations and individuals in the Bay Area and beyond. A former attorney with over fifteen years experience teaching Jewish chant and meditation, Rabbi Carol integrates a keen intellect with the heart-opening directness of contemplative work.

It’s the two levels of writing—one visible, one invisible—that fascinate me most... There’s a mystery there, a clue, a nut, a bolt, and if I put it together, I find me. Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak has written or illustrated more than 100 books in his 60-year career, including Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There, which have inspired generations of children. Born in Brooklyn to poor Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Sendak infuses his books with hidden stories and personal secrets that reflect his own childhood experiences, the memories of his parents’ lives in Europe, and the sadness and complexities of the Holocaust suffered by his relatives.

In conjunction with the exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak, this class will help unravel some of the mysteries in the work of this master storyteller by exploring the intensely personal undercurrents in his life and work through visual presentations and discussion.

Sheila Braufman has been lecturing and teaching throughout the Bay Area on the rich visual heritage of the Jewish people for over 25 years. She is an independent curator and museum consultant who was the Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley for 17 years. She has worked at the Mexican Museum in San Francisco, and most recently curated a permanent exhibition on immigration for the San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City.

For individuals with little or no knowledge of the Hebrew alphabet, grammar or vocabulary.

Required text: Hebrew from Scratch ($42.41, including tax) available for sale at Afikomen Judaica, 3042 Claremont Ave. Berkeley. (510) 655-1977 www.afikomen.com. Please purchase the book before the first class session.

Ilan Vitemberg has been working with children, teens and adults both as a formal and informal teacher. Currently he is the director of the Diller Teen Fellows program and a Teen Program Consultant at the Bureau of Jewish Education in San Francisco.

For individuals who can read and write, but have little or no knowledge of Hebrew vocabulary and grammar. Learn to create simple sentences, verbally and in writing.

Required text: Hebrew from Scratch ($42.41, including tax) available for sale at Afikomen Judaica, 3042 Claremont Ave. Berkeley. (510) 655-1977 www.afikomen.com.

Please purchase the book before the first class session

Avishai Pearlson is a kibbutz native from the Northern Galilee. Avishai has been an educator and Hebrew teacher of children, youth, and adults for many years. Passionate about Israeli culture and songs, Avishai is also a master of Middle Eastern cuisine.

For individuals with some knowledge of Hebrew vocabulary and grammar. Students learn to read and understand short texts, improve their listening comprehension, expand their vocabulary and increase their speaking ability.

Required text: Hebrew from Scratch ($42.41, including tax) available for sale at Afikomen Judaica, 3042 Claremont Ave. Berkeley. (510) 655-1977 www.afikomen.com. Please purchase the book before the first class session.

Avishai Pearlson is a kibbutz native from the Northern Galilee. Avishai has been an educator and Hebrew teacher of children, youth, and adults for many years. Passionate about Israeli culture and songs, Avishai is also a master of Middle Eastern cuisine.

Using the latest in digital instruction technology, this class introduces students to all the basic elements of Prayerbook Hebrew: the alphabet, vowels, vocabulary, sight-reading skills, and basic grammar. We'll learn some of the key prayerbook melodies and discuss the meaning of the prayers. What's more important, we make it fun! You'll learn in a relaxed atmosphere at a comfortable pace on a Sunday evening. In-class instruction will include group practice with CD-ROM software (digitally projected on a large screen) that speeds the learning process.

Although this course concentrates on prayerbook and Biblical texts, it also provides a strong grammatical basis and some of the vocabulary for modern Israeli Hebrew.

Prerequisite: None

Required text: Prayerbook Hebrew the Easy Way ($27.13, including tax) available for sale at Afikomen Judaica, 3042 Claremont Ave. Berkeley. (510) 655-1977 www.afikomen.com. Please purchase the book before the first class session.

Co-sponsored by Lehrhaus Judaica and Congregation Netivot Shalom

Jehon Grist, Ph.D., is Executive Director of Lehrhaus Judaica. He earned his doctorate in Near Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley, where he was a Regents' Fellow. He has conducted field research in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the Valley of the Queens in southern Egypt.

The fourth semester of the introductory sequence of Biblical Hebrew grammar, this course covers the more complex features of the language, and introduces students to the process of translating and analyzing texts found in the Hebrew Bible. Our focus will be completing our text, Prayerbook Hebrew the Easy Way, but we will also translate brief biblical passages to develop reading and comprehension skills. This course will also benefit students seeking to brush up on established biblical grammar and reading skills in preparation for more advanced work.

Prerequisite: Lehrhaus Judaica’s Beginning Prayerbook/Biblical Hebrew 1A-1B and 2A, or equivalent

Co-sponsored by Lehrhaus Judaica and Congregation Netivot Shalom

Jehon Grist, Ph.D., is Executive Director of Lehrhaus Judaica. He earned his doctorate in Near Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley, where he was a Regents' Fellow. He has conducted field research in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the Valley of the Queens in southern Egypt.

The third and fourth chapters of Genesis offer a masterpiece of human insight as we lose the Garden of Eden and discover the consequences of new and hard knowledge, including the first murder. Our class will begin by exploring the background to one of the Bible's more ancient texts (ascribed to the "J" source), including its debt to earlier Mesopotamian literature.

In class, we will use Bibleworks, the latest in digital Biblical Hebrew research technology. The passages we will translate will be compared in their Hebrew, Septuagint Greek and Latin Vulgate versions, all projected on a large screen in digital video.

Jehon Grist, Ph.D., is Executive Director of Lehrhaus Judaica. He earned his doctorate in Near Eastern Studies from UC Berkeley, where he was a Regents' Fellow. He has conducted field research in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the Valley of the Queens in southern Egypt.