September 14, 2022
November 2, 2022
November 30, 2022
February 2, 2022
via ZoomMarch 2, 2022
March 30, 2022
April 27, 2022
October 13, 2021
November 10, 2021
December 1, 2021
February 17, 2021
March 10, 2021
March 17, 2021
April 14, 2021
The Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on the American Jewish Community: Using Data to Inform Policy
October 7, 2020
October 28, 2020
A special opportunity to hear from Professor Whitfield about his new book
Stephen Whitfield in conversation with Joyce Antler, Brandeis American Studies Program
November 18, 2020
March 18 - Cancelled
Expanding Their Place in the Torah: Models of Women's Religious LeadershipApril 29
Zoom session
Those Who Can, Teach: Preparing Teachers for Jewish Day Schools in the 21st Century
May 13
Zoom session
What We’ve Learned about Jewish Grandparenting in Interfaith Families
October 30
We’ll Cross that Bridge When We Come to It: Life Stage and the Needs of Interfaith Couples
Fern Chertok, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
Moderator: Jonathan B. Krasner
November 20
What Can We Learn from American Jewish Involvement in the 20th c. Mexican Cultural Renaissance?
Dalia Wassner, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute
Moderator: Mark Rosen
December 4
Who Do We Want People to Become through Jewish Education?
Bill Robinson, Visiting Scholar, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
Moderator: Avi Bernstein-Nahar, Director
January 16
Honoring Our Founding Values at Brandeis: A CJL Conversation
President Liebowitz created a Task Force on Honoring Our Founding Values at Brandeis. In this special session, we invited the CJL community to an open conversation of several of the key questions that the task force was considering.
February 13
Before Wild Things: Maurice Sendak and the Postwar Jewish American Child as Queer Insider-Outsider
Golan Moskowitz, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute
Moderator: Jonathan Krasner, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
March 27
Next Year in Jerusalem in Contemporary American Haggadot
Jonathan Sarna, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies and Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies (NEJS)
Moderator: Susanne Shavelson, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
How Many Jews? The American Jewish Community in 2018
Len Saxe, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
Moderator: Stephanie Sanger-Miller, Brandeis Hillel
The Pursuit of Jewish Literacy in Jewish Education
Jon A. Levisohn, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and NEJS
Moderator: Yehudah Mirsky, NEJS
October 17
Re-examining Relevance in the Jewish Studies Classroom
Ziva Hassenfeld, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
Moderator: Matt Boxer, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
November 7
Jewish Identity: Shaping the Future Together at Brandeis
Barry Shrage, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
Moderator: Jon Levisohn, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
December 5
Crazy Rich Haredim: Religion, Money, and Love in Israeli Television
Shayna Weiss, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
Moderator: Marci Borenstein, Office of Precollege Programs
February 1
Beyond Ten Days: The Long-Term Impact of Birthright Israel
Leonard Saxe, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
Moderator: Sharon Feiman Nemser, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
February 28
Hebrew, Jewish Overnight Camps, and the Summer Shlichim Program
Jonathan Krasner, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
Sharon Avni, City University of New York
Moderator: Joe Reimer, Education Program and Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
March 7
Whence Orthodox Feminism? Cognitive Dissonance Theory and Religious Change in the United States
Michelle Shain, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
Moderator: Ziva R. Hassenfeld, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
March 21
Join Our Family: A Halakhic Conversion Policy for Our Time
Zvi Zohar, Bar-Ilan University
Moderator: David Ellenson, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
May 9
American Christian Zionism: Beyond the Bible
Walker Robins, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
October 4
Studying Contemporary Jewish Life: the Brandeis Agenda for 2017–2018
David Ellenson, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (HBI)
Jon A. Levisohn, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
Len Saxe, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
October 25
How Jewish Law Changes: The Case of Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Benjamin Samuels, Cong. Shaarei Tefillah
Moderator: Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, HBI
December 6
Pursuing Fluency in Tanakh: An Intervention Study in a Seventh Grade Classroom
Ziva Reimer Hassenfeld, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
January 19
Special event – The 2016 Presidential Election and the Jewish Community: A Brandeis Conversation
For the Jewish community, the election raised a particular set of questions, around anti-Semitism and the rise of the alt-right, around minority and immigrant rights, around domestic and foreign policy including Israel and the middle east, and most fundamentally, around the health of our democratic institutions and our democratic culture.
Many of these questions are also the focus of other conversations, as they should be. But this event provided a space for the Brandeis Jewish community, in particular, as well as friends and colleagues from outside the Jewish community.
January 25
Part of the “How Contemporary Jews Read Texts” series.
Richard Silberman, Office of the Provost: “How Postmodern Jewish Adults Deconstruct Torah”
February 8
Part of the “How Contemporary Jews Read Texts” series.
Elyse Winick, Combined Jewish Philanthropies: “Five Kinds of Lizards: Opening Traditional Text to the Nontraditional”
Ariel Pardo, Brandeis Hillel: “How Young Contemporary Jews Study in the Brandeis Beis Medrash”
Moderator: Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education and NEJS
March 22
236 Autobiographies of Life in Germany Before & After 1933
Eugene Sheppard, NEJS
Moderator: Rachel Fish, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
May 3
What We Now Know about the Jews of Boston
Len Saxe, Janet Aronson, and Matt Boxer, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
Moderator: Ellen Smith, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
October 26
Part of the “How Contemporary Jews Read Texts” series.
Iddo Haklai, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies (NEJS) and Schusterman Center for Israel Studies: How Contemporary Secular Israelis Read Texts
Diane Tickton Schuster, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education: How American Jewish Adults Read Texts
November 30
Part of the “How Contemporary Jews Read Texts” series.
Ronit Ir-Shai, Rikki Shapira and Avishalom Westreich, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute: The Intersection of Religious Law, Family and Gender in Israel Today
This special CJL session was hosted by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.
December 14
Part of the “How Contemporary Jews Read Texts” series.
Charlie Schwartz, Precollege Programs: “How American Jewish Adolescents Read Texts”
Ziva Reimer Hassenfeld, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education: “How American Jewish Schoolchildren Read Texts”
January 27
Learning to do Shabbat at Camp
Joseph Reimer, Education and Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Programs
Moderator: Jon A. Levisohn, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
February 24
A National Study of Chabad on Campus: Preliminary Findings
Mark Rosen, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
Discussants: Elyse Winick, Brandeis Hillel; Peretz Chein, Chabad of Brandeis
April 6
Race, Religion, Food and Community: Doing Public History in Mattapan, MA
Sara Shostak, Sociology
Moderator: Ellen Smith, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
May 4
Orthodoxies Then and Now: What the Controversies in the 1860s Tell Us about the Controversies Today
David Ellenson, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
September 30
Critical Connections: How Families and Social Circles Shape American Jewish Individuals and Societies
Sylvia Barack Fishman, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies (NEJS) and Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (HBI)
Moderator: Jon A. Levisohn, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education
October 28
Millennial Children of Intermarriage: Touchpoints and Trajectories
Fern Chertok, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
Introductory remarks: Len Saxe, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies
December 9
Making Sense of Contemporary Israeli Culture: A Look Back at the Last 30 Years of Literature, Television and Film
Ari Ofengenden, NEJS and Hebrew Program
Moderator: Rachel Fish, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
February 25
Encounters with Anti-Semitism: Jewish Feminists and the Feminist Movement
Joyce Antler, American Studies
March 25
Jews Who Choose for Twos: Exploring the Demographic of Families with Young Children
Mark Rosen, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program
April 15
On the Origins and Persistence of the Jewish Identity Industry in Jewish Education
Celebrating Jonathan Krasner’s Appointment to the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Chair in Jewish Education Research
October 22
Why Rav Kook Still Matters — and in America, Too
Yehudah Mirsky, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
November 5
The Government of Israel-World Jewry Joint Initiative: A Perspective from the Jewish Agency
Alan Hoffman, Director General, The Jewish Agency for Israel
December 3
Israel, Gaza and Contemporary Jewish Life
Elyse Winick, Brandeis Chaplaincy
Ilan Troen, Schusterman Center for Israel Studies
Len Saxe, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies