Learning

Course Offerings, Fall 2018

Courses are open to members and non-members alike, unlike otherwise specified. Courses strive to be accessible to learners at multiple levels of experience, even while some specify that they are geared to learners at a particular level. Come and learn!

Hebrew Reading Crash Course, Level II
Five Monday evenings, beginning November 19, 8:00-9:30 PM.

Learn to follow along with prayers in the siddur, practicing speed, with recognizing and understanding common words and phrases.

Taught by Meggie Kwait, faculty at Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan.

Hosted in the teacher's home. Please register for address of first session.
Suggested donation: $18-36 for the series. All are welcome, no one turned away for lack of donation.
Pre-Registration required via this form, click or tap here.

How to Give a Devar Torah
Four weeknights: Tue Nov 20, Tue Nov 27, Mon Dec 3, Mon Dec 10 -- 8:00-9:30 PM

Sharing words of Torah is a beautiful responsibility and a gift to the community. You, yes you, have valuable Torah to teach. This course will guide you through the process with the support of classmates. Each participant will deliver their Devar Torah to the congregation on a Shabbat in the winter! Whether you're relatively new to Jewish learning or have long experience with Jewish source texts, everyone can benefit from practicing the specific skills of writing and delivering a strong Devar Torah. RSVP and commitment to at least 3 of 4 sessions is required. Open to FTJC members only.

Led by FTJC member Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who also serves as executive director of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and is a speaker in high demand at synagogues, conferences, and rabbinic gatherings across the country. Participants will be assisted as well by Blair Nosanwisch and Leora Kling Perkins, rabbinical students at JTS.

Hosted in participants’ homes. Please register for address of first session.
Suggested donation: $18-36 for the series. All are welcome, no one turned away for lack of donation.
Pre-Registration requested via this form, click or tap here.

How to Lein from the Torah
Three Wednesdays beginning December 12, 8:00-9:30 PM

Ready to learn how to chant publicly from the Torah! Whether you're new to Torah cantillation or haven't done it in a while and want a refresher, this is for you. In a supportive group setting, learners will explore topics including: how trope functions as punctuation and interpretation; sounds and pausal lengths of different trope marks; strategies for memorizing; using the voice for drama -- and lots of practice!  Each learner will learn the first aliyah of an upcoming parashah and lein it at FTJC. Only prerequisite is ability to read and pronounce Hebrew with accuracy.

Led by FTJC members Maddie Richer and Jamie Weisbach.

Hosted in participants’ homes. Please register for address of first session.
Suggested donation: $18-36 for the series. All are welcome, no one turned away for lack of donation.
Pre-Registration required via this form, click or tap here.

Tel-Aviv Talmud III: Modern Midrash by Israeli Women 
Four Thursday evenings: Nov 29, Dec 6, Dec 13, Dec 20 -- 8:00-9:30 PM

The book Dirshuni ("Interpret Me") arrived with a clamor, featuring 90 interpretations of Torah written in the allusive, concise, poetic, playful form of classical rabbinic midrash (expansions and interpretations based on close readings of biblical text). It featured work by 37 Israeli women from a wide range of backgrounds, all learned in Torah, exploring issues such as divorce, conversion, women's religious roles, sexuality and fertility, prayer, the stories of women in the Bible, and more. In this class, we'll delve into selected midrashim in the original Hebrew (with English translation available) in dialogue with classical source-texts to which they relate and the concerns that animate them.

Led by FTJC's Rabbi Guy Austrian, this course is part of our occasional series, "Tel-Aviv Talmud" exploring contemporary approaches to rabbinic texts by Israelis at the intersections of secular and religious life, often through lenses of gender, literature, and psychology.

LOCATION TBD. Please register for address of first session.
Suggested donation: $18-36 for the series. All are welcome, no one turned away for lack of donation.
Pre-Registration requested via this form, please click or tap here.

Coming this Winter...

The World of Isaac Bashevis Singer
Four sessions beginning in late January, details TBD.

Women dressing as men to study Torah, geese that shriek inexplicably, people possessed by dybbuks and demons, Hitler seen in a cafeteria on Broadway... This is the world of I. B. Singer, one of the greatest Jewish writers of all time and the only Yiddish writer to win a Nobel Prize (1978). Many of his stories depict a world that is no longer here yet he does so in a profoundly modern way. We shall look at a mix of memoir and short stories

Led by FTJC member Sheva Zucker, author of the textbooks Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature & Culture, Vols. I & II, and currently academic director of the Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture, under the auspices of Bard College and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City.

Hosted in participants’ homes. Please register for address of first session.
Suggested donation: $18-36 for the series. All are welcome, no one turned away for lack of donation.
Pre-Registration requested, link to come soon.

More Learning Opportunities?
If you have ideas about something you want to learn, and you have a hunch that you could pull together a group of others who want to learn it too, e-mail Rabbi Guy Austrian and let's talk about it.