Orthodox Feminism a Conversation with Rabbi Lila Kagedan

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Orthodox Feminism a Conversation with Rabbi Lila Kagedan 742 Main Street, Amherst, MA 01002 413.256.0160 ~ www. jcamherst.org presents Orthodox Feminism A conversation with Rabbi Lila Kagedan Sunday, December 2 • 1 – 3 pm Rabbi Lila kagedan is the first Orthodox woman to adopt the title of rabbi, having received her ordination in 2015 from Yeshivat Maharat, the Orthodox women’s religious training program in Riverdale, NY, founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss. She deliberately chose the traditional title over the coinage “rabba,” the recent term-of- art applied to Orthodox women in rabbinic roles. We are honored to welcome her to the JCA for a public conversation with Rabbi Weiner, in which they will discuss her professional and spiritual journey, the achievements and challenges of her trailblazing path, changes and variations in the roles for women in modern Jewish orthodoxy, and other aspects of her remarkably diverse and accomplished work. Rabbi Lila Kagedan is a dual Canadian and American citizen, and holds degrees and certificates from Midreshet Lindenbaum, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Toronto, Harvard University, the Medstar Washington Hospital Center and Massachusetts General Hospital and is a Shalom Hartman Institute RLI fellow. She is also a Hadassah Brandeis Institute-Gender, Culture, Religion and Law Research Associate. After ordination in early 2016 she assumed a post at the New Jersey Orthodox synagogue Mount Freedom Jewish Center. She is now the senior rabbi at the Walnut Street Synagogue in Chelsea, Massachusetts. She is also the founder of the Sulam School in Brookline. Rabbi Kagedan is an instructor of bioethics at New York Medical College and is a clinical ethicist as well as a chaplain in hospitals and hospices. She is currently studying for a Yadin Yadin smicha. No registration needed. Please bring a non-perishable food item to be donated to the Survival Center as part of the JCA Perpetual Food Drive. .
Recommended publications
  • Annual Report 2012
    SHaloM HartMan Institute 2 012 ANNUAL REPORT תשעב - תשעג SHaloM HartMan Institute 2 012 ANNUAL REPORT ANNUAL REPORT 2 012 Developing Transformative Ideas: Kogod Research Center for Contemporary Jewish Thought 11 Research Teams 12 Center Fellows 14 iEngage: The Engaging Israel Project at the Shalom Hartman Institute 15 Beit Midrash Leadership Programs 19 Department of Publications 20 Annual Conferences 23 Public Study Opportunities 25 Strengthening Israeli-Jewish Identity: Center for Israeli-Jewish Identity 27 Be’eri Program for Jewish-Israeli Identity Education 28 Lev Aharon Program for Senior Army Officers 31 Model Orthodox High Schools 32 Hartman Conference for a Jewish-Democratic Israel 34 Improving North American Judaism Through Ideas: Shalom Hartman Institute of North America 37 Horizontal Approach: National Cohorts 39 Vertical Regional Presence: The City Model 43 SHI North America Methodology: Collaboration 46 The Hartman Community 47 Financials 2012 48 Board of Directors 50 ] From the President As I look back at 2012, I can do so only through the prism of my father’s illness and subsequent death in February 2013. The death of a founder can create many challenges for an institution. Given my father’s protracted illness, the Institute went through a leadership transition many years ago, and so the general state of the Institute is strong. Our programs in Israel and in North America are widely recognized as innovative and cutting-edge, and both reach and affect more people than ever before; the quality of our faculty and research and ideas instead of crisis and tragedy? are internationally recognized, and they Well, that’s iEngage.
    [Show full text]
  • AEC-Brochure-Fall-2018-WEB Revised 180922
    ADULT EDUCATION FALL 2018 Jewish Community of Amherst 742 Main Street, Amherst, MA 01002 413.256.0160 ~ www. jcamherst.org JCA adult education programs reflect religious, secular, practical, and cultural aspects of Judaism. We hope that you will find something that appeals to you. Register and contribute online at http://bit.ly/jca1819Faec If you prefer to register by mail and contribute via check, please print the registration form at the end of this brochure or pick one up in the JCA lobby. FALL 2018 PROGRAMS AT A GLANCE Lunch anD Learn Israeli Film Series Rabbi Benjamin Weiner Sundays • 2 – 5 pm Wednesdays • 12:15 – 1:15 pm October 21: The Band’s Visit December 9: Zero Motivation SepharDic Civilization Ilan Stavans Greatest Hits of the TalmuD September 25; October 2, 9 Rabbi Devorah Jacobson Tuesdays • 7 – 9 pm October 31; November 7, 14, 28; December 5, 12 Wednesdays • 6:30 – 7:45 pm Prayerbook Hebrew Literacy Janis Levy Creating a Jewish Home October 15 – December 3 facilitated by Melanie Lewis Mondays • 7:00 – 8:30 pm November 4, December 9 Sundays • 10:45 – 11:45 am Meet Me at the Well Book ReaDing Jane Yolen and Barbara Diamond Goldin “A Reason to Remember” Exhibition Tour Sunday, October 14 • 11 am – 12:30 pm Deborah Roth-Howe November 7 • 4 – 5:30 pm • JCA Kesher only Israeli Dancing Randi Stein OrthoDox Feminism October 23, 30; November 13, 20 A conversation with Rabbi Lila Kagedan Tuesdays • 7:00 – 8:30 pm Sunday, December 2 • 1 – 3 pm If you would like to suggest future programming, please contact a member of the Adult Education Committee: Barbara Burkart (chair), Jane Brodwyn, David Glassberg, Diane Gnepp, Phyllis Herda, Jonathan Lewis, Melanie Lewis, Ruth Smith, Linda Terry, Boris Wolfson, Janis Wolkenbreit, Rabbi Benjamin Weiner (ex officio) Lunch and Learn Rabbi Benjamin Weiner Wednesdays • 12:15 – 1:15 pm Now in its seventh year, Lunch and Learn continues its investigation of Halakha, or the tradition of Jewish law.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein Rosh Hashanah 5780/2019 Finding Our Place in the Story It Is Simchat Torah. the Two Boys Are Small E
    Rabbi Stephanie Bernstein Rosh Hashanah 5780/2019 Finding our Place in the Story It is Simchat Torah. The two boys are small enough to stand upright under the Torah scroll as the grownups unroll it over their heads. There is klezmer music playing. People are singing and dancing. As the grownups unroll the Torah, the children help to hold it with the tips of their fingers. “What’s in here? What is all this writing?” asks the boy standing closest to me. I tell him that it is the story of the Jewish people. “Is my name in there?” he asks me. “What’s your name?” I ask him. “My name is Jacob!” I tell him that his name is in the scroll. Jacob’s friend asks: “Is my name in there?” “What’s your name?” I ask him. “My name is Max.” I tell Max that his name is in there, too. Whatever our names, we all want to be part of something that is bigger than ourselves. Meaning comes from belonging to a story1, one that started before we were born and that will exist after we die. We yearn to know that our life has a place in that story.2 As members of Am Yisrael—the People Israel—we belong to such a story. Yet, we live in a time when connecting to a story can be challenging. As Americans, we are heirs to an on-going tension between community and individualism. “Liberation from ossified community bonds,” writes Robert Putnam, “is a recurrent and honored theme in our culture.” 3 We see this in the Pilgrims’ desire to escape the boundaries placed on religious expression in 17th century England.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bayit BULLETIN
    ה׳ד׳ ׳ב׳ ׳ א׳ד׳ט׳ט׳ת׳ד׳ת׳ ׳ ׳ ד׳ר׳ב׳ד׳ ׳ב׳ד׳ ׳ ~ Hebrew Institute of Riverdale The Bayit BULLETIN June 5 - 12, 2015 18 - 25 Sivan 5775 Hebrew Institute of Riverdale - The Bayit Mazal Tov To: 3700 Henry Hudson Parkway Luba & David Teten on the birth of a son. To big sisters Leona, Peri and Sigal. Bronx, NY 10463 Rabbinic Intern Daniel Silverstein on being included in the Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 most www.thebayit.org influential young Jewish Leaders for the year 2015. E-mail: [email protected] This Shabbat @ The Bayit Phone: 718-796-4730 Fax: 718-884-3206 LAST TENT CONNECTIONS AT ABRAHAM & SARAH’S TENT: More info on page 4. R’ Avi Weiss: [email protected]/ x102 KIDDUSH THIS SHABBAT IS SPONSORED BY THE TETEN FAMILY: In honor of R’ Sara Hurwitz: [email protected]/ x107 our new baby boy (Brit on Tuesday morning); Luba’s upcoming June birthday; and the great R’ Steven Exler: [email protected]/ x108 community helping us out with our new addition, especially Aimee & Jonathan Baron; Kathy R’ Ari Hart: [email protected]/ x124 Goldstein & Ahron Rosenfeld; Debra Kobrin & Daniel Levy; Shoshana Bulow; Elana & Bradley Saenger and Frederique & Andy Small. Kiddush SEUDA SHLISHIT: Join us after Mincha for Seuda Shlishit in the Social Hall. Sponsored by the Teten family. The Summer Celebration Kiddush This Sunday, June 7th @ The Bayit will be 6/20/2015. KAVVANAH TEFILLAH | 9:00am: An hour of slower tefillah with Rav Steven To sponsor visit www.thebayit.org/celebration including meditation & song.
    [Show full text]
  • Gender in Jewish Studies
    Gender in Jewish Studies Proceedings of the Sherman Conversations 2017 Volume 13 (2019) GUEST EDITOR Katja Stuerzenhofecker & Renate Smithuis ASSISTANT EDITOR Lawrence Rabone A publication of the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester, United Kingdom. Co-published by © University of Manchester, UK. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this volume may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, the University of Manchester, and the co-publisher, Gorgias Press LLC. All inquiries should be addressed to the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester (email: [email protected]). Co-Published by Gorgias Press LLC 954 River Road Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA Internet: www.gorgiaspress.com Email: [email protected] ISBN 978-1-4632-4056-1 ISSN 1759-1953 This volume is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard for Permanence of paper for Printed Library Materials. Printed in the United States of America Melilah: Manchester Journal of Jewish Studies is distributed electronically free of charge at www.melilahjournal.org Melilah is an interdisciplinary Open Access journal available in both electronic and book form concerned with Jewish law, history, literature, religion, culture and thought in the ancient, medieval and modern eras. Melilah: A Volume of Studies was founded by Edward Robertson and Meir Wallenstein, and published (in Hebrew) by Manchester University Press from 1944 to 1955. Five substantial volumes were produced before the series was discontinued; these are now available online.
    [Show full text]
  • American Jews & Israel
    American Jews & Israel Navigating Our Shared Destiny Featuring Natan Sharansky Sunday, May 17, 2020 10:00am - 5:00pm The J’s Staenberg Family Complex St. Louis premiere! jccstl.com/z3 About the Conference The Z3 Project, an initiative of the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, CA, is committed to creating an ongoing, dynamic forum for opinions and ideas about Diaspora Jewry and Israel. The St. Louis Z3 conference will bring together high-level international and national thought leaders, scholars and journalists to educate and provide our community members an in-depth, nuanced understanding of pressing issues affecting Israel and the relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community. The conference will run as follows: • Opening Presentation • Breakout Session 1 (eight options) • Lunch and Israeli Organization Fair • Breakout Session 2 (same eight options repeated) • Conversation Cafe and Israeli Organization Fair • Closing Presentation $45 includes lunch Students 21 and under $18 Scholarship funds available In order to ensure breakout session and lunch choices, each person must register separately Contact: Diane Maier 314.442.3190, [email protected] Register online! Details at jccstl.com/z3 Opening Presentation - Avraham Infeld Avraham Infeld is the President Emeritus of Hillel – the Foundation for Jewish Campus life. Today, he serves as a consultant on Tikkun Olam to the Reut Institute and is a member of the Faculty of the Mandel Institute. In May 2012, Avraham was elected Chairman of the Board of the Hillels of Israel. In 1970, Avraham founded Melitz, a non-profit educational service institution that fosters Jewish identity. He also served as chairman of Arevim, founding chairman of the San Francisco Federation’s Amuta in Israel, and chairman of the Board of Israel Experience, Ltd.
    [Show full text]
  • Catalog+Electronic+Reduced.Pdf
    CONTENTS Dear Friends, Slavic Studies ……………..……..……… . 2 cademic Studies Press is pleased to present a wide selection of new titles for the scholar Jewish Studies ……………..……...……. 15 A and general reader alike. True to ASP’s mission, the core of our catalog consists of titles in Jewish and Slavic Studies. Highlights include Jewish City or Inferno of Russian Israel? by Linguistics …………………….…...…… 41 Victoria Khiterer, which explores the history of the Jewish community of Kiev from the tenth ASP Open ………………………….…… 42 century to the February 1917 revolution; Watersheds: Poetics and Politics of the Danube River, New in Paperback …………………..….. 43 edited by Marijeta Bozovic and Matthew D. Miller, which comprises multidisciplinary essays using the Danube as a conduit of multidirectional migration and cultural transfers and exchange Selected Backlist …...……………........... 45 and thus, a site of transcultural engagement and instantiation of a global present; and The Image Journals …………………………….…… 49 of Jews in Contemporary China edited by James Ross and Song Lihong, which examines the image of Jews from the contemporary perspective of ordinary Chinese citizens. Series ……………….……………........... 52 Inquires ...…………………….….….……59 We are also pleased to announce the founding of several new series, many of which extend Sales Representation & Distribution …… 60 beyond the fields of Jewish and Slavic Studies. Among these are “Iranian Studies,” edited by Sussan Siavoshi (Trinity University); “Ottoman and Turkish Studies,” edited by Hakan T. Index ……………………………............. 62 Karateke (University of Chicago); “Central Asian Studies,” edited by Timothy May (University of North Georgia); “Evolution, Cognition, and the Arts,” edited by Brian Boyd (University of Auckland); and “Studies in Lexical Science,” edited by Alain Polguère (Université de Lorraine).
    [Show full text]
  • SHI Rabbanic Brochure Usletter.Indd
    SHALOM HARTMAN INSTITUTE Rabbinic Leadership Programs Hartman Rabbinic Leadership Programs Since its inception more than 35 years ago, the Shalom Hartman Institute has made the advancement of rabbinic leadership a core mission. Widely recognized as a leader in pluralistic, intensive, thoughtful, and challenging study, the Institute offers a variety of rabbinic programs universally respected for quality of faculty and depth of Torah study. Rabbis today fulfill many roles simultaneously — spiritual leader, community leader, counselor, teacher, administrator, fundraiser. With so many capacities to fill, rabbis often neglect their own ongoing intellectual and spiritual development and have limited opportunity for mutually beneficial interaction with rabbinic colleagues. Recognizing the crucial role that rabbis play and their need for support and reinvigoration, the Hartman Institute offers structured frameworks for ongoing rabbinic study, enrichment, and thought leadership training. Rabbis studying together in the spiritually and intellectually challenging Hartman rabbinic leadership programs enrich their textual knowledge, broaden the range of ideas they encounter, and deepen their relationship with Israel. Tasked with continually infusing their communities with new energy, Hartman rabbinic programs focus on helping participants to develop their own voices as intellectual and spiritual leaders in the pursuit of becoming ever-more significant agents of change in Jewish life. “ Learning with the team of scholars and thinkers that David Hartman z”l assembled at the Shalom Hartman Institute transformed my rabbinate by giving me direction and vision in Jewish thinking based on innovative interpretations of age-old sources in our tradition. Every teacher was an inspiration, each with their own unique style. The learning combined the intellectual rigor of an academic setting with the fulfilling bond with our tradition that yeshiva learning provides.
    [Show full text]
  • Wij-Articles- Final Version of a Spirited Chavruta
    Spirituality, Textual Study and Gender at Nishmat: A Spirited Chavruta Spirituality, Textual Study and Gender at Nishmat: A Spirited Chavruta Deidre Butler, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Abstract Based on ethnographic research with Jewish women participating in the summer program at Nishmat: The Jerusalem Center for Advanced Jewish Study for Women, this paper explores religion, spirituality, gender and feminism as a conceptual cluster of highly contested and contingent terms. This project explores the attitudes and motivations of a unique group of Jewish women as an opportunity to disrupt received oppositions between religion and spirituality and to think critically about the ways that feminism, and particularly Jewish feminism, plays out in Jewish women’s self-understanding as gendered, spiritual, and/or religious persons. This project explores the attitudes and motivations of a unique group of Jewish women as an opportunity to disrupt received oppositions between religion and spirituality and to think critically about the ways that feminism, and particularly Jewish feminism, plays out in this group of Jewish women’s self-understanding as gendered, spiritual, and/or religious persons. Based on ethnographic research with Jewish women participating in the 2007 summer program at Nishmat: The Jerusalem Center for Advanced Jewish Study for Women, this paper explores religion, spirituality, gender and feminism as a conceptual cluster of highly contested and contingent terms. Nishmat: Tradition, and Women’s Textual Study Nishmat
    [Show full text]
  • Religious Pluralism: a Conversation Wednesday February 19, 2020, 7:30 Pm
    Religious Pluralism: A Conversation Wednesday February 19, 2020, 7:30 pm Jewish Community Day School of RI 85 Taft Ave, Providence JCDSRI, Congregation Beth Sholom,Temple Beth-El, and Temple Emanu-El invite you to a facilitated conversation between Professor Guy Ben-Porat and Rabbanit Avital Engelberg about Jewish pluralism in Israel and its impact on civil society. Professor Guy Ben-Porat is professor and department chairperson at the Department of Politics and Government at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He is an award-winning educator and the author of Global Liberalism, Local Populism (2006), which won the Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, Between State and Synagogue (Cambridge, 2012), which was awarded the Shapiro Best Book Award and the Israeli Political Science Association Best Book Award. Most recently, he has published Policing Citizens: Minority Policy in Israel. Professor Ben-Porat received his Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University and his research currently focuses on the politics of conflicts, policy making, and church-state relations. Rabbanit Avital Engelberg currently serves as the Director of Spiritual Engagement at Congregation Beth Sholom and is the 5th grade Judaic's teacher at the Jewish Community Day School of RI. Rabbanit Avital is a graduate of the Advanced Kollel at Yeshivat Maharat in the Bronx, New York, the first Orthodox institution in North America to ordain Orthodox women. In Israel, Rabbanit Avital has taught Talmud at various Jewish educational institutions and was a fellow of the Halakhic Studies program at Midreshet Lindenbaum, a Jewish educational institution for women in Jerusalem.
    [Show full text]
  • Surviving Surviving,” Prepared As a Class Assignment by HAFTR Eighth Grader Joe Klein
    The Jewish Star Independent and original reporting from the Orthodox communities of Long Island VOL. 8, NO. 25 JUNE 19, 2009 | 27 SIVAN 5769 www.thejewishstar.com GET OUTTA TOWN INWOOD CAMPUS A RELIGIOUS EXCHANGE OU fair highlights Jewish communities Bnot Shulamith gains zoning approval The Kosher Bookworm Page 3 Page 6 Page 8 IN MY VIEW Tuition by Iran is not a the nickel democracy Internet toolbar will help fund Jewish education BY MICAH D. HALPERN BY YAFFI SPODEK mericans have been duped, An easy opportunity to help your school raise hoodwinked by mainstream money may be only a mouse-click away thanks to a new media, fed false hope and pro- fundraising venture from the Orthodox Union. A vided with erroneous informa- For every single click on the OU’s Education Fund tion. Toolbar — scheduled to launch in the next few weeks I need to set the record straight. — a corporate sponsor will donate five cents to the OU Iran is not a democracy. Education Fund, which will be distributed to yeshivot Because the Iranians use the and day schools around the coun- terms and adopt the trappings of try. democracy, does not make it a democ- “Our goal is to send the tool- racy. Because the American media bar to every Jewish home in would like Iran to be a democracy, America,” said Rabbi Saul Zucker, does not make it a democracy. Because director of the OU’s recently the White House developed department of day school and educational services. wishes for a Image courtesy Joe Klein “The toolbar gets loaded onto democratically Yetta, a Holocaust survivor briefly overcome with grief, during an interview in the documentary run Iran, does your desktop and it costs the user “Surviving Surviving,” prepared as a class assignment by HAFTR eighth grader Joe Klein.
    [Show full text]
  • Siach Hasadeh – Field Talk Collected Essays for Tu B’Shvat 2015
    SiaCH haSadeh – Field TalK Collected Essays for Tu B’Shvat 2015 MIDRESHET LINDENBAUM SIACH HASADEh – FIELD TALK שיח השדה Chana and Yaacov Tilles Women’s Campus Besen Family Center for Advanced Women’s Studies 51 Leib Yaffe Street, Jerusalem 9339082 Tel: +972-2-671-0043 | Fax: +972-2-671-0144 [email protected] | www.Midreshet-Lindenbaum.org.il America Latina Programa Midreshet Darkaynu Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute for Halachic Leadership The Maria and Joel Finkle Overseas Program Tochnit Hadas Tochnit Bruriah Tochnit Tushia Design: JK Jen Klor Photos of the Seven Species by Sara Eichler, class of 1989-90, who currently lives in Jerusalem. שיח השדה SIACH HASADEh – FIELD TALK AND THE ALMOND-TREE SHALL BLOssOM HaRav Ohad Teharlev, Director, Israeli Programs Tu b’Shvat, the New Year particularly] almonds? of Trees, is identified That is the fruit that with the blossoming blossoms quicker than of the almond tree in other fruits. Likewise, the winter, around the he who opposes time of Tu b’Shvat. The the kehunah, his familiar words that we punishment comes hear in kindergartens quickly.” and school assemblies, From here we remind us of that: understand that rashi derives that the almond – השקדיה פורחת “The almond tree is tree symbolizes the blossoming … Tu b’Shvat speedy blossoming has arrived, a holiday for before the coming the trees.” of Spring and the blossoming of other Why? What is the meaning fruits. In contrast, the of the early flowering of chizkuni explains that the almond tree? Is there the almond (shaked) a link between this and Tu symbolizes diligence b’Shvat? To answer these (shakdanut): questions, we will try to trace the emergence It gave forth and significance of the blossoms, sprouted almond tree in Biblical buds – a sign that and rabbinic literature.
    [Show full text]