Category: Events

During this time of grief and heartbreak, we will gather as a community on Zoom to kindle the lights of Hanukkah together, seeking comfort, strength, and hope in each other’s presence and in our shared sense of purpose. Hanukkah reminds us that we are all lamplighters; for a few minutes each weeknight of Hanukkah, join us as come together to dispel the darkness and shine a little more light into our world.

6 Weeknights. 6 Kavanot for light in a time of darkness.
5-5:10 p.m. EST | Zoom

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tonight’s HOST:
rabbi jessica kate meyer `14

Rabbi Jessica Kate Meyer `14, Rosh Tefilah & Artist-in-Residence, will lead us in a few moments of soulful song as we gather to light for the fourth night of Hanukkah.

Jessica Kate Meyer is a prayer leader, storyteller, vocalist, and rabbi, who served as rabbi-hazzan at Romemu in NYC, and most recently, at The Kitchen in San Francisco. She has studied sacred Jewish music with masters from Ashkenazi and Mizrahi traditions and has performed as a vocalist with ensembles in the United States and Israel. In a previous life, Jessica appeared in film, theater, and television projects in Europe and the United States: most notably, as a principal role in the Oscar-winning film, The Pianist.

During this time of grief and heartbreak, we will gather as a community on Zoom to kindle the lights of Hanukkah together, seeking comfort, strength, and hope in each other’s presence and in our shared sense of purpose. Hanukkah reminds us that we are all lamplighters; for a few minutes each weeknight of Hanukkah, join us as come together to dispel the darkness and shine a little more light into our world.

6 Weeknights. 6 Kavanot for light in a time of darkness.
5-5:10 p.m. EST | Zoom | View previous candlelightings

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tonight’s HOSTS:
Dr. Susie Tanchel & Rabbi Sam Pollak

Dr. Susie Tanchel, Hebrew College Vice President, and Rabbi Sam Pollak, Director of Congregational Learning at Kerem Shalom in Concord, MA, will reflect on the hope they find through teaching as we kindle the lights of the sixth night of Hanukkah.

Dr. Susie Tanchel joined Hebrew College in the summer of 2020, after serving as the head of school at JCDS, Boston’s Jewish Community Day School.

During her nine-year tenure at JCDS, Tanchel was an accomplished and deeply beloved leader, guiding the school to preeminence as a national model of excellence in pluralistic Jewish education, and creatively embodying its abiding commitments to community, centrality of Hebrew language, and teaching the whole child.

She was a recipient of the 2018 Covenant Award for Jewish Educators.

Rabbi Sam Pollack, who joined Kerem Shalom in July 2020, received a BA in philosophy and comparative religion, at The Ohio State University, where he held leadership positions at Hillel and sang in a Jewish a cappella group. He attended Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion where he received a MA in Hebrew Letters and was ordained as a rabbi in 2017.

He most recently served for three years as one of the rabbis at The Community Synagogue in Port Washington, New York, where his responsibilities included teaching religious school classes and Torah study; leading early childhood classes; establishing an adult education initiative; creating a group to guide interfaith families; serving on a newly formed inclusion committee; and officiating life cycle events. During his rabbinic studies, Sam worked at a number of small congregations in the Midwest.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Kerem Shalom community, and I am inspired by how the congregation and the Hebrew School emphasize joyful, inclusive Jewish life,” shares Rabbi Sam. “I look forward to meeting everyone and working toward that vision together.

He was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lives in the Greater Boston area with his husband, Rabbi Ari Abelman, who grew up in Lexington, MA.

During this time of grief and heartbreak, we will gather as a community on Zoom to kindle the lights of Hanukkah together, seeking comfort, strength, and hope in each other’s presence and in our shared sense of purpose. Hanukkah reminds us that we are all lamplighters; for a few minutes each weeknight of Hanukkah, join us as come together to dispel the darkness and shine a little more light into our world.

6 Weeknights. 6 Kavanot for light in a time of darkness.
5-5:10 p.m. EST | Zoom

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UPDATE:
Rabbi Or Rose has had to travel unexpectedly and is unable to host tonights Hanukkah Zoom series. In his place will be Rabbi Justin David, Dean of the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College, with a kavanah for the first night of Hanukkah.

tonight’s HOST: rabbi Or rose

Rabbi Or Rose, Director of the Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership of Hebrew College, will lead us in candle lighting and a kavanah from Jerusalem on the first night of Hanukkah.

Rabbi Or Rose is the founding director of the Betty Ann Greenbaum Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership of Hebrew College. Before assuming this position in 2016, he worked in various administrative and teaching capacities at Hebrew College for over a decade, including serving as a founding faculty member and associate dean for Informal Education of the Rabbinical School. Rabbi Rose was also one of the creators of CIRCLE, The Center for Interreligious & Community Leadership Education, cosponsored by Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School (2007-2017) and has taught for Hebrew College’s Me’ah Classic program.

In addition to his work at Hebrew College, Rose has taught for the Bronfman Youth Fellowships, The Wexner Graduate Fellowship, and in a variety of other academic, religious, and civic contexts throughout North America, and in Asia, Europe, and Israel.

A prolific author and editor, his writings have appeared in  Beliefnet; the Forward; The Huffington Post;  Interfaith America; the Jewish Telegraphic Agency;  Patheos; MyJewishLearning;  Religion News Service; The Times of Israel; Tikkun; Sh’ma; The Washington Post; as well as various scholarly publications. Rose is the senior Publisher of  The Journal of Interreligious Studies, as well as co-editor of  Speaking Torah: Spiritual Teachings from Around the Maggid’s Table, and the award-winning anthology,  My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation. His most recent publications include With the Best of Intentions: Interreligious Missteps & Unexpected Learnings (Orbis 2023) and the co-edited volume, Rabbi Zalman Schachter: Essential Teachings. Rose is currently working on a contemporary multifaith commentary on the Psalms, tentatively entitled The Book of Psalms: Here & Now (Paraclete Press, 2023.)

A Conversation with Israeli Changemakers Shir Nosatzki and Hanan Alsanah

Please join us for an inspiring evening with Israeli change agents Shir Nosatzki and Hanan Alsanah. In the aftermath of 10/7, Nosatzki and Alsanah joined forces to establish a shared volunteer-led Arab and Jewish center, which provides hundreds of humanitarian relief parcels of food and other crucial equipment every week to Jewish and Arab families in Israel who were harmed by the hostilities.

The Center echoes the ever-growing importance of the message that Arabs and Jews in Israel are not only partners in pain and loss, but also in the efforts to rebuild the country after the traumatic events of October 7. It has become a beacon of light, trust, hope, and solidarity between the two communities striving for a safe and peaceful future in Israel.

This event is co-sponsored by Hebrew College, BASE Boston, Jewish Women’s Archive, Temple Beth Zion, and Temple Reyim.

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View news coverage of the Center below:

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about our speakers

Shir Nosatzki has been a prominent civil society leader and changemaker for over a decade. She was one of the leaders of the 2011 Israeli social justice protests—the largest mass protest in the country at the time. Since January 2023, Shir has been one of the organizers of the weekly protests, the largest and most sustained mass protest movement ever to take place in Israel. Shir is also the Co-Founder and Director of Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?—an Israeli NGO advancing Jewish-Arab political partnership. Its creative and provocative social media campaigns have reached millions. Nosatzki won the Dror Prize for Social Change, was elected by The Marker newspaper as one of the most influential people on social media in Israel, and by Maariv newspaper as an emerging young leader, and is today the recipient of the NIF’s 2023 Guardian of Democracy prize.

Hanan Alsanah is a Bedouin mother of 4 and a lawyer working with Itach-Maaki – Women Lawyers for Social Justice. She has been working for women’s rights for the past two decades, with emphasis on Bedouin women’s empowerment. She is an activist and social entrepreneur and holds a Bachelor of Laws (LL.M.) degree. She has worked in the Negev’s unrecognized Bedouin villages, as co-director of the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality and director of education and community development at Sidreh organization, and has established the first women’s community center in an unrecognized village in the Negev. In 2005, Alsanah was the first Bedouin woman representative at the UN’s CEDAW committee, advocating against gender discrimination, leading to the publication of a report on Bedouin women regarding matrimonial law, employment, housing and home demolitions.She has also recently been selected to head the women’s council of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel.

Please join to celebrate the 2023-2024 Dignity Project Fellows on March 3 at Hebrew College in Newton, MA. Fellows will share insights and reflections from their interreligious and cross-cultural journey together.

This fellowship program is designed to train 20 outstanding ​high school sophomores, juniors and seniors from Greater Boston to serve as interreligious and cross-cultural leaders, with the capacity to engage the diversity of our city (and broader society) with thoughtfulness, skill, and care.

The celebratory gathering will include music, dance, writing, visual art, storytelling and reflection on our core values of hospitality, empathy, humility, authenticity, and interconnection.

We look forward to inviting you and your families, friends, and teachers into the unique community we have built together. All ages are welcome to this community event.

This program is sponsored by the Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership of Hebrew College and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.

Please join us online for the 17th Annual Heidi Urich Annual Lecture co-sponsored by the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Boston and Hebrew College. Rabbi Justin David, Dean of the Rabbinical School, will offer welcoming remarks on behalf of Hebrew College.

This year’s topic, “A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century,” will be delivered by Professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Viterbi Family Endowed Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, & Sady and Ludwig Kahn Director, Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA.

For centuries, the bustling port city of Salonica was home to the sprawling Levy family. As leading publishers and editors, they helped chronicle modernity as it was experienced by Sephardic Jews across the Ottoman Empire. When 20th century wars changed the borders around them, the Levys were transformed from Ottomans to Greeks. Family members spread out from Greece to Western Europe, Israel, Brazil, and India. Whole branches were nearly eradicated in the Holocaust. Sarah Abrevaya Stein uses the family’s correspondence to tell the story of their journey across the arc of a century and the breadth of the globe.

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Our Speaker

Prize-winning historian of Sephardic Jewry, Sarah Abrevaya Stein serves as Director of the Leve Center for Jewish Studies, the Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, and Professor of History at UCLA. She is the author and editor of ten award-winning books including Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (2019) and Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934-1950 (2022).

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Registration

This year’s lecture will be on Zoom and is free.

JGSGB Members
Members of the JGSGB need not register. They will receive the Zoom link automatically on the morning of the program.

Non-members
Click here to receive the Zoom link. If you do not receive an email with the link to the program within 15 minutes, please check your spam folder.