Elana K. Arnold is an award-winning American author known for her diverse and thought-provoking books for children, teens, and young adults. Her work spans a range of genres, from contemporary realism to fantasy, often exploring themes of identity, resilience, and the complexities of growing up. Arnold’s storytelling is characterized by its lyrical prose, emotional depth, and willingness to tackle challenging topics with honesty and sensitivity. Cosponsored by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed ...

In genuine Jewish tradition, everywhere there is machlokes, reasoned disputes aimed at spiritual growth. Reform-oriented author and journalist Abigail Pogrebin and Orthodox-minded Yeshiva Headmaster Rabbi Dov Linzer are thus in good company with their new book It Takes Two To Torah, in which they “Discuss and Debate Their Way Through the Five Books of Moses.” Zoom attendance link here Cosponsored by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies and Congregation B'nai ...

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Psychology at Hebrew University/Jerusalem, Yoram Bilu is a psychological anthropologist who focuses on Israeli society and Jewish traditional culture. His research interests include the anthropology of religion, culture and mental health, the sanctification of space in Israel, and Maghrebi Jewish culture. His perspective is consistently two-fold, as he seeks to highlight the interface between, on one hand, social actors as individuals, and on the other, the collective level of social ...

Within the walls of the well-known Warsaw Ghetto uprising, another kind of resistance was mounted, not by combatants, but rather by a group of poets, artists, and historians known as the Oyneg Shabbes collective. Far less known than the Ghetto, that literary and artistic circle composed and ultimately buried thousands of documents attesting to the suffering under Nazi oppression. Among those documents, recovered after the war, was a manuscript of weekly sermons delivered during three ...

Professor Rachel Elior’s writings have stimulated lively discussions among scholars in her areas of research. These include, among others, early Jewish mysticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Messianism, Hasidism, and the role of women in Jewish culture. In her talk for the Taubman Symposia, presented as an online webinar, she will speak about the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls as a way of understanding the deep oppositional diversity of Jewish culture in Late Antiquity. Her ...

In December 1966, Austro-Hungarian born Israeli author Shmuel Yosef Agnon (1887–1970) received the Nobel Prize in literature—the only author writing in Hebrew to receive that distinguished honor. Rabbi Jeffrey Saks will trace how Agnon’s remarkable acceptance speech vividly expresses the intertwining of personal destiny, Jewish history, and the art of storytelling. Standing before the crowned heads of Europe, Agnon recounted his life, not merely as a biographical sketch but as a narrative shaped by the ...