Calendar

Larry Kohn

Education Director of Temple Beth El from 1979-2014

“And the Fine Blade Gleamed with the Fury of Live Coals: Twentieth Century Poets Confront the Akedah”*

The Torah’s story of the sacrificial binding of Isaac (Akedah) has been addressed by a number of Twentieth Century American, Yiddish and Israeli poets. The Akedah (Genesis 22) will be read in English translation along with a sample of Rabbinic and contemporary Torah commentary. This will be followed by a reading and discussion of poems in English or English translation written by Anthony Hecht, Marge Piercy, H. Leivick, Hayim Gouri, Amir Gilboa and Yehuda Amichai.

As Education Director of Temple Beth El, Larry Kohn facilitated the temple’s Shabbat morning Torah study for the last two decades of his tenure. Beginning in 1976 a dozen of Larry’s poems under his given name, Lawrence, have appeared in small press publications including Green’s Magazine, Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review, The Journal of Reform Judaism and Neo-Victorian/Cochlear edited by Esther Cameron in Madison.

* Title quote from: “Isaac” in The Darkness and the Light by Anthony Hecht, Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 2002

Lunch: Quinoa and Spinach Salad (with Chickpea, Tomato, Egg, Feta, Artichoke, Olives, Raspberry Vinaigrette, Artisan Rolls with Butter, Baked Tilapia, Cucumber-Red Pepper Relish, Roasted Baby Red Potatoes and Green Beans or Vegetable Quiche. Dessert: Tiramisu

“There are Jews in Texas?”  Nearly forty years ago, the documentary film West of Hester Street attempted to shed light on the history of Jews in Texas by narrating the story of the Galveston Movement, a project that brought almost 10,000 Jews to the United States via the port on Galveston Island in the years before World War I.   

Today, Texas Jewish history and the larger history of Jews and Jewish communities across the southern United States are enjoying a 21st-century renaissance, as evidenced by the work of the Institute for Southern Jewish Life in Mississippi, the formation of the Joan and Stanford Alexander South Texas Jewish Archives at Rice University in 2018, and the opening of the new Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans.  Nevertheless, outside of Texas and the Deep South, Jews who have made this region their home remain something of an obscure curiosity. 

The program of klezmer music includes virtuosic mazltovs, celebratory dance tunes, instrumental interpretations of liturgical and Hassidic music and classic Yiddish songs. Based upon their ongoing research and exploration of traditional East European Jewish wedding music, Duo Controverso creates a unique soundscape, presenting a program to entertain, educate and elate listeners.

The Summer Levy Series has become a welcoming of summer, and an occasion to socialize, share a wonderful meal, and feed our minds with a variety of inspiring presentations and discussions. Please join us. The program and menu for this event is below – call 608-442-4081 to register at a cost of $25 per person. 

Adam Schrager – “The Principled Politician: A Story of Courage”

One man’s courage offers timeless lessons for us all. In this presentation, Adam Schrager tells the story of Ralph Carr, who was drafted to run for governor of Colorado in 1938, turned down the chance to run as a vice presidential candidate in 1940, and was being discussed as a “future presidential candidate” by newspapers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Carr became a national figure when, after Pearl Harbor, he defended the constitutional rights of Japanese-Americans and stood against internment. His outspoken and unpopular stance would cost him greatly, both personally and professionally

Adam Schrager is the author of four books, including “The Principled Politician,” which led to Colorado lawmakers naming the state’s new justice center and a state highway after its subject, former Gov. Ralph Carr. Schrager has an undergraduate degree in American History from the University of Michigan and a graduate degree in Broadcast Journalism from Northwestern University.

Lunch: Nakoma salad, dinner rolls & mini muffins, Pesto Crusted Walleye or Roasted Vegetable Napoleon, jasmine herbed rice, steamed asparagus. Dessert: Tiramisu

The Summer Levy Series has become a welcoming of summer, and an occasion to socialize, share a wonderful meal, and feed our minds with a variety of inspiring presentations and discussions. Please join us. The program and menu for this event is below – call 608-442-4081 to register at a cost of $25 per person. 

Erin Faigin – “I Don’t Want To Say a Valley Girl is a ‘JAP’: The San Fernando Valley, Valley Girls, and Postwar Jewish Upward Mobility” 

Erin Faigin will describe the relationship between the Valley Girl of the 1980’s and the Jewish American Princess as a way to understand postwar American Jewish upward mobility. Her research explores the relationship between upward mobility, misogyny, and antisemitism in the imagined and real lives of American Jewish women during the Reagan years and beyond. By looking at popular media (SNL, Valley Girl, Clueless), national scandal (the Monica Lewinsky tapes), and lived experience (including that of the nose job), Faigin’s research demonstrates the limits of the assimilationist paradigm to explain postwar American Jewish history. Even in Los Angeles, even blonde, Jews suburbanized as Jews.

Faigin herself hails from the San Fernando Valley of Valley Girl fame, but she has lived in Madison since 2017. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in American Jewish History and has written and researched diverse topics such as Utah’s Yiddish utopias, Chicago’s interwar Jewish bookstore culture, and now, the Jewish American Princess.

Lunch: Seasonal fruit plate, dinner rolls & mini muffins, Mahi Mahi with toasted kale Buerre Blanc or Sun-dried tomato and asparagus quiche in puff pastry, Yukon Gold potatoes, green bean bundle wrapped in carrot. Dessert: Dark chocolate ganache three-layer cake