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Women’s Talmud classes are back on at Yeshiva University after uproar over cancellation
(JTA) — Beginner and intermediate Talmud courses are back on the table for women at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women, less than a week after current and former students launched a petition criticizing the classes’ cancellation.
More than 1,400 people, mostly Y.U. faculty, alumni and students, signed the petition, which launched late Wednesday after a dean told the student newspaper in early April that the school would not be hiring any full-time faculty to replace Rabbi Moshe Kahn.
Kahn, who died at 71 in January of lung cancer, was seen as a champion of women’s Talmud studies and taught many of the advanced Talmud courses at Stern College, Y.U.’s women’s division.
“Not hiring a full-time professor dedicated to teaching Talmud at diverse levels will close the pipeline of access to Gemara for all students and ultimately lead to a decline in enrollment in the advanced level course,” said the petition. “The world of Torah study for women as we now know it would indeed be שָׁמֵם [shamem], utterly desolate.”
The petition — whose signers included prominent Talmud teachers, about 30 current and former Y.U. faculty members and students at Modern Orthodox high schools — called on the university to partner with them to endow a teaching position in Kahn’s name.
Now, Y.U. appears ready to do that — though it says it will not wait before resuming Talmud instruction at Stern.
“We have been planning a number of new initiatives,” Stern faculty said in a letter published online Friday and set to be sent to students’ inboxes later this week. “We would be delighted if those who support women’s advanced Torah study and the students, friends and supporters of Rabbi Kahn would endow a Rabbi Moshe Kahn Chair of Talmud Studies for Women. We are also seeking to create a new cohort program of Matmidot Scholars for young women to learn Tanach and Talmud on the highest levels.”
Yeshiva University is the only address in North America for Orthodox women to access advanced, intensive secular and Judaic studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The graduate program is the only Orthodox program in North America for women’s Torah learning that culminates with a master’s degree.
The decision not to offer an introductory or intermediate level course in Talmud would have meant that the country’s flagship Modern Orthodox university would significantly reduce its instruction in one of Judaism’s most fundamental texts.
It also would have made Y.U. an outlier in Modern Orthodoxy amid expanding opportunities for women to study Talmud, after centuries during which it was considered the exclusive province of men. In the past few years, a growing number of women have formed asynchronous communities around studying a page of Talmud a day, a practice called daf yomi. The increasing number of programs offering ordination to Orthodox women also place a heavy focus on Talmud study.
Students who learned from Kahn said he had been a vital force for women who wanted to study traditional Jewish texts.
“He said, ‘Any woman who comes to my class is welcome.’ It wasn’t just lip service,” said Tamar Beer Horowitz, who studied with Kahn for five years and helped write the petition. “He genuinely made us all feel welcome.”
But while Kahn’s courses sometimes drew up to 20 students, lower-level Talmud classes sometimes had much smaller rosters, according to students and administrators. Many fell below Stern’s threshold to offer a class, eight students.
“We can continue low enrolled courses for a few semesters to see if the numbers pick up,” Karen Bacon, dean of Stern’s Undergraduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences, told The Commentator, the student newspaper, earlier this month. “When they don’t, we cannot justify the course unless it is a requirement for a particular major.”
Y.U. has made multiple changes to its Jewish studies offerings for both women and men in recent years. In 2021, the school announced that it would end its in-person Hebrew courses indefinitely, offering asynchronous classes online. That year, the undergraduate men’s college also dissolved its Jewish Studies division, combining multiple departments into a Bible, Hebrew and Near Eastern studies department. Before its dissolution, Jewish studies was the largest department at Yeshiva College.
The scaling back has come amid ongoing financial strain for Y.U., which survived a financial crisis more than a decade ago but now faces renewed litigation over its handling of child sex abuse allegations as well as the prospect of curtailed state funding depending on the outcome of a battle over its decision not to recognize an LGBTQ student group.
The changes in course offerings also come amid a national decline in the number of students studying the humanities.
Y.U. appears to be hoping that the conversation spurred by the viral petition could cause more students to choose Talmud classes when registration for the fall opens next week.
“We are pleased to share that Rabbi David Nachbar, an esteemed member of our Torah faculty, will be teaching a number of Rabbi Kahn’s classes,” the letter to students said. “We hope that recent discussions will inspire stronger enrollment, especially in our Talmud classes.”
But more than just offering courses will be needed. Some Stern College students and graduates say scheduling roadblocks can make it difficult to enroll in Talmud classes, even when there is interest.
Multiple Stern students said that, given the school’s schedule, registering for Talmud meant they would have had to enroll in two classes that met at the same time — making it impossible to complete the required coursework. Meanwhile, on the men’s campus, which offers more scheduling options for Talmud courses, the same conflicts do not occur, they said. Rabbi Ezra Schwartz, a leader in the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, was installed Monday morning as the men’s division’s full-time chair of Talmud and Jewish law.
“The claim that there’s no interest is — personally, I don’t think it’s true,” said Beer Horowitz, who is the founder of Bnot Sinai, an intensive women’s text study program in New York.
But she said even if there were low interest, canceling classes isn’t the best option, she said.
“I think that there may be dips in and rises in interest over time, but there’s also different things that cause that and we have to look critically at those,” she said. “You need to have that consistent offering to get it back to that place where it’s big and it’s popular and people are doing it.”
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Trump administration says 2nd phase of Gaza ceasefire is underway, despite Israeli hostage remaining
(JTA) — Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff announced on Wednesday the beginning of the second phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, which includes a transitional Palestinian committee to oversee Gaza’s governance.
The announcement drew alarm from the family and advocates of Ran Gvili, a police officer murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, who is the final Israeli hostage remaining in Gaza.
“Moving to phase two at this moment, while the efforts to return Ran have yet to be exhausted, is a loss of the most significant leverage and may be a sentence of eternal disappearance for Ran,” Gvili’s mother, Talik, said in a statement. “Until Ran is returned, the State of Israel will not be able to close its most bloody wound and will not be able to begin the rehabilitation and healing that it so desperately needs. Phase two must not be implemented as long as Ran has not returned home.”
Israeli officials have reportedly assured the family that the advance in the U.S.-engineered plan for Gaza does not undercut pressure to return Gvili’s body. The second phase was supposed to start as soon as all living and dead hostages had been returned, which the original agreement struck in October said should happen immediately.
Witkoff’s announcement follows repeated signals from President Donald Trump that the second phase was imminent, despite allegations of truce violations from both Israel and Hamas.
“Today, on behalf of President Trump, we are announcing the launch of Phase Two of the President’s 20-Point Plan to End the Gaza Conflict, moving from ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction,” Witkoff wrote in a post on X.
Witkoff said the second phase established a “transitional technocratic Palestinian administration in Gaza,” and would begin the “full demilitarization and reconstruction of Gaza.” The leader of the administration is a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister named Ali Abdel Hamid Shaath.
In a joint statement, the other mediators of the ceasefire deal — Egypt, Turkey and Qatar — wrote that the second phase was an “important development … aimed at consolidating stability and improving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.”
The details of how Hamas will be disarmed — a requirement for a permanent peace — remain unclear. Hamas has not agreed to lay down its arms, and fighting in Gaza has continued in fits and starts, including in areas controlled by Israel.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate where the president said that Hamas would be given “a very short period of time to disarm.”
Witkoff indicated in his post that the move to phase two did not preclude consequences for Hamas. He did not specify any, but Israeli officials are reportedly preparing for a potential major Gaza City operation this spring.
“The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations, including the immediate return of the final deceased hostage,” Witkoff wrote. “Failure to do so will bring serious consequences.”
Israeli officials offered a muted response to Witkoff’s announcement, which comes as Israel is preparing for a possible new confrontation with Iran. Netanyahu reportedly sought to cast the announcement as symbolic only.
Some liberal pro-Israel groups offered cautious praise while emphasizing that more needed to be done for a lasting peace.
Brian Romick, the president and CEO of the Democratic Majority for Israel, called the second phase a “welcome step,” but called for the return of Gvili’s remains and increased aid in Gaza. He also called for Hamas to be “fully disarmed” and have no role in Gaza’s governance.
“The Trump administration and the international community must remain focused on enforcing demilitarization, supporting responsible governance, and ensuring that this effort delivers lasting security for Israel and the region,” Romick said.
The president of the liberal Zionist advocacy and lobby group J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami, also welcomed the announcement in a statement, but called for “prioritizing civilian protection, ensuring the steady flow of humanitarian aid and establishing accountable governance and security arrangements.”
“We support the plan’s focus on Hamas’ demilitarization, Palestinian technocratic governance and reconstruction, and believe that serious diplomacy and international cooperation are essential to saving lives and keeping open a path toward a better future for Israelis and Palestinians rather than endless war,” said Ben-Ami.
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A Yale student returns to class, with a Jewish question (and answer) about why she’s there
“We’re back with the books, in silent rooms, where the world is made of words, like so many before us — and I can’t stop wondering why,” writes Mia Rose Kohn, a cartoonist, journalist and junior studying at Yale University.
In this first installment of a graphic column for the Forward, she draws from the great works of the Jewish Enlightenment to theorists of the modern era, as she asks herself — and us — “If education is a Jewish value, what does Jewish thought have to say about why we’re here?”
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He works at a Holocaust museum by day. How’d he end up in ‘Marty Supreme’?
Heading into his audition for Marty Supreme, Isaac Simon was nervous. But not for the reasons you’d expect.
“I was taking a long lunch break from the museum,” he said, “and at the time I was three or four months into my job.”
Appearing in a Josh Safdie movie was something Simon, who runs internship programs at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, had genuinely never dreamed of. He wasn’t an actor, or an aspiring one. He’d never taken an acting class or been in front of a camera.
But two years after he was scouted at a baseball card convention, Simon was invited to try out for the role of Roger, a cocksure amateur who gets hustled on the ping-pong table by Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mauser. Standing 6-foot-9 with ice-blue eyes, low eyebrows and flowing brown hair, Simon had the look, the paddle skills and, clearly, the temperament to land a pivotal part in an Oscar-bound — and richly Jewish — cinematic hit.
“I don’t get starstruck,” Simon, 31, said. “I get excited.”
The slew of non-actors who feature in Marty Supreme alongside A-listers like Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tyler, The Creator has already become part of the film’s lore. Safdie and veteran casting director Jennifer Venditti have a penchant for casting street regulars; among the first-timers in the movie are basketball legend George Gervin, viral TikTok and YouTube personas and the guy from Shark Tank.
But perhaps none had as personal a connection to the film’s story of post-war Jewish striving as Simon, a native New Yorker whose graduate study at Queens College focused on the development of Holocaust studies in the U.S. In Marty Supreme, which is loosely based on the story of real-life midcentury table tennis star Marty Reisman, one of the protagonist’s best friends is a Holocaust survivor; one of the film’s most arresting scenes is an Auschwitz flashback.
Simon’s day job is, of course, at the largest Holocaust museum in New York. The fateful coincidence of his casting, Simon said, was “like a bizarre lottery ticket I was able to cash in.”
A fateful encounter
The story of Simon’s star turn begins in the summer of 2022, when Venditti spotted him at a baseball card show in Long Island. Venditti was there with Safdie; Simon — then still in grad school — was there with his dad.
Venditti said they was there to cast extras and non-actors for a baseball-related movie, and asked if she could take a two-minute video of him talking about himself. He obliged, and in the recording told her where he was from (New York City) and what he was doing at the show (chasing the famously rare T206 tobacco card series).
“I thought to myself, ‘Wow, could I really have been at the right place and the right time for something I wasn’t even expecting?’” Simon recalled. Then two years passed, and the run-in faded from memory.
It was not until the summer of 2024 that he received an email from Venditti: “Isaac Simon audition opportunity – scouted at card show.” No script was provided and nothing about the project was disclosed — just a date and a location.
On his elevator up to the audition, he heard the hollow bouncing of a ping-pong ball. Having seen a headline about Chalamet being attached to a Reisman biopic a few days earlier, he realized what the next few minutes might entail.
“The first audition was a total blur,” Simon recalled. “I remember playing ping pong with the assistant casting director and he was like, ‘Oh you’re good!’” At a subsequent callback, he played out a few improv scenarios — some light trash talking, or being cheated in a game. A few weeks later, he got called in for costume fittings.
He hadn’t solicited any acting tips, or studied film prior to his audition. But his work at the museum, where he trains educators on how to teach the Holocaust in 90 minutes, had prepared him.
“Because teaching is a performance, there is sort of an inherent performative quality to the work I do,” Simon said. “And so I think that that lent itself well — or at the very least, it didn’t hurt — to the work I was being asked to do for Josh.”
‘Cast for a reason’
Having run through his lines with his dad and his girlfriend, Simon headed upstate that fall to play Roger — and play opposite Chalamet. (This time, he took two days off of work.)
Roger, the reigning hotshot at a humdrum bowling alley, features in two scenes. In the first, he’s goaded into wagering $40 against Marty, who’s feigning amateurism, and loses. He reappears a few minutes as Marty fills up at a nearby gas station, realizing he was hustled by the reigning American champion; he and his pals want their money back.
Walking into the converted Bowlero where they shot the first scene, Simon was floored by the set. “Each individual looked like they were from the 1950s, and yet their outfit was distinctly their own,” he recalled. Miyako Bellizzi, the costume designer, had fitted him in a striped button-up and faded blue work pants; Simon’s hair was slicked back and to the side.
He hadn’t met Safdie before he got to set, and his cues from the Uncut Gems co-director were limited.
Over the course of his scenes, there were times when he wasn’t sure he was doing what Safdie wanted. Here, it was his inexperience that Simon drew on. “I kept reminding myself that I was cast for a reason, and I was cast as a non-actor for a reason,” he said, “and what I’m bringing to this experience is inherently different than what a trained actor would be. Therefore, if I were a trained actor, I would not be what Josh was looking for in the scenario.”
He didn’t have too much time to banter with the film’s stars during the shoot; most of his time on set was spent with other bit-players. But when the camera was shooting other actors, Safdie wanted to keep the sound of live table tennis in the background, so he had Chalamet and Simon play each other off-camera.
As to who had the upper hand? “We’re probably about even,” Simon said.
Jewish mythmaking
Even after the shoot, Simon couldn’t quite believe it was real. He told almost no one outside his family, superstitious that the scene would get cut. But then the premiere arrived. “It was surreal,” he said.
He’s now seen the film nine times — yes, all the way through — indulging friends who want to see it with him. And his acting has won some praise, with one X post calling it an “incredible underrated performance” liked more than 2,000 times.
Simon likes the movie, if you couldn’t tell, echoing its director and star in calling it a love letter to New York. The film, Simon said, touches on Jewish identity in a way that reminds him of his own family and their experience in this country.
“The way in which it captured intergenerational relationships in Jewish homes in post-war America, in New York specifically, felt very autobiographical for the way that my relatives talked amongst each other,” he said. “There’s a love there that transcends.”
As a Holocaust educator, Simon felt the movie handled that theme appropriately. He found the honey scene — an Auschwitz flashback too intense to explain here — moving, and the Holocaust humor tactfully dispatched. He loved the yiddish.
Yet Simon still couldn’t wrap his head around his own involvement in such a fitting project. His work passing on the history and memory of the Holocaust to future generations was already meaningful before he got an IMDB page.
“So to be cast in a film and have a speaking line,” he said, “and it just so happens that that film is also this incredibly Jewish film — which has direct references in the scene at Auschwitz — is equally bizarre, but also really beautiful, and oddly perfect.”
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