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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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Tidbits: Yiddish activist in Sweden receives royal medal
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. Listen to the report here:
סוסאַנע שנײַדערמאַן־ריץ, די אָנגעזעענע ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסטקע אין שוועדן און די פּרעזידענטקע פֿונעם שוועדישן צווײַג פֿון דער אַלוועלטלעכער ציוניסטישער פֿרויען־אָרגאַניזאַציע „וויזאָ“ — וועט באַקומען איינע פֿון שוועדנס העכסטע קיניגלעכע אויסצייכענונגען, „דעם קעניגס מעדאַל“, דעם 9טן סעפּטעמבער, אינעם קיניגלעכן פּאַלאַץ אין שטאָקהאָלם.
לויט דער אָפֿיציעלער באַשרײַבונג ווערט שנײַדערמאַן־ריץ אָנערקענט פֿאַר איר „ממשותדיקן בײַשטײַער צו דער מינאָריטעט־שפּראַך, ייִדיש.“ שוין צענדליקער יאָרן וואָס שנײַדערמאַן־ריץ קעמפֿט לטובֿת דעם אָפּהיטן די ייִדישע קולטור אין שוועדן.
שנײַדערמאַן־ריץ איז געווען איינע פֿון די פֿירערס בײַם פֿאַרזיכערן אַן אָפֿיציעלע אָנערקענונג פֿון ייִדיש ווי איינע פֿון שוועדנס נאַציאָנאַלע מינאָריטעט־שפּראַכן. צום סוף האָט די קאַמפּאַניע מצליח געווען. ייִדיש האָט באַקומען אַ לעגאַלן סטאַטוס און דערבײַ דערמעגלעכט אַז די רעגירונג זאָל העלפֿן פֿינאַנצירן דאָס אויפֿהאַלטן און אַנטוויקלען די ייִדישע שפּראַך און קולטור.
די אָנערקענונג ווערט באַטראַכט פֿאַר אַ ווענדפּונקט פֿאַר דער ייִדישער קהילה אין שוועדן, בפֿרט איצט ווען די זאָרג וועגן אַנטיסעמיטיזם וואַקסט פֿון טאָג צו טאָג בײַ ייִדן איבער גאַנץ אייראָפּע.
ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסטן זאָגן, אַז די אָפֿיציעלע שטיצע פֿאַר דער שפּראַך העלפֿט אָפּהיטן אַ וויכטיקן טייל פֿון דער ייִדישער קולטור־ירושה און פֿאַרשטאַרקט דעם אָנדענק פֿון ייִדישן לעבן אין שוועדן במשך פֿון דער געשיכטע.
צו זען דעם אַרטיקל אויף ענגליש גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
To see this article in English, click here.
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From a Catskills bungalow in 1969, you can almost see astronauts
Crickets chirp as the audience enters The Laura Pels Theatre. Tall grass rims the front of the stage, and home movies from summer resorts in the Catskills are projected on a screen. Mother and son wave hi from a lake, a boy swims laps and bubbies walk past in their swimsuits.
This is the setting of A Walk on the Moon, a new off-Broadway musical written by Pamela Gray and based on the 1999 film of the same name for which she wrote the screenplay. Inspired by Gray’s childhood summers in a “Borscht Belt” bungalow colony, the show depicts the life of a Brooklyn-accented Jewish family against the backdrop of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Vietnam War and the Woodstock music festival.
The show opens on Pearl Kantrowitz (Talia Suskauer) looking out wistfully as she stands in front of her summer bungalow. Pearl, who became pregnant with her daughter at 16, is struggling with the concept of domestic life amid a decade filled with excitement and chaos. It’s nearing the end of the ‘60s, and she feels as though she had barely experienced it.
In contrast, Pearl’s husband, Marty (Max Chernin), is a TV repairman entirely resistant to change, even when it comes to the bakery where his “blackout” cake comes from. He’s only in the Catskills for the weekend though, leaving Pearl subject to her temptations for the rest of the week. These desires come in the form of Walker Jerome (Sam Gravitte), a hippie “blouse man” who plans to move to California. Before the curtain closes on Act I, Walker and Pearl begin an affair as a man lands on the moon — and are left to deal with the ramifications in the second act of the show.
Pearl’s journey of self-exploration parallels that of her teenage daughter Allison (Sophie Pollono), who is falling in love with Ross (Oscar Williams), a 16-year-old boy who describes himself as “Big Jewish Hendrix.” Allison, who first appears clutching a Joni Mitchell album, is a headstrong girl who speaks out against the state of the world in any way she can — she lambasts her brother’s cap gun and refuses to attend the colony’s 4th of July celebration. Ross is an aspiring musician who, though he admires the counter-culture singers of the time, is nervous to take tangible action of his own.
As the teenage couple discusses the changing world around them and finds connection over the music of Ross’ guitar, Pearl seeks to regain the teenage years that she lost, experimenting with marijuana, attending Woodstock and attempting to hide her affair from her children and her watchful mother-in-law, Lillian (Andréa Burns).
The moon landing means something different to each character: Allison views it as a U.S. invasion analogous to Vietnam, Walker is inspired by the potential it symbolizes, Ross considers writing a song about it. Though daily life is primarily filled with mah jongg games and visits from the knish man, this tiny colony isn’t immune from the tumultuous time period. Walker discusses his brother who is missing in action and Ross contemplates burning his draft card, singing with Allison about the need for change, lest the “candle in the wind goes out.”
Some plot elements are a tad heavy handed, such as when Pearl buys a tie-dye shirt and sings a song with Marty about it (he finds her shirt too new and different) or the Jewish wives’ discussion and ensuing song about Betty Friedan (“keep your book, cuz we ain’t ready”). The show also glosses over some things, such as how Pearl explains her whereabouts while she’s with Walker and who manages her responsibilities while the two of them are together.
The musical numbers, coupled with dances performed in colorful capris and mod dresses, concern forbidden love, Saturday nights in the Catskills and the momentous nature of the moon landing. While none is particularly groundbreaking, they are well-performed; Suskauer is a vocal standout.
However, these critiques don’t detract from the show’s mission to recreate the Catskills bungalows once prominent in Jewish consciousness. The wives get farputst for dinner; Pearl is said to be “schtupping” the blouse man; the loudspeaker announces that “Shimmy the Pickle Man” is coming to town. The set, a bungalow amidst a sea of trees, creates a nostalgic and intimate ambience supplemented by projected video of the moon landing, protests and napalm bombs.
Catskills colonies are now few, and Woodstock is only a distant memory. For a few hours, though, one can imagine what it’s like to be in the summer of 1969, and Neil Armstrong is about to walk on the moon.
The post From a Catskills bungalow in 1969, you can almost see astronauts appeared first on The Forward.
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In Israel’s astonishing new reality, voters expect Netanyahu to try to sabotage elections
Two extraordinary recent developments illustrate how politically unsettled Israel is in advance of elections this year: Supreme Court Justice Noam Solberg, chairman of Israel’s Central Elections Committee, publicly outlined the legal conditions under which elections could possibly be postponed during a national emergency, and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might try to sabotage elections and have to be physically removed from office.
The fact that such scenarios are now being openly discussed by figures at the center of Israel’s democratic system reveals how close the country’s democracy is to a breakdown — and the country’s character to a fundamental change.
For decades, Israel prided itself on maintaining democratic continuity under impossible conditions. Through wars, terror campaigns, coalition collapses and corruption scandals, there remained an unspoken assumption that elections would occur and governments would leave office when they lost.
Now, for the first time in Israeli history, a substantial portion of the public fears that this assumption no longer stands.
“If Netanyahu tries to sabotage the elections, we will have no choice but to drive him out with sticks and stones,” Barak said, speaking in Hebrew on Israel Radio.
The astonishing thing: no one else on the program was astonished.
The unthinkable, now possible
The atmosphere surrounding the expected election, which must take place before the end of October, has become marked by increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric as Netanyahu faces negative polls. A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 61% of Israelis believe Netanyahu should not run for reelection at all. Another poll found that 63% of Israelis fear for the future of Israeli democracy itself, while 56% said that internal divisions pose a greater threat to Israel than external enemies.
These are extraordinary numbers in a country historically defined by external security fears. Increasingly, many Israelis now believe the gravest threat facing the country is internal democratic collapse.
Justice Solberg’s remarks last week, which took place at a closed academic event and were reported later, added fuel to the fire.
Solberg, who is a conservative and considered politically sympathetic to Netanyahu, outlined six principles that would have to govern any decision to postpone elections, including a clearly defined plan for a return to normal electoral procedures.
Solberg emphasized that no election should be postponed merely because a crisis exists. Rather, authorities must demonstrate that the emergency has materially impaired the country’s ability to conduct free, equal and genuine elections. He concluded by expressing hope that Israel would never face circumstances requiring such a decision.
The fear that Israel is actually quite close to such a postponement cuts across much of Israeli society. I’ve heard it expressed by secular liberals, military veterans, former intelligence officials, legal scholars, journalists, centrist politicians, and even some conservatives who once supported Netanyahu enthusiastically. What unites them is the growing belief that Netanyahu now considers remaining in power to be an existential necessity — and that his radical base will back him no matter what outrage he attempts.
Yair Golan, former deputy IDF chief and leader of the opposition Democrats Party, has become one of the loudest voices warning that the danger is no longer theoretical. Golan warned publicly that Netanyahu’s camp could “sabotage, falsify, lie and intimidate” in order to remain in power. He also warned against attempts to alter election rules before voting takes place, and announced plans for extensive election monitoring operations to try to help safeguard the vote.
A decade ago, such statements from a senior Israeli political figure would have sounded deranged. Today, many Israelis hear them as sober preparation.
Inventing an emergency
Netanyahu’s current term, after a very close election in 2022, has been calamitous, starting with his hugely unpopular effort to eviscerate the judiciary, then continuing with the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and a three-year multi-front war with unsatisfying conclusions. Most Israelis believe he extended at least one branch of the conflict, in Gaza, to satisfy ultranationalists in his coalition.
Which means there’s precedent for believing Netanyahu might invent or invite an emergency to further his personal goals.
One possibility is yet another external war, involving a manufactured escalation with Iran or Hezbollah, or in the West Bank, where radical settlers terrorize Palestinians while Israeli authorities look the other way. Another, and the most obvious, would involve a sudden change in the status of the Temple Mount — a goal toward which some far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition have been agitating — or other combustible religious sites.
Any domestic route Netanyahu might choose would invite a direct confrontation between the executive branch and the judiciary over the legitimacy of democratic procedures themselves.
If the Supreme Court ruled against Netanyahu, many fear the coalition could refuse compliance outright. After all, Netanyahu has spent years seeding the idea that the Supreme Court — and also prosecutors, the attorney general, and the civil service — are liberal fronts which do not necessarily need to be obeyed.
Devaluing democracy
The columnist Ravit Hecht recently argued in Haaretz that significant portions of the coalition no longer merely oppose liberal democracy, but reject democracy itself.
As Netanyahu has increasingly aligned himself with these forces, Hecht wrote, he has adopted “more and more dictatorial characteristics,” leading to “real fear for the purity of the coming election or even that it will be held.”
At the same time, much of the right has mainstreamed conspiracy theories surrounding the Oct. 7 attack and the Gaza war. Because of the Netanyahu machine’s jackhammer agitprop, almost a third of Israelis now believe the “betrayal from within” theory in which Israel’s security services assisted Hamas on Oct. 7 to harm Netanyahu.
Figures such as Likud Knesset member Tally Gotliv have openly accused the Shin Bet, military officers, protest leaders, judges and the attorney general of betrayal or collaboration with Hamas. Instead of being marginalized, such rhetoric increasingly receives tacit acceptance from parts of the governing coalition.
Yediot Ahronot columnist Ben-Dror Yemini compared the phenomenon to the Nazi-era “stab-in-the-back” myth after World War I, which blamed Jews for Germany’s humiliation. Yemini warned that societies consumed by conspiracy theories eventually destroy trust in every institution capable of holding democracy together.
Given this level of agitation, it is fair to view Israel’s coming election as something far more significant than a contest between left and right or rival policy agendas. Increasingly, it looks like a referendum on whether the country remains the democracy it has always claimed — and largely managed — to be.
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