The Foundation for Jewish Studies

Speaker: Professor Marsha Rozenblitz, Harvey M. Meyerhoff Professor of Jewish History at the University of Maryland,College Park

Location: Temple Shalom; Chevy Chase, MD

What has life historically been like for Jews in these bastions of Jewish culture? In this lecture, Dr. Rozenblit provides an understanding of Austro-German Jewry by exploring the place of Jews in these regions.

Speaker: Rabbi Barbara Aiello, Director, Jewish Culture and Hebrew Language Institute (Calabria, Italy) and first woman Rabbi in Italy

Location: Temple Shalom; Silver Spring, MD

Jewish life in Italy has a history that dates back to the time of the Maccabees when Jews settled in Southern Italy 300 years before the Common Era. In this lecture, Rabbi Barbara Aiello shares fascinating stories of Italy’s rich Jewish history; from ancient times through WW II.

Speaker: Rabbi Barbara Aiello, Director, Jewish Culture and Hebrew Language Institute (Calabria, Italy) and first woman Rabbi in Italy

Location: Temple Shalom; Silver Spring, MD

Jewish life in Italy has a history that dates back to the time of the Maccabees when Jews settled in Southern Italy 300 years before the Common Era. In this lecture, Rabbi Barbara Aiello shares fascinating stories of Italy’s rich Jewish history; from ancient times through WW II.

Speaker: Professor Menachem Kellner, Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa

Location: Ohr Kodesh Congregation; Chevy Chase, MD

This lecture discusses the use, misuse, and possible abuse of this famed Jewish philosopher by such people as Rav Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu and Nechama Leibowitz, R. Abraham Joshua Heschel, R. Kotler, and R. Yizhak Hunter.

Cosponsored by Ohr Kodesh Congregation

Speaker: Professor Menachem Kellner, Professor of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa

Location: Ohr Kodesh Congregation; Chevy Chase, MD

This lecture discusses the use, misuse, and possible abuse of this famed Jewish philosopher by such people as Rav Soloveitchik, Yeshayahu and Nechama Leibowitz, R. Abraham Joshua Heschel, R. Kotler, and R. Yizhak Hunter.

Cosponsored by Ohr Kodesh Congregation

Speaker: Professor Walter Laqueur in conversation with Rabbi Joshua Haberman

Location: Temple Shalom; Silver Spring, MD

In this lecture, Professor Laqueur and Rabbi Haberman discuss the New Germany and its Jews, the rise of anti-Semitism, and Israel and the Jewish Future.

Speaker: Professor Raphael Jospe, Philosophy Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part four discusses how pluralism can be found - even within the texts of Judaism.

The Dr. Harvey H. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Raphael Jospe, Philosophy Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part three discusses how Spinoza's life and beliefs were interpreted by Moses Mendelssohn.

The Dr. Harvey H. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Raphael Jospe, Philosophy Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part two discusses the life of Baruch Spinoza, who is known as the first person to voluntarily live outside any religious fold.

The Dr. Harvey H. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Raphael Jospe, Philosophy Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part one sets the stage for the life of Baruch Spinoza by discussing the controversies over philosophy in the middle ages.

The Dr. Harvey H. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Charles Butterworth, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part four returns to the topic of the Quran and discusses its teachings in greater detail.

The Lenell G. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Charles Butterworth, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part three discusses why, from the perspective of Islam, a new revelation was needed to supersede those provided by Judaism and Christianity.

The Lenell G. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Charles Butterworth, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part two discusses how certain Quranic dictums might be problematic today and how the Quran should be understood.

The Lenell G. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Charles Butterworth, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part one discusses the origins of Islam and the history of its development.

The Lenell G. Ammerman Memorial Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Robert Alter, Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley

Location: Washington DCJCC

In this lecture, Professor Alter discusses the challenges faced by those who wish to translate the Bible.

Co-sponsored by Adas Israel Congregation; Washington, DC

Speaker: Dr. Mark N. Ozer, author of "The Litvak Legacy"

Location: Kehilat Shalom Congregation; Gaithersburg, MD

Charges of Nazi collaboration, accusations regarding complicity, defensiveness and mutual mistrust appear to be the hallmarks of Lithuanian Jewish relations, but has it always been this way? What are roots of anti-Semitism in Lithuania and how has anti-Semitism waxed, waned and evolved? What is the state of this relationship today and its outlook for the future? These questions and many others are addressed in the discussion of the progression of Lithuanian Jewish relations.

Sponsored by the Ammerman Foundation in honor of Dorothy G. and Robert H. Rumizen

Speaker: Dr. Steven Lowenstein, Isadore Levine Professor of Jewish History, American University

Location: B'nai Israel Congregation; Rockville, MD

"Tumultuous" is an understatement in describing the historic relationship between Jews and the rest of the German state. Jews have been in Germany since the early fourth century, and German-Jewish relations have fluctuated between tolerance and violence. This lecture treats the topic of assimilation and strives to enrich our understanding of how woven into (or excluded from) the fabric of the nation Jews in Germany were before the Holocaust.

Endowed by of K. Peter & Yvonne Wagner as a part of a series of programs on German-Jewish Cultural Heritage

Speaker: Hershel Shanks, Founder & Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review

Location: Washington DCJCC

Why are the Dead Sea Scrolls important for understanding the origins of Christianity as a Jewish movement? What does "Son of God" mean in Judaism? In Christianity? To what extent is Christian doctrine anticipated in the scrolls? Part two also examines the so-called "Dead Sea Scroll in Stone" and whether it relates to a messiah. Finally, this lecture explores the mysterious Copper Scroll which describes 64 sites with buried treasure, possibly from the Jerusalem Temple.

Speaker: Hershel Shanks, Founder & Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review

Location: Washington DCJCC

Part one discusses the ruins of Qumran near the 11 caves in the Judean Desert where more than 900 scrolls were found, comprising what has been called the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century. This lecture considers whether the people living at Qumran were a strange sect of Jews called Essenes, what the scrolls tell us about the development of the Hebrew Bible, and how the scrolls also help to elucidate Judaism in the crucial period before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem.

Speaker: Dr. Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University

Location: Sixth & I Historic Synagogue; Washington, DC

This lecture discusses the often confusing history of Jews in Poland and Russia.

Speaker: Professor Ed Kaplan, Department of Romance Studies, Brandeis University

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part four dicusses Israel, the Holocaust, and spiritual radicalism in relation to how modern faith faces despair.

The Josephine F. and H. Max Ammerman Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Ed Kaplan, Department of Romance Studies, Brandeis University

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part three dicusses prayer, reverence, and social responsibility in relation to Heschel's involvement in and views on civil rights, Soviet Jewry, the Vietnam War.

The Josephine F. and H. Max Ammerman Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Ed Kaplan, Department of Romance Studies, Brandeis University

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part two dicusses the Bible as holiness in words and how it can be an experience of G-d for today’s seekers.

The Josephine F. and H. Max Ammerman Study Retreat

Speaker: Professor Ed Kaplan, Department of Romance Studies, Brandeis University

Location: Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center; Reisterstown, MD

Part one dicusses Heschel’s life and how his belief in sacred humanism resulted in his religious response to world events.

The Josephine F. and H. Max Ammerman Study Retreat

Speaker: Warren L. Miller, Chairman of the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad

Location: Sixth & I Historic Synagogue; Washington, DC

The Holocaust resulted in the annihilation of much of Eastern Europe’s Jewish population. In many countries, no Jews were left to care for the Jewish communal properties. This destruction, desecration, and deterioration of properties continued under Communist regimes. This lecture discusses the challenge of protecting these sites and the threat to Jews worldwide from the growing threat of Holocaust deniers.