The Foundation for Jewish Studies

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.