91�첥

Women’s History Month Playlist

This Women’s History Month, 91�첥’s HUC Connect is reflecting on and celebrating the incredible women who have been featured as speakers or interviewees in and the subjects of our webinars and podcasts.

Webinar Recordings
Podcast Recordings

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HUC Connect Webinars

Judaism & Women’s Studies: Gender and Liturgy

(2020-2021)

Rabbi Dalia Marx, Ph.D., Rabbi Aaron D. Panken Professor of Liturgy, HUC/Jerusalem
Shani Ben-Or, Cantorial Student, HUC Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music

How has gender played a role in Jewish liturgy and worship throughout the ages? In this survey of Jewish history examining women as worshippers, the presence of women in the synagogue, and gender-related aspects of liturgical law and lore, discover how contemporary understandings of gender may affect our liturgical language.

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The Land as Woman

(2022-2023)

Co-Presented with Prooftexts

Chana Kronfeld, Bernie H. Williams Professor Emerita, Comparative, Hebrew and Yiddish Literature, University of California, Berkeley; Speaker
Rabbi Wendy Zierler, Ph.D., Sigmund Falk Professor, Modern Jewish Literature and Feminist Studies, HUC-JIR/NY; Co-Chair, Prooftexts; Co-Moderator
Barry Wimpfheimer, Ph.D., Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University; Co-Chair, Prooftexts; Co-Moderator

Join Chana Kronfeld as she speaks about her article in Prooftexts 39:2, which deals with the biblical convention of female personification of the land from the Bible to modern Hebrew poetry.

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Illuminating Ecclesiastes

(2023-2024)

Debra Band, Artist and Author, Qohelet: Searching for a Life Worth Living
Adriane Leveen, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible, HUC-JIR
Jean Bloch Rosensaft, Director, Dr. Bernard Heller Museum, HUC-JIR/New York; moderator

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” “for everything there is a season,” and “the sun also rises” are all drawn from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes. Artist Debra Band describes how her exquisite calligraphy, micrography, and paintings illuminate the first ever visual interpretation of this entire poetic text. Dr. Adriane Leveen analyzes the enduring wisdom and inspiration of a text expressing the beauty and transience of human life and accomplishments.

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Women in the Rabbinate

(2021-2022)

Rabbi Sally Priesand ’72, First Woman Rabbi Ordained in North America
Rabbi Denise L. Eger ’88, Congregation Kol Ami
Rabbi Karen Thomashow ’07, Associate Rabbi, Isaac M. Wise Temple

50 years after HUC-JIR ordained the first woman rabbi in America, it’s time to assess progress. What have we achieved and what remains for us to accomplish?

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If Flame Falls on Cedars, Women Leaders Will Put Out the Fire: The Biblical Deborah Reimagined

(2020-2021)

Rabbi Wendy Zierler, Ph.D., Sigmund Falk Professor of Feminist Studies and Modern Jewish Literature, HUC/New York

The Biblical Deborah has been adduced as a feminist model for women’s leadership as far back as the earliest agitations for women’s ordination at the end of the 19th century. But well before then, in Trieste, Italy, the first modern Hebrew woman poet, Rachel Luzatto Morpurgo (1790-1871) placed herself in the shoes of the biblical Deborah as well as those of the erudite rabbis of the

Talmud, subtly suggesting that women poets, pastors, and leaders might be able to do the job better than their erstwhile male counterparts. Discover the story of the biblical Deborah through the unique lens of Morpurgo’s 1859 poem “Look: This is New,” and learn how modern Hebrew women’s poetry can serve as a vital source of new interpretation for our classical sources.

Presented in partnership with Lilith magazine.

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College Commons Podcast

Frankly Feminist: Short Stories by Jewish Women

Lilith Magazine Editor Susan Weidman Schneider shares a groundbreaking Jewish feminist short story collection spanning 40 Years.

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Sarah Imhoff: The Unexpected Zionist

The Lives of Jessie Sampter: Queer, Disabled, Zionist – National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Women’s Studies.

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Elisheva Baumgarten: Mind the Gap��

Tracing medieval women’s Biblical culture and how it differed from… the Bible.

Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages, winner of the 2022 JBC Award for Women’s Studies.

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The Inside Story of Jean Carroll, The First Lady of Laughs

Grace Overbeke uncovers the stories behind the career of legendary Jewish comedian Jean Carroll.

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Laura Leibman: Jewish History Renewed in the Experience of Women

Remarkable stories of Jewish women through the objects of their lives.