Across Generations: Steve Naman and Sam Panken

What is a Jew? What is Judaism? And what does Jewish life look like when it's grounded in ethics, history, and practice rather than nationalism?
Whether you're Jewish, Jew-ish, exploring conversion, or simply curious, you're invited into this space.

Introduction to Judaism Beyond Nationalism is a 16-week survey course broken up into two modules, covering Jewish history, belief, practice, lifecycle, philosophy, and culture from the ancient world to the present.

We'll ask hard questions, sit with complexity, and learn together.

In this four-session course, we explore halakhah, often reductively glossed as "Jewish law," as a powerful resource for the Jewish left. We will examine how the halakhic process works, how its modes of thinking push against and beyond empire, and why this system, developed parallel to the modern state, may be uniquely suited to building the world we want to live in.

This course will provide students with a unique venue for this inquiry. Students will be introduced to key concepts, theories, and methods that can help us make sense of loaded terms like "Judaism," "fascism," and "antifascism"; to historical readings and case studies that illuminate the lineages of Jewish antifascism -- including anarchist, Bundist, liberal, and Marxist varieties -- as well as the lesser known histories of Jewish fascism; and to recent texts and other media that address the crisis within contemporary Judaism. Finally, the course will feature ample opportunities for open discussion, and will conclude with a consideration of the possibilities for an emancipatory Judaism and a world without fascism.