Program
- Education Series
- Streaming
Beyond Fear: Combatting Antisemitism with Shane Burley and Ben Lorber
Rabbi Andy Kahn will be joined by Ben Lorber and Shane Burley to discuss their recent book, Safety Through Solidarity. The discussion will highlight approaches of shared responsibility across difference in the fight for justice and safety for all people as as the most effective form of combatting antisemitism.
Join us for a timely and urgent conversation with Ben Lorber and Shane Burley, co-authors of Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. At a moment when accusations of antisemitism are being debated widely, this conversation will explore how we can resist antisemitism without reinforcing systems of oppression, and how we can build real safety for Jews and all people through coalition and solidarity.
Drawing on the book’s powerful blend of personal narrative, historical analysis, investigative reporting, and interviews with frontline organizers, Ben and Shane will help unpack the current landscape of antisemitism: How it intersects with broader authoritarian and nationalist movements, and how it is being weaponized in defense of the genocide in Gaza. We’ll explore what it means to stand with Palestinians while rejecting antisemitism, and how progressive movements can avoid the traps set by those who conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
This conversation won’t just diagnose the problem—it will point toward a path forward. How do we understand the structural roots of antisemitism? How do we counter it without exceptionalizing or essentializing Jews? How do we educate others without centering ourselves in wider struggles? And how do we build resilient, multi-racial, cross-community coalitions that move us beyond fear and toward liberation? Join us as we sit down with two of the most incisive and grounded voices working at the intersection of Jewish identity, antifascism, and collective liberation.
Related Programming
- Education Series
The Past, Present, and Future of Queer Torah: Between Sunlight and Shade With Rabbi Avigayil Halpern
This class takes its name from the Rabbinic sage Rabbi Yochanan, who is often read as queer – his beauty is described as that of a silver goblet filled with pomegranate seeds and crowned with roses, set between sun and shade. It is in the beauty of that middle space that queer Torah emerges. In this series, we will examine texts and narratives from ancient to modern to ask: Is there such a thing as a canon of queer Torah? What qualifies Torah as “queer?” And what are the stakes of these questions for us as we approach an uncertain future?
Learn More
- Education Series
- Streaming
Tanakh Beyond Nationalism
The Hebrew Bible is one of the most argued-over texts in human history, and today is used to propagate some of the most pernicious agendas in the world. Rather than reading the Tanakh as a single voice delivering a settled message, this class will treat it as an ongoing conversation in which the terms of the covenant are renegotiated in every generation. Each session centers a pivotal moment where that relationship is updated, and notices that these stories always come with competing accounts of the moment, what the covenant was before, and competing visions of what it should become.
Learn More
- Education Series
- Streaming
Jewish Books and Zionism: A Conversation With Jewish Authors
On April 9, a group of Jewish writers published an open letter calling on the Jewish Book Council to stop centering Zionist and Israeli voices as the default of Jewish literature, and to make space for the wide range of Jewish writers working outside that framework. Four signatories join us to discuss how the letter came together, what they hope the JBC will do, and what it looks like to build new Jewish literary institutions while pushing existing ones to grow. We will explore anti-Zionist Jewish literary ancestors, how diasporic storytelling humanizes Palestinians and counters erasure, and the long history of Jewish dissent this moment belongs to.
Learn More