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June 2025
Rebuilding Trust and Opportunity: Arab-Jewish Partnership in Israeli High-Tech
Please join Ansche Chesed and The Task Force on Arab Citizens of Israel for a conversation with Maisam Jaljuli, CEO of Tsofen-Tashbik, and Ifat Baron, founder and CEO of itworks— leaders advancing inclusive employment in Israel’s high-tech sector. Their work to sustain high-tech as a space for Arab economic mobility and Jewish-Arab partnership in Israel is both more challenging and important under the strains of a polarized and war-strained society. As government and international funding declines and public discourse grows increasingly polarized,…
Find out more »October 2025
Lunch and Learn: “There’s a Midrash About That!” with Rabbi Yael Hammerman
Working remotely? Retired? Stay-at-home parent? Taking a day off? Please join Rabbi Yael Hammerman for a monthly lunch-and-learn gathering where we will read midrashim from across the centuries. Midrashim help us fill in the blanks in the Torah, they add color to our black and white laws, and they help us develop our own voice and approach to Jewish text. Come - it will be fun! (No Hebrew background necessary). Learn more and RSVP Bring your lunch, according to the AC…
Find out more »Reading Biblical and Prayerbook Hebrew: Aleph
In this class we will review Hebrew letters and decoding rules with experienced and skilled teacher Nadav Wiesel, for faster and smoother reading of prayerbook and biblical Hebrew. Using authentic biblical texts, we will learn fundamental Hebrew vocabulary and grammar to deepen your understanding of biblical Hebrew. Class is appropriate for people with basic Hebrew knowledge - we start with Aleph-bet. Interested in Modern Hebrew? We also offer a course where you can learn that. Please contact JAshley@anschechesed.org with any questions about registration.
Find out more »Wednesday Night Talmud with Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky
This year, our long-running study group will study tractate Moed Katan, focusing on traditions regarding death and mourning. (Don't be dissuaded by the heavy topic. It's very rich!) This class is best in person -- so please come! Also available via Zoom (Meeting ID: 865 6254 5410| Passcode: chesed)
Find out more »Yesodot: Jewish Foundations with Rabbis Jeremy Kalmanofsky and Yael Hammerman
Jewish life often seems to demand a lot of background knowledge. Where do you learn it all, especially as an adult? Please join Rabbi Hammerman and Rabbi Kalmanofsky to learn anew or go back and review some core Jewish practices and concepts. Learn more and register Join us beforehand to Learn to Read the Torah with Hazzan Natasha Hirschhorn.
Find out more »January 2026
Rabbi Jules Harlow Parshat HaShavuah Class
Join us for our weekly Parashat HaShavua class before the start of Shabbat morning services in the Chapel. Come at 8:45am for hot coffee and a chance to schmooze before the 9am class. This weekly class is dedicated to Rabbi Jules Harlow, a great teacher of Torah and Jewish liturgy. Click here for the Source Sheet (updated Friday afternoons). Also available by Zoom.
Find out more »Shabbat Dinner & Discussion: Shared Streets, Shared Words: Jews, Blacks, and the Ghetto
The word ghetto began with Jewish history, yet by the late 20th century it was more commonly associated with Black urban life in America. That shift echoed a familiar urban pattern: neighborhoods once densely Jewish became overwhelmingly Black, and the term ghetto moved with them. What happens when a word so marked by one group’s past is taken up by another? How do shared words shape solidarity—or strain it? And what anxieties surface when communities feel their histories are being eclipsed, appropriated, or misunderstood?…
Find out more »Potluck Kiddush Conversation with Scholar-In-Residence Daniel Schwartz
Join us for a Kiddush and talk from Scholar-In-Residence Professor Daniel Schwartz: World of Their Children (and Grandchildren, Great Grandchildren): The Making of the Jewish Upper West Side When Irving Howe published World of Our Fathers in 1976, he offered both an elegy for the immigrant Yiddishkeit of the Lower East Side and a critique of what followed: the “world of their children,” whose Jewishness seemed thinner, flatter, and more conventional by comparison. Yet the Upper West Side unsettled that judgment and…
Find out more »April 2026
“Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire”: Film Screening and Discussion
In honor of Yom Hashoah, please join us for a special screening of Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, directed by member Oren Rudavsky: Eighty years after his liberation from Buchenwald, we seek to understand the man behind Elie Wiesel's searing and widely read memoir Night. Told largely through his own words and eloquent voice, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire seeks to penetrate to the heart of the known and unknown Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) - his passions, his conflicts and his legacy as one of the most public survivors…
Find out more »May 2026
Shavuot “Pre-Kun”: Wrestling and Embracing the Commandments
As we have in previous years, Ansche Chesed will host an early evening study session at the shul, prior to the JCC Tikkun and other learning opportunities. This year AC members and clergy will reflect on mitzvot we do and don't yet do. We will reflect on mitzvot relating to business ethics, prayer and eating. How can actual normative practices in these areas bring our values and ideas into real life? RSVP here Walk-ins also welcome.
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