A three-part virtual mini-course, Jewish Books in the Islamic World: From the Middle Ages Until Modern Times, will be offered at 7 p.m. on three consecutive Wednesdays, Jan. 14, 21 and 28 by Rutgers University’s Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life and the university’s Initiative for the Book.
The course will be taught by Bildner’s Jerome and Lorraine Aresty Visiting Scholar Dr. Noam Sienna and will offer a window into Jewish life in the Islamic world from medieval Cairo to modern-day North Africa through an examination of books and other written texts produced by Jews in Egypt, the Ottoman Mediterranean, North Africa, and Middle East. The course will also explore the dynamics of interreligious encounters among Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well as local relations with the multinational Jewish diaspora, legacy of the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492 CE and the active role taken by Jews in Islamic countries during their complex and turbulent transition to modernity.
Sienna is a scholar of Jewish book culture in the medieval and early modern Islamic worlds and the author of Jewish Books in North Africa: Between the Early Modern and Modern Worlds who is currently working on a study of the first Hebrew press in the Ottoman Empire.
Additionally, Sienna is a book artist, focusing on bringing together historical and contemporary expressions of Jewish visual and textual culture to preserve the traditions of Hebrew calligraphy and Jewish letterpress printing. His artistic practice explores the intersection of diverse languages, alphabets and texts throughout Jewish history.
The course is free and open to the public but advance registration is required at bildnercenter.rutgers.edu. where more details on each session can also be found.
College campuses across the country showed a dramatic uptick in antisemitism following the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. The topic will be explored at the Jewish Community Forum of Raritan Valley during a program, Jewish Life on US College Campuses: Has Anything Changed?, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 10 at Congregation Ohav Emeth in Highland Park.
The program will feature Rabbi Josh Ross, director of the Orthodox Union’s Collegiate and Young Professionals Division and executive director of its Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC).
The rabbi doubled majored in history and philosophy from Dalhousie University in Canada followed by eight years of yeshiva learning in Israel. After returning, he and his wife, Rivky, were JLIC Directors on campuses. They spent three years at Cornell University before spending three more at Princeton University.
The community forum is grassroots organization and relies on community donations to fund its events, although programs are free. To donate or for more information go to jcforumrv@gmail.com or website: www.jcforumrv.org.
Congregation Torat El in Oakhurst will host Jennifer S. Brown, author of The Whisper Sister, in a virtual program at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 11. The book is a coming-of-age story set in Prohibition-era New York, tracing one immigrant family’s fortunes and a young girl’s journey from the schoolyard to her family’s speakeasy. The story revolves around Minnie Soffer, who arrives from Ukraine in 1920 where the father who left when she was a toddler is a stranger, she understands nothing at school, but she and her brother work to make friends and learn English. When their father, Ike, opens at soda shop where they work the family appears to gain stability. However, the shop is really a front for his speakeasy. After a tragedy strikes the family, Minnie takes over the speakeasy despite the risk hoping to achieve the American dream.
Brown teaches writing both in person in the Boston area and virtually through the Loft Literary Center.
This is Brown’s second historical novel. Her debut book, Modern Girls, was a USA Today bestseller, a Massachusetts Book Award “Must Read,”
and a 2016 Goodreads Choice semifinalist for Historical Fiction.
Copies of the book can be purchased from bookshop.org to support independent bookstores or amazon.com.
The program is free but registration is required at https://www.torat-el.org/events/meet-the-author-jennifer-s-brown-author-of-the-whisper-sister-a-zoom-only-event.
Bring your children to see Mr. Ray at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 11 at Temple Emanu-El in Edison. The entertainer bills his work as “kids music that rocks and inspires.” He has produced children’s albums and videos and has performed at libraries, day care centers, theaters, schools, parties and music festivals for the last 30 years.
Ray Andersen, better known as New Jesey native and singer/songwriter Mr. Ray, performs with his acoustic guitar. His songs are now streamed more than 30 million times annually. Last year he debuted two new songs, My Teacher, written from a child’s perspective as a tribute to the profession, and a companion tune, “Good Listener.”
He was asked to be an official United Nations NGO Representative of Pathways to Peace in 2020 because of his musical work and messages of kindness, anti-bullying, diversity and inclusion toward children.
Pizza and snacks will be served. The program is free and open to the public, but advance registration is encouraged at https://www.edisontemple.org/event/family-event-mr.-ray.html.
