First, Happy Labor Day weekend! One of my daughters had the good sense to ask Cyd the other day, “Why don’t we labor on Labor Day?” And Cyd got to explain to her that Labor Day honors labor by giving us the day off from labor. If you don’t know the history of this important holiday, here is a good summary, from the U.S. Department of Labor.
I will be taking most of the weekend in leisure myself. Last night, I saw Noah Kahan in concert (as he said from the stage: “I’ve been called the Jewish Ed Sheeran. I’ve been called Hairier Styles”), and today there is a birthday party for one of the kinderlach. But I am doing this one bit of work, which is to write to tell you about the fall course catalog that I have curated in my new job as director of open learning for American Jewish University, a terrific seminary and graduate school in Los Angeles. Part of my job is to create online course offerings for non-degree students, lifelong learners like you. And the catalog is finally up.
The most exciting Jewish online learning program there is
It’s a doozy, a real humdinger (I’m bringing “humdinger” back). For starters, we’re offering, on the web, a four-part course on the history of Jews in fantasy fiction—the Jewish role in Narnia, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings
(surely you know someone for whom this course is the perfect gift); and a four-part course on what Hasidic life is really like today; and an American history class taught b'Ivrit, in Hebrew, for the Hebrew-speakers or -learners among you;
and a one-time interactive lecture about how an Italian-Vietnamese-Catholic American became an Oxford graduate student in Yiddish; a six-part course on Jewish philosophy and the making of the modern Jew, from Maimonides to Heschel to the Lubavitcher Rebbe;
an hour with Times columnist Ross Douthat on the state of Catholicism today;
a course that asks what Jews really believe about the afterlife;
a panel discussion about what the Supreme Court affirmative action decision really means (moderated by the great Robert Siegel, of NPR); and a lot more. Much of it is free; the rest of it is eminently affordable.
Check out the whole catalog here, at open.aju.edu, and make sure to click on the tabs for both the course catalog and free events.
If every subscriber to this newsletter registers for one event, my new project is going to have a smash debut season. Join me, won’t you? And spread the word to all curious folk you know. And let me know if you can think of other channels through which I can spread the word. I think this is the most exciting online Jewish learning program there is. Thank you ever so much.