Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
The Essence of Jewish Music
Lior Kaminetsky
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Laguna Beach 3
Arts and Performance,
Global History and Culture,
Teen Approved
In the last 2000 years, Jews have been moving around, establishing communities all over the world with old musical traditions, written down in unique notation ("trope"), some of which are ascribed to tunes sung at the Jerusalem Temple (960 BCE - 70 CE). In this presentation, Lior will revive an important piece for violin, based on the traditional Ashkenazi cantillation, and will discuss the following related issues: What happened to the Temple tunes? Is there original "Jewish music" or just a collection of environmental musical influences? What musical characteristics would build such music?
FILM: Women of the Wall
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Huntington Beach 1 & 2
Feminism arrives in Jerusalem,when a women's prayer group tries to pray openly at the Western Wall for the first time in 1989. Despite verbal and physical attack, these women continue fighting for the right to pray in this holy space, thereby testing the limits of and expanding the interpretations of Judaism in Israel. In May 2000 the group once again made international headlines when the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in their favor after an eleven year court case. This decision, however, dismantled only the legal barrier to their struggle, and not the cultural or societal ones barring their freedom of spiritual expression.
Women of the Wall is a useful discussion tool to raise dialogue about issues of religious freedom, separation of religion and state, women's rights, women's status in religion, and civil disobedience
Finding Your Inner Megillah
Esther Kustanowitz
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Newport Beach 3
Identity and Responsibility,
Teen Approved
There's a megillah inside every Jew, not just those named Ruth and Esther. Jews are natural storytellers because our faith is based in oral and then written history. But what makes a story worth telling and retelling, generation after generation? In this experimental writing workshop, visit some noteworthy texts from Jewish tradition and engage in free-writing exercises based on and inspired by those texts.
Gender Trouble: Thinking Beyond Binaries
Gregg Drinkwater
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Emerald Bay 2
Identity and Responsibility,
Teen Approved
Was the first human a male? A female? Neither? Both? Were Abraham and Sarah challenged by more than just infertility? Together, we’ll explore the complexity of gender in the Book of Genesis, taking a "queer" journey through relevant Rabbinic commentary and midrash. Can we use our sacred texts to expand our understanding of sexual and gender diversity? Come study with the co-editor of the new book "Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible" (NYU Press).
Hip-Hop & Judaism: A Marriage Made in the Ghetto
Elai Shine
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Laguna Beach 1
Arts and Performance,
Global History and Culture
This session examines the integration between the themes, concepts and values of Judaism and Hip Hop music. How has “ghetto” culture influenced both modern Judaism and Hip Hop? What is the relationship between Judaism and Hip Hop’s response to issues of poverty? What does it mean to be a minority culture and to express your values? Musically, how are poetry and lyrics explored through musical themes in both cultures?
Holographic Metaphor
Lev Sadovnik
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Newport Beach 1
Identity and Responsibility
From my physics background, I am trying to show an analogy between my perception of the teaching of Judaism and the way we view a hologram. This metaphor opens interesting insights on several issues concerning Judaism and modernity. Intuitive and rational perception, need for unity, free will, and destiny can be visualized through various aspects of holography.
The Jewish Body: From Circumcision to Nose Jobs
Mel Konner
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Laguna Beach 2
Health and Healing,
Identity and Responsibility
This presentation will focus on modifications of the body, such as circumcision in ancient and modern context (designed to keep the Jews separate from other people) and nose jobs and other cosmetic surgery (often designed to make the Jews fit in). How did Jewish genes make the Jews different, or did they only seem different? At many times in history, Jewish women became an exotic attraction to Gentile men, and yet somehow anti-Semites' definitions of the Jewish body drove some Jews to change their faces and bodies. Jews invented Hollywood and made countless movies, and sometimes even succeeded on the other side of the camera, but they held up to the world an Aryan ideal of beauty. We will explore and discuss these paradoxes.
Jewish in Iran; Iranian in LA
Houman Sarshar
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Balboa Bay 2
Global History and Culture
Jewish? Iranian? Persian? American? Jewish-Iranian? Persian Jew? Iranian-American? American-Iranian? Sephardic Iranian-American? Mizrahi American-Iranian? Oy! Participants will be encouraged to add more questions. Maybe together we’ll find an answer before the hour is up! If not, we’ll at least walk away with a better sense of the why the questions linger.
Mystical Secrets of Hebrew Words
Susan Vorhand
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Balboa Bay 1
Text and Thought
The Hebrew language is not arbitrary. The words themselves contain the very essence of its meaning. We can learn a lot about reality (if a word does not exist in Hebrew, the concept is not real, not true) and thus about ourselves and our lives by gleaning some Kabbalistic insights into Hebrew.
Who Is a Jew: An Urgent Need for a New Paradigm
Ariel Picard,
Uri Regev
Monday 11:30 AM–12:45 PM
Emerald Bay 1
Identity and Responsibility,
Teen Approved
The "Who is a Jew" debate has plagued and challenged Israel-Diaspora relations for decades. It is a complex halachic, philosophical, sociological and political challenge that goes to the heart of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. While for a long time it was dominated by the battle over conversion among the different denominations in Judaism, in recent years there is a growing realization of the internal Orthodox discord. We will discuss the urgent need for a new paradigm in this arena, demonstrate why "Who is a Jew" is too important a matter to be left to Orthodoxy, and outline and discuss the legal, halachic, and public aspects of this debate and the urgent need to develop new conversion options.
