by Clare Kinberg
Master Jewish educators Yavilah McCoy and Rabbi Benay Lappe are two people I have long looked to for teaching deep growth and change in Jewish communal life. I couldn’t be more excited that they are coming to lead workshops in Ann Arbor on Februrary 18 and 19. The Jewish Communal Leadership Program (JCLP) is hosting a weekend of provocative study and discussion, and you are invited. Here is where you register.
Because Yavilah began her Jewish diversity trainings while living in my hometown of St. Louis, I saw firsthand the impact her work had on my family and friends. While living there in the late 1990s, she founded one of the first nonprofit Jewish organizations to provide Jewish diversity education and advocacy for Jews of Color in the United States. In 2005, I had the pleasure of publishing Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz’ interview with Yavilah in Bridges. You can access it here. In her current work at Visions, Inc, in Boston, she is bringing diversity training and inclusion to the next level.
On Saturday evening, February 18, Yavilah McCoy will lead the discussion at Common Cup Coffeehouse on Washtenaw Ave (free parking available). In these challenging days, what will it take to realize our obligation to racial justice across the diversity of religious and spiritual affiliations? The discussion will explore Jewish text and tradition to help us achieve deeper equality and more beloved community.
Rabbi Benay Lappe is Founder and Rosh Yeshiva of SVARA, a traditionally radical yeshiva based in Chicago that offers accessible, complex, and highly accountable traditional Jewish education from a Queer perspective. Ordained in 1997 by the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Lappe is an associate at two progressive Jewish think tanks (Institute for the Next Jewish Future and CLAL). On Sunday afternoon, Februrary 19, Rabbi Lappe will be introducing us to her style of Talmud study as a practice that strips away pretense and highlights the strengthening of self and community in radical relationship to the text. Sunday evening, Rabbi Lappe will offer an additional session for those who know the Hebrew alphabet that will engage participants in her version of radical text study in the original.
The program JCLP has put together is formed around the question, “How can we strengthen ourselves and our communities to confront these unreasonable times?”
Here are the details:
WHAT NOW ?
Communal Conversations for Unreasonable Times
February 18 & 19, 2017
Justice, Justice, You Shall Pursue with Yavilah McCoy
Saturday, February 18, 2017
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
The Common Cup Coffeehouse
1511 Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor
Radical Texts for an Unreasonable Time:
An Approach to Activist Talmud Study, with Benay Lappe
Sunday, February 19, 2017
1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
School of Social Work, Room 1840
1080 S. University Ave, Ann Arbor
Join Rabbi Benay Lappe for this exploration through text and community. Consider whether the identities best equipped to engage Jewish tradition are really the ones we’re used to seeing at the front of the room.One-Night Stand: An Evening of Radical Talmud, with Benay Lappe
Sunday, February 19
6:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
School of Social Work, Room 1840
Presented as part of the Frankel Speakers Series with the generous support of the Covenant Foundation. Co-sponsored by Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, Michigan Hillel, Department of America Culture, Dean’s TBLG Matters Initiative, and AHAVA.
Register here. For more information or questions contact Paige Walker vpwalker@umich.edu or (734) 764-5392.
