Civic Friendship in Times of Crisis and War: Jewish Thought, Political Theory, and the Story of Hanukkah

Dec 11, 2023 By Shira Billet | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Ancient philosophers described a political ideal of “civic friendship,” the idea that fellow citizens in a political community ought to pursue a certain kind of bond of friendship, in order to create flourishing societies steeped in a robust social fabric. Dr. Shira Billet explores the central role of notions of civic friendship in traditional Jewish sources. In light of current events in Israel, we will turn our attention to Jewish texts that relate to civic friendship in wartime and in times of crisis, with special connections drawn to the holiday of Hannukah.

Paradigms of Friendship: What Philosophers and Rabbis Can Teach Us

Dec 4, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Public Event video | Video Lecture

The Greek philosophers asserted that there are four types of friendship. This model, which was adopted by Maimonides, considered shared joint engagement in intellectual matters the highest form of friendship. Missing from this paradigm is the importance of certain character traits in creating and sustaining friendships. We consider the “four friendships” model and then take a mussar oriented approach to suggest alternative paradigms.

Friendship During Crisis: Learning from the Book of Job

Nov 27, 2023 By Mychal Springer | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Job’s friends come to Job in the midst of his unspeakable losses and try to comfort him. We will learn from the Book of Job and explore the challenges of being a good friend when someone is suffering.

Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors? A Talmudic Teaching

Nov 20, 2023 By Aaron Koller | Public Event video | Video Lecture

What do we owe our neighbors? How much are we obligated to contribute to our cities, our neighborhoods, our streets, and how much can we just take of ourselves and let everyone else take care of themselves? These are modern questions, but they are ancient Jewish questions, too. The Talmud speaks in a different language than we do, so it probes these issues through law and narrative. We read a short passage from the Talmud about what it means to be a good neighbor, and unpack it to see how these questions are broached and what insight the text has to share.

Friendship and Interfaith Engagement

Nov 13, 2023 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In a world where religious differences have often been a source of division, the concept of friendship emerges as a powerful tool for forging connections, fostering receptiveness to others, and nurturing understanding. Beginning with a discussion of Aristotle’s friendship, followed by several case studies, we investigate how friendship has been actualized and experienced throughout history within the context of interfaith dialogue. We will also consider to what extent an ambivalence about friendship exists in Jewish-Christian relations from the Middle Ages up to the present day.

Be My Galentine? Female Friendship in the Hebrew Bible

Nov 6, 2023 By Yael Landman | Public Event video | Video Lecture

From Lucy and Ethel to Thelma and Louise, female friendships have captivated consumers of modern media. Yet if we look to the Hebrew Bible, examples of female friends seem few and far between. This session explores female friendship in the Hebrew Bible by examining relationships (or lack thereof) between biblical women such as Ruth and Naomi, the anonymous daughter of Jephthah and her friends, and Deborah and Yael.

Across the Atlantic: Lifesaving Friendships during the Holocaust

Oct 23, 2023 By Edna Friedberg | Public Event video | Video Lecture

During the 1930s and 40s, friendship ties could mean the difference between life and death, refuge and danger. In this session we learn about Americans who went to great lengths to help European Jews in need of escape–whether penpals, exchange students, or total strangers.

A Friendship in the Ghetto, the Forest and Beyond: The Story of Two Yiddish Poets During the Holocaust

Oct 23, 2023 By David Fishman | Public Event video | Video Lecture

Imagine two friends surrounded by German soldiers in the forest, with a single pistol in their possession, and one of them hands the pistol to the other, saying: “Abrasha, you should live, you are the greater poet”. This was the depth of friendship between Yiddish poets Abraham Sutzkever and Shmerke Kaczerginski. They inspired each other to creativity and acts of heroism. We explore their lives together, as fellow inmates of the Vilna ghetto, living in the same room and working in the same slave labor site, and ultimately how their friendship ended in separation after the war.

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