Building jewish bridges. Welcome. Thank you. Good morning. Lets just jump in and ask you what is house judaica and what does it it do . First and foremost its an Independent School non denominational. Thoughtful ideas, challenging ideas and providing dialog for adults in the bay area for jews and non jews. The world house judaica is not english word. Fred rosenbaum our founding director was a graduate student at u. C. Bshgly and he was studying the lair house had it emerged in germany in the interwar period between world war i and world war ii. The word lair house is german for learning house which is basically he brew for madrash where people come and thern from each other and talk to each other and he was inspired looking at the lair house that was formed for adults in germany to learn about jewish resist rooe, jewish culture, floss nooe. Without religious denomination and without pro propoening. It was reborn in berkley 1974. Wonderful. And john well come back to more about house judaica can you talk more about building jewish bridges . Sure. In 9 toon 98 the walter 1998 the walter house fund wanted them to write more about them. We have a very high interfaith marriage rate. They reached out to run the program, its a three year grant and at the end of it it was one of those things where it was going great so we kept going. You know, its interesting its a big question and we can talk more about it. But we used the term interface in the community in general and the truth of the matter in some way its miss numbered because you can be a jewish person who doesnt particularly have a form of faith and you can be a jewish person who is secular and thats your identity but you dont believe in god. One can say you dont have faith and im wondering sort of in the diversity of all of this what do you see in the kwon text of building jewish bridges in this that way of how families come together in a way that may not include faith. Well it will include culture if it doesnt include faith. Because everybody comes from a culture. With in each of those subset way of doing those things i. I had a couple one of whom was jew and one was a polish katdz lick and as they explained to me why they had to adhere to their familys way of being. I said youre both completely out of step with the way of american thinking but youre in step with each other. So well go for where you meet. I know well talk more about it after the break but it also involves folks who are interracial, not white, lgbt. The whole panel of Diversity Community at large. Yes. Wonderful. Were going to come back to mosaic after this break. Good morning. Were in the middle of a wonderful conversation. Were talking about adult communication. Can you talk with us more about what the offerings are out at house judaica. Sure. A common place for adults jewish and non jewish is learning and dialog. So thats a key. No matter what the program has beens to be labeled. A key aspect of how lair house operates is that we people can come together over a subject over a topic, over an idea and be unified by the exploration of the idea. So dialog is the key move. If theres no dialog its not a lair house program. In fact the best knowledge is when a student pours out and for a moment of time the student controls the conversation and actually adds to it. That reversal. That flip is a key lair house movement. That will be a great day. When the student becomes a teacher and the teacher becomes a student. weve actually had courses ot air mag but the most important thing that we offer is an opportunity to learn and to dialog mung students with a teacher in a small format. Lair house is not a high ticket item. Its really the peoples school. Even though our problems are im going to santa rosa dont. We will be giving the product away because we truly believe in literacy pro motes intelligence. It pro motes wisdom. So were really out there. Everything we do is about that. And so its essentially based in berkley but classes are convened in different institutions. Born in berkley. Classes tlooelt completely around the area. Since the founding in frankfort theyve developed this thing called google. Theres nothing else like it in the world and this search for lair house youll find our website. Youll find our people and once you call them theyll find you. Wonderful and don can you talk awe little bit about the program offerings. Sure, so obviously my focal point is interfaith families, couples and families. So dealing with the emotional, social, religious emotional feelings that people have around two different cultures or two different religions coming together. I do all starts of programs sorts of programs everywhere. The joy of being at lair house if i get an idea that doesnt fit into my tiny hole i go to the staff meeting and say theres this wonderful thing happening dont you think we should do something. For example right there in bank of americay we have i felt like one of the things is some social time. Lets just do something together thats delightful and then maybe we learn something about each other in the process. So i class attached to a particular play has been very popular. Thats wonderful. You know, were going to take a little break in a moment but i wanted to ask you to reflect on something. Youve been using the terminology around literacy and its open not just to the Jewish Community but to people who are not jewish. Although its born at berkley it really sort of makes me wonder how do you understand this notion of jewish literacy from both within and without and does lair house judaica like to think of jewish literacy something that the Jewish Community should achieve. And whether you identify with the Jewish Community or not . Youre saying a jew or non jew . Both. I think it would be wonderful if everybody knew about judaism. One of the challenges that i come up with is the lack of knowledge both in the jew and the non jew. And so jews can be confused as to why do i have these attitudes. I have these feelings. Im jewish but i never go to synagogue and this is important to me. They dont understand that part of them. So they can articulate what theyre feeling. And the non jewish partner saying youner go to skoel. I go to church. You do nothing. Why is it so important. So one to understand identity and how that differs from other identities which dont include a culture and a history and you ask people is judaism a race, is judaism a religion. Somebody will say yes to all of those. So helping people understand that is just wonderful. And then things like we have in common jesus and we have a lot of differences of opinions about who jesus was and how that impacts our lives. And other significant historical figures. Thank you. Were going take a quick break and come back in just a moment here on mosaic. Good morning. And welcome back to mosaic. Im rabbi eric weiss. Were in a wonderful conversation the chief Program Officer and the senior educator and don kepler whos at director of building jewish bridges. welcome back. So lets continue our conversation. Just ask you for some more examples about your educational offerings. So as dawn was pointing out one of the greatest characteristics of lair house is that its a team. Very small team that does a lot of work. And were really inspired by both our founder Frank Rosenbaum and our long time actually executive director and now chief operating officer johan gris to look at the possibilities. What if. Why not . Can we try this. Because were not we dont receive instructions from above except from within. We actually can inspire each other to come up with ideas. So dawn had created this bridge with berkley rep and they were bringing row the amazing play by lisa looper to the birthday wrap from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and i had seen the play in oregon and i was so taken by it and then i was inspired as where in the text, where in the sacred scriptures that people keep raising around the play is abortion mentioned or how is it interpreted . Okay. Where is it in the kor kor ran. So what if during the run of row we made a panel of an islamic scholar, a catholic scholar, and a jewish scholar, and put them in a room and all they really need to do was tell their story of how they interpret a text to find a world view on abortion. We call it the revealing text. And it took awhile. People are accustomed to debating. Or to be shot down or to be called names. I said no all you have to do is teach from your text. The text lies there on the table. Can you educate us. Can you expand our knowledge of where you come from based on textual traditions and we did it. And i learned a great deal. Thats a great thing for me. I moderated it but we had three wonderful teachers. We use the room at the Broward Center in berkley. Ch theres a safe zone for everyone to come to. We learned. Everyone who came heard from the can ran. They heard from catholic text. They heard from medieval jewish texts. I dont know what they went away with as an opinion but certainly their fund of knowledge of how communities stand on was increased. And so im wondering from your perspective i know its always hard to know whats going on inside another person but in this particular case did you have the sense that just hearing information in some way builds an impathic bridge, a deeper understanding, changed minds. Do you have any sense of sort of what that educational process may sh done to the people who were in the room . I think from the leaning in and even the questions that came after the three presentations, you know, world of our world currently of facts and disputing science and basically ignoring evidence. They have three people calmly just provide evidence from a source that you can then look up yourself was an island after calm. You know, its interesting too because in my mind you presented a different way of understanding a social concern. Usually in our country and certainly in the bay area a social concern often moves to what we think of as a political realm where you advocate for the passage of a bill. Or you advocate for a political perspective whatever that might be. But youre actually presenting a different kind of way in which there is an educational component to a social concern that stands outside of a political realm but then has an equal place for the way we engage in this case abortion and regardless of where one would stand or what one would do about it it or what one thinks about it. Theres an educational component as distinctive of what we may think of a Political Action report. I actually was sitting in the audience. And i think what i felt and heard from people around me was that there is also that moment in which you are just reefing knowledge. Youre just learning. Youre dazzled. Youre surprised you dont know about that. Certainly i as a jew did not know. It was actually a wonderful woman. I felt much more tuned to this woman having a true physical experience of what she was talking about, understanding of it and i think for a lot of us sitting there theres just this aha moment and you go home and process. Thats why i think its great to have followups and come in and say well the last time we talked such and such was said. Because you as the Person Learning you have to develop. Youre the baby in that knowledge. Wonderful. Were going to take a quick break and come back to that knowledge here on mosaic. If you would like more information about lair house judaica please go to their website thats lehrhaus. Org. Or give them a call 5108456420. Were in the middle of this wonderful conversation about lehr haus judaica. Lets talk more about Adult Education in general. So Adult Education as a field is literally invented by the one of the lehr hauss in europe. Which at that time really meant you take an empty box and you fill it with culture. Andrew gotgi was taking the human being and bringing that entire human being to the table. Which means Adult Education is not a hobby. Its an access. It is an attribute. It is actually a benefit. Lehr haus class should be is not training adults. Its the opposite. In a toll taum classes i need them to know that all of that Life Experience is going to come into play in the conversation. So when i have a geographer. That class enlarges. So part of adult ed is taking the student at the text and asking them to reveal themselves asking them to read out their own story in the context of learning. So therefore where younger students are interesting millennials are fascinating. Adults whove been around the track a couple of times when it actually comes to philosophy are far deeper and more experienced. In other words reading poetry is kind of boring. So Adult Education brings in everybodys Life Experiences and we all learn from the experience. You know you remind me that in American Educational philosophy dewy is one of the Founding Fathers and one of his key characteristics of the goal of education was to um, encourage a selfreflective person, a selfreflective learner and so i wonder in your experience at lehr haus judaica. At what point does somebody become selfreflective to the point at which is an example. You said well when youre reading poetry if you havent had your heart broken then until that moment you kind of have a gap in selfreflective capacity and so im just wondering it seems like in some ways a lot of lehr haus judaica. But. Yes. That was really good. Yes. Um, and part of our responsibility is to make sure our teachers, our facilitators give time to that. Make sure thats part of your lesson time or your teaching schedule that this moment especially doing philosophy and say okay lets lean back. Lets take a pause. Tell me whats going on with you. Whats happening. How are you taking this. Where are you going with it. Its really important that we provide opportunities for reflection and value that for both youth, teens, young adults, and adults. Everyone needs time for reflection especially in a world that is going faster and faster in a very non reflective place. Actually we are counter cultural in a very important way. We actually value what you feel and think. And something weve been circling around somebody doesnt have to have a prerequisite to come to lehr haus judaica. So whatever level literacy you are at youre welcome to come. Absoluteliment we have basic judism classes and thats filled with a number of people who arent jewish. Were going put a comma in this conversation and have to say goodbye but please go to their website and develop your jewish literacy. Thank you so much for being with us. Time to get. The annual. Hall cabernet cookoff is happeni ll be great welcome to bay sunday im your host kenny choy. After so much Rainy Weather its time to get outside. There will be great food and of course plenty of wine. Welcome to bay sunday. Thanks kenny. So were talking about cabernets what should we look for . I know. There are so many cabernets out there. These are just a handful of
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