Please join the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies in welcoming students to campus at the start of our spring term. Our lunch hour will feature presentations from CJS Director Deena Aranoff and Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley.
In this program we will ask: What is the synagogue? What is its form, function, aesthetics and sound? The synagogue is always an amalgam of shifting persons, recitations, performance, art, location and assembly. Rather than pin down this mainstay of Jewish life, we will tease out some of its most significant elements- elements that despite their centrality, often remain hidden in plain view.
A light lunch will be provided.
Please note: The entrance to the GTU Library has moved; please go around the corner on Scenic Ave. and enter through the first floor.
If you are unable to attend in person, please sign up here to attend via Zoom.
Deena Aranoff is Faculty Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA. She teaches rabbinic literature, medieval patterns of Jewish thought, and the broader question of continuity and change in Jewish history. Her recent publications engage with the subject of childcare, maternity and the making of Jewish culture.
Francesco Spagnolo, Curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley. He is also an Associate Adjunct Professor in the Department of Music and the Center for Jewish Studies, and is affiliated with the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, the Institute for European Studies, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and the Religious Diversity Cluster of the Haas Institute.