Taught by Reb Irwin

There has never been only one Judaism.

In every age of our people there have been multiple threads, different in outlook, practice, and language. These Judaisms have interacted with each other and in some cases have come into existence in response to one other (Reconstructionist Judaism was, for instance, a reaction to Conservative Judaism, which was in itself a response to Reform Judaism!).

In this class we will look at how we at Ner Shalom are the product of multiple lineages and imagine how we hold our particular flavor of Judaism moving forward.

Session One: We look at the competing branches of Judaism from Roman times through the Middle Ages around the Jewish world. This includes exploring distinctions between the schools of Babylonia and Palestine; Rabbinic vs. Karaite communities; and distinctions that developed as Jews spread in large numbers through the Muslim and Christian world.

Session Two: We look at the key developments of modernity: Reform, Chasidism, Ultra-Orthodoxy, and the other modern denominations we are familiar with. There will be much colorful history here, including the famous “Treyfe Banquet” of 1883.