The mission and purpose of the Lifelong Learning is to plan and implement educational programs. These programs offer educational opportunities for adult congregants of all age groups and all levels of Jewish learning. While program topics vary widely, they will include a connection to Judaism, Jewish life, or issues of importance to Jews.
For a list of recent and upcoming Lifelong Learning programs, see the current issue of The VIEW, our annual guide to Shomrei Torah programs, or the most recent issue of The Voice, our monthly newsletter.
Torah Study
Torah study sessions are held every Shabbat morning at 8:45AM in our Kolbo Room.
All are welcome, of any age, including beginners to Torah study. Sessions are led by Rabbi George, Rabbi Kramer, and by lay leaders. This is the best opportunity for ongoing, in-depth discussion of Torah and related writings.
Rabbi’s Tisch
On the second Friday of each month, join your CST family for a Rabbi’s Tisch (table) in lieu of regular Friday night Shabbat Services. All Tisches take place at 6:15 PM and include a brief service (including Mi’Shebeirach and Kaddish), communal dinner and a program as noted below. $18 suggested donation for the catered dinner, please RSVP by calling (707)578-5519 or emailing [email protected].
March 9 Rabbi’s Tisch
“Dreaming in Turtle: Reporting the News in my Backyard and around the World”Because of their value, strange and marvelous turtles and tortoises are among the most trafficked and most endangered animals alive today – animals threatened by human greed, pragmatism, and rationalization. There is an existential threat to the world’s endangered turtle and tortoise populations, populations that serve as indicator species for our own human survival. From turtles to Trump’s wall on the Mexican border to the veracity of the label “organic” on our food, Peter Laufer brings stories of his global journalism back home to Sonoma County.Peter Laufer is the James Wallace Chair Professor in Journalism at the School of Journalism and Communication and an award-winning author, broadcaster, documentarian, and journalist. He has written two dozen books including the recent Organic: A Journalist’s Quest to Discover the Truth behind Food Labeling and the upcoming Dreaming in Turtle. He reported, wrote, and produced several documentaries as an NBC News correspondent on topics ranging from the crises facing Vietnam War veterans to illiteracy and hunger in America, and he wrote a study of Americans incarcerated overseas that won the George Polk Award.
April 13 Rabbi’s Tisch
Gender and the Holocaust: Why a gendered approach to the study of the Holocaust is valuable
This short talk will focus on why a gendered approach to the study of the Holocaust is valuable. It will discuss how discourses of femininity and masculinity, gender norms, and understandings of female and male identities contributed to the different ways in which Jewish men and women experienced and responded to the mass violence perpetrated against them. It will also explain how the Nazis promoted deliberately gendered strategies of persecution to advance their racial worldview and enhance the suffering of victims. As this talk will demonstrate, an examination of gender does not diminish the centrality of anti-Semitism and racism to Nazi persecution, but instead shows how it informed both, and hence the unfolding of the Holocaust.
Amy E. Randall is Associate Professor of History at Santa Clara University where she teaches courses in Soviet history, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the twentieth century, the Holocaust, gender and national identity in twentieth-century Eastern and Western Europe, and the history of modern sexuality. Amy is the editor and contributing author of Genocide and Gender in the Twentieth Century: A Comparative Survey (Bloomsbury Publishers, 2015) and has published numerous other works. Amy received her MA and PhD from Princeton University. She is also the daughter of Shomrei Torah member Angela Gelber.
May 11 Rabbi’s Tisch