Past Webinars
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with Dr. Rachel Korazim November 9, 2025 The calamity of October 7 and the war that followed had left Israel and the Jewish world in shock and despair. The unimaginable became our reality. As more details of the horror unfold, as we are facing the painful daily losses in battle and the plight of the…
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with Sharon Ann Musher September 14, 2025 In 1922, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, first initiated the Bat Mitzvah as a rite-of-passage for Jewish girls. Characterized as a lifelong supporter of women’s rights, Kaplan’s family, including his wife and four daughters, played a role in shaping his ideas about women, Jewish law,…
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with Yovel recipients Rabbis Lee Friedlander and Arnold Rachlis May 4, 2025 Join us to hear eminent Rabbis who have attained Yovel status as they reflect on the ongoing and evolving threads of Kaplanian thought that have informed their careers. Rabbi Lee Friedlander is a native Philadelphian who was raised by secular Jewish parents and…
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with Rabbis Michael Cohen and Fred Scherlinder DobbFebruary 9, 2025 Environmental activism from the personal to the communal: two extraordinary voices speak about Kaplan, their own tikkun olam, and how awareness of the fragility of the earth has shaped their actions, careers and voices. Rabbi Michael Cohen is a faculty member of the Arava Institute…
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This year is a very special one. We are celebrating both the 90th anniversary of the publication of Judaism as a Civilization and the 90th birth year of Mel Scult, Kaplan’s biographer. An amazing tidbit: the NYTimes announcement of the publication of this seminal volume came out within days of Mel’s birthdate!! Both of these…
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with author Amy Schiller and Rabbi Mordechai Liebling September 17, 2024 The High Holidays are a time associated with reflection, repentance, and renewal. The Unetanah Tokef prayer, recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur morning, suggests that one of the ways to improve our return to community in the reality of our mistakes is through…
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with Rabbi Mira Wasserman, Ph.D.June 9, 2024 Please join us as we thank Rabbi Jeffrey Schein for his work as Executive Director of The Mordecai Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood, introduce our new Executive Director, Rabbi Elisheva Sachs Salamo, and learn from Rabbi Mira Wasserman, Director of the Center for Jewish Ethics and Associate Professor…
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From Dr. Jeffrey Schein 90th Anniversary Celebration of Judaism As a Civilization Dr. Deborah Waxman and Elias Sacks on “Judaism as a Civilization: the 90th Anniversary of this Hanukkah Gift that Keeps Giving”. We’d like to help our Institutional Friends utilize this both as a webinar in their own community and as useful public relations…
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with Aaron Dorfman, Amy Spitalnick, Rabbis Amy Klein and Bill Plevan, and moderated by Rabbi Elyse Wechterman March 20, 2024 Over 50 years ago, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, posited that Democracy was essential for a vibrant and thriving Jewish people/community. Our question is: was he right? Do Jews and Judaism need democracy? …
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with Rabbi Elizabeth BoltonMarch 23, 2025 The story of Dr. Judith K. Eisenstein, Mordecai Kaplan’s eldest daughter, is undertold and deserving of attention. She was an educator and an ethonomusicologist, and her accomplishments not only established her as an innovator in her own right, but also as a concrete expression of her father’s views on…