Two hundred fifty years ago, American revolutionaries reached for the words of the Hebrew Bible to make their case for independence. The phrase engraved on the Liberty Bell itself, "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof," comes directly from the Book of Leviticus. In this course, we'll trace how biblical texts including Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy shaped the political imagination of the Revolutionary generation, from sermons and pamphlets to the imagery Franklin and Jefferson proposed for the Great Seal of the United States.

We’ll also go back roughly 2,500 years to ask what these passages meant when they were written: who wrote them, why, and what ideas of liberty, covenant, and peoplehood they carried for ancient Israel.

Who this is for:

• Anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible’s place in American history
• Readers curious how ancient texts get reinterpreted across centuries
• No prior Bible study needed

What you'll leave with:

• A close reading of key passages in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy in their ancient context
• An understanding of how Revolutionary-era sermons and pamphlets used those passages, down to the proposals for the Great Seal

Nine Sundays: October 11, 18, 25, November 1, 8, 15, 22, December 6 & 13, 5:15–6:45pm Pacific Time

Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

J. Robert Oppenheimer led the scientific work at Los Alamos, helped bring about the atomic age, and later became one of the best-known victims of the Red Scare. In Robert Oppenheimer: The Sphinx Without a Secret, his new biography in Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives series, David Rieff looks past the public story to Oppenheimer’s inner life: his childhood, his personal relationships, and his deeply ambivalent relation to being Jewish.

Rieff joins Steve Wasserman, publisher of Heyday Books and former editor-at-large for Yale University Press, to talk about the man behind the legend and why Oppenheimer still fascinates more than eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Image: Ben Shahn, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1954. © 2026 Estate of Ben Shahn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Who this is for

• Anyone who wants more of Oppenheimer’s story than the recent film told
• Readers curious how his Jewish background shaped him

What you'll leave with

• A fuller picture of Oppenheimer’s inner life, from childhood on
• The chance to put your own questions to the author

Sunday, October 25, 1:30–3pm Pacific Time

Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

Twenty years ago, historian Cheryl Lynn Greenberg published Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century, a landmark study of the complicated political relationship between Black and Jewish Americans. Challenging both the nostalgic idea of a seamless Black-Jewish alliance and the notion that the relationship simply collapsed, Greenberg traced a history in which cooperation and conflict, shared political goals and competing interests, were intertwined from the beginning.

Two decades later, Greenberg returns to Troubling the Waters to ask what has changed, what has endured, and how the history looks from the vantage point of today. What can the past tell us about Black-Jewish relations now, and does the idea of a Black-Jewish alliance still help us understand the political relationship between the two communities?

Who this is for

• Anyone interested in the history of Black-Jewish relations in America, beyond the simplified alliance-or-collapse narrative
• Readers of Troubling the Waters looking to hear from the author directly, twenty years on
• Those thinking about coalition politics and how shared and competing interests shape relationships between communities over time

What you'll leave with

• Greenberg’s account of how cooperation and conflict between Black and Jewish Americans were intertwined from the start
• Her view of what has changed in twenty years, and whether the idea of an alliance still helps explain the present

Two Wednesdays: November 11 & 18, 6–7:30pm Pacific

Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.