Learning/Lab:
JEWISH LEARNING TO YOUR TASTE
EAT, STUDY and COMMUNE
with some of Portland’s best Jewish educators and artists.
Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish is launching our newest program: Learning/Lab
Join Jewish educators and culture-bearers, rabbis, artists and our chef-in-residence for evenings of food, learning and culture.
Learning/Lab is a community-wide opportunity to study everything from Talmud to Jewish Mysticism, women’s folk rituals to Jewish history, poetry, art, and so much more.
And what would a Jewish gathering be without food?
Our evenings begin with an (optional) chef prepared meal and drinks to kick things off on the right note.
Each week, academics, artists, and rabbis, will offer classes that will connect you to Jewish ideas – and to other people like you.
We know that a lot of people want to learn about Judaism but don’t know where to begin, are intimidated, or just want to engage on their own terms.
If that sounds familiar, Learning/Lab is for you.
Ora Fruchter is a theater-maker, puppeteer, director and educator. Her most recent show, The Amazing Story Machine, uses found object puppets to celebrate imagination and collaboration. She is the recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Family Grant, a Young Pioneers Award for innovation in Jewish education, and was selected as one of the Jewish Week’s 36 Under 36 (2017). Ora will be the artist-in-residence for our upcoming October/Tishrei series. www.orafruchter.com
Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem is the newly appointed Creative Director of Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish and the Co-Founder and Director of Art/Lab, a fellowship for contemporary Jewish artists here in the Portland area. Shoshana is an interdisciplinary artist, Torah scribe, curator and chutzpanit. In her socially engaged art practice she often reimagines rituals and sacred objects, primarily but not solely, Jewish ones, and reinserts them, with new forms, into familiar contexts. Shoshana’s large-scale collaborations engage institutional critique as a means of redistributing agency to the public domain, often through publicly generated solutions. Shoshana’s studio work takes shape through textiles, prints, collage, ceramics, book arts, herbal preparations, conversations, letters, memoir, publications and whatever other forms inspire and call to her. www.shoshanagugenheim.com
Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater is the founding rabbi of the Portland Open Beit Midrash. Her rabbinic work focuses on creating innovative yet traditional Jewish law, liturgy, and ritual for transgender Jews, the communities in which they live, and the entire Jewish world. She is the author of several new rituals to celebrate transgender Jews within a traditional Jewish framework, such as naming ceremonies and mikveh immersions, as well as a number of works on Halacha (Jewish law) regarding the broader obligations of the Jewish community towards its transgender members. In addition to her rabbinate, Emily works as a software developer in Portland.
Natan M. Meir is the Lorry I. Lokey Professor of Judaic Studies in the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at Portland State University. A scholar of the social, cultural, and religious history of East European Jewry, he is the author of Kiev, Jewish Metropolis: A History, 1859-1914 (2010) and Stepchildren of the Shtetl: The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800-1939 (2020). He is now working on a new project about Jewish folk customs across 19th- and 20th-century Europe.
Rabbi Josh Rose is the Founding Director of Co/Lab. Rabbi Josh served congregations in Boulder Colorado and here in Portland and then in 2021 turned to discover new avenues to Jewish engagement. After months of conversations with folks in the Jewish community seeking something new, he created Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish. He holds a Master of Hebrew Letters from Hebrew Union College and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University
Yosef Rosen is a Jewish educator and DJ. A recipient of a doctorate in Jewish Studies (UC Berkeley), Yosef translates the mysteries of Kabbalah into usable mythologies and immersive practices. His workshops merge what modern society often keeps separate: the contemporary and the ancient, the academic and the experiential, the religious and the secular, the spiritual and the somatic.
As a teacher, Yosef blurs the line between education and initiation—he encourages students to reclaim their own forgotten or censored lineages of Jewish creativity. He currently trains future Jewish leaders in Rabbinical Schools (AJR & Aleph) and teaches new, immersive workshops offered online to anyone who wishes to learn Kabbalah.
Rabbi Devin Villarreal has worked in Jewish education for over fifteen years as a classroom teacher and administrator in Jewish day schools during which they were awarded the Covenant Foundation’s Pomegranate Prize for emerging Jewish educators. They currently work as a coach and program manager for Pedagogy of Partnership at Hadar. At the center of all of Devin’s work is the belief in Judaism’s ability to guide discovery and nourishing of one’s best self. Devin received semikhah (rabbinic ordination) from Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo. They hold a Master’s Degree in Teaching from the American Jewish University and are a graduate of UCLA in the Study of Religion.
Meet Our September Chef-in-Residence
Sonya Sanford is a writer, chef, and co-host of the popular food podcast: Food Friends – Home Cooking Made Easy. Born in Seattle to Ukrainian-immigrant parents, Sonya spent her early professional life working in the film industry in Los Angeles before pivoting to a career as a chef and moving back to the Pacific Northwest to open her Jewish restaurant, Beetroot Market & Deli. Specializing in Ukrainian and Soviet food, Jewish diasporic food, and Pacific Northwest seasonal cooking, her writing has been featured in Eater, the Nosher, and Tablet Magazine and her recipes have been nationally syndicated in Jewish media outlets. She recently published her debut cookbook: Braids: Recipes From My Pacific Northwest Jewish Kitchen, and you can find more of her work at www.sonyasanford.com and follow her on Instagram @sonyamichellesanford
Classes
All sessions will be held
Tuesdays from 7-8:30pm
Join us for delicious food and drinks starting at 6pm at the Eastside Jewish Commons
September
Rabbi Devin Villareal
An important passage in our High Holy Day prayers describes God’s “attributes of mercy,” and appears originally in the Torah. According to the rabbis in the Talmud, God revealed these merciful qualities while teaching us how to pray! Through readings and conversation we will explore what it might mean for God to model a spiritual practice, and what lessons these rabbinic discussions can offer us in this year’s High Holy days – and the rest of the year.
Session will start with a brief teaching (called a d’var Torah) with Rabbi Josh at the end of the meal, and just before classes begin.
Rabbi Emily Kapor-Mater
We will study the Talmud’s statements about what makes teshuvah (repentance, personal transformation) complete. How did the ancient rabbis use Jewish law and interpretation of Torah to help us see personal change as possible? As we familiarize ourselves with passages of Talmud, we will see up-close the rabbinic process of creative interpretation, which helped them – and can help us – confront the challenges of ethical living.
Session will start with a brief teaching (called a d’var Torah) with Rabbi Josh at the end of the meal, and just before classes begin.
Dr. Natan Meir
The High Holy Day mahzor (prayerbook) can be daunting — it’s so thick and is so full of prayer after prayer! This class will help you make sense of it by focusing on one of its longest sections: the Musaf service on Rosh Hashanah. We’ll explore its structure and examine some of the most important and beautiful piyyutim (liturgical poems) to help you attain a more insightful and meaningful prayer experience.
Session will start with a brief teaching (called a d’var Torah) with Rabbi Josh at the end of the meal, and just before classes begin.
Dr. Yosef Rosen
What if teshuvah (repentance, personal transformation) was not something only humans do, but a natural, cosmic process of self-development & elevation? For the mystics of Kabbalah, teshuvah is exactly such a primal process that we can choose to participate in. This reframing has the potential to radicalize & enhance our encounter with the High Holy Days. We will explore how the Zohar – one of the central books of Kabbalah – and the 20th century Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook transform teshuvah into something that is both more accessible & more mystical.
Session will start with a brief teaching (called a d’var Torah) with Rabbi Josh at the end of the meal, and just before classes begin.
October
The class and workshop run concurrently. Choose one!
Rabbi Devin Villareal
Whether due to things like gender, geography or accidents of time, some of Judaism’s most precious voices have faded from our consciousness. At a time when Judaism’s fuller range of thought is needed, hearing these voices has never been more valuable. In each session we will get to meet a nearly forgotten Jewish thinker and engage with their wisdom on some of the season’s vibrant themes such as, repentance, resilience, transformation and hope.In trying to build connections with each other, it can be easy to just focus on what we have in common but that often misses some of the real beauty and richness of other people’s experiences. Other times, we get discouraged because differences can seem impossible to bridge. In this series, we will study texts from Jewish voices that are often missing and mine their wisdom for uncovering shared dignity through our differences.
The class is conceived as a whole, covering a range of material and topics. However, each session can also be enjoyed as a stand-alone and students are welcome to sign up for single classes.
Sessions will include a brief inspirational teaching (called a d’var Torah) just before classes begin.