New Lehrhaus

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California's Jewish educational nonprofit. Intellectual, creative, and open to all.

Classes, films, concerts, and cultural programs exploring arts, history, literature, music, and ideas throughout the state. New Lehrhaus brings students and teachers together in dynamic dialogue to explore sources, traditions, and arts, sustaining and enriching the vibrant spirit of Jewish civilization. As California‘s non-denominational lifelong Jewish learning institution, we are dedicated to academic excellence, open inquiry, contemporary relevance, and cultural and religious pluralism.

10/08/2026

What can South Africa and Rwanda teach Israelis and Palestinians about reconciliation?

In 2014, author Maya Savir made her first trip to both countries, two societies that had each gone through a long and painful process of reconciliation, one following apartheid and the other genocide. What she learned became “On Reconciliation,” first published in Hebrew in 2017 and now available in Todd Hasak-Lowy’s English translation.

Join Savir and Hasak-Lowy in conversation with the Reverend Ben Daniel, senior pastor of Montclair Presbyterian Church and a longtime interfaith organizer. Together they’ll discuss what Savir learned, what forgiveness does and doesn’t have to do with reconciliation, and what it might take to imagine a future beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

📅 Friday, October 16
🕞 3:30 to 5:30 pm
📍 Montclair Presbyterian Church, Oakland
🎟️ Free to attend
🤝 Co-presented with Montclair Presbyterian Church & Plough Books

Reserve your free seat at the link in our bio.

Plough Quarterly Montclair Presbyterian Church

10/08/2026

What would it actually take to achieve reconciliation in Israel and Palestine?

Join Beth Sholom on October 14th as we welcome Maya Savir , author of On Reconciliation: What Israelis and Palestinians Can Learn from South Africa and Rwanda and daughter of Oslo Accords architect Uri Savir. Maya will be joined by Todd Hasak-Lowy , the book's translator, and Adam Lowy, our Lifelong Learning Moreh Derech.

This program is hosted at Congregation Beth Sholom and sponsored by New Lehrhaus. Register here: https://forms.gle/6NjEGn6MkSQXJzX57

10/06/2026

On October 15th, we're thrilled to collaborate with the Yiddish Book Center for a class that asks: where is a stateless people home?

Yiddish is often defined by its lack of a homeland. But Yiddish speakers, artists, and writers made themselves at home anyway, in towns their families had lived in for generations and in cities they had just arrived in. Swipe through four of those places. ➡️

Madeleine Cohen will lead us through close reading, discussion, and weekly writing prompts, and we'll ask what these spaces can teach about diasporic belonging and the meaning of home without a state.

➡️ At Home in the Diaspora: The Spaces of Yiddish Literature
Four Thursdays: October 15, 22, 29 and November 5 at 12–1:15pm Pacific
Held on Zoom

Register for the course at the link in our comments.

09/30/2026

What does Jewish tradition have to teach us about environmental ethics?

From the opening chapters of Genesis, where God commands humanity to "till and tend" the garden, to the rabbinic principle of Bal Tashchit ("do not destroy"), Jewish thought has long wrestled with humanity's relationship to the natural world.

Long before environmentalism became a modern movement, the rabbis were debating questions of stewardship, pollution, animal welfare, public responsibility, and our obligations to future generations.

Over three sessions this October, we will study original Jewish texts from the Bible, Talmud, and other sources, and discuss passages that are surprisingly nuanced, often counterintuitive, and startlingly relevant to the ecological crises of our own time.

Together we will explore how the Talmud balances private property with the public good, why the Torah cared about cutting down fruit trees, what the Shmittah (sabbatical) year teaches about economic sustainability, and whether a hundred-year-old man planting a fig tree might actually be one of Judaism's wisest environmental philosophers.

Come prepared to read, argue, question assumptions, and be surprised.

Tending the Garden with Daniel Kohn
Tuesdays: October 13, 20, 27
7pm - 8:30pm Pacific on Zoom

Register at the link our comments.

09/29/2026

Two days to go.

The autumn term starts Oct. 1. Courses in Jewish text, history, language, literature and culture, taught by scholars you keep coming back to and a few you're about to.

Haven't registered yet? Head to the link in our comments to find your next course.

09/29/2026

What does it mean to wrestle with a text that has shaped Jewish life for nearly two thousand years?

Deena Aranoff's Talmud Circle is a growing, welcoming community of adult learners engaged in serious, lively, and accessible Talmud study. Each session brings participants together for close reading, vigorous conversation, and the kind of open-ended inquiry that has defined Jewish learning since the rabbis first gathered to debate.

No prior experience with Talmud is required. All you need is curiosity, openness, and a genuine interest in engaging with others.

While many participants return year after year, new students are always welcome.

🍏 We begin Wednesday, October 14. The Circle meets monthly on Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30pm, at the East Bay Jewish Community Campus in Oakland, with a Zoom option available at every session. The year concludes with a celebratory Siyyum in June.

Link to register in our comments!

09/28/2026

Four weeks before the historic vote, journalist Dina Kraft joins Hadar Susskind of New Jewish Narrative for a conversation about the election as it looks from Tel Aviv and from Washington. They will take up who is running, why the election night count is only the beginning, and what the outcome may mean for communities in the country and abroad.

Space is limited and we expect a full house. Register now to reserve your space - link in our comments.

09/28/2026

🍁 Our autumn term starts October 1st!

On Wednesday, we release the full autumn catalog: every course, every teacher, the whole season in one place. We've been working on it for months and can't wait to show you. Sign up for our newsletter at the link in the comments so it lands in your inbox first.

We open Thursday, October 1 with Israel Votes: Behind the Headlines. Journalists Dina Kraft and Hadar Susskind look at Israel's first election in 4 decades to follow a Knesset that's served out its full term–and what it means inside the country and far beyond it. One evening only, and seats are limited.

Then our first courses begin. Rev. Bruce Bramlett (Oct 5) traces how two faiths took centuries to part ways. Daniel Kohn (Oct 6) brings the rabbis into Jewish environmental ethics. Madeleine Cohen (Oct 😎 tours the spaces of Yiddish literature. And on October 11, Jehon Grist starts two Sunday courses: Prayerbook/Biblical Hebrew 1, and Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land at 250.

➡️ Register for October now at the link in our comments

09/22/2026

This October is the first Israeli election in nearly four decades to follow a Knesset that served out its full term, and the first since 10/7 and the wars that followed.

Four weeks before the vote, we’ve asked a veteran correspondent and the head of a national Jewish organization to sit down and talk it through.

Dina Kraft covers Israel and Palestine for the Christian Science Monitor and is a former opinion editor of Haaretz’s English edition. Hadar Susskind is president and CEO of New Jewish Narrative in Washington.

Join us for their conversation. They’ll take up the parties and the blocs, the issues moving voters in this cycle, the bargaining that begins once the count ends, and what the result may mean for Jewish communities outside Israel.

There will be time for your questions.

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🗳️ ISRAEL VOTES: BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Thursday, October 1 @ 6pm PST
on Zoom

➡️ We are expecting to reach capacity. Register early to guarantee your spot at the link our comments!

09/12/2026

However you spend the coming days, we wish you sweetness, peace, and good company, and we look forward to learning with you again in October!

Address

P. O. Box 7843
Los Angeles, CA
94707

Website

https://newlehrhaus.org/, https://yiddishkayt.org/

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