Program via Zoom

Menachem Fisch – Professor Emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science at Tel Aviv University

Debra Band – Author and Illuminator of Biblical Texts

How does one live a life of wisdom and fulfillment in a far-from-perfect world? This lecture is an inquiry into the value of life “under the sun” as recorded in the text of the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes by Qohelet.

Modern readers have been influenced by the famous declaration from the 1611 King James Bible version, “vanity, vanity, all is vanity,” and have commonly understood that Qohelet found only futility and hopelessness in human life. Instead, Fisch uncovers Qohelet’s twin concerns: that life is short, that we can never be assured of comprehending our world or understanding divine will and intent.

In sixty immersive, and discursive illuminated paintings of the entire text, Band creates a visual midrash, drawing out the relationship of Qohelet’s thought to other biblical texts and Jewish lore and its reverberations across the centuries and cultures of western civilization, from ancient Israel to today’s America.

This Zoom event is co-sponsored with BASONOVA. To receive a Zoom link, after December 1 register ($10) with a credit card via the BASONOVA PayPal portal: https://link.edgepilot.com/s/d20d0c6b/FQ8yKownUk6HqsmLiA3qXw?u=https://basonova.org/next-lecture-reservation.html

Contact Donald Kane for more information:baf.jccgw@gmail.com

All Bender JCC programs are open to everyone. Contact Kate Falls, Director of Inclusion, at kfalls@benderjccgw.org or 301.348.3767 to discuss support and accommodations.

The Aramaic translations (targums) of the Hebrew Bible provide a fascinating window into the history of Jewish Bible interpretation. Since the targums were not created to be “the Bible” for any community, they were free to explicate the text by providing expansions and commentary from tradition and midrash. A case study of the targums to Genesis 22 (the Binding of Isaac), for example, exhibits many of these characteristics.

The first targums had appeared by the end of the first century B.C.E., and became more widespread and even indispensable by the mid-first century C.E. as by then most Judeans no longer spoke or read Hebrew; Aramaic was their vernacular. Targums were not recognized as authoritative by Jewish religious leaders. Targums were later cited in the Babylonian Talmud, and today some editions of the Tanakh, those which include commentaries, still print the targum alongside the text.

Contact Donald Kane for more information: baf.jccgw@gmail.com

All Bender JCC programs are open to everyone. Contact Kate Falls, Director of Inclusion, at kfalls@benderjccgw.org or 301.348.3767 to discuss support and accommodations.

Lecture Presented by Lillian Doherty – Emerita Professor of Classics, University of Maryland 

Greek myths look timeless to today’s audiences, but in ancient Greece they were constantly being retold in new ways to please, inspire, or even unsettle their contemporary audiences. As the Greeks had no canon of scripture, their poets had considerable freedom to adapt their myths and explore their meanings. 

This presentation is focused on one especially significant example of this dynamic: the historical, cultural, and religious context of the fifth century BCE, in which the dramatist Aeschylus produced his Oresteia trilogy about the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, and; the foundation of the Areopagus, the law court that tried cases of homicide in Athens.

Contact Donald Kane for more information: baf.jccgw@gmail.com

All Bender JCC programs are open to everyone. Contact Kate Falls, Director of Inclusion, at kfalls@benderjccgw.org or 301.348.3767 to discuss support and accommodations.

Presented By Jonathan Klawans – Boston University

The story of mass suicide at Masada has been told by our only contemporary source, Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, priest, autobiographer and general. Although his histories may have been written, at least in part, for a Roman audience, this presentation evaluates the story in the context of ancient Jewish sectarianism and nationalism.

The validity of the story in light of Josephus’s biases and motivations will be probed, and taken into consideration will be the attitudes toward suicide and martyrdom as articulated by Josephus and other ancient Jewish sources.

Also explored will be the meanings the story has taken on in contemporary Israeli history and culture with comparisons to some more recent stories of tragic mass suicide.

Co-sponsored by B’nai Israel Congregation, The Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies, BAF, and BASONOVA

*This event will be held at B’nai Israel: 6301 Montrose Road / Rockville / MD 20852

Contact Donald Kane for more information: baf.jccgw@gmail.com

All Bender JCC programs are open to everyone. Contact Kate Falls, Director of Inclusion, at kfalls@benderjccgw.org or 301.348.3767 to discuss support and accommodations.

Betsy Bryan – Emerita Professor of Egyptian Art and Archaeology, Johns Hopkins University

The Egyptian empire built during the early New Kingdom was the result of wealth accumulation from the gold of Nubia, combined with small and large wars with the Mitanni in Syria and their vassal states in the rest of the Levant.

As Egypt’s rulers became accustomed to campaigning in the north, they created a loose but highly promoted imperial structure made up of southern vassal city states held since early in the 18th Dynasty together with northern Mitanni vassals won over by Thutmose III and his successors. Yet holding this confederation together proved far harder than winning them had been, even after a peace treaty with the Mitanni rulers.

Already in the Amarna era the Hittites were pressing the northern vassals to change their fealty. This discussion will survey the entire period and demonstrate how nearly inevitable was the one of the most famous clashes of the ancient world: the Battle of Kadesh between Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittites.

Contact Donald Kane for more information: baf.jccgw@gmail.com

All Bender JCC programs are open to everyone. Contact Kate Falls, Director of Inclusion, at kfalls@benderjccgw.org or 301.348.3767 to discuss support and accommodations.

The famous formulation that all Gaul was divided into three parts came from the self-serving pen of Caesar himself, whose conquest of Gaul served as the springboard for a quest for power that ended fatally on the Ides of March in 44 B.C.E.

Rome gradually acquired commercial and military interests in southern Gaul that provided the pretext for Roman intervention in the complicated politics of the region. Caesar then exploited internal divisions within Gaul to bring about the largest single acquisition of territory for Rome north of the Alps, a project that he conducted largely on his own initiative with only the grudging approval of the Roman Senate.

The conquest of Gaul has left a deep impression in the French national consciousness, from Louis Napoleon’s obsession with the rebel Vercingetorix to the comics of Astérix le Gaulois.

Contact Donald Kane for more information: baf.jccgw@gmail.com

All Bender JCC programs are open to everyone. Contact Kate Falls, Director of Inclusion, at kfalls@benderjccgw.org or 301.348.3767 to discuss support and accommodations.

Program via Zoom

One of the most famous epic narratives of classical mythology is that of the Trojan War, a decade-long conflict over the possession of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world.

Pitting Greeks against Trojans, the war featured heroes like Achilles and Odysseus, and it was integral both to the psyche of the ancient Greeks and to the mythical foundation of the ancient Romans.

Our speaker recounts the story of the Trojan War and explores and weaves together multiple (and sometimes conflicting) strands of evidence from many periods of antiquity. She narrates passages from ancient literary sources including Homer’s Iliad (ca. 750 BCE) and Apollodouras’ Bibliotheca (ca. 100 CE) and illustrates the program with important artistic works, such as the famous Sarpeon Krater by Euphronios and the Laocoon Group in the Vatican museums.

Later representations of the Trojan War are also highlighted, such as Peter Paul Rubens’ Judgment of Paris and Nicolas Poussin’s Achilles Discovered on Skyros.

To reserve your spot, use our Zoom PayPal portal: https://link.edgepilot.com/s/e1fbb0ac/GooXf2xCq0i7Sljm5FNSWQ?u=https://basonova.org/next-lecture-reservation.html

Contact Donald Kane for more information: baf.jccgw@gmail.com

All Bender JCC programs are open to everyone. Contact Kate Falls, Director of Inclusion, at kfalls@benderjccgw.org or 301.348.3767 to discuss support and accommodations.