Video Lecture Series: Peoplehood and Its Role and Significance in Jewish Life

In this 9-part Video Lecture Series, senior Shalom Hartman Institute faculty members delve into the idea of Jewish Peoplehood – its complex origins, its implications and how it might be sustained. An issue of wide concern in the Jewish community today, the concept of a “Jewish collective” appears at odds with a contemporary ethos of intense individualism.

As the meanings and implications of Jewish Peoplehood have a direct impact on nearly all of the central questions and tensions of Judaism and modern life, anxiety about a dwindling sense of Peoplehood is increasingly defining the agenda for Israeli agencies and Jewish institutions and federations worldwide.

This video lecture series presents a broad and deep analysis of some of the tensions that Peoplehood raises in classical Jewish tradition and contemporary Jewish thought and life.

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This Video Lecture Series includes:

• The Meaning and Significance of Peoplehood in Jewish Life
• Genesis and Exodus: Two Models of Jewish Peoplehood
• The Emergence of Jewish Peoplehood from the Biblical Perspective
• Prioritizing Peoplehood: A Reading of the Book of Jonah
• The Individual and the Collective
• The Poetics of Peoplehood
• Peoplehood and the Centrality of Place
• Jewish Peoplehood and the Possibilities of Modernity
• Core Principles of Jewish Peoplehood:

Additional Materials

• Source Book: Including all texts referenced in the lectures, plus additional supplementary sources and recommended background readings. 
• Leader’s Guide: Lecture summaries, suggested questions for guiding hevruta study and group discussion, supplementary source descriptions, and advice on structuring and teaching the course.
• Background Readings: Additional information

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The Lecture Series and accompanying curricular study materials are designed to be used by a rabbi or educator with a group of lay leaders in a weekly or monthly study program. The rabbi/educator serves as the lead teacher, utilizing the materials and lectures as best suited for his/her community, preparing the participants for the lecture by studying the texts and reading the supplementary materials in advance, either in a separate session, or in a shorter 45-minute preparatory session.

Cost: $500

Order Peoplehood video lecture series