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Fall 2024

Slifka featured in The New York Times
October 7th anniversary coverage: “Jewish students find solace and a place to mourn with campus Hillel groups.”

Slifka Center Executive Director Uri Cohen was quoted in The New York Times from his letter emailed to our Yale Jewish community. Read the article here with a New York Times subscription or our PDF version here

One Year Later: Remembering October 7th. A letter from Uri Cohen

Slifka Center Executive Director Uri Cohen sends letter in an email to our Yale Jewish community reflecting on the year at Slifka since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, 2023. Read here

2023

At this most charged time for students on college campuses, Abigail Pogrebin speaks with Hillel directors Uri Cohen (Yale), Jenna Citron Schwab (Queens College) and Michael Simon (Northwestern).

Yale statements on the Hamas-Israel war

Statements from Yale University about the Hamas-Israel war, along with an overview of the university’s policy on freedom of expression… Continue Reading

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A year of the Nigun Circle at Yale

Started last fall, the Nigun Circle is providing an informal and spiritual musical experience for Yale students.

Started by two friends who met in Yiddish class, Yale’s Nigun Circle just celebrated its first year. Nigun means “melody” in Hebrew and consists of… Continue Reading

OPINION:

What Is Happening on College Campuses Is Not Free Speech

Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, campus life in the United States has imploded into a daily trial of intimidation and insult for Jewish students… Continue Reading

On Becoming a Jewish Activist

I am a Jewish activist.  But it was not always thus. How did I become one and how can you?  Here is my story…. Continue Reading

WEATHERBEATEN BUT HOPEFUL

Noah’s ark in New Haven

This week in synagogues all over the world, Jews will read the story of Noah and his ark: how it floated on the surface of the floodwaters… Continue Reading

TARTAK: Is Yalies4Palestine a hate group?

Editor’s note: The News reached out to Yalies4Palestine and asked if group members would like to issue a comment or a concurrent column… Continue Reading

SCHWARTZ: Why don’t you see me?

The tears do not come at first. My friend texts me Saturday morning, attaching one of the early articles. I read it dry-eyed, scrolling, watching evil rear… Continue Reading

Toward a Humane Left

To hold everyone’s humanity—that is the task of the hour.

At the end of the Jewish holiday weekend of Simchat Torah, I turned my phone back on and was overwhelmed by images of death and horror… Continue Reading

Dissent Dissent Magazine 

Celebrate Jewish Yale NYC 

Yale President Peter Salovey, NYC Central Synagogue Head Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Author Abigail Pogrebin, and CEO Bedford Ridge Capital Andrew Klaber talk about what Jewish life at Yale and Slifka Center mean to them. Slifka Center Executive Director Uri Cohen and Head Rabbi Jason Rubenstein share their thoughts too. Guest appearance by Magevet, Yale’s Jewish a cappella singing group.

As the former president of not one but two juggling clubs, I am known on this campus for taking my entertainment very seriously. But in … Continue reading

Yale’s Slifka Center for Jewish Life sits behind Silliman College on Wall Street, a quiet one-way alley behind Silliman College. Sunlight pours into the building … Continue reading

Jewish-American photographer Hannah Altman is the first Blanksteen Artist in Residence at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.  Through this program, Altman … Continue reading

SLIFKA ONLINE SALONS

 

Slifka Center’s Online Salons bring our community together across distance and years, for informed conversation on current topics.  Recordings of past presentations are available below.

Please watch! and to relay your comments, we invite you to complete this Survey. 

Most recent Slifka Online Salon:

On Wednesday, March 23, 2022  Yale graduate and current Yale Law student David Hopen ’17, ’23 JD joined Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain at Yale, to discuss his debut novel and National Jewish Book Award Finalist, The Orchard, a coming-of-age story exploring a young man’s transition from Brooklyn to Miami– as featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker. Participants were encouraged to read The Orchard prior to viewing (recording here), to get much more out of the conversation! 

Recordings of previous Slifka Online Salons:

“Rethinking Antisemitism for the 21st Century” originally scheduled for November 2021 was held February 23, 2022.  Antisemitism has become a prominent feature of American Jewish life in recent years, and as individuals and a community we have often found ourselves grasping for theoretical frameworks, historical analogues, and practical responses. Hear Professor Maurice Samuels, Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French and Director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, in dialogue with Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, to learn not only about what’s happening on Yale’s campus, but also current academic understandings of antisemitism in our moment. 

Wednesday, January 19, 2022 @ 8PM ET- Professor Reva Siegel ’78, ’86 JD and Yale Law School Senior Lecturer and long-time New York Times Supreme Court Correspondent Linda Greenhouse ’78 MSL- Abortion Rights: Before and After Roe v. Wade.

Thursday, June 10, 2021 @ 8PM ET  —  Miryam Kabakov:
Changes are afoot: Hear what’s happening to make Jewish spaces LGBTQ+ inclusive

Wednesday, April 12, 2021 @ 8PM ET — Eli Lebowitz:
Breaking Free of Child Anxiety and OCD
Monday, March 22, 2021 @ 8PM ET — Mark Gerson:
God Didn’t Create the Seder to Put You to Sleep
Monday, March 15, 2021 @ 8PM ET — Dr. Nancy Brown, Dean of Yale School of Medicine:
Learning from the Pandemic: Medical Education in a Post-COVID World
Wednesday, February 17, 2021 @ 8PM ET — Adam Lehman: Lessons from the Jewish Future
Wednesday, January 13, 2021 @ 8PM ET — Ross Douthat:
A Post-Election The Politics of Community: Contemporary Tensions in Judaism and Catholicism
Wednesday, December 16, 2020 @ 8PM ET — Remembering RBG: A Slifka Online Salon with Linda Greenhouse
Thursday, November 5, 2020 @ 8PM ET — What Just Happened:
A Post-Election Conversation with Emily Bazelon and Bryan Garsten
Monday, October 5, 2020 @ 8PM ET — Fear, Action, Resilience:
Jewish Responses to Climate Crisis: A Slifka Online Salon with Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin
Wednesday, September 23, 2020 @ 8PM ET — The Prophetic Call of Frederic Douglass:
A Slifka Online Salon with Professor David Blight, Sterling Professor of History and Pulitzer Prize Winner
Monday, September 14, 2020 @ 8PM ET — Right Speech as Repentance and Redemption: Rosh Hashanah in an Age of Post-Truth Politics:
A Slifka Online Salon taught by Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain at Yale
Monday, August 10, 2020 @ 8PM EDT — Political Hobbyism vs Political Power: a Slifka Online Salon with Eitan Hersh
Monday, June 29, 2020 @ 8PM EDT — Prosperity and Suffering in a time of Crisis: a Slifka Online Salon with Daniel Markovits
June 16, 2020 @ 8PM EDT — Steven Skybell: A Yale Alum and Broadway Star takes on Tevye
Session recording will be available shortly.
May 25, 2020 — Israel and American Judaism: Blessings and Changes with scholar David Makovsky

May 12, 2020  — The Supreme Court Today: An Insider’s Perspective with Lisa Blatt
This Lecture is made possible in part by the Henry Kohn Fund at the Slifka Center

April 22, 2020 — The Ethical Quandaries of Coronavirus: A Conversation with Professor Shelly Kagan
March 24, 2020 — An Evening with Marvin Chun, Dean of Yale College