Summer Termcard '26

Oxford University Chabad Society

SUMMER TERMCARD 2026

 

Welcome to Oxford University Chabad Society Summer Termcard '26! This term promises to be an exciting programme at the OU Chabad Society, offering a wide variety of high profile and stimulating events, including world renowned speakers, delicious Friday night Shabbat dinners and lunch weekly, stimulating classes, seminars and plenty of opportunities to meet other students and make new friends. Whether you’re looking for challenging discussions, classes in Judaism or a warm environment to hang out with friends, the Oxford University Chabad Society has something to offer everyone. Looking forward to meeting you over the coming term!

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Weekly

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Weekly Friday Night SHABBAT DINNER & LUNCH 

Oxford Chabad is delighted to offer Jewish students and community weekly delicious Shabbat Dinners and Lunch every Shabbat throughout the year

Friday Night Shabbat dinner

Every Friday, Kabbalat Shabbat service at 7.30pm,  Shabbat dinner at 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

Shabbat Lunch at 1.30pm

At Chabad House, 75 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1HR

All are welcome! 

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Week 0

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Friday Night Shabbat dinner

Prof. Benjamin Pollock

Friday, 24 April, 7.30pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All welcome!

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Week 1

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'Does Judaism support Assisted Dying?'

Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain MBE

Professor David Katz

Jonthan Romain MBE is a writer, broadcaster and served as a congregational rabbi for over 40 years. He has a PhD in the history of British Jewry. He writes for The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and The Jewish Chronicle and appears on radio and television. He is chaplain to the Jewish Police Association, and until 2018 chaired the Accord Coalition, which he helped found as an alliance of religious and non-religious groups committed to campaigning against religious discrimination in state-funded faith schools. In 2014 he established Inter-faith leaders for Dignity in Dying (IFDiD), an inter-faith group of clergy, now numbering 50 leaders of many religious affiliations who support the aims of Dignity in Dying. The group calls for a change in the law that would allow terminally ill, mentally competent adults the choice of an having themselves die. He is author of Assisted Dying – Rabbinic Responses.

David Katz is Emeritus Professor of Immunopathology at University College London (UCL). His research interest has been in antigen presentation, in particular the role of dendritic cells in induction of immune responses in health and disease. His joint research group (with Professor Benny Chain) was recognised for original work investigating how these cells function, and how they can be injured, leading to immunopathology. He edits the International Journal of Experimental Pathology and for 16 years has served on Fitness to Practice Panels, chairing Tribunals for the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service. He is currently a deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s Medical Academic Staff Committee (MASC)

Tuesday, 28 April, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Week 2

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Oxford University Chabad Society is delighted to invite you to join us for the  13th Annual

OXFORD JEWISH FAIR - Lag B'omer

@ Broad Street

Tuesday, 5 May, 12-5pm

 * Formal opening by The Lord Mayor of Oxford - at 1pm

  * London's Jewish Music Band 'SHIR' - Ivor Goldberg and Maurice Chernick -  Klezmer, Israeli, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ladino and Simcha music 

  * Oxford Student Klezmer Gorup

* Oxford Musician Matthew Faulk - Yiddish Folk music

 * Chazan Elliot Alderman & Alexander Massey

* Oxford musicians Phil Freisinger and Sue Smith

Kosher Hot Food Stand 

* Jewish Books and Art, including Oxford glass Judaica  

* Jewish History of England Exhibition 

* Kosher cooking - Pickle making and Challah Baking

* Kosher and Israeli wine tasting - sponsored by Kedem Europe and Mamou Family

* Kosher Whisky tasting

* Scribal Art by expert scribe Arieh Freeman, including display of 17th c. Kaifeng and Pusey House Torah Scrolls

* Soft Archery

* Caricaturist - Josh Hughes

Celebrating the upshernish (first hair cutting ceremony) of Lev Mitchell - 3.30pm

To volunteer at the fair, help with set up and/or  run a stall, please email: [email protected]

This event is supported by Oxford City Council, the Community Security trust (CST), Kedem Europe, Mamou Family, JTrails -  the National Anglo-Jewish Heritage Trail, Oxford JSoc, Oxford Jewish Chaplaincy, Oxford Jewish Congregation, Kaifeng Glatt Kosher Chinese Restaurant, London, Aisenthal Judaica.

Looking forward to seeing you.

All welcome!

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Week 3

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'The British Channel Islands and the Holocaust'

81 years since the liberation of Alderney from Nazi Germany (9 May, 1945)

Marcus Roberts

Commemorating the 81st Anniversary of the Liberation of Alderney, with a viewing of ‘Their Blood Cries Out’ (Director Lisa Burkhardt-Worley) a multi-international award-winning documentary exploring Holocaust Denial and burials on Alderney and across Europe, with a talk and discussion led by Marcus Roberts, one of the film-makers. Many are still unaware that the Holocaust also happened on ‘British soil’.  In World War 2 the Germans occupied Alderney in the Channel Islands and set up five main slave labour camps, two of which were run by the SS.  Jews were sent to Alderney and died of hunger, over-work, or were shot, some also sent to Germany be gassed.  The film and discussion, explores the highly-contested facts and burial places on Alderney and the current battle to permit a plaque on remaining Jewish graves and asks the difficult questions, if 80 years on is there still denial about the Holocaust on British soil?

Marcus Roberts is a founder member of the predecessor of the Oxford Chabad Society, in 1987.  He is the founder and director of JTrails, the official UK Jewish heritage trail (part of the ‘Jewish Cultural Route of Europe’).  He was recently features in the CBS ’60 Minutes’ film on the Alderney. ’The Index on Censorship’, also credits his work as triggering the UK’s controversial, ‘Alderney Expert Review’, in 2024.  He was an invited contributor to USHMM ‘Camps and Ghettoes Encyclopaedia’ on the camps in north-western France and an editor on the Library of Holocaust Testimony and has specialising in slave labour in north-west France and the Channel Islands, since 2003.

Sunday, 10 May 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Prof. Frank Griffel

'Reading Maimonides in the Context of Islamic Philosophy: His 7th Reason for Contradictions in Books Reconsidered'

Frank Griffel is Professor of the Study of Abrahamic Religions at Oxford University and Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. He has published widely in the fields of Islamic philosophy and theology as well as Muslim intellectual history. After working on apostasy in Islam and on the leading theologian and philosopher al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), Griffel turned his interest toward the history of philosophy in Islam and Judaism, particularly during Islam’s post-classical period after the 11th century. He publishes in English and in German and his books have been translated into Turkish and Arabic. Griffel is also the Louis M. Rabinowitz Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at Yale University. 

Tuesday, 12 May, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Friday Night Shabbat Dinner

Professor Daniel Statman

Danny Statman is professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. Between 2016-2018 he served as chair of the Israeli Philosophical Association. He is also a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. His recent books are War by Agreement: A Contractarian Ethics of War (Oxford University Press, 2019, with Yitzhak Benbaji), and State and Religion in Israel: A Philosophical-Legal Inquiry (Cambridge University Press, 2019, with Gideon Sapir).  Danny is currently a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. 

In honour of the wedding celebration and graduation of Samatha (Tzivia) Lish (Linacre college)

Friday, 15 May, 7.30pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Week 4

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Cheesecake in a Jar

Come make delicious cheesecake in a jar with Freidy and learn about the mystical meaning behind cheesecake on Shavuot.

 

 

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Daniel Rosenfelder

Architect and foremost expert and builder of Eruv (Jewish legal boundary for Shabbat) across London and the UK

'Changing the map of Jewish life in the UK : How I built an "Eruv" across England'

Tuesday, 19 May, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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We warmly invite you to celebrate the 

FESTIVAL OF SHAVUOT

Shavuot Cheesecake and Blintzes Buffet,  Tikkun Leyl Shavuot Lectures and Festival Dinner

Commemorating the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai around 3300 years ago

Thursday, 21 May, 7pm

6.30pm Shavuot Cheesecake and Blintzes Buffet

8pm

8pm  Tikkun Leyl Shavuot (I)  

Professor Josh Getzler

'Kofin Al Midat S'dom: protecting our rights from ourselves in Jewish law'

Joshua Getzler is Professor of Law and Legal History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford. He is co-editor of the American Journal of Legal History and also the OUP monograph series Oxford Legal History. He is interested in the past and present of common law and constitutional law, as well as Jewish and Roman law.  

Dr. Ros Abramsky

'Union Power'

Ros Abramsky is an Oxford researcher who studied Crystallography at Birkbeck, where she taught Science Communication, as well as at Imperial College. She completed her PhD in Information Science from Loughborough University.

Rabbi Eli Brackman (OU Chabad Society) – ‘Shavuot: A tale of two heavenly controversies’

Dr. Lea Cohen ( University of Oxford)

10pm Festival evening service and Shavuot dinner

11pm-2am Tikkun Leyl Shavuot II

Neria Baris 

‘Scattered tablets’

Neria is a High Yeshivo's alumni, reading for Master in Mathematics at Merton college, Oxford

Solomon Summer (Jesus college, Oxford)

‘How to protect the Jewish people’

Dylan Kassin  (University of Oxford)

Sara West  (Oxford)

Naomi Reiter (QML/Oxford

Shlomit Fuchs ( PhD student at the Hebrew University; Visiting student at Oxford Theology Department)

'Heaven on Earth in Jewish Writing'

More to be confirmed.

At  Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

RSVP: click here.

For more info about the holiday visit: www.oxfordchabad.org/shavuot 

All are welcome! 

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2nd Night Shavuot Festival and Shabbat Dinner 

Friday, 22 May, 7.30pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome!

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Shavuot and Shabbat Festival Lunch

Friday and Shabbat, 22-23 May, 1.30pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome!

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Week 5

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Rabbi Dr. David Sher

'Jewish Treasures from the John Rylands Library'

David Sher is a trainee clinical psychologist at the Oxford Institute of Clinical Psychology Training and Research, reading for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (D.Clin.Psych.) at New College, University of Oxford. Prior to clinical psychology training, he completed a PhD at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, having completed an MPhil at Gonville & Caius College at the University of Cambridge. He is a British Psychological Society Chartered Psychologist (Research) and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Tuesday, 26 May, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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We warmly invite you to

Rabbi Eli's Birthday BBQ

Wednesday, 27 May, 8pm-10pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

 

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Rabbi Francis Nataf

Rabbi Francis Nataf is a Jerusalem based thinker, writer, and educator. He is the author of the Redeeming Relevance in the Torah series and of many articles on religious thought, biblical studies, and current events and is Associate Editor of the Jewish Bible Quarterly.

Thursday, 28 May, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

 

 

 

 

 

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John Bowers KC

'Being a Jewish Head of an Oxford College'

John Bowers QC is the Principal of Brasenose College, University of Oxford, and a leading human rights and employment lawyer. He sits as a Deputy High Court Judge. He is an approved counsel for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and has written numerous books on human rights and employment law, including standard texts on whistleblowing and industrial action. He was the Founding Editor of Blackstones Employment Law Practice and the Transfer of Undertakings Encyclopaedia. He is a former Chair of the Employment Law Bar Association. He is most recently author of “Downward Spiral: Collapsing Public Standards and How to Restore Them” (Manchester University Press).

Friday, 29 May, 7pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Week 6

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Professor Helen Moore

President of Corpus Christi College

'Manifold Greatness: the translation of the King James Bible (1611)'

Professor Helen Moore has been President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, since 2018, the first woman to hold that position in the college's 500-year history. She arrived at Corpus in 1996 as Fellow and Tutor in English, having previously taken her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Pembroke College, Oxford, where she is an Honorary Fellow. She is also a professor of English Literature in the Faculty of English Language and Literature. Her research and teaching interests interrogate the boundaries of cultures, periods and disciplines, with a focus on the early modern period. In 2021, she received the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for Amadis in English: A Study in the Reading of Romance as one of the co-winners. This book was also awarded the Roland H. Bainton Prize for Literature in 2021. In the same year she was elected to membership of the Academia Europaea.

Tuesday, 9 June, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Week 7

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An amazing evening with

Uri Geller

Uri Geller is an Israeli-British illusionist, magician, television personality, and self-proclaimed psychic. He is known for his trademark television performances of spoon bending and other illusions. 

Tuesday, 9 June, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Week 8

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Dr. David Borabeck

'Holy Places in Israel'

David Borabeck is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and St. Antony's College, where he examines the intersections of nationalism, colonialism, religion, and ethnicity. His  dissertation examined the distinctive role of religion in consolidating the Jewish-Israeli national collective and Zionist nation-building, with a focus on the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs during the state's formative decades.

Tuesday, 16 June, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome! 

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Future events

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CLASSES AND COURSES

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Jewish Philosophy Course

'An introduction to Hasidic thought: the quest of the "Wise Child"'

On 18 April 1978, the Lubavitcher Rebbe delivered a Hasidic discourse in which he unpacks many of the core issues of Hasidic thought in an accessible manner. The format of the discourse is an ever-deepening exploration of the quest of the "Wise Child" of the Passover Seder. In its application, the discourse unpacks ever-deepening layers of an intelligent person's theological quest. We shall study the discourse in English translation, along the way unpacking the underlying Hasidic and general theological concepts. 

Dr. Israel Sandman (UCL)

Dates of the course: Thursdays, 30 April, 7 May, 14 May, 28 May, 4 June, 11 June, 18 June, 5.30pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome!

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Future events

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The Rector of Exeter College

Dr. Andrew Roe

Much of my professional career has been centred on the defence and security sector, with a particular focus, during recent years, on higher education management. In a wide-ranging 33-year career, I have been privileged to lead at multiple levels, often under challenging conditions, dealing with pressing, fast-paced and complex issues, and worked in Kenya, Oman, Northern Ireland, Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina, USA, Cyprus, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Michaelmas Term

 

 

 

 

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Professor Seamus Perry

"W.H. Auden and Jewishness'

My interests are in the fields of English Romantic poetry and thought, especially Coleridge and Wordsworth, and in post-Romantic English poetry, especially Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Eliot, Auden, Larkin, and their circles. I am interested in the relationship between political thought and poetry in the nineteenth century which has borne fruit in an edition of the poetry and prose of Matthew Arnold for Oxford University Press (2020). I also have an interest in the modern history of criticism, reflected in articles on A.C. Bradley, F.W. Bateson, and M.H. Abrams, and an edition of Empson's Some Versions of Pastoral (2020). I am co-editor, with Christopher Ricks and Freya Johnston, of the journal Essays in Criticism: A Quarterly Journal of Literary Criticism (OUP), the general editor of the Oxford edition of the works of William Empson, and also the general editor of the series, 21st-Century Oxford Authors. I write for the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Literary Review, and elsewhere; and I am a contributor, with Mark Ford, to the LRB podcast series Close Readings. I am Fellow Librarian of Balliol College, where I am also Fellow for Charity Matters. I am currently working on an intellectual biography of W.H Auden for Bloomsbury, and a volume of essays about poetry for Princeton University Press entitled Turning Verses.

Michaelmas Term

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Professor Richard Susskind

Professor Richard Susskind CBE KC (Hon) is the world’s most cited author on the future of legal services and a leading expert on the impact of AI on society. He is President of the Society for Computers and Law and, from 1998 to 2023, he served as Technology Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. In 2024, Richard was appointed Special Envoy for Justice and AI to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth. Richard specialises in three fields – in the future of professional services, in the future of courts and dispute resolution, and in the impact of AI on society, business, and humanity. He advises leading professional firms, in-house legal departments, and governments and judiciaries around the world. In the 1980s, he wrote his doctorate on AI and the law at Balliol College, Oxford. Richard’s work has been translated into 18 languages and he has been invited to speak in over 60 countries. He has written eleven books, including The Future of Law (1996), Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2013, 2017, 2023), The Future of the Professions (with D Susskind, 2015, 2022), Online Courts and the Future of Justice (2019, 2021) and How to Think About AI (2025). He has also contributed more than 150 columns to The Times. In 2000, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen. In 2023, Richard was appointed an Honorary King’s Counsel. He was promoted to CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the King's New Year Honours List 2025.

Michaelmas Term

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Robert Hannigan CMG

Warden of Wadham College, University of Oxford

Robert is a cyber security specialist who spent much of his career in government service. He was Director, GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence and cyber agency, and established the National Cyber Security Centre. Previously he was the Prime Minister’s Security Adviser, and Tony Blair’s principal civil service adviser on the Northern Ireland peace process, on which he worked for many years. Robert is a Senior Fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and Distinguished Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute. He was awarded the US National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal and was made CMG by Queen Elizabeth.

Michaelmas Term

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Sinai Scholars Course – ‘Think Jewish: Jewish Wisdom for Modern Life’

Explore the foundations of Judaism in 8 interactive sessions 

Stipend offered by Sinai Scholars Society: $350 / £260

To apply: click here.

For more info, email  [email protected]

The course covers the following topics: 1. Perspectives on Jewish Identity in the Modern World, 2. Foundational Elements of the Jewish Ethos, 3. Significance and Meaning of Jewish Observances, 4. An Oasis in Time: The Gift of Shabbat, 5. The Jewish secrets of Love and Marriage, 6. Jewish Ethics: Ancient System, Modern Applications, 7. An Overview of Jewish Mysticism, Kabbalah, and Chasidism, and 8. Forward Thinking: Examining Our Past to Forge Our Personal and Collective Future. 

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Talmud Class

Join us to study subjects in Judaism's all-important 6th century legal work of the Talmud that shapes Jewish law and thought up until today.

Every Sunday, 7pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

All are welcome!

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Lunch 'n' Learn 

Join us for a weekly delicious Lunch & Learn on a variety of contemporary stimulating topics in ethics and philosophy.

Every Monday, 1pm

Brasenose College, LRVII

RSVP for lunch: [email protected]

All are welcome!

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Tanya class with Freidy

Monday, 6.30pm 

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St

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Lunch & Learn at Brookes University

Every Wednesday, 12pm

The Forum

RSVP: [email protected]

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Parsha class

Join us for an in-depth study of the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Eli via Zoom

Wednesdays, 7pm 

All are welcome!

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End of Shabbat Ethics of the Fathers with Chana

Sat, 7pm

At Chabad House, 75 Cowley Road

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Hebrew for Beginners Course

For 6 consecutive weeks 

Starting: Wednesday, 8 May, 5.30pm - for 5 consecutive Wednesdays

Taught by Netanel Plavnik 

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

Course: £36 for the course / non students £40: send payment to Chabad of Oxford: www.oxfordchabad.org/donate

Booking: click here to fill out the booking form.

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The Tajtelbaum Jewish Study Hall

The Tajtelbaum Jewish Study Hall is open daily for you to study with a fully stocked Judaica library, wireless internet and FREE coffee and refreshments on offer.

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

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Oxford Kosher Cafe

Enjoy a full menu of delicious Kosher food, which is situated in our spacious lounge with internet wireless connection, Wii, Jewish newspaper and satellite TV, in addition to our well stocked and diverse Judaica library with over 2000 interesting titles. Drop by for soups, deluxe sandwiches, bagels, salads, schnitzel, soft drinks and a range of delicious pastries.

OPEN daily: 12pm-2pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

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Sign Up

If you or a friend would like to sign up to the Chabad Society, please email:

[email protected]

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Oxford University Chabad Society Committee 2024-5

Grace Steinberg (LMH) - President, Jake Masters (St John's) - Secretary, Effi Dahlen (Keble) - Vice President/Treasurer, Aviad Sadeh (Brookes Chabad Society President), Marshall Gould (Genomics), Carli Cooperstein (Corpus), Alexandre Bismuth (St Annes), Hannah Brosh (St Annes), Emanuel Bor (St Peter's), Joelle Solowiejczyk (St Peter's), Zach Berkowitz, Jordan Rothschild, Max Pushkin (Trinity), Roy Rosman (St Hugh's), Luc Cazanave, Kyle Geinstein.

Directors

Senior Member: Prof. Nir Vulkan (Worcester)

To join the committee, email: [email protected].

Directors

Rabbi Eli & Freidy Brackman

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Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Www.oxfordchabad.org