Michaelmas Term Card '25

Oxford University Chabad Society

MICHAELMAS TERM CARD 2025

Welcome to Oxford University Chabad Society Michaelmas Termcard '25! 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, 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 Friday Night Shabbat Dinner

Every Friday, 7.30pm

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

RSVP: [email protected]

All are welcome!

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Weekly Shabbat Lunch

Every Saturday, 1.30pm

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

RSVP: [email protected]

All are welcome!

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Week 1

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Professor Sir Richard Trainor KBE  FRHistS

New Warden of Rhodes House

‘My work at Rhodes House, and on Victorian Social History’ 

A graduate of Brown University, Professor Sir Rick Trainor, Rector of Exeter College, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, completing a second undergraduate degree at Merton College; a research student at Nuffield College; a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College; and a lecturer at Balliol College. He took his doctorate in Victorian social history. Born and raised in the United States, Sir Rick’s career as a historian and academic leader has been in the UK. In 1979 he became a lecturer in the Department of Economic History at the University of Glasgow where he later became Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and then Vice Principal. At Glasgow he taught the economic and social history of modern Britain and continental Europe and published on the social history of British elites, especially on the origins and impact of the leaders of industrial towns and cities. In 2000 he became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, and four years later was appointed Principal and Professor of Social History at King’s College London. Between 2007 and 2009 Sir Rick was also President of Universities UK, the representative organisation for the heads of all UK universities. He remains active in research and is President of the leading learned society in his field, the Economic History Society.

Friday, 17 Oct, 7.30pm

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

All are welcome!

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Week 2

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Benyamin Cohen

Benyamin Cohen manages the official social media accounts of Albert Einstein. He is a senior writer at the Forward and was the founding editor of both Jewsweek and American Jewish Life magazine. Cohen is the author of The Einstein Effect: How the World's Favorite Genius Got into Our Cars, Our Bathrooms, and Our Minds and My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith, which was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly and for which he received the Georgia Author of the Year award. He is based in Morgantown, West Virginia, where he lives with his wife, three dogs, a cat, and a flock of chickens known as the Co-Hens.

Tuesday, 21 Oct, 8pm

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

All are welcome!

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Chancellor of the University of Oxford

Lord Hague

William J. Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond is a British politician and life peer who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001 and Deputy Leader from 2005 to 2010. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond (Yorks) in North Yorkshire from 1989 to 2015. He was in the Cameron government as First Secretary of State from 2010 to 2015, Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2014, and Leader of the House of Commons from 2014 to 2015. He has been Chancellor of the University of Oxford since February 2025.

Friday, 24 October, 7.30pm

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

All are welcome!

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Week 3

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Vince Hunt

'A British writer's journey through the Holocaust in Latvia'

Award-winning ex-BBC producer and author. He has written four books about Latvia, one about Norway: www.vincenthunt.co.uk

Tuesday, 28 October, 8pm

At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX4 1HR

All are welcome!

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Week 4

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Sir Richard Evans

'Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich'

Sir Richard Evans was born in London to Welsh parents and was educated on an Essex County Council scholarship at Forest School. He studied at Jesus and St Antony’s Colleges, Oxford. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Oxford, Doctorates of Letters from the Universities of Cambridge and East Anglia, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Oxford and London and from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Literature and the Learned Society of Wales, and an Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Birkbeck, University of London, and Jesus College, Oxford. In 2022, he was made an Honorary Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He has served as Vice-Master and Acting Master of Birkbeck, University of London, Chairman of the History Faculty at the University of Cambridge, and Provost of Gresham College, City of London, from 2014 to 2020. He is currently the Deputy Chair of the Spoliation Advisory Panel for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. In 2000, he was Principal Expert Witness in the libel action brought by David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, as dramatized in the movie Denial (2016). 

Tues, 11 Nov, 8pm

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

All are welcome! 

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Professor Rabbi Naftali Rothenberg

Canonization Controversies: On the Recognition of Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Esther as Sacred Scripture

Naftali Rothenberg is a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, and the Rabbi of Har Adar township, Israel.  Rabbi Rothenberg is a visiting associate in the programs of law and religion and love in religion at Regent’s Park College, Oxford. His current research is on the influence of Leone Hebreo, Dialoghi d’amore, supported by the Venice Center for International Jewish Studies and Ca'Foscari University of Venice. He has published numerous articles and 12 books, among them: The Wisdom of Love - Man, Woman & God in Jewish Canonical Literature (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2009) and his forthcoming book is: 'Rabbi Akiva's Philosophy of Love' (Palgrave). Naftali Rothenberg is the 2011 laureate of the Liebhaber Prize for the encouragement of religious tolerance in Israel.

Wednesday, 12 Nov, 8pm

Buffet 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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Dr. Kim Treiger-Bar-Am

'What makes things happen: luck, chance, fate or freedom?'

Kim Treiger-Bar-Am studied philosophy and then law at Yale University, and wrote her doctorate in law at St. John's College, University of Oxford. She has taught law in Israel for many years. Her previous books are Positive Freedom and the Law (2019), and Freedom and Respect in Jewish Ethics (2021). Her most recent book is Ethics of Truth, recalling the value of truth in society, and the way truth is strongly upheld in the Jewish tradition.

Tues, 18 Nov, 8pm

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

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Week 7

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Rabbi Daniel Walker

Rabbi of the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester

 

Rabbi Daniel Walker serves as co-chair of the community and interfaith committees of the JRC and has been the Rabbi of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation since 2008. He fulfils a number of other roles with community organisations including serving as Chairman of The Friendship Circle (an organisation that helps people with disabilities make friends and integrate into the community), Director of the Manchester Beth Din (Ecclesiastical Court), a Governor of King David Primary and High Schools and serves as trustee of other charities. 

Tuesday, 25 Nov, 8pm

Buffet 7pm

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

All are welcome! 

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THANKSGIVING Friday Night Shabbat Dinner

Friday, 28 Nov, 7.30pm

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

All are welcome! 

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Week 8

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Pre Chanukah - Seminar in Jewish Studies - Yom Limmud 

Exploring Jewish philosophy, history, law and mysticism 

Sunday, 1 Dec, 12-5pm

If you wish to present a topic for 20 min on the subject of your choice, please email: [email protected]

All are welcome!

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Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies invites you to

Second Solomon Schonfeld Lecture

Tuesday (week 8), 2 Dec, 6pm

At the Clarendon Institute, Walton Street, Oxford

Professor Zoë Waxman (AMES/OCHJS)

‘Packing for an Unknown Destination’: Possession and Dispossession in the Holocaust

Zoë Waxman is Professor of Holocaust History at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Writing the Holocaust: memory, testimony, representation (2006), Anne Frank (2015), and Women in the Holocaust: A Feminist History (2017), as well as numerous articles relating to the Holocaust and genocide.

All are welcome!

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Dr. Dean Irwin

Dean Irwin is a Visiting Fellow of the University of Lincoln. Before joining the institution he completed his PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University, under the supervision of Professor Louise Wilkinson and Dr Leonie Hicks. His thesis examined the extant acknowledgements of debt, or records generated by Jewish moneylending activities, which were produced between 1194 and 1276. He has also published a series of articles on both those records, and the administrative processes which underpinned their production, use, storage, and preservation. The medieval Lincoln Jewry played an important part in his study, with a chapter being dedicated to debtors at the Lincoln archa.

Tuesday, 2 Dec, 8pm

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

All are welcome!

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CHANUKAH

GRAND 12ft MENORAH LIGHTING @ Broad St, Oxford 

The Lord Mayor of Oxford  

* Light & Fire Show  * Doughnuts  * Latkes  * Hot chocolate  * Music 

LIGHTING: Sunday, 14 Dec - Monday, 22 December, 5pm

At Broad St, Oxford

All are welcome!

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Followed by  Chanukah party @ Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ

The lighting of the Menorah is supported by Oxford City Council and dedicated to the memory of the late Oxford City Councillor and Fellow of Balliol College, Dr. Mike Woodin, who was instrumental in establishing this tradition at Oxford.

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Future events

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CLASSES AND COURSES

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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

Platnauer Room, Brasenose College

All welcome!

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Lunch & Learn at Brookes University

Every Wednesday, 12pm

The Forum

RSVP: [email protected]

All welcome!

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Parsha class

Join us for an in-depth study of the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Eli while enjoying some delicious fresh home-baked Pizza.

Wednesdays, 7pm 

At Chabad House, 75 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1HR and on ZOOM

All are welcome!

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Hebrew for Beginners Course

For 6 consecutive weeks 

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

Booking: [email protected]

 

 

 

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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 (Monday-Thursday): 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 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.

Senior Member: Dr. 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