Oxford University Chabad Society
MICHAELMAS TERM CARD 2024
Welcome to Oxford University Chabad Society Michaelmas Termcard '24! 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 3
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American Cuisine Friday Night Shabbat Dinner
Professor Kimberley Johnson
'Polarization today? Polarization tomorrow? The 2024 US elections in perspective'
Kimberley Johnson is Professor of Politics and Social & Cultural Analysis at NYU. Currently the John G. Winant Visiting Professorship of American Government. She studies American politics with an emphasis on state development; federalism & urban politics, and race & ethnic politics. Johnson is the author of two books, Reforming Jim Crow (2010) and Governing the American State (2007) and numerous articles on American political development and its intersection with racial and ethnic politics. Current research projects focus on African American urban and suburban politics. Johnson is completing a book manuscript, tentatively titled, Dark Concrete, exploring the development of black power urbanism in Newark and East Orange, New Jersey and Oakland and East Palo Alto, California.
Friday, 1 Nov, 7.30pm
Delicious American kosher cuisine will be served, including Southern fried chicken, sweet potato pie, American pie dessert: chocolate pecan, apple, and Oreo!
At Slager Jewish Student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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Week 4
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Professor David Katz
'Assisted dying and faith (Judaism) as a protected characteristic: Is there a conflict of interest?'
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)
Tues, 5 Nov, 8pm
At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All welcome!
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Friday Night Shabbat Dinner
The Hon. Michael Beloff KC
‘A Life Within and Without the Law’
The Honourable Michael J Beloff KC is former President of Trinity College, Oxford (1996-2006), Treasurer of Grays Inn 2008, and has degrees in history (first class) and law from the University of Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford Union and a member of the Oxford Union Debating Tour of the USA in 1964. He was the HWC Davis Prizeman (History) in 1961. He is an FRSA, FICPD, an Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences and a member of ASPE. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, an Honorary Vice-President of the Oxford University Law Society and has honorary doctorates from Farleigh Dickinson University (USA), De Montfort University, Buckingham University and The Open University. Michael is aiuthor of A Short Walk on the Campus (with Jonathan Aitken) 1964; The Plate Glass Universities (1967); Universities in the Modern World (contributor) (2004); The Blair Administration (contributor) (2007); The House of Lords (contributor) (2009). Michael’s memoir ’’MJBQC-a Life within and without the law’’ was published in 2022 with a foreword by Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury former President of the Supreme Court.
Friday, 8 Nov, 7.30pm
At Slager Jewish Student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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Week 5
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Chabad of Oxford invites you to join us for
Hachnosat Sefer Torah
Celebration of a new Torah Scroll for Oxford
Sunday, 10 Nov, 3pm
Completion of the Torah Scroll and Hakafot Celebration
Scribe Rabbi Avraham Gavrielov
At Slager Jewish student and community centre, 61 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
RSVP / dedicate a letter for 7/10 victim or in honour of the hostages: click here.
“Every Jew is a letter. Each Jewish family is a word, every community a sentence, and the Jewish people at any one time are a paragraph. The Jewish people through time constitute a story, the strangest and most moving story in the annals of humankind.” Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks
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Viewing of Hebraica and Torah Scroll at Christ Church
Sunday, 10 Dec, 12-3pm
Christ Church prides with one of the most important Hebrew collections in Oxford. The College was founded in 1524 and soon after, Hebrew was taught at Christ Church. A more systematic study of Hebrew, but also collecting of Hebrew books started after 1546 when Henry VIII established the Regius Professorship of Hebrew.
Copies of Hebrew Bible and biblical commentaries form the core of the collection. On display is a selection of fine examples of rare Hebraica, as illustrated by early printed Hebrew books (including incunabula), medieval manuscripts and an 18th century Torah scroll.
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Sir Vernon Bernard Bogdanor CBE FBA FRSA
'Modern Antisemitism'
Vernon Bogdanor CBE, FBA is a research professor at the Centre for British Politics and Government. He was formerly Professor of Government at Oxford University, and Senior Tutor and Vice-Principal at Brasenose College. He has written widely on government and politics, including books The People and the Party System, Monarchy and the Constitution, and Power and the People: A Guide to Constitutional Reform. Most recently, he has edited a book on The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century and written on The New British Constitution. He has been an adviser to government and parliamentary bodies on many occasions, and in 1998 was awarded the CBE for services to constitutional history. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Tuesday, 12 Nov, 8pm
At Slager Jewish student and community centre, 61 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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Week 6
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Nobel Prize Winner and Holocaust Survivor
Professor Roald Hoffmann
'Old Wine, New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Religious Tradition'
Roald Hoffmann is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus at Cornell University. Hoffmann (b. 1937) was born in Złoczów, Poland, which is now Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine. As a small child he survived the Holocaust by hiding for 18 months with family members in the attic and storeroom of a local schoolhouse. He came to the United States in 1949, studied chemistry at Columbia University, and earned his doctoral degree from Harvard University in 1962. Three years later he went to Cornell University, where he eventually became the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters. Hoffmann is also well known for his role in the creation of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. For his contribution to this work Hoffmann received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kenichi Fukui, a chemist working in Japan, who developed a different way of analyzing chemical interactions that could explain the same chemical changes).
Tuesday, 19 Nov, 8pm
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82669307466?pwd=b9a7M7pfJoKTQ5SiH1KuiFkwwh49Wt.1
Meeting ID: 826 6930 7466
Passcode: 512713
At Slager Jewish student and community centre, 61 George Street, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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Eylon Levy
Former Israeli Government Spokesman and Head of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons' Office
Eylon Levy is a former Israeli Government Spokesman, who became one of the most globally recognized voices for Israel in the October 7 War with Hamas. He previously served as international spokesman to President Isaac Herzog after a career as a television news anchor. He holds degrees from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and served in the Israel Defense Forces after immigrating to Israel from the UK. He now heads the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons' Office and hosts the State of a Nation show on YouTube and podcast platforms.
Thursday, 21 Nov, 3pm
Details to be confirmed.
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Friday Night Shabbat Dinner
The newly inaugurated Professor of the Philosophy of Law at the University of Oxford
Professor David Enoch
'Law, philosophy, and the susceptible skins of living beings'
David Enoch does primarily moral, political, and legal philosophy. David studied law and philosophy at Tel Aviv University, then clerked for Justice Beinisch at the Israeli Supreme Court. He pursued a PhD in philosophy at NYU (2003), and has been a faculty member at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem ever since, on a joint appointment in philosophy and law. He started at Oxford as the Professor of the Philosophy of Law in 2023. David published work in metaethics (where he defends a robust, non-naturalistic kind of moral realism), in the philosophy of law (where he criticizes some versions of "general jurisprudence", discusses moral and legal luck, and analyses the role of statistical evidence), in political philosophy (where he criticizes Rawlsian, public-reason liberalism, discusses false consciousness, and nudging), in ethics (where he discusses the status of hypothetical consent, and rejects the existence of moral luck), and more.
Friday, 22 Nov, 7.30pm
At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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Week 7
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THANKSGIVING Friday Night Shabbat Dinner
Friday, 29 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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Jake Wallis Simons
'Challenges of covering the war in Gaza and the rise of Anti-Semitism in the UK'
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Professor Elliot R. Wolfson
Date to be confirmed.
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CHANUKAH
GRAND 12ft MENORAH LIGHTING @ Bonn Square, Oxford
The Lord Mayor of Oxford
* Light & Fire Show * Doughnuts * Latkes * Hot chocolate * Music
LIGHTING: Wednesday, 25 Dec - Wed, 1 January, 5pm
At Bonn Square, Oxford (opposite the Westgate Shopping Centre)
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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Shabbat dinner
Professor Lord Lionel Tarassenko CBE FREng FMedSci
President, Reuben College, and Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Oxford
'The foundation of Reuben College and its vision for the University of Oxford'
Friday, 17 Jan, 7.30pm
At the Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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Friday Night Shabbat Dinner
Professor Benjamin Morgan
Benjamin Morgan is a Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Oxford. His main research interests are in German intellectual history (medieval mysticism, Nietzsche, early psychoanalysis, Heidegger, the Frankfurt School); German film (Fritz Lang, Leni Riefenstahl, the ‘Heimat’ film) and comparative literature. He has also worked on contemporary writing (Jelinek, Trojanow, McEwan). His current book project engages critically with the work of the Frankfurt School during the 1930s and 1940s to elaborate a model of socially committed, reflexive interdisciplinarity for the 21st century. Benjamin is also the Modern Languages Coordinator for Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation.
Friday, 31 January, 7.30pm
At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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The Rt Hon Lord Pickles
Special UK Government Envoy for Post-Holocaust issues and Co-Chair, UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. Lord Pickles was appointed as the next Conservative Party nominee to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments in July 2019 and was subsequently appointed as Chair following an open competition, in line with the Cabinet Office Governance Code, taking up the role in April 2020. His appointment was approved following pre-appointment scrutiny by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee. Lord Pickles was appointed Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust issues in September 2015, replacing Sir Andrew Burns. Lord Pickles works closely with the wide range of Holocaust academics, survivors and educational and social organisations in the UK. Along with the former Labour Cabinet Minister, Ed Balls, he Co Chairs the United Kingdom’s Holocaust Memorial Foundation. He was made a Life Peer in 2018.
Thursday, 5 June, 8pm
At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
All are welcome!
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Professor Irene Tracey CBE, FRS, FMedSci
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford
Professor Irene Tracey, CBE, FMedSci, became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford on 1 January 2023. She was previously Warden of Merton College, Oxford, her alma mater. She is also Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Irene did her undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Oxford in Biochemistry under the supervision of Professor Sir George Radda. In 1997, Irene returned to Oxford and was a founding member of the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB – now the world-leading Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging); she was its director from 2005 until 2015. Irene was tenured in 2001 at what is now the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics with Studentship at Christ Church. From 2007 until 2019, Irene held the Nuffield Chair in Anaesthetic Sciences with Fellowship at Pembroke College, where she is an Honorary Fellow. In the 2022 New Year’s Honours list, she was appointed by HM The Queen to a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Medical Research.
Friday, 13 June, 7.30pm
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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:
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Oxford Chabad Society Committee 2024-5
Freddie Assor (Pembroke) - 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), Madison Hahamy (Corpus), 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