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!
********
Weekly
*******
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!
********
Week 0
********
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!
********
Week 1
********
'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!
********
'The Mind and the Gap: Maimonides confronts the limits of human knowledge'
********
Week 2
********
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!
********
Week 3
********
'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!
********
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!
********
Friday Night Shabbat Dinner
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!
********
Week 4
********
Cheesecake in a Jar
Come make delicious cheesecake in a jar with Freidy and learn about the mystical meaning behind cheesecake on Shavuot.
********
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!
********
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 Tikkun Leyl Shavuot I
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.
Professor Josh Getzler
'Kofin Al Midat S'dom: rotecting 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 completed his first degrees in law and history at the Australian National University in Canberra, and his doctorate in Oxford, as a member of Balliol and Nuffield Colleges. He serves on the editorial board of the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and the Journal of Equity and is co-editor of the new OUP monograph series Oxford Legal History
Dr. Peter Bergamin
Peter Bergamin is Lecturer in Oriental Studies at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, and Visiting Scholar of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. His The Making of the Israeli Far Right: Abba Ahimeir and Zionist Ideology (I.B. Tauris) will be published in November 2019. His current research looks at Britain’s withdrawal from the Palestine Mandate
Rabbi Eli Brackman (Oxford University Chabad Society)
Dr. Lea Cohen (Oxford)
Neria Baris (Merton College, Oxford)
Solomon Summer
10pm Festival evening service and Shavuot dinner
11pm Tikkun Leyl Shavuot II
Late night study
At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
If you wish to present a talk at the Tikkun Leyl Shavuot, please email: [email protected]
For more info about the holiday visit: www.oxfordchabad.org/
More to be confirmed.
All are welcome!
********
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!
********
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!
********
Week 5
********
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!
********
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!
********
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!
********
Week 6
********
Professor Fania Oz-Salzberger
Fania Oz-Salzberger is an Israeli historian and writer, Professor Emerita of history at the University of Haifa School of Law and the Haifa Center for German and European Studies (HCGES). Oz-Salzberger was born in 1960 in Kibbutz Hulda, the eldest daughter of writer Amos Oz and his wife Nily. She is the great-great-niece of historian and literary scholar Joseph Klausner. Oz-Salzberger was educated in kibbutz schools and served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces. She completed her B.A. in history and philosophy (magna cum laude) and M.A. in modern history (summa cum laude) at Tel Aviv University. Her doctoral thesis, on the Scottish and German Enlightenments (1991), was written at the University of Oxford, supervised by Dr. John Robertson and mentored by philosopher Isaiah Berlin. She was a Senior Scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford in 1988–1990, and a Hornik Junior Research Fellow in Intellectual History at Wolfson College, Oxford in 1990–1993.
At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St, Oxford, OX1 2BQ
To be confirmed
All are welcome!
********
Week 7
********
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!
********
Week 8
********
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!
********
Future events
********
CLASSES AND COURSES
********
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!
********
Future events
********
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
********
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
********
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.
********
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!
********
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!
********
Tanya class with Freidy
Monday, 6.30pm
At Slager Jewish student centre, 61 George St
********
Lunch & Learn at Brookes University
Every Wednesday, 12pm
The Forum
RSVP: [email protected]
********
Parsha class
Join us for an in-depth study of the weekly Torah portion with Rabbi Eli via Zoom
Wednesdays, 7pm
All are welcome!
********
End of Shabbat Ethics of the Fathers with Chana
Sat, 7pm
At Chabad House, 75 Cowley Road
********
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.
********
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
********
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
*******
Sign Up
If you or a friend would like to sign up to the Chabad Society, please email:
********
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
********
Looking forward to seeing you soon!
Www.oxfordchabad.org