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JANUARY 2026 PROGRAMS

IDEALS OF FREEDOM: JEWISH IMMIGRATION, ARTS AND ADVOCACY IN AMERICA

Black-Jewish Relations in the Country of Immigrants: Legacies Shared and Divided
January 14, 7:00 pm ET

As a Jewish political refugee from the Soviet Union, Janna Kaplan understands the pain of discrimination and the agony of denied opportunities. As a career scientist, she studies data—the history and the present—and detects patterns and trends that offer some predictive insight into the future. Having married into an American Jewish family of Civil Rights leaders, she learned about the extraordinary power of a non-violent movement that united American Blacks and American Jews. Yet this powerful Black-Jewish alliance of the 1950s and 1960s, dedicated to the noble cause of equality, justice, and progress, eventually succumbed to challenges that continue to divide these communities today. The question remains: what can be done about it?
Janna Kaplan is Senior Research Scientist at Brandeis University specializing in Neuropsychology and Space Research.   Janna’s late husband, Edward Kivie Kaplan (1942-2024), a Brandeis professor in the Humanities and Religious Studies, was the son of Kivie Kaplan (1904-1975), a Boston industrialist who was deeply involved in the Jewish social action and in the Civil Rights movements. Kivie Kaplan was elected National President of the NAACP in 1966 and served until his death in 1975.  This series is made possible by a grant from the Congregation Ahabat Shalom Religious Fund and other generous donors.  Community partners – Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center at American Ancestors, Walnut Street Minyan of Newton, Massachusetts Antisemitism Synagogue Task Force (MAST)
Learn more about the series here 

FROM SOIL TO SOUL:  FARM-TO-TABLE ACROSS THE AGES IN ISRAEL

Ancient Practices – Agriculture of the Ancestors
January 28, 7:00 pm ET

We begin our exploration with Gila Levitan by traveling back in time to explore how ancient Israelites cultivated the land using terracing, spring-fed irrigation, and the Seven Species —figs, grapes, olives, pomegranates, dates, wheat, and barley. Featured are two important heritage sites: Neot Kedumim, the biblical landscape reserve, and Sataf, where ancient techniques are still visible in the hills outside Jerusalem. We’ll also trace the development of wine from biblical times to today’s boutique vineyards, examining how ancient viticulture inspired Israel’s booming wine industry and how wine remains both a ritual and a symbol of rootedness in the land.
Gila Levitan is an award-winning tour guide, based in Tel Aviv.  Gila loves to travel all over the world and brings the knowledge and experience of a well seasoned traveler to her explanations. Gila is very curious and likes to know all the little details and being a guide enables her to teach people about a place that she loves. Gila has a passion for languages, not only does she speak Hebrew fluently but has picked up bits and pieces of Arabic to understand local culture better, she also has basic French. Gila loves to add touches of local culture to her tours, off the beaten track places and local delicacies -the best way to travel she believes is to taste new flavors and make new friends. Gila is proud to have been awarded the TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence for the past five years in a row.
Learn more about the series here 

CSP

The Walnut Street Synagogue is pleased to be a partner congregation of the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program.  Please join us at an upcoming program!

Join us as we explore how American Jewish life has been built, rebuilt, uprooted, and re-rooted over 250+ years, tracing a story of mobility, reinvention, and opportunity from colonial port cities to today’s suburbs and Sunbelt hubs.
Part 1 –  Pioneers and Port Cities looks at the Sephardic and Ashkenazic families who first established communities in Charleston, Savannah, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia, and how they navigated religious freedom, mercantile networks, early institutions, and legal rights in a Protestant-dominated society.
Part 2 – Expansion and Upheaval follows the period from the Revolution through the Gilded Age, including Jewish participation in the Revolution, German Jewish migration and economic ascent, Civil War complexities, and the rise of philanthropy and national Jewish organizations.
Part 3 – From the Lower East Side to Main Street explores mass Eastern European immigration (1880–1924), urban growth, labor and tenement life, the flowering of Yiddish culture, and the push west and south to places like Boston and beyond.
Part 4 – From Suburbia to Sunbelt surveys 1924–2024—immigration restriction, postwar suburbanization, the rise of new Jewish centers outside major cities, the growth of communities in Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, Boca Raton, Austin and more, and what American Jewish mobility may tell us about the next chapter ahead.
Jonathan D. Sarna, PhD, is the University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and one of the world’s leading scholars of American Judaism. He also serves as Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History and has been named to Newsweek’s list of “America’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis” (as a scholar). A graduate of Brandeis University (BA) and Yale University (PhD), Prof. Sarna has authored or edited more than 30 books, including the award-winning American Judaism: A History, When General Grant Expelled the Jews, Lincoln and the Jews, and Jews and the Civil War. Prof. Sarna is widely recognized as the preeminent interpreter of how Jews have shaped—and been shaped by—the American experience.  This program is fully funded by a grant from the Jewish Community Foundation Orange County.

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