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MARCH 2026 PROGRAMS

PURIM

Purim Party – The community is invited to join a celebration of Purim on Monday evening, March 2,  at Temple Tifereth Israel in Winthrop!   Please contact us for details.

Online Lecture – See CSP section below for program on March 3.

Matanot LaEvyonim – Gifts for People in Need

The Walnut Street Synagogue is pleased to be participating again this year in Yad Chessed’s Purim Campaign.  From now until Purim Day (11:00 am on Tuesday, March 3), you can donate tzedakah to Yad Chessed to fulfill the Purim mitzvah of Matanot LaEvyonim. For over 35 years Yad Chessed, has worked to address the needs of Jews in Greater Boston and beyond who struggle with financial and food insecurity. With the support of donors and partner organizations, Yad Chessed’s team of social workers provides swift emergency financial assistance, grocery gift cards, and compassionate care, advice, and referrals to those in need. Yad Chessed aids more than 2,400 Jewish individuals across Massachusetts annually.  The mitzvah of Matanot LaEvyonim is central to the spirit of Purim and reminds us that we are obligated to offer a helping hand to those in our midst who need it most. Yad Chessed will use donations raised to fund vouchers that can be used on Purim Day so our neighbors in need can purchase food and celebrate the holiday.
Donate online here

You may also mail a donation to Yad Chessed at:
333 Nahanton Street
Suite 315
Newton, MA 02459

 

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

“Filthy, Un-American, and Often Dangerous:” Antisemitism and the Emergency Quota Act of 1921
Wednesday, March 4, 7:00 pm ET

After the destruction of World War I, hundreds of thousands of European Jews sought to escape violence and poverty by emigrating to America.  American consuls in Europe viewed these desperate Jews through a deeply antisemitic lens, fearing that they were radicals trying to enter and destroy the country with help from an international Jewish conspiracy.  Acting on these fears, officials at the State Department worked with Congressional leaders to release reports that publicized the dangers of Jewish immigrants and ultimately led to the passage of the 1921 Emergency Quota Act.  That legislation was instrumental in establishing the quota system that would keep desperate European Jews out of the country only a decade later, as they attempted to flee the Holocaust.
Kirsten Fermaglich is Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Michigan State University.  Her most recent book, A Rosenberg by Any Other Name:  A History of Jewish Name Changing in America (New York University Press, 2018) was awarded the Saul Viener Book Prize by the American Jewish Historical Society in June 2019.  From January 2022 through June 2023, she served as a National Archives Distinguished Fellow, tasked with studying antisemitism in the United States federal government. Fermaglich is also the author of American Dreams and Nazi Nightmares: Early Holocaust Consciousness and Liberal America, 1957-1965 (Brandeis University Press, 2006) and the co-editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (2013), with Lisa Fine.  From 2016 through 2021, she was co-editor of the journal, American Jewish History, along with Daniel Soyer and Adam Mendelsohn.  She currently serves on the board of the Association for Jewish Studies.  Session partners – Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center at American Ancestors, Massachusetts Antisemitism Synagogue Task Force (MAST), Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program (CSP)
 

 

Russian American Jewish Refugee Woman Scientist: My Story in Space and Time
Wednesday, March 25, 7:00 pm ET

In 1981, Janna Kaplan arrived in the United States as a 27-year-old Jewish political refugee, fleeing the violent antisemitism and persecution of the Soviet Union. Having lived through and observed half a century of extraordinary history on both sides of the Iron Curtain, she will reflect on her 27 years in the Soviet Union and 45 years in America. Janna will share her at times hopeful yet often excruciating and agonizing insights into her personal, our national, and our common Jewish past, present, and future.
Janna Kaplan is Senior Research Scientist at Brandeis University, specializing in Neuropsychology and Space Research. At Brandeis since 1983, Janna studies human adaptation to various conditions of space flight such as weightlessness, high G, non-Earth planetary gravitational environments, artificial gravity, and space motion sickness. Of special interest are human factors onboard terrestrial, nautical and aeronautic vehicles.  Janna’s undergraduate and graduate degrees are from the University of Leningrad (now, St. Petersburg). A former refusenik*, Janna came to the US from the Soviet Union (now, Russia) in 1982 at the age of 27 as a Jewish political refugee, fleeing state sponsored antisemitic violence and intellectual and cultural suppression.  Session partners – Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center at American Ancestors, Walnut Street Minyan of Newton, Massachusetts Antisemitism Synagogue Task Force (MAST), Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program (CSP)

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!

Dive into the high-energy evolution of the Israeli soundscape in this three-part journey through the music that defines a nation. From the 1970s to today, we’ll explore the dynamic collision of Eastern soul and Western groove, tracing how Israel “Israelized” global trends to create something entirely its own.
Part 1 – Jazz – Discover how desert rhythms and American traditions fused into a globally acclaimed genre.
Part 2 – Pop – See how infectious hooks and local narratives became a unifying force across diverse communities.
Part 3 – Rock – Experience the raw, visceral rebellion of a generation finding its voice.
Join us to uncover the identity, politics, and passion behind the melodies that resonate far beyond Israel’s borders.
Yael Cherni is a conductor, soprano, and founder of Kol HaMusica, Israel’s only classical music radio station. A recipient of the Gary Bertini Biennial Prize for Promising Young Conductors, she has performed worldwide and served as assistant conductor to Maestro Claudio Abbado. As a soprano, she has sung with leading orchestras in Israel and abroad. Cherni has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard University and Shenkar College, and a presenter and editor for Israeli radio, where her acclaimed series It’s All About the Classics explored links between music and society. She was also a founder and participant in several Jewish-Arab classical music initiatives. Her first book It’s All about the Classics: An Updated View on the World of Classical Music, was based on that praised series and was published in Israel in 2016 by Modan.  Her new book Classical Music: Undressed dedicated to “anyone who appreciates the beauty of art” was recently published.
Part 1 – Program video
Part 2 – Program video
Part 3 – Program video

 The Holocaust – A History of Decisions, Places, and Moral Colapse

In this powerful eight-part series, Prof. Stephen Berk guides us through the Holocaust, not as a single, inevitable catastrophe, but as a series of historical choices made by governments, institutions, communities, and individuals across Europe. Moving chronologically and geographically, the series explores how the “oldest hatred” was transformed into state-sponsored genocide, how different countries responded to Nazi pressure, and how moments of action, or inaction, shaped the fate of millions. With clarity, moral seriousness, and historical depth, Prof. Berk helps us understand not only what happened, but how it happened, and why those lessons still matter.   In Part 1, “The Oldest Hatred and the Rise of Hitler,” we trace the long history of antisemitism in Europe and examines how Nazi ideology built upon centuries-old myths, resentments, and racial thinking. We will explore how economic crisis, political instability, and propaganda enabled Hitler’s rise, and how antisemitism moved from prejudice to policy.
Stephen M. Berk, who served as CSP’s 10th Annual One Month Scholar in Residence in February 2011, is Professor of History at Union College in Schenectady, New York, former Chair of the Department of History, Director of the Program in Russian and Eastern European Studies and Faculty Advisor to the Jewish Student Organization. He is the author of Year of Crisis, Year of Hope: Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 1881-1882 (Greenwood Press, 1985). He is currently writing a book titled: Our People Are Your People: American Jewry and the Struggle for Civil Rights 1954-1965. The book provides an interesting discussion of an extremely important chapter in the history of the civil rights movement and attempts to dispel the myths and misunderstandings surrounding the Black-Jewish relationship. A recipient of the Citizens Laureate Award of the University of Albany Foundation, Professor Berk has been a consultant to the Wiesenthal Holocaust Center in Los Angeles, has written articles on Russian and Jewish history, anti-Semitism, and the Middle East and has lectured on throughout the United States and Canada including such distinguished colleges and universities as Princeton, Vanderbilt, The University of Texas at Austin and Williams College.
Part 1 – Program video
Part 2 – Program video
Part 3 – Program video
Part 4 – Program video

 

A pair of ruby red slippers. A medieval manuscript. A Yiddish folk medicine prescription. These and 97 other objects comprise a new centennial coffee-table-book, 100 Objects from the Collections of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, which chronicles modern Jewish history through 100 objects from the YIVO Archives and Library. This gorgeously illustrated book highlights unique manuscripts, photographs, objects, and other ephemera with accompanying essays by 57 leading scholars. Join the book’s editor, YIVO’s Director of Collections Stefanie Halpern, for a discussion that highlights how this book traces YIVO’s role in documenting key moments in modern Jewish history and culture through its 100 years of collecting.
Stefanie Halpern is Director of Collections at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Jewish Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a Masters in Archival Studies from Clayton State University. Halpern has published on archival theory and practice, Yiddish theater, and Jewish performance, and was the assistant curator of the MCNY exhibition “From the Bowery to Broadway: New York’s Yiddish Theater.”
Program video

 

 

 

Friday, March 6, 8:00 am ET
(online program presented by Combined Jewish Philanthropies)

CJP’s President and CEO Rabbi Marc Baker will be in conversation with Major General (Ret.) Amir Eshel, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a former Israeli general who served as commander of the Israeli Air Force and Director General of the Israel’s Ministry of Defense until 2022. Eshel is a leading military authority on Iran’s strategic threats and air defense capabilities.  Together, they will discuss the joint U.S.-Israel operation against Iran’s regime and nuclear capabilities, the rapidly unfolding situation on the ground in Israel and around the Middle East and what might lie ahead.