Submitted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow on
The first of this series happened before it was a series. The Shalom Center offered a conversation among Dr. Susannah Heschel, the memory and an essay we distributed by her father Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel z”tz”l, and about 100 spiritual and intellectual seekers.
The Zoom conversation went so well that we realized such conversations could be a great gift to such venturesome minds and souls.
The second session in the series will be Zoomed (and recorded) from 7:30 pm to 9 pm Eastern Time (4:30 pm Pacific) on Wednesday, February 9, to explore the extraordinary life-work of Rabbi David Saperstein.
As a rabbinical student, he organized a High Holiday fast among rabbinical students to protest the US war against Vietnam. (I can tell you that even in the upheavals of the early '70s, that was not a garden-variety form of protest.) Yet - or therefore --- that was just one of the reasons he was named in 1974 to what became a 40-year stint as director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism:
God’s eco/social-justice lobbyist in Washington DC.
In 2014 he was nominated by President Obama and confirmed with bipartisan support by the Senate to become U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.
His interlocutor/ interviewer for this program? Ellen Weiss, a renowned and remarkable journalist ---and Rabbi Saperstein’s wife. She has four times won the Peabody Award for news stories “that illuminate social issues with depth and complexity.”
She joined National Public Radio in 1982, held key posts in its news division, and was NPR vice president for news from 2007 to 2011. Since 2013 she has been the Washington DC Bureau Chief and Vice-President for the E.W. Scripps Company.
To register for the Zoom program on February 9, please click here: --
https://theshalomcenter.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=52
We will mail you the Zoom link shortly before the event. As we will do in all these conversations, we asked Rabbi Saperstein to chose an essay of his to explore on the program. You will receive a copy with the Zoom link.
We will record the conversation. If you think you may have a different commitment that evening, register now and we will send you the recording link very soon after the live event..
There will be several levels of “tuition:” one “regular,” at $36; one at $12 for those with low income seeking mutual aid, and a higher one, $72, for people who can help make mutual aid possible.
We look forward to seeing you and hearing your own thoughts!
Blessings to you of shalom, salaam, paz, peace, namaste! — — Arthur
