Chumash with the Daughters of Rashi's Commentary

After 2,000 Years: "Chumash with the Daughters of Rashi's Commentary"
Event Launches Groundbreaking Women's Torah Commentary in Tel Aviv

A unique, first-time event between HUC-JIR and Beit Daniel, the center
for Progressive Judaism in Tel Aviv, will celebrate and launch the new
anthology, The Torah: A Women's Commentary in Israel on March 27, 2008.
For the past fourteen years, more than 100 theologians, historians,
sociologists, scholars, anthropologists, poets, rabbis, and cantors from
the United States, Canada, Israel and South America – all of them women
– took a fresh look at the Torah. The Torah: A Women's Commentary is the
result of their exhaustive research, thought, and discussion. The event
will be held at the new center, Mishkenot Ruth, which serves as a
community, cultural and educational center and guesthouse and offers the
greater Tel Aviv area a wide range of cultural and educational
activities and religious services.

The evening will open with a reception honoring Rabbi Hara Person,
managing editor of the commentary. It will include a panel discussion of
some of Israel's most influential academics and writers, including: Dr.
Yairah Amit, Professor of Bible at Tel Aviv University and a contributor
to the commentary; Rabbi Naamah Kelman, Associate Dean at
HUC-JIR/Jerusalem and a contributor to the commentary; Dr. Malka
Shalked, a writer and editor of a significant anthology of Hebrew poetry
and the Bible; and Dr. Zvia Walden, lecturer at Beit Berl College and a
board member of Beit Daniel. After the panel, a musical performance will
follow that is a creative interpretation based on Biblical text.

This Tel Aviv event is part of many events featuring the women's
commentary in North America. HUC-JIR/Jerusalem believes it will draw a
diverse crowd from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and that the commentary will
play a significant role in understanding women's roles in Biblical study.

This lecture is sponsored by Barbara Freidman, Chair of HUC-JIR's Board
of Governors, to promote HUC-JIR in Israel. It will be the first of a
series of lectures for outreach to the Israeli public.

Founded in 1875, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is
the nation's oldest institution of higher Jewish education and the
academic, spiritual, and professional leadership development center of
Reform Judaism. HUC-JIR educates men and women for service to American
and world Jewry as rabbis, cantors, educators, and communal service
professionals, and offers graduate and post-graduate programs to
scholars of all faiths. With centers of learning in Cincinnati,
Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and New York, HUC-JIR's scholarly resources
comprise renowned library and museum collections, the American Jewish
Archives, biblical archaeology excavations, research institutes and
centers, and academic publications. HUC-JIR invites the community to an
array of cultural and educational programs which illuminate Jewish
history, identity, and contemporary creativity and which foster
interfaith and multiethnic understanding.
Visit us at www.huc.edu