The Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Scholar-in-Residence Lecture Series

Sinai Temple Presents:  Bestselling Author and Historian Michael Oren – Three Lectures on Israel: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

November 21-23, 2009

Topics:

Friday, 8:15 p.m.: Israel in the Face of Existential Threats
Shabbat Luncheon, Noon (Following Services): America and the Zionist Idea, 1776 to the Present
Sunday, 9:30 a.m.: Israel at 60: The Challenge of Jewish Statehood

Bio:

Historian, bestselling author, and commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, Michael Oren is a professor in the Foreign Service School and the Program of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown. He has written extensively for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic, of which he is a contributing editor, and has been interviewed on CNN, Fox, The Charlie Rose Show, The Daily Show, and Today. He is the CBS Middle East expert.

A graduate of Princeton and Columbia, Dr. Oren has received fellowships from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, and from the British and Canadian governments.  In 2006, he was a visiting professor at Harvard and Yale, returning to Yale in 2007. He has testified before Congress on Middle Eastern affairs and briefed the White House.  In Israel, he was a Lady Davis Fellow of Hebrew University and a Moshe Dayan Fellow at Tel-Aviv University. He is a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem.

Dr. Oren is the author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, published in 2002 by Oxford University Press. The book was a New York Times bestseller, and won the Los Angeles Times’ History Book of the Year prize and the National Jewish Book Award. His most recent book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, was eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Raised in New Jersey, where he was an activist in Zionist youth movements and a gold medal winning athlete in the Maccabia Games, Michael Oren moved to Israel in the 1970s. He served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, in the paratroopers in the first Lebanon War, as a liaison with the U.S. Sixth Fleet during the Gulf War, and as an army spokesman in the second Lebanon War. He acted as a representative of the Prime Minister’s Office to Jewish refuseniks in the Soviet Union and as an advisor to Israel’s delegation to the United Nations. He was the director of Inter-Religious Affairs in the government of Yitzhak Rabin. Michael Oren lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.

For more information, please contact the Programs Department at (310) 481-3243 or Programs@sinaitemple.org

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The Rabbi Samuel N. Sherman Memorial Lecture
With
David Horovitz, Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post

Israel -- The Challenges on the Ground and on the Media Battlefield

David Horovitz is the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, Israel’s English-language daily.

He was previously editor and publisher of the award-winning newsmagazine The Jerusalem Report, and has written from Israel for newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Irish Times and The (London) Independent. He is a frequent interviewee on CNN, the BBC, NPR and other TV and radio stations.

MR. Horovitz is the author of “Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism,” which received warm reviews in The New York Times and numerous other newspapers. He is also the author of “A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel” (2000).

He edited and co-wrote, with other members of staff, The Jerusalem Report’s 1996 biography of Yitzhak Rabin, “Shalom, Friend” which was published in 12 countries and won the U.S. National Jewish Book Award for Non-Fiction.

Mr. Horovitz is the recipient of this year’s JDC award for journalism on Israel and Diaspora Affairs, and is a previous winner of the B’nai B’rith World Center award for journalism.

David immigrated to Israel from London in 1983 and, until they deemed him too old recently, did his army reserve service in the Educational Corps. He is married to Lisa and they have three children.

Moderated by Rabbi David Wolpe

When: Tuesday, January 20th, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Sinai Temple

Cost: Free of charge and open to the public

For further information, please contact the Program Department, at Programs@sinaitemple.org or (310) 481-3243

**This Program made possible by CAMERA (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) and Sinai Temple

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“Death and Dying: Can We Talk?” Sunday, February 22, 2009 8:30am – 1:30pm
8:30 – 8:55am Registration and Light Breakfast
	9:00 - 9:45am Rabbi Mordecai Finley, Ph.D., Finding Light in the Shadow of Death Many of us feel a sense of dread or inadequacy when we contemplate attending to the dying, being present at a death, preparing for a funeral, or dealing with grief. Rabbi Finley will shed light on the extraordinary holiness that is possible in attending to the dying and grieving.
10:00 - 10:45am Breakout Session One
Rabbi Ahud Sela, The Morality of Life and Death Decisions What is the Jewish position on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide? How do we define terminally ill? We will answer these and other questions in light of their affect on end of life care. Rabbi Sela is a rabbi at Sinai Temple and received his Masters Degree in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Rabbi Anne Brener, LCSW, Doing Kaddish: Continuing the Conversation with the Deceased Everyone dies in the middle of a conversation. The mourner’s challenging task is to transform the relationship from a physical to a spiritual connection and find peace in that transformation. Rabbi Brener, LCSW is a Spiritual Director, Psychotherapist and teacher. She is author of the acclaimed Mourning & Mitzvah: Walking the Mourner's Path (Jewish Lights, 1993 & 2001).
11:00 - 11:45am Breakout Session Two
	Jay Thomas, MD, Ph.D, Treating Suffering through the Prism of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs To find peace entails taking care of physical, psychological, interpersonal and spiritual sources of suffering. We will explore how Palliative Medicine helps patients and families relieve suffering. Dr. Thomas is Chair of the Department of Supportive Care Medicine at City of Hope National Medical Center.
Rabbi Mordecai Finley, Ph.D, What to do in the Presence of a Death You may be present when someone dies. You have to know what to do spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and in terms of Jewish custom. Rabbi Finley is the spiritual leader of Ohr HaTorah Congregation. He is a professor and former Provost and former President of the Academy for Jewish Religion, CA.
	12:00 – 1:00pm Panel with Moderator Rabbi David Wolpe Our distinguished scholars will answer questions from spiritual, ethical and medical viewpoints. Rabbi Wolpe is the senior rabbi of Sinai Temple. His new book, Why Faith Matters, was published by HarperOne in September of 2008.
1:00 – 1:30pm Community Resource Tables Representatives from local agencies will provide useful materials and answer questions.
For more information, contact Dahlia Greenbaum, Program Director at (310) 481-3243 or dgreenbaum@sinaitemple.org.

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Sinai Temple Presents:

REBBETZIN ESTHER JUNGREIS,
Founder and President of Hineni

Life Is a Test

Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis is a Holocaust survivor and a descendent of a great rabbinic dynasty that can trace its lineage back to the days of King David.

For over 40 years, Rebbetzin Jungreis has written a weekly column for The Jewish Press, the world’s largest Anglo-Jewish weekly. Mrs. Jungreis also teaches Bible on the Hineni television show, broadcast world-wide weekly and on the internet to more than 8 million homes coast to coast.

In 1973, Rebbetzin Jungreis founded Hineni, an international movement to inspire the Jewish people to return to their faith. Its impact has been overwhelming: standing room only crowds have gathered to hear the Rebbetzin from Madison Square Garden in N.Y. to the Hollywood Palladium in L.A. She has spoken for the U.S. Army and Navy as well as for the Israel Defense Forces. She was also invited to deliver the benediction at the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York.

The Rebbetzin is the author of three critically acclaimed books, “Jewish Soul On Fire” (Wm. Morrow & Co.); “The Committed Life” (HarperCollins), which has been translated into Hebrew, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian. Portuguese and French, and “The Committed Marriage” (HarperCollins) which has also been published in Spanish and Hebrew editions. Her fourth and latest book, “Life Is a Test”, was published in the Fall of 2006 and has become a best seller worldwide.

In 2005, the Rebbetzin was appointed by President Bush to a five year term on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. In 2006 she was a member of the U.S. delegation to the dedication of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The lecture will be followed by a dialogue with Rabbi David Wolpe.

When: Wednesday, December 10, 7:30pm

Where: Sinai Temple

Cost: $5 for Sinai Temple Members and $10 for non-members

For further information, please contact Dahlia Greenbaum, Program Director, at dgreenbaum@sinaitemple.org or (310) 481-3243