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Guest Speaker Page!

By Mishkon's Adult Education Program

Join Mishkon Tephilo for regular Adult Education Guest Speaker programming, featuring guest speakers on diverse topics.

Watch live below or on our YouTube channel for this and more, including livestreams and all previous Guest Speaker sessions!

UPCOMING Guest Speakers at Mishkon - Join the Zoom and Participate Below, or Watch on Livestream

Guest Speaker Maxim D. Shrayer

The Refusenik Experience

Sunday, May 18

11 a.m. on Zoom

Author and Boston College professor Maxim D. Shrayer, a former refusenik born in Moscow, emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1987. In this compelling talk, Shrayer will explore the history of the refusenik movement, offer personal reflections on life behind the Iron Curtain, and read excerpts from his acclaimed memoir, Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story.

Learn more here

Journalist Thomas Elias’ Talk With Ahavat Torah

Getting Tikkun Olam Into Print

Postponed - Date to be confirmed

on Zoom

Elias is a columnist for the Daily News and 90 other publications. His talk will focus on "Getting Tikkun Olam Into Print."

This Guest Speaker session with Ahavat Torah, originally planned for Sunday, March 23, has been postponed. New date to be confirmed.

Recent Guest Speakers at Mishkon - View On-Demand Below

Dr. Nili Alon Amit

Happiness and Well-Being in Jewish Literature

Sunday, April 27

11 a.m. - 12 p.m. on Zoom

Dr. Nili Alon Amit will explore the concept of happiness or well-being in the Bible up to Israel's pre-state pioneer poets. She will lead us through a historical overview that includes medieval Jewish writings, Kabbalah, and Spinoza. She will reveal how the quest for transcendent knowledge while living a stable life on the ground stands at the core of the human search for happiness or well-being.

Yom HaShoah Program: Suitcases of Memory

Tuesday, April 22

4 - 5 p.m. in Mishkon's Library

Adult Education and the Mishkon Preschool

Mishkon's Preschool and Adult Education Committee hosted a Yom HaShoah presentation by Dr. Nili Alon Amit titled Suitcases of Memory. Dr. Amit is a speaker from the Holocaust Education Center at StandWithUs. She explored how antisemitism can infiltrate education and discussed thoughtful approaches to Holocaust education for young children.

Irvin Ungar

Injustice Illuminated: The Hagaddah and the Nazi Resistance Art of Arthur Szyk

Sunday, March 23

11 a.m. on Zoom and Livestream

This illustrated presentation pays tribute to the memory of European Jewry through the art of Arthur Szyk, the leading artist for Jewish rescue in America during the Holocaust.

The talk discussed Szyk's famous Haggadah and demonstrates how the artist saw Hitler as the new Pharaoh and the Nazis as the new Egyptians who had come to annihilate his people.

Watch the LiveStream below or on our YouTube Channel for this event.

Rabbi Ilana Grinblat

Rabbi Ilana Grinblat discussed "What Pain Teaches Us: Spiritual Lessons From Two Years of Anguish." How do we heal our bodies, minds, and souls? How can we keep our hopes up when we feel despair? Rabbi Grinblat spoke about her own experience when what was supposed to be a minor medical procedure went awry.

She is the rabbi of Ahavat Torah in Los Angeles and Temple Har Shalom in ldyllwild. Rabbi Grinblat, the author of four books, was ordained at the American Jewish University in 2001 and taught Midrash there for 16 years.

Watch the LiveStream below or on our YouTube Channel for this event.

Philip Terman

Philip Terman read from his new book, The Whole Mishpocha, as well as other poems, on Friday, January 17.

Philip Terman's most recent books of poetry are The Whole Mishpocha (Ben Yehuda Press, 2024), My Blossoming Everything (Saddle Road Press, 2024). He co-directs the Jewish Poetry Reading Series, sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Buffalo. Terman conducts and coaches poetry workshops.

Watch the LiveStream below or on our YouTube Channel for this event.