The Other Within: Panel Discussion at BU on Paths in Jewish Secularism

"Paths in Jewish Secularism/Secular Judaism" is the theme of a panel-discussion at BU in connection with a program on "The Other Within" sponsored by a grant from the Center for Cultural Judaism.

This event explores different ways of negotiating Jewish identity and secularism ranging from personal and family life to culture, education, and politics.

Panelists include Mike Felsen, Mitchell Silver Rabbi Toba Spitzer, Adam Seligman, and Abby Gillman (moderator: Michael Zank). 

The event is scheduled for March 25, 2010, from 6-8pm, and will be preceded by a reception, beginning at 5:30, at the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, 147 Bay State Road, second floor.
 
Abigail Gillman is Associate Professor of German and Hebrew Literature in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Comparative Literature at BU. Her new book Viennese Jewish Modernism: Freud, Hofmannsthal, Beer-Hofmann, and Schnitzler, was published by Penn State Press in 2009.

Mike Felsen is the President of Boston Workmen's Circle and an executive officer of Workmen's Circle-National, board member of the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy, and trustee of the Interreligious Center for Public life.

Adam Seligman is Professor of Religion and Research Associate at the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA), where he directs a project on inter-religious tolerance. His most recent book, co-authored with Robert Weller, Michael Puett, and Bennett Simon, is Ritual and its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity (2008). 

Mitchell Silver is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at UMass Boston and the author of Respecting the Wicked Child: A Philosophy of Secular Jewish Identity and Education (1998) and The Plausible God: Secular Reflections on Liberal Jewish Theology (2006).

Toba Spitzer serves as rabbi of the Reconstructionist congregation Dorshei Tzedek in Newton, Mass. She is the immediate past President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and has for many years been a peace and social justice activist. She currently serves as the chair of the greater Boston chapter of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet.

Michael Zank is Associate Professor of Religion at BU where he teaches classes in Judaic Studies and the Philosophy of Religion.