Dr. Berk is a national treasure!
– R. Sheldon
Absolutely wonderful lectures with Professor Berk! So many books written and subsequent events at the 92nd St Y and the Streicker Center but none can compare.
-Suzanne S.
Your lecture series have been a bright spot in this pandemic. Now I can’t wait to start travelling to these places again…especially Israel!
-Anita A.
I so enjoyed tonight’s lecture! So interesting. All of them have been amazing. I’m thrilled to be a part of this series.
-Joanne S.
I wanted to commend you on this “tour.” Bob and I enjoyed it immensely and thought the information and preparation was excellent. I felt like I was really there.
-Natalie S.
Thanks very much for a terrific program today – very informative and we loved the visuals. A great way to “travel” while we are restricted at home.
-Ellen B.
Prof. Berk is one of the very few speakers who can hold my attention for one hour. His knowledge, annotations and delivery are superb. I am so glad I signed up for the series, and am looking forward to part two.
-Marlene C
CONNECT, VIRTUALLY
Explore the Jewish world from the comfort of your home
Ayelet’s Worldwide Traveling University is the premier Jewish Scholar travel program, and now you can access high level scholarly lectures normally available only on tour…from home!
Our scholars in residence and partner scholars and guides worldwide are featured in these Ayelet exclusive programs.
FEATURED PROGRAMS
Lost Jewish Cities
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
May 3, 10, 17, and 24 – Thessaloniki (Salonica) * Sarajevo * Vilnius * Kovno * Kyiv * Lviv
$80 for all four
Past Lecture Series – Recordings available
Catching up? Receive private access links to view these outstanding past programs. From Prof. Berk’s popular “Towering Figures”, to the virtual tour “Spanish Cities, Jewish Stories” and beyond, these programs offer you access to top level scholarship, viewed at your leisure.
Four Towering Figures Who Changed The World (Series ONE)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
Join us as we discover the people who shaped the world we inhabit…for better or for worse!
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Vladimir Lenin
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
Four Towering Figures who Changed the World (Series TWO)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
“Personality is important in history. In the 20th century, a handful of people changed the course of modern times. The influence of these individuals resonates down to the present.”
– Prof. Stephen Berk
Winston Churchill, Mao Zedong, Harry S. Truman, and Golda Meir
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
Four Towering Figures who Changed the World (Series THREE)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Pope Pius XII, and David Ben Gurion
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
Four Towering Figures who Changed the World (Series FOUR)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
Vladimir Putin, Theodor Herzl, Juan & Eva Peron, Abraham Lincoln
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
Four Towering Figures who Changed the World (Series FIVE)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
Angela Merkel, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Menachem Begin
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
From Tragedy to Triumph… A Virtual Series (Series SIX)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
Understanding the Holocaust, The Founding of Israel, Israel’s Military Campaigns, A Look at the Future
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
Four More Towering Figures (Series SEVEN)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
Zion in America (Series EIGHT)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
I: Colonies, George Washington and a new century,II: The Germans are coming: The Russians are coming, III: Ford, Lindbergh and Roosevelt, IV: The Golden Age. Is it still a golden age?
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
To Hell and Back (Series NINE)
Europe and its Jews in the 20th Century
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
The Muck and the Mire, Disappointment and Despair, Again, War – WWII, The Iron Curtain rises and falls
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
CUBA: From Columbus to Castro (Series TEN)
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue, 1898 and All That, Two thieves rape an Island, A Duel in the Sun
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
JEWS IN THE MUSLIM WORLD
Presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
AFRICA – Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, CENTRAL ASIA & MIDDLE EAST – Iran, Iraq, and Yemen, MODERN TIMES – UAE, Bahrain, and more, Is it good for the Jews? – Current Events through a Jewish Lens with Prof. Berk
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
UNTOLD STORIES: Central Europe’s Jewish Quarters
3 (virtual) walking tours & a PROF. BERK presentation
Prague’s Josefov district (Jewish Quarter), Krakow’s Kazimierz (Jewish Quarter)in partnership with the Krakow JCC, The Jews of Warsaw, presented by Prof. Stephen Berk
$25/session or SAVE: $60 for all three (3) sessions
The Dark Side of Fiddler:
Eastern Europe’s Forgotten Jews
Presented by Prof. Natan Meir
The Cholera Wedding: East European Jews’ Magical Ritual to End an Epidemic
Town Fools, Madmen, and Possessed Women: The Mentally Ill in Jewish Eastern Europe
A Home for the Homeless? The Jewish Poorhouse of Eastern Europe
Drafting the Undesirables: Jewish Conscription to the Imperial Russian Military under Nicholas I
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessionssessions
Spanish Cities, Jewish Stories
Join us as we explore Sephardic history, featuring insight by our local Scholars in Spain
Madrid/Toledo, Grenada, and Seville
$25/session or SAVE: $60 for all three (3) sessions
+ Book Online & More Information
Israel in Focus:
Discover Israel Through Israeli Eyes… Virtually
PROF. PAUL LIPTZ, Israel’s Many Tribes, GIL HOFFMAN, An Insider’s Look at the March 2021 Israeli Election, ADI NES, Issues of Identities, RACHEL KORAZIM, Freedom of Expression, or How Do We Know Israel is a Democracy?
$25/session or SAVE: $80 for all four (4) sessions
Let’s explore Argentina’s Jewish stories together
The Jewish Experience in Argentina – Rabbi Sergio Bergman, The Capture of Eichman in Argentina – Avner Avraham, former Israeli Mossad agent, Jewish Gauchos (Argentinean cowboys) – Jessica Cymerman, Tango’s Jewish connection – Jessica Cymerman
$25/session or SAVE: $75 for all four (4) sessions
Its all YIDDISH to me
“Yiddish was the spoken language of three quarters of the Jewish people for close to 1,000 years.” – Aaron Lansky, Founder & President, Yiddish Book Center
The Catskills, Klezmer and beyond: Appreciating Yiddish music presented by PROF. YALE STROM, Yiddish Folklore: Stories, Legends, and Magic presented by PROF. NATAN MEIR, Expecting the Unexpected: Yiddish in the time of COVID presented by AARON LANSKY, Founder & President the Yiddish Book Center, Yiddish in Action: The Bund presented by PROF. STEPHEN BERK
$25/session or SAVE: $75 for all four (4) sessions
Israel’s intelligence operation secrets, revealed by insiders.
Avner Avraham (Mossad agent, expert on the ENTEBBE RAID), Yola Ritman (Mossad undercover agent, manager at the RED SEA DIVING RESORT), Top Secret (can’t be revealed in advance!), Prof Stephen Berk (on Jonathan Pollard and Avraham Marek Klingberg – SPY Vs. SPY)
About our Scholars-in-Residence…
Dr. Stephen Berk
Dr. Stephen M. Berk is a Professor of History at Union College in Schenectady, New York, Chair of the Department of History, Director of the Program in Comparative Communist Studies and Faculty Advisor to the Jewish Student Organization. He is author of Year of Crisis, Year of Hope: Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 1881-1882 (Greenwood Press, 1985). At the present time Professor Berk is writing a book entitled, Our People Are Your People: American Jewry and the Struggle for Civil Rights 1854-1965. The book provides an interesting discussion of an extremely important chapter in the history of the civil rights movement and attempts to dispel the myths and misunderstandings that surround the Black-Jewish relationship. Professor Berk is also the author of many articles on Russian History, Russian Jewish History, anti-Semitism and American Policy in the Middle East. Professor Berk is frequently consulted by newspaper reporters and by television and radio stations including the BBC. He has lectured in numerous universities in countless cities and towns in the United States and Israel and is a primary speaker for the UJA, Israel Bonds and B’nai B’rith. Professor Berk is considered an absolutely superb lecturer and teacher. Touring with him has been compared to attending a “traveling university…his lectures are outstanding.” He is always informative, interesting and entertaining. He has lectured as scholar-in-residence for us on many trips to Russia, Spain, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Europe and Israel. It is a privilege to have him with us!
Prof. Natan Meir
From his groundbreaking research on the Jews of Russia and Ukraine to his work as a consultant for Moscow’s Jewish Museum, Professor Natan Meir, Lorry I. Lokey Professor of Judaic Studies at Portland State University in Oregon, has earned an international reputation as a scholar of Jewish social, cultural, and religious history. His latest book, Stepchildren of the Shtetl, recovers the histories of Jewish Eastern Europe’s social outcasts: the disabled, the mentally ill, orphans, and beggars. His previous book, Kiev, Jewish Metropolis, explored Jewish life and culture in a Ukrainian city under Russian imperial rule. Students praise his classroom as an inspiring intellectual space. An avid trailrunner, he speaks eight languages and is now working on his ninth.