Ze Kollel (ONLINE)
Ze Kollel offers an intensive immersion in classical Jewish learning through the study of the weekly Torah portion (Parasha) and Talmud. All members of Ze Kollel will be offered opportunities to teach and develop their skills as potential Jewish educators and leaders.
Ze Kollel aims to be a place of personal and spiritual growth with the text as our guide and our fellow students as companions. Our name is both a nod to traditional Kollel environments which are often exclusive to men, while also being a transliterated form of the Hebrew words that mean, “It includes”.
This semester, we will be delving into the last chapter of Tractate Moed Katan: ‘little festival’. This eleventh tractate in Seder (order) Moed, presents the laws of the intermediary days of the festivals of Sukkot and Pesach – a liminal time between the holy and the mundane. We will focus on the last chapter of this tractate discussing avelut: the laws of bereavement. What does the Jewish tradition teach us on how to face loss? What do we do, what don’t we do, and why?
Ze Kollel is in partnership with Hillel Deutschland and Oy Vey Amsterdam.
The course is given in English, in collaboration with Paideia – the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden.
Course Information and Application Process
The course consists of 14-15 sessions on Mondays from 09:00 to 13:00 CET, starting on Monday, September 2. Ze Kollel includes: an opportunity to lead a parasha session, a required writing of an original commentary on the Talmud as well as an end-of-semester in person shabbaton. Applications open on July 1st and close on the 31st of July.
The Ze Kollel team will contact you as part of the admissions process.
The course fee is 120 €*. The admission letter with more information will be sent via email about two weeks before the course starts. Please check your spam folder. Paideia Folkhögskola is closed on Swedish public holidays and Jewish holidays.
*Do not let cost withhold you from participating: Ze Kollel is for everyone, regardless of your financial situation. If you need help with the fee, please fill out this form for scholarship. Application for scholarship
Prior knowledge
To apply for this course, you need basic computer skills and knowledge of how to use the digital platform Zoom. The school offers Zoom manuals and a training opportunity before the start of the course.
Hebrew knowledge is helpful but no prior knowledge or Hebrew language skills are required. The texts are read in English, if they are available in translation.
Course material
Course material, accommodation and participation in a Shabbaton in Stockholm is included in the cost for this course. Travel expenses to Stockholm are not included. The Shabbaton will take place in December 2024 or January 2025. Dates will be communicated in the admission letter if you are accepted to the course.
About the teachers
Lievnath Faber is a Jewish educator and activist, birth- and death doula and ritualist. She holds an MA in the arts from the University of Amsterdam and is a senior Humanity in Action fellow as well as a senior Landecker Democracy fellow who writes and works on the intersection of antiracism and antisemitism in Europe and specialized in the Netherlands. She weaves Jewish activism, life cycle awareness and ritual together to create joyful and empowered Jewish life in Europe. She is a trained mikveh guide and grief ceremony facilitator, (co) founder and program director of Oy Vey, the open, inclusive and unapologetically Jewish community in Amsterdam and part of the faculty staff of Ze Kollel, the immersive pan-European Jewish learning programme. She is a rabbinical student with ALEPH – the Alliance for Jewish Renewal and works towards creating joyful and empowered Jewish life in Europe.
Sophie Bigot-Goldblum holds a MA degree, magna cum Laude from Hebrew University in Jewish Studies and a MA from the EHESS in Political Theory. She was blessed to be able to learn in various yeshivot in Israel and the United States for four years: at Pardes, the Conservative Yeshiva, Hadar and Drisha. Additionally, she co-facilitates Paideia’s Paradigm program, bringing together European, American, and Israeli Jewish professionals and thought leaders for a week of intense discussions and learning on Jewish identity.
Sophie teaches at the Conservative Yeshiva summer program and has been published in Jewish Journals in the US and Europe : JOFA journal, Mozaika, Tenou’a, La Voix Sépharade. She is the co-founder of Bealma, the first egalitarian sefaradi minyan in France. She loves football and a good Yerushalmi Kugel.
Photo: Canva/Hanna Reichel
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