Bible by the Bay occurs three times in a span of five months, but organizers say it’s designed never to be the same event twice.
The upcoming day of Jewish learning, April 26 at Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto, is set up to be more academic than counterpart events in San Francisco (held last month) and Sonoma (held in December 2008).
“Our experience at Lehrhaus is that you can’t replicate an event in the Bay Area because every region has its own specific taste,” said Adam Blodgett, director of publicity for Lehrhaus Judaica, the Berkeley-based Jewish studies adult school that organizes Bible by the Bay.
Blodgett said the comments organizers received after Palo Alto’s first Bible by the Bay in 2006 led to the following conclusion: “The Peninsula is hungry for a much higher level of learning than we find in the rest of places where we do Bible by the Bay.”
Thus, many of the workshops at next week’s four-hour event will have a scholarly focus.
Two of the workshops are titled “Torah — Text and Beyond: A Textual and Deep Understanding of the Timeless Wisdom of the Torah” and “Fascinating Encounters With a Book Nobody Reads: Getting Acquainted With Chronicles.” And of the 10 workshops, two will be taught in Russian and two others in Hebrew.
That’s not to say topics of a more light-hearted nature are totally eschewed, as the class “Jewish Superheroes: Literature and Legend” would indicate.
“I’m a big comic book and manga [Japanese comics] fan — and this just sounds like fun,” said Claire Griffin, a San Francisco resident who works at Stanford University’s HighWire Press, an electronic database of academic journals.
As someone who frequently attends Bible by the Bay events, Griffin also is eagerly awaiting the class “Deconstruction Idols: The Story of the Golden Calf.”
“I’m hoping for some fresh and interesting perspective on a well-known story,” she said.
The keynote speakers will be Yair Zakovitch, a professor of Bible at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Avivah Zornberg, an author and longtime teacher of Torah.
Norman Licht of San Carlos said he is looking forward to hearing both. “I’m not a scholar, but I’m interested in history and very interested in Judaism and Israel and how they all fit together,” Licht said.
Licht and his wife, Carolyn, often attend Bible by the Bay together. They have a collection of books signed by their authors, all of which they bought at Bible by the Bay.
Griffin said knowledge of the Bible is vital.
“I think it’s important to know the story even if you don’t believe every literal word,” she said. “It has informed the Jewish people and Jewish thought for generations. Study is about remembering who we are, where we come from and where we can go moving forward.”
Bible by the Bay is scheduled for 1 to 5 p.m. April 26, at Kehillah