Community Events
Events listed here are hosted by our community partners and are not sponsored by Temple Israel unless noted.
We encourage you to reach out directly to the event organizers with any questions.
Twin Cities 32nd Annual Jewish Film Festival
Tuesday, October 20-Sunday, November 1
Jewish Film Fest Schedule, Tickets, and Information
Organized around the theme “The Creative Spirit,” this year’s festival explores the dynamic relationship between inheritance and reinvention—how artists, families, and communities remain rooted in the stories, traditions, and histories that shape them while continuing to create, question, and evolve. Across comedy, romance, music, history, family, and identity, the films celebrate both what we carry forward and what becomes possible as we grow. Together, they offer an invitation: let it transform you.
Whether you’re a longtime festivalgoer or new to the festival, we’re so glad you’re here. Explore the full Schedule, find the stories that speak to you, and join us for thirteen days of film, conversation, and community.
Global Jewish Food Culteres Symposium
November 4-5
Explore the symposium schedule and learn more here.
Savoring Sephard: A Tour of Sephardic Food and Identity from Medieval Spain to the Modern Diaspora
Wednesday, November 4, 7:00 p.m.
Temple Israel, 2323 Fremont Avenue South, Minneapolis
Free, Register for Savoring Sephard
Culinary historian Sara Gardner will discuss the development and heritage of Sephardic cuisine and its connection to Sephardic culture. She will also share some incredible recipes that you can try at home!
Sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota and Temple Israel.
JFCS Hag Sameach (Happy Holidays) Program
Year-round; see the flyer
The JFCS Hag Sameach program is a great opportunity to feel connected to the Jewish community, whether you are a recipient, donor, or volunteer. Hag Sameach works with local synagogues, the Minnesota JCC, PRISM, and other organizations to ensure that people in our community who are in need of extra assistance, both during the holidays and throughout the year, have a resource for holiday gifts and essential items. There are many ways to participate in this program, and we are confident we will find the perfect fit for you!
JFCS accepts online and in-kind donations throughout the year in preparation for the winter holidays and as a resource to provide items beyond the holidays as needed.
For more information on volunteering or referrals, contact Abbey Baker, Hag Sameach (Happy Holidays) Coordinator, at 952-542-4870 | abaker@jfcsmn.org
For more information on donating, contact Molly Knopf, Development Coordinator, at 952-542-4874 | mknopf@jfcsmn.org
Just Add Water: A Big Splash Benefit for Maayanot
Sunday, November 8, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Beth El Synagogue, 5225 Barry Street West, St. Louis Park
Tickets and Sponsorships
You are invited to Just Add Water to support Maayanot, part of a growing movement to reclaim the ancient ritual of mikveh immersion and build a home for this inspiring and meaningful sacred ritual.
This fun, interactive, and inspiring event will feature water-themed activities, learning about mikveh and Maayanot, refreshments, and more.
Join us and be the first hear some exciting announcements about our Welcoming Waters Campaign to build Maayanot in our permanent location on the Beth El Synagogue campus.
1564 STORIES Film Event: The Czech Torah Scrolls and the Space Between Myth and Truth
Tuesday, November 10, 7:00 p.m.
Macalester College Chapel, 1600 Grand Ave St. Paul, MN 55105
Reserve your spot for Czech Torah Scrolls
This documentary film explores the remarkable and often misunderstood journey of Torah scrolls that survived the Holocaust and ultimately found homes in synagogues around the world, including Temple Israel’s Tabor Torah and four others in the Twin Cities.
Following the film will be a Q & A with Dale Bluestein, the film’s creator.
Temple Israel is a co-sponsor of this event.
Center for Jewish Studies
Rachel Gordan Presents The Jew Who Passed: Laura Z. Hobson and the American Bargain of Belonging
Thursday, November 12, 7:30 p.m.
Minnesota JCC Sabes Center, 4330 Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis
Free; RSVP for The Jew Who Passed
Before Gentleman’s Agreement became the Academy Award–winning postwar film starring Gregory Peck, it was the bestselling novel of Laura Z. Hobson, a Jewish American woman whose life was shaped by the very questions of antisemitism, assimilation, and conditional belonging that made her novel-turned-film famous. Born Laura Zametkin, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrant radicals, Hobson transformed herself into Laura Z. Hobson: Cornell graduate, Madison Avenue copywriter, Time Inc. editor, Upper East Side wife, divorced single mother, celebrity novelist, and one of the most widely read interpreters of American antisemitism. This talk tells the story of Hobson’s life as a biography of passing—not as simple denial, but as a practice of social translation through names, manners, marriage, work, motherhood, and literary ambition. Her life reveals the “other Jew” as the one who seems to have crossed the boundary into belonging—until antisemitism exposes how conditional that belonging remains.
Rachel Gordan is the Samuel Shorstein Professor of American Jewish Culture & Society at the University of Florida. Her book, Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American (Oxford, 2024), was a finalist for the 2025 Jordan Schnitzer Award in Modern Jewish History & Culture. In addition to her scholarly publications, Gordan’s writing has appeared in LitHub, Slate, Tablet, Moment Magazine, and the New York Times website.
Center for Jewish Studies
Rachel Gordan Presents
Elective Abundance: The Silver Palate and the Secularization of Ethnic Hospitality in Late Twentieth-Century America
Friday, November 13, 12 noon-1:15 p.m.
University of Minnesota, 216 Pillsbury Drive Southeast, Pillsbury Hall, Room 135
Free; RSVP for Elective Abundance
This event uses the Silver Palate shop and cookbooks to consider how older ethnic and religious models of hospitality were remade as a secular, cosmopolitan cuisine, and how that transformation intersected with changes in women’s work, feminism, urban life, and consumer culture.
Center for Jewish Studies
Noam Sienna Inaugural Deinard Lecture: What is Jewish History and Why Does It Matter?
Monday, November 16, 4:00 p.m.
University of Minnesota, 310 Pillsbury Drive Southeast, Pillsbury Hall, Room 412
Free; RSVP for Noam Sienna
The establishment of the Deinard Chair in Jewish History at the University of Minnesota has ensured the continuity of research and teaching in the field of Jewish history at UMN. But why should teaching Jewish history matter here and now? In this inaugural lecture, Dr. Noam Sienna, the incoming holder of the Deinard Chair, will offer reflections on studying and teaching Jewish history, weaving together his own research, the history of Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota, and the future horizons for Jewish Studies at UMN.
JFCS: First Annual Benefit
Saturday, December 5, 7:00 p.m.
Minneapolis Marriott Southwest, 5801 Opus Parkway, Minnetonka
JFCS Tickets and Information
An inspiring evening of friendship, celebration, and impact marks our first Annual Benefit as Jewish Family and Children's Service of Minnesota!
For generations, JFCS (Minneapolis) and JFS (St. Paul) have served our community from opposite sides of the river. Now, as one JFCS of Minnesota, we come together with one purpose, two histories and a shared future.
This year's Benefit is more than a celebration. It's an opportunity to honor the people, stories, and connections that have brought us together, while helping shape a strong future for generations to come. It will raise critical funds for JFCS of Minnesota and help ensure that all in our community who turn to us can continue to find support when they need it.
Enjoy cocktails, food stations, music, schmoozing and special interactive experiences celebrating our shared history. Explore our historical display, share your story, capture a memory, purchase raffle tickets for a chance to win exciting prizes and enjoy activities throughout the evening. The event is co-chaired by Brenda Soumekh and Sonia Ungerman. The program will be emceed by Abra Annes, founder of Generosity Auctions.
We will present the Friends of the Family Award to Dr. Allan Stillerman and this year’s Fund-a-Need will support programs and services that strengthen and sustain Jewish life and community throughout Minnesota.
At a time when connection matters more than ever, JFCS of Minnesota strengthens community by fostering belonging, building trusted relationships and ensuring no one faces life's challenges alone.
Tickets start at just $150; a limited number of $50 tickets will be available for our NextGen guests – buy them at tuneinjfcs.org! A livestream option will also be available.
Center for Jewish Studies
Rowan Dorin Presents Before 1492: Expelling Jews and “Jews” in Medieval Europe
Tuesday, December 8, 7:30 p.m.
Minnesota JCC Capp Center, 1375 St. Paul Avenue, St. Paul
Free; RSVP for Rowan Dorin Presents
Vilified for their supposed usury, condemned by church leaders, and expelled by opportunistic rulers—such was the fate not only of medieval Europe’s Jewish communities, but also of the many Christian moneylenders in their midst. (That’s right, Jews were not the only moneylenders in the Middle Ages!) By recovering the forgotten existence of those who were frequently denounced as “Jew-ish” by hostile contemporaries, this lecture asks what we can learn about Jewish history from the experiences of those who came to share not only a language of exclusion but also the reality of expulsion.
Rowan Dorin is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Stanford University, as well as core faculty of Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies. His research and teaching focus on the history of premodern Europe and the Mediterranean, in particular Jewish-Christian relations, religious law, and digital humanities. His recent book, No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe (Princeton UP, 2023) won multiple awards, including the 2024 Baron Prize from the American Academy for Jewish Research, awarded annually for the best first book in Jewish Studies.
Center for Jewish Studies
Rotem Tamir Presents Latitude 33°: Another Heritage
Thursday, January 28, 6:00 p.m.
Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis
Free; RSVP link coming in December*
”Latitude 33°,” Rotem Tamir’s exhibition at Mia November 21, 2026 through February 21, 2027, is named for the cartographic line running through Iraq, north Libya, and near Haifa where Tamir grew up, a latitude tracing her heritage materially and symbolically. Her family’s story is one of migration: objects left behind and what gets carried instead. Her grandparents could only bring the intangible: stories, songs, recipes. In Hebrew, Tamir observes, chefetz (object) shares a root with longing — an object is something you yearn for and bring into being. This exhibition, conjuring places through the physical and immaterial, evokes the ache of distance between where one is and where one is from and asks, “how does one piece together identity, keeping heritage alive for oneself and one’s children?” Tamir will speak about the objects and family history behind the art, and how making becomes a holding on to what migration carried forward.
Rotem Tamir’s art practice spans sculpture, sound, and installation. Drawing from her Sephardic Jewish heritage and rooted in traditional crafts, her work engages themes of migration, transcultural identity, and belonging. Tamir’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Ras Al Khaimah Contemporary Art Biennale, Haifa City Museum, Locust Projects, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. A 2021 McKnight Visual Artist Fellow, Tamir is an Associate Professor of Sculpture at the University of Minnesota.
This event is part of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at Mia. Support provided by RBC Wealth Management.
*A direct registration with Mia will become available on Dec. 28. Stay tuned!
Center for Jewish Studies
Michelle Campos Presents The ‘Other Jew’ ‘Between Jaffa and Tel Aviv
Thursday, March 25, 7:30 p.m.
Minnesota JCC Sabes Center, 4330 Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis
Free; RSVP for Michelle Campos Presents
Yosef Eliyahu Chelouche grew up within a notable Sephardi family in the tiny but flourishing Jewish community in Jaffa. Born in 1870, he became a prominent entrepreneur, a founder of Tel Aviv, and a fierce critic of the Ashkenazi Zionist leadership, of Arab nationalism, and of British colonial sectarianism. In his final decade, however, he emerged as an anguished public figure struggling to repair Arab-Jewish relations. Chelouche was ‘othered’ by his fellow Jews for being a native of the Orient and by his fellow native Jaffans for his commitment to the Zionist project, both of which he confronted in his published memoir. The memoir offers ambiguous answers, however, about the real possibilities of bridging between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, highlighting issues which we struggle with to this day.
Michelle Campos is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Campos coedited with Or Aleksandrowicz Between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, 1870–1930: A Memoir by Yosef Eliyahu Chelouche (Brandeis UP, 2025). Previously, she authored the award-winning book, Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth Century Palestine. Campos is currently completing a book on neighborhood life and intercommunal relations in 19th and early 20th century Jerusalem. She also served as co-director on an NEH-funded international collaborative research project, “Reimagining Jewish Life in the Modern Middle East: History, Society, and Culture.”
Center for Jewish Studies
Ofer Ashkenazi Presents Paying Attention at the End of the World: 1930s Photographs by German Jews
Thursday, April 8, 7:30 p.m.
Minnesota JCC Capp Center, 1375 St. Paul Avenue, St. Paul
Free; RSVP for Ofer Ashkenazi Presents
In hindsight, the early 1930s marked the erosion and eventual collapse of liberal democracy in Germany. For those living through these years, however, the trajectory was far from certain. For German Jews—cast by the National Socialists as an existential threat to the nation—the question of the crisis’s true nature, and of democracy’s prospects, was especially urgent. This talk examines German Jewish responses to this pivotal moment through private photographs taken in the early 1930s. Private photography had become widespread in Germany, and its practitioners were increasingly aware of its power to convey ideological convictions and to shape both memory and self-perception. These images reveal how Jews sought to interpret and confront a shifting political, social, and cultural landscape—and to anticipate what lay ahead. Read as commentary on individual experience, private photographs allow us to recover the otherwise unrecorded emotions, beliefs, and behaviors of German Jews during these critical years.
Ofer Ashkenazi is Ben-Eliezer Professor of Modern History and Director of the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His recent publications include the monograph, Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (2025, with Rebekka Grossmann, Sarah Wobick-Segev, and Shira Miron), and the co-edited volume, Rethinking Jewish History and Memory through Photography (2025, with Thomas Pegelow Kaplan).
Minneapolis Jewish Federation: Engage Israel
May 4 - 11, 2028
As you look ahead to the coming year, start planning your next journey to Israel with the Minneapolis Jewish Federation. Join trip co-chairs Zehorit & Matt Heilicher, Katie & Michael Stern, and Jodi & Jeff Upin on Engage Israel. Celebrate Israel’s 80th year together.
Fill out the interest form to be the first to hear about trip updates.
Questions? Email Kara at krosenwald@jewishminneapolis.org.
JFCS Community Services Outreach
Year-round; see the flyer
If you're experiencing any hardship — whether it is due to financial challenges, medical reasons, isolation, or otherwise — the JFCS program can help. Call JFCS at 952-546-0646 for confidential support, or ask your synagogue staff for a referral.
The Chai–light Chorus
Ongoing
The chorale is actively recruiting new members! We’ve been in existence since 2000, having produced over 35 productions. We celebrate the joy of vocal performance without taking it too seriously. Anyone age 60 and above is eligible, and there’s absolutely no program fee — a musical “free for all!” Our weekly rehearsals are during the day. For more information, contact Mark Bloom via email at mark.bloomtru2life@gmail.com or by phone at 612-270–1705.
Jewish Youth Mentoring Program
Jewish Family and Children's Service (JFCS)
Ongoing
The Jewish Youth Mentoring Program (formerly the Jewish Big Brother/Big Sister Program), is a community-based mentoring program for Jewish-identified youth that is designed to promote positive social-emotional-spiritual development and increase engagement in the Jewish community. Since the program’s inception in 1975, it has matched over 400 Jewish youth with mentors.
The program is open to all families! Anyone can benefit from a personal, one-on-one connection with someone who is giving their undivided attention to them.
Participants are matched with carefully screened and selected volunteer mentors based on family preferences, age, gender identity, common interests, geographic proximity and more. Common match activities include visiting libraries or bookstores; arts and crafts; baking; exploring local parks; playing sports; going to museums; playing board games; and attending community events. Mentees are aged 6-12 and mentors are 16 and up, with a valid driver’s license
For questions, contact Dori Gelfman, Jewish Youth Mentoring Program Coordinator, at dgelfman@jfcsmpls.org or 952-542-4835.