Upcoming Events
Mercaz Market will feature locally made goods from the following vendors:
-Baked goods from Schmaltz & Vinegar
-Hummus from Giladi’s Hummus
Disagreements over Israel, Gaza, and Zionism have exposed deep divisions within American Jewish communities, that is furthered by political instability. This uncertainty is compounded by a meaningful rise in antisemitism, which has turned many synagogues into arenas of tension and conflict.
In his recent New Yorker article, “At Synagogues, Tensions Are Boiling Over,” journalist Eyal Press explores how these disagreements are reshaping congregational life and testing the boundaries of Jewish community.
Join us for a conversation with Press where he addresses the fault lines within American Jewish life, and the results of midterm elections in the U.S and the elections in Israel.
What is pulling American Jews apart, and what might still hold us together?
9:45 am | Doors open
10:15 am | Program begins
11:30 am | Mercaz Market open, opportunity to schmooze
Eyal Press is a contributing writer at The New Yorker magazine and an author based in New York. At The New Yorker, he has covered an array of issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the debate within the American Jewish community about Israel, where he was born and still has family.
He has a Ph.D. in sociology from New York University and was formerly a fellow at the Carnegie Corporation and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. He is a past recipient of the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism and has written several books, including “Dirty Work,” which won the 2022 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, and “Beautiful Souls,” a study of moral courage that will be reissued next year, in a new edition featuring stories about individuals who have displayed such courage during the Trump era. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic and the New York Review of Books.
Past Event Library
Enjoy our library of previous discussion recordings! Watch them in their entirety, or enjoy short highlight clips.
Past event highlights
Watch clips of our previous events to learn and be inspired!
Listen to our panelists discuss the shortage of rabbis, a current crisis in the industry.
Listen to Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief of The Forward, speak about the importance of nuance and complexity - especially in our communities this past year.
Listen to Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann, the founder and rabbi of Mishkan Chicago, speak about the unique joys of Jewish adulthood.
Listen to our panelists discuss joy, mourning, and the long arc of Jewish history.
Mercaz is a forum where Judaism and intellectual, robust self-help meet.
Mercaz experiences are centered around big ideas and in pursuit of personal growth, where ideas and stories are shared in a communal setting. Mercaz’s method opens a portal to the particular wisdom of Judaism through a universal question, yielding tangible lessons that invite participants to live more purposefully by integrating Judaism into their everyday lives and considerations.
Each experience is built around an essential theme or question, and is based in conversation - usually panel discussions. The panelist contributors offer expertise in both the macro and the micro of the question or theme. This structure enables multifaceted dialogs between people with a diverse knowledge base who approach issues from their unique point of view (sometimes Jewish, sometimes not).
There is very little in life that is outside of the teachings and wisdom of Judaism, from child rearing, poverty, eating, and politics to modesty and dress, civil discourse, exercise, and composting. Mercaz recognizes that this wisdom, and the tradition that birthed it, can only develop, grow, and be applied meaningfully if it enters our secular, modern world without fearing its evolution. Folks leave Mercaz experiences with key understandings that alter their thinking, as well as provide ideas for behavioral modifications, creating lasting and transformational change.