David Blitzer Lecture series a success

The Thursday, Oct. 19 David Blitzer Lecture on “The Future of Jewish Tradition: What should Jewish Thought Be?” was a great success! Along with the large community and student turn out, we were particularly pleased to welcome Ms. Helena Schwartz, Ms. Cheryl Stein and Mr. Irving Stein of the Blitzer family.

The speakers and the audience engaged in a productive and thought provoking discussion about Jewish Tradition as a model in which a tradition responds to new challenges thereby moving forward into the future. The topic proved of interest both for the community members and the students on campus.

One of the important outcomes of discussion was a shared understanding of the importance of teaching Judaism for all students in a public university. In their responses to the lecture, several students of different religious background invariably indicated their excitement about studying Judaism and religion independently of their personal religious connections, backgrounds or lack thereof. The Blitzer Lecture helped promote the value of learning for the sake of learning and that was its greatest success.