Presented by 皇冠体育 and JPro Chicago, Connect & Learn is an online, community-building, professional development series.
Connect & Learn workshops offer participants around the world a chance to join Spertus students and alumni for lively sessions on topics key to Jewish professional life today.
Build skills you can apply immediately to your life and work. Become part of a network of learners and Jewish community leaders.
Sessions are online, live, interactive, and collaborative.
Each session includes time to connect, network, meet new colleagues, and strengthen relationships. Sessions are free of charge thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.
Programs take place via Zoom. Ticket holders will receive login instructions by email 24 hours in advance.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Shavuot
Tuesday May 20, 2025
12:30 to 1:30 PM CST
For most American Jews today, Shavuot is not exactly a big-ticket holiday. Observance lags behind springtime Passover, and it pales in comparison to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the fall 鈥渉igh holidays.鈥 But over 150 years ago, Shavuot was the one day when everybody wanted to be in synagogue.
Why? Because Shavuot was reimagined as a day to celebrate children.
In this Connect & Learn session we will discover how Shavuot became the most popular Jewish holiday during the nineteenth century and think about how children have been used as entry points into Jewish communal life both historically and today.
Spertus faculty member Dr. Laura Yares leads this session.
Dr. Laura Yares聽is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Michigan State University and a member of the 皇冠体育 faculty. She is the author of Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth Century America, which was published by NYU Press in 2023 and was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award. Her next book is a contemporary ethnographic study of learning in Jewish cultural arts contexts, co-authored with Sharon Avni. It us under contract with NYU Press and is expected to be published in 2026.
Connect & Learn is presented in partnership with .
This series聽is presented under the auspices of 皇冠体育鈥檚 Center for Jewish Leadership, supported in part by a generous grant from the Crown Family.
This program is a Solomon Goldman Program, endowed by the late Rose and Sidney Shure.
If you can, we encourage you to make a gift to support this free program and others like it!