You may be wondering why you are not hearing anything about the Gamliel Café or the Taste of Gamliel series. It is mostly because we aren’t talking about them!
As of December 2019, we transitioned from the structure you were familiar with and knew to a new and exciting new approach. Those series you knew are now no longer offered in the format you knew. Instead, we have modified our offerings, and have revamped the structure and how we present our offerings. The major difference is that we have broadened and added to our offerings, focusing on shorter courses, and at a variety of levels of depth are included. Those sessions you loved are still available, but under a new rubric and title.
The result of our effort is the development of the Gamliel Institute Course Catalog. https://www.jewish-funerals.org/gamliel-catalog/. We are proud to bring it to you.
The catalog is accessible online, and can be downloaded as a PDF file. It covers roughly 18 months of courses offered. Now you can plan ahead!
Courses in the catalog are divided into two categories: Core and Short.
We still offer the Core courses as before, those 12 week semester-long offerings that do a deep dive into specific topics, such as Taharah & Shmirah (T&S); Ritual, Liturgy, & Practice (RLP); History, Origins, and Evolution (HOE); Educating, Organizing, & Leadership Training (EOLT); Nechamah/Comfort; Student Projects (SP); and International Perspectives (IP). The catalog offers descriptions of each Core course, as well as a schedule when it will be offered next. These are for the serious student, someone who wants to really engage with the materials. We would love to have you join us for these courses, but we realize that this is a major commitment of time and effort, and it is not for everyone.
For that reason, the majority of the catalog is dedicated to the so-called ‘Short Courses’. These courses include what would have been part of the Taste of Gamliel series, short offerings on specific topics, topics that would have fit the Gamliel Café format, and other flavors of classes that are related to our focus.
The short courses are divided into four categories at this point.
- Aging, Preplanning for death, and Jewish literature around death
- Jewish Death rituals, End-of-Life Practices, and Burial Practices
- Jewish Mourning Practices, the Jewish View of the Soul and Afterlife
- Chevrah Kadisha, Shmirah, and Taharah
Short courses range in length from a single 60-90 minute session, to two, three, or more 90 minute sessions. The instructors for these sessions are drawn from the Gamliel Institute faculty and staff, as well as experts working in Judaism, End-of-Life, Ritual, Text, and other concerns. You can see the full range of courses through June 2021 online in the catalog https://www.jewish-funerals.org/gamliel-catalog/. This is an exciting expansion on our previous selections, with more variety, more options, and more opportunities for people to participate, both as students and as instructors, and we are delighted with the extremely high quality of instruction that we have seen already in these courses.
The catalog also contains information on the Kavod v’Nichum Annual Conference, and a link to register for it. Needless to say, there is nothing else like it, and we urge you to register and attend. The 18th annual conference is scheduled for June 7-11, 2020 in Pittsburgh. Plan to attend!
We hope that you will love the new approach and find what you are seeking in our catalog. If you have suggestions for additional options, please feel free to offer them to us; we are open to ideas. It may need to be in the next edition of the catalog, but don’t let that keep you from suggesting it!
As a side note, if you missed a previous course and want to view it as a recording, that is still possible. We have a library of all courses (all of the Taste of Gamliel sessions, and most of the Gamliel Café sessions) that we have offered, and we can make them available. Simply register, and we will send you the link(s) to view the sessions.
See you Online!