Judaic Studies Archives | �鶹ԭ�� News

�鶹ԭ�� Adjunct Professor and Rabbi Shares Insight on Jewish High Holy Days

Nicole Wills ’20 — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 21:47:34 +0000

This year Oct. 2-4, Jewish people around the world will observe Rosh Hashanah. Also known as the Jewish New Year, it is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days — a 10-day period of introspection and repentance that takes place at the start of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, which falls during September or October. In all synagogues, a shofar — a ram’s horn trumpet — is played to remind listeners to reflect on their behavior. After services, Jewish people often return home for a festive meal of foods symbolizing the new year, such as apples dipped in honey and challah bread that is round rather than braided.

Rabbi Sanford Olshansky

“The perfection of a circle symbolizes entering the new year with a clean slate,” says Rabbi Sanford Olshansky, �鶹ԭ�� adjunct professor of��Judaic studies. He describes the Jewish High Holy Days as a time of “spiritual accounting.”

“It’s a time of self-examination, self-evaluation,” he says. “How do we feel about where we’re at in our lives? How do we feel about where we stand in terms of the moral and ethical principles by which we ought to be living?”

Within �鶹ԭ��’s��Department of History, Olshansky teaches��Judaism and Science, a course that deals with the perceived conflict between science and Judaism, as well as Western religion in general. Through thought-provoking discussions about topics such as the Big Bang, DNA, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and subatomic particles, students explore how one can reconcile major scientific questions with biblical creation stories.

“The purpose of the course is not to prove that religion is true,” Olshansky says. “But it’s to show that there is some common ground — more than many people realize — between science and religion.”

Yom Kippur — which begins at sunset on Oct. 11 and concludes at nightfall on Oct. 12 this year — ��falls at the end of the Jewish High Holy Days and is also known as the Day of Atonement. Fasting is traditionally observed — although children, elderly adults, ill people, and pregnant women are forbidden from partaking — and the shofar is sounded to mark the conclusion of the fast at nightfall. Afterwards, it’s traditional to enjoy a “break-fast” meal of typical breakfast and brunch foods.

The traditional Hebrew greeting on Yom Kippur is��G’mar chatimah tovah: “May you complete a good sealing.” This refers to completing the process of reflecting on the actions of the past year, confessing and seeking forgiveness for wrongdoing, and planning to improve in the new year.

“Whatever Jewish denomination you look at, from the most traditional to the most liberal, confessions are moral and ethical failings, not ritual failings,” Olshansky says.

When you think of confessions, you may picture a one-on-one conversation with a religious leader, such as in the Catholic tradition. But in the Jewish tradition, confessions are traditionally done in a group setting rather than in a one-on-one environment. Confessions are written out anonymously and phrased in the plural — “We have been deceitful,” for example — so that no one feels singled out.

“There’s a comfort level of being surrounded by people who are all flawed,” Olshansky says. “We could all do better, and we help each other to start the year with a clean slate.”

For Olshansky, teaching��Judaism and Science��and serving as a rabbi both provide an opportunity to invite self-examination — in himself and others — which he describes as the “spiritual heart” of the Jewish High Holy Days.

“There’s a joke that I’ve used from the pulpit in the past,” he says. “A person is praying on New Year’s morning: ‘God, I’ve been really good so far this year. I haven’t spoken harshly to anybody. I haven’t taken anything that wasn’t mine. I haven’t been mean to my family members. But now God, I’m going to get out of bed, and then I’m going to need lots of help.’”

Central Florida Hillel��at �鶹ԭ��serves as��a��center for Jewish life on campus enriching the lives of Jewish students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world (contact Executive Director Hunter Gold for more info). Chabad �鶹ԭ�� is an organization dedicated to encouraging individuals of all backgrounds and degrees of observance to explore their Jewish heritage (contact��Rabbi Chaim��Lipskier��for more info). Both organizations are hosting Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur observances and meals this year.

�鶹ԭ�� Professor Brings Online Classes to Life with Custom TV Shows

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 13:50:25 +0000

When Ken Hanson began working for a TV station in the Middle East in the ‘80s, he had no idea that his experience creating content across a war border would come in handy for teaching his online classes more than 30 years later.

Hanson, who has been teaching Judaic studies at �鶹ԭ�� since the early ‘90s, became interested in the Middle East while studying history as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“I was wanting to research the roots of Western thought and culture, way back to the cradle of civilization,” Hanson says. “As a senior, I hopped on a plane and landed in Jerusalem to study ancient civilizations. I focused on the ancient land of Israel because it also happens to be the cradle of the three western belief systems — Judaism, Christianity, Islam are all out of the Middle East.”

After learning Hebrew and completing a master’s degree in television and intercultural communication and a doctorate in Judaic studies, Hanson worked at an American TV station based in southern Lebanon in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War before coming to �鶹ԭ��.

“I commuted over a hostile border every day to broadcast family-oriented television into a war zone,” he says. “We showed a lot of American westerns and championship wrestling, but when anything major happened we had to go into news-gathering mode.”

Hanson credits his on-camera work and travels to the Middle East with inspiring immersive lessons for his online courses. But he wasn’t always keen on the idea of teaching virtually.

Judaic studies is a niche program that students would often struggle to fit into their class schedule due to conflicts with their required courses, Hanson says. So began the demand for online courses in the program, and the need for him to complete training through , a support unit that advances online teaching and learning.

“I didn’t want to go this direction at all because I take my energy from an audience, that being the students.” — Ken Hanson, �鶹ԭ�� professor

“I didn’t want to go this direction at all because I take my energy from an audience, that being the students,” he says. “I developed a lot of interactive presentations, anything and everything to make a class pop, but I did it because we wanted our courses to be more accessible to the students.”

Near the end of Hanson’s training in 2015, the CDL video team presented its��production studio and he immediately recognized he could put his TV past to use to develop content that could still make his courses “pop.”

“My first semester/course teaching online was the History of the Holocaust,” he says. “My instructional designer suggested I go over and talk to the CDL video team because I was almost in tears about how I could interface with my students.”

Hanson worked with CDL’s video team to create a concept that repackaged his 90-minute lectures into��10 to 20-minute segments while placing him at historic and archaeological sites. Eventually, he began making the productions more theatric — borrowing from his previous theatrical training — to dress up as different characters and use varying dialects for videos across five of his courses.

“Just because I’m a professor doesn’t mean I can’t play act and do theatrics anymore,” he says. “Rather than just reciting a passage from the prophet Isaiah, I’ll dress up as him and recite it in Hebrew and use subtitles so students can hear the ancient language vocalized. In that sense it’s better than a live lecture because we can do things we can’t do in the classroom.”

When �鶹ԭ�� transitioned to fully remote learning last March due to the coronavirus, Hanson was already a step ahead of faculty who hadn’t had the opportunity or training to develop immersive content that would be needed to keep students engaged for the next year.

“In that sense it’s better than a live lecture because we can do things we can’t do in the classroom.” — Ken Hanson, �鶹ԭ�� professor

“What the pandemic has done is shown how important this technology is,” he says. “We already knew this was the future, so for me teaching during the pandemic was no problem at all. But the pandemic has really highlighted the importance of what CDL is doing.”

With more than 125 TV segments under his belt, and no plans to stop any time soon, creating this type of content for his courses has also proved beneficial for CDL.

“We’ve worked together for so long that both our skill sets have evolved,” says Aaron Hose, media production manager and lead video producer for CDL’s video team. “Ken��has become a better writer, actor and on-screen presenter. Our video producers have improved as editors and compositors. We can now deliver his content more streamlined than before. We’ve found this great ‘sweet spot’ now.”

Hanson’s efforts to go the extra mile in his online courses have paid off as he earned the Chuck D. Dziuban Award for Excellence in Online Teaching in 2017.

“Ken has long been a proponent of pushing the envelope with student engagement through video,” says Roslyn Miller, an instructional designer at CDL. “He recently began using a new technology that’s often used in performing-arts education to enhance student interaction with his dramatized video presentations so they’ll engage even more with the content, each other, and him while enjoying learning.”

Not only are students having fun with the lessons, they’re retaining them better too, which Hanson says, sometimes was a struggle for them during in-person courses.

“There are serious learning advantages to this,” he says. “When you lecture, the amount that is retained by students is maybe 20% and [many] students these days are not taking notes, so you hope they remember something. Here I think I’ve solved this because every week I give them a TV show to watch and they take a quiz on it at the end. So, they’re watching and even re-watching because they have that ability.”

“It’s all about teaching and enhancing learning to the best of your ability, and resources here at �鶹ԭ��, like CDL, bring that into amazing focus.” — Ken Hanson, �鶹ԭ�� professor

He also worked with �鶹ԭ��’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy in 2018 to develop a video game for his Biblical Archaeology course. Through the game students explore an underground cavern and examine pottery fragments, which Hanson says is a big part of the course that was tough to teach online before this development. And when students encountered issues playing the game because of its large file size, he worked with CDL’s Learning Systems and Technology team to make it accessible for all students on as many types of devices as possible, says Miller.

“The technology is there, embrace it,” Hanson says. “It’s all about teaching and enhancing learning to the best of your ability, and resources here at �鶹ԭ��, like CDL, bring that into amazing focus.”

Faculty who have been certified through or the ��course offered by CDL and would like to find out how they can enhance their course materials through video can create a consultation request at��