The Yerushah Lecture

The annual Yerushah Lecture in the Faculty of Divinity was established with a benefaction from the Righteous Persons Foundation, created by Steven Spielberg from the proceeds of his 1993 film Schindler’s List. "Yerushah" is the Hebrew word for "heritage". The Yerushah Lecture is devoted to Jewish heritage in all its aspects, with an emphasis on the transmission of Jewish identity and values across the generations.

Embodying change: Jewish women treading new pathways. The 2026 Yerushah Lecture

Wednesday 11 March, 5pm to 6:30pm

Faculty of Divinity - Runcie Room

Rabbi Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz and Soferet Dr Jen Taylor Friedman deliver the Faculty of Divinity's annual Yerushah lecture, exploring how women in Orthodox and egalitarian Jewish contexts have negotiated access to training, authority, and mastery.

Previous Lectures:

• 2024: Qohelet: A New Reading and a New Seeing Professor Menachem Fisch and Debra Band
• 2022: Professor Ilana Pardes, ‘Changing Perspectives on the Song of Songs: Literal and Allegorical Loves.’
• 2021: Professor Martin Goodman, ‘Mission and toleration in Judaism.’
• 2019: Michael Rosen, ‘So They Call You Pisher!’: An exploration of a secular Jewish identity.
• 2017: Dr Diana Lipton, 'Legacy, Prognostication and Jews'.
• 2016: Nicholas de Lange, 'The poetry of Judaism: Translating a precious heritage'.
• 2015: Leon Rosselson, 'That Precious Strand of Jewishness That Challenges Authority'.
• 2014: George Steiner, 'The Roots of Darkness'.
• 2013, Antony Lerman, 'The revival of Jewish culture in Europe: real or imagined?'
• 2012, Norbert Samuelson, 'Light and Enlightenment: A Brief Comparative History of the Correlations Between Scientific and Rabbinic Conceptions of Light'.
• 2011: Robert Gibbs, 'Saved in Translation: Law and Love in German Jewish Thought'.
• 2010: David Novak, 'Was Spinoza the First Zionist?'
• 2008: Julia Neuberger, ‘On Being Jewish’.
• 2007: Marc Saperstein, 'Ploughshares into swords: marshalling the Jewish heritage in times of war'.
• 2006: Oliver Letwin MP, in conversation with Canon Robert Reiss.
• 2004: Robert Winston, 'Judaism and Science'.
• 2003: Daniel Snowman, 'The Hitler emigrés: the cultural impact on Britain of refugees from Nazism'.
• 2002: Claudia Roden, in conversation with Nick Lander, 'We are what we eat: Jewish identity and Jewish food'.
• 2001: Daniel Libeskind in conversation with Nicholas de Lange.
• 1999: Peter Ochs, 'Tradition, modernity, and the future of Jewish thought.'
• 1998: Stanislaw Krajewski, 'The revival of Jewish life in Poland'.
• 1997: Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 'Judaism - From Survival to Heritage'.