Limmud Michigan 2020

Jews throughout the ages have been suspicious of authority - just think of Shemaya in Pirkei Avot, who warned about drawing close to authority figures - but many famous of Jewish anarchists, like Emma Goldman, were atheists who rejected the hierarchy they saw inherent in Judaism. This doesn’t mean, however, that Torah has nothing offer when it comes to building societies based on free association, mutual aid, and an end to oppression in all forms. (Isn’t that what the vision of the World to Come is all about, after all?) In this session, we’ll learn some fundamentals of anarchist theory and history, putting radical voices side-by-side with Jewish sources to explore how our Jewishness can better root us in visionary politics, and vice-versa.