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Louis Ginzberg came to the United States in 1902 and spent 51 years at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as a leading talmudic. He also wote numerous responsa on a variety of topics. This class will explore a selection of these teshuvot,all collected and published by Rabbi David Golinkin. They include teshuvot on the topics of how to deal with the new siddur ofMordechai Kaplan, whether one can listen to the radio on Shabbat and whether one is permitted to make kiddush on grape juice during Prohibition. Ginzberg's teshuvot contine to be a model for the teshuvot of the Law Committe of the Rabbinical Assembly to this day.

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Solomon Freehof created the genre or responsa literature within the Reform movement. Raised in an Orthodox family in Baltimore,he studied at Hebrew Union College and served as a Reform rabbi in Chicago and Pittsburgh for almost 50 years. He authored eight volumes of Reform Responsa. His responsa are written in the traditional rabbinic style complete with scholarly traditional sources. However, he believed that halakhah was merely a guide and not the sole decisor of practice among Reform Jews. He felt that that community's interest must be taken intoaccount when deciding issue of practice and ritual. Freehof died in 1990 at the age of 98 but his responsa remain an important part of the Reform movement to this day.

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In the early 1930's Rabbi Tobias Geffen, the Orthodox rabbi in Atlanta, received some inquiries from colleagues whether Coca Cola was kosher. The "secret formula" complicated the process, yet Rabbi Geffen was to gain the trust of the Coca Cola executives and they shared the ingredients with him.Rabbi Geffen discovered that one ingredient contained non-kosher animal fat and another ingredient contained traces of chametz. Surprisingly, Rabbi Geffen was able to convince Coca Cola to change these two ingredients and Coke has been kosher for Pesach and year-round ever since. The manner in which Rabbi Geffen gained access to Coke is traced through his personal letters of correspondence found in
the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society.

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Rabbi Henkin lived on the Lower East Side for over 50 years during which time he gained the reputation as "the rabbi's rabbi". His rabbinic responsa address many of the pressing issues confronting the Orthodox community during this period. In this class we will study three teshuvot by Rabbi Henkin; the first dealing with the permissibility of davenig in a non-mechitzah shul, the second concerning the validity of the Manhattan eruv and finally the issue of whether civil marriages and Reform marriages are recognized by the halakhah as marriages that would require a get if terminated.

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The age of technology has introduced new and innovative ways to spread all types of information including halakhah. Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, the rosh yeshiva of the hesder yeshiva in Petach Tikva, has been one of the pioneers in the area of answering halakhic questions on the internet. In this class we will study some of the teshuvot exploring the various unique aspects of interent teshuvot including the question of anonymity and the ability to spread the answers instantaneously to a wide audience. We will focus on both personal questions as well as questions relating to the recent disengagement from Gaza.

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In a continuation of the topic that was begun last session, we will explore the phenomenon of psak halakhah in an age of technological advances. We will study correspondences between rabbis on the Rabbinical Council of America rabbinic listserve. What types of issues are discussed? How is psak halakhah transmitted through the internet? How has the internet changed the method of psak and in what ways has the process of answering legal question remained in the traditional mode.

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The Conservative movement has created a literature of teshuvot that address critical issues for the movement. In this class, we will explore the methodology of these teshuvot and study three examples; Ordination of Women, Driving on Shabbat and the Permissibility of "Non-Kosher" Wine.

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This lecture focuses on the role of the Vilna Gaon in the shaping of the religious personality of Lithuanian Jewry in the second half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The influence of the Gaon impacted on the development of the early haskalah in Lithuania and led to the condemnation of the Hasidim by the Vilna community. The Gaon's influence extended past his death in 1797 and created the environment that led to the founding of the Volozhin yeshiva in 1802.

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Jews have lived in Latvia since the early sixteenth century. The community developed and grew in the nineteenth century as Easter Latvia became part of the Pale of Settlement and Western Latvia remained outside the Pale. This lecture will compare the history of the Jews of Riga and its German influence with the history of the Jews of Dvinsk which was included in the Pale.

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The Jews have lived in Hungary for over a thousand years. This lecture will focus on the Jewish experience in Hungary on the eve of the emancipation from the Habsburg Empire in the 1860s. It was during this period that the Ultra-Orthodox disciples of the Hatam Sofer made several decisions that served to distinguish them not only fro the Reform but also fro the Neo-Orthodox, lead in Hungary at this time by Rabbi Esriel Hildesheimer. This lecture will explore this decisions and their impact in determining the future of Hungarian Jewry.

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