Classes by Mordechai Dinerman

• The Scandalous Marriage, 1348

  On the fifteenth of Shevat, 1348, in the city of Tudela, a man named Yosef performed kidushin with a young woman named Belita. What began as a seemingly ordinary wedding ceremony quickly became a shocking controversy. People who were present asked Belita whether she was truly consenting, and instead of her confirming, it was her father who spoke on her behalf. Further investigation revealed that Belita had previously stated her refusal to this marriage not once but twice, and, in fact, was already married to her uncle Avraham. To complicate matters, she was also engaged to a third man! On the eve of the Black Death sweeping through Europe, this tangled web of relationships turned into a halachic dilemma that ultimately reached the desk of Rabbi Yehudah, son of the Rosh. The Scandalous Marriage, 1348

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• Taxes and Tensions: The Story of Jewish Tax Disputes in Medieval Spain

  Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderes, the legendary rabbi and leader of Barcelona, received countless questions during his tenure, many of which have been preserved to this day. In this class, we discuss six compelling cases of tax disputes. They reveal remarkable insights into the political and economic realities of the time, the dynamics within Jewish communities, and their interactions with the surrounding non-Jewish world. Taxes and Tensions: The Story of Jewish Tax Disputes in Medieval Spain

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• Josephus

  The book known as Yosifun, cherished in traditional Jewish circles, and the books of Josephus, preserved in Greek and Latin by non-Jewish hands, spark challenging questions about authorship, reliability, and reconstructing the Jewish past. This class explores how rabbis throughout the ages evaluated these works, their role on the Jewish bookshelf, and how to navigate the apparent discrepancies between their accounts and the teachings of chazal. Josephus

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• Lost Lights of Chanukah: Exploring the Books of Maccabees

  The Books of Maccabees tell the dramatic story of the Chanukah revolt and the heroism of the Jewish fighters. But who wrote these books, and why were they left off the Jewish bookshelf? We’ll discuss the history of these texts, explore their reception among Jews throughout the ages, and probe the role they played—or didn’t play—in shaping Jewish memory of the Chanukah story. Lost Lights of Chanukah: Exploring the Books of Maccabees

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• The Titanic Question: The Halachic Dilemma of Men Lost at Sea

  When a shipwreck in the 1500s left families wondering about the fate of their loved ones, rabbinic authorities debated whether the wives of the missing passengers could remarry. This centuries-old question resurfaced in 1912 with the famous sinking of the Titanic, reigniting the discussion of applying Halachah in tragic circumstances. The Titanic Question: The Halachic Dilemma of Men Lost at Sea

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