Meeting regularly at the Iowa City Public Library, this public group explores Jewish thought and culture through the work of rabbis, scholars, journalists, and historians. The series is open to all and is usually led by Rabbi Hugenholtz. Our 2026 meetings, all scheduled for Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m., include the following titles:
- January 28 — Mark Mazower, On Antisemitism: A Word in History
- February 25 — Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging
- March 25 — Alicia Jo Rabins, When We’re Born We Forget Everything: A Memoir
- April 22 — David Kraemer, Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora
- May 27 — Molly Crabapple, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund
- June 17 — Abby Chava Stein, Becoming Eve: My Journey From Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman
- July 29 — Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust
- August 26 — Alan Lew, This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe As a Journey of Transformation
Earlier Sessions
One previous meeting paired contrasting viewpoints, reading Peter Beinart’s Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning alongside Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove’s For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today. Other earlier sessions have discussed:
- Adina Allen, The Place of All Possibility: Cultivating Creativity Through Ancient Jewish Wisdom
- Julia Watts Belser, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole
- Michael Brenner, A Short History of the Jews
- Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World
- Tirzah Firestone, Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma
- Shai Held, Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life
- Joshua Leifer, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life
- Shaul Magid, The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance
- Danya Ruttenberg, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World
- Rami Shapiro, Judaism Without Tribalism: A Guide to Being a Blessing to All the Peoples of the Earth
- Milton Steinberg, As a Driven Leaf