Classes, Courses, and Lectures
Summer 2021 classes give us the opportunity to learn, share, discuss, and just be together at a time when isolation reigns. Neither cold nor COVID need keep us apart. All are welcome to join us in enjoying these classes.
Check back for more details as they are finalized. For the foreseeable future, you will continue to need Zoom class links to participate. To receive them, e-mail the BLL office or call and leave a message at 718.951.5647.
Monday
BIRKENAU (AUSCHWITZ II): HOW 72,000 GREEK JEWS PERISHED
Dr. Menache‘s memoir is available from the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture at SephardicPublishing@gmail.com or call 516-627-0904.
Instructor: Dr. Joe Halio is a geriatrician in private practice on Long Island. He and Dr. Menache met at the Sephardic Home for the Aged in Brooklyn. Dr. Menache was a mentor and friend of Dr. Halio, who now serves as an officer of several Sephardic organizations.
Time: 10:30-11:45 am
Date: June 14
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 851 3048 2623
Password: 288389
Dial by your location: +1 646 558 8656
ACTOR’S WORKSHOP
This is your opportunity to tap into your creative side and explore your hidden talents, but most of all to HAVE FUN! Come join us. This class has a final performance in August.
Time: 12:30-2:30 pm
Dates: June 21-28; July 19-August 2
Instructors: Julie Kirshner graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in Theatre and a master’s degree in English. She is a professional actor.
Sunny Brandler is a retired CUNY professor who holds a BA, MSW and MA in English literature and a doctorate from Adelphi University.
Judith Reiss, stage manager, is an accomplished singer, actor and dancer.
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 851 3048 2623
Password: 288389
Dial by your location: +1 646 558 8656
ACTOR’S PERFORMANCE
Time: 12:30-2:00 pm
Date: August 9
Join Zoom meeting as above.
NEW YORK STATE’S LEGALIZED MARIJUANA LAW EXPLORED AND EXPLAINED
We'll discuss the legalization of recreational adult use marijuana in New York State. How will the law impact on the criminal justice system? How does the law address issues of equity and prior racist, overly punitive policies? What should smokers, tenants, businesses, and growers know? What's going on in other states?
Time: 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Dates: July 12
Instructor: Marla Tepper is an experienced nonprofit and government general counsel, civil rights and consumer protection litigator and presenter. She is currently the general counsel at a nonprofit provider of alternatives to incarceration that specializes in serving youth and young adults and people with behavioral health needs. Prior to this job, she was general counsel at a NYC nonprofit public health organization.
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 858 4144 3757
Password: 643435
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
Tuesday
TED TALKS
We will watch and discuss some fascinating TED Talks together in which outstanding thinkers tell about their cutting-edge work, make their predictions for the future and generally amaze their audiences.
Time: 11:00 am – 12:15 pm
Dates: July 13-Aug. 10, Aug. 24
Instructor: Maura McGovern taught high school science and has an interest in history and psychology. She enjoys exploring issues affecting us as individuals and as a society including some big ones: How did we get where we are? How do we interact with each other and the world around us? What can we expect as we move forward?
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Meeting ID: 824 0847 6029
Password: 514096
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
ISLAMIC SPAIN
The Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula had a profound impact on European culture. This lecture and video presentation will expand our knowledge of the expansion of Islamic civilization to the West.
Time: 11:00 am – 12:15 pm
Date: August 17
Instructor: Maria Rose Cassius has been a registered Nurse for 30 plus years. She is experienced in leading therapy groups and has facilitated several sessions at BLL.
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Meeting ID: 858 4144 3757
Password: 643435
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
Wednesday
READING THE NEW YORK TIMES SCIENCE TIMES
Great things are happening in the world of science today. Read and bring the Tuesday, NY Times Science Section to class for our informative discussions about the latest breakthroughs.
Time: 10:30 – 11:30 AM
Dates: May 26-June 30, July 14-August 25
Instructor: Rotating facilitators
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 862 7854 5233
Password: 628584
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
CURRENT EVENTS DISCUSSION GROUP
This group will meet for discussions of local, national, and international news. Come tell us what you think.
Time: 12:30 – 2:00 PM
Dates: May 26-June 30, July 14-August 25
Instructor: Rotating facilitators
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 857 7160 7527
Password: 224946
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
Thursday
JAMAICA BAY: WILDLIFE, ISSUES AND MANAGEMENT
Learn about all the programs and projects in Jamaica Bay and enjoy beautiful photos of landscapes and wildlife.
Time: 1:00 – 2:15 pm
Date: June 10
Instructor: Don Riepe has been the Littoral Society's Jamaica Bay Program Director since 1985 and serves as President of the Society's Northeast Chapter. With 25 years as a naturalist and manager of the National Park System's Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, Don is knowledgeable about and a staunch defender of wildlife and habitat in the urban littoral zone.
Meeting ID: 858 4144 3757
Password: 643435
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
OPERA AS POLITICS
Opera has been a major art form in Western society for over 400 years and has had much to say about politics. This course looks at governmental, sexual, economic, and religious politics as expressed in opera. We will do a close examination of opera from its beginnings into the 20th century, with special focus on major works of the 18th and 19th centuries, and we will look at the current state of opera as a political vehicle. We will experience select operatic video performances in class as political themes are developed. No prior knowledge of opera is assumed and no technical musical knowledge is required.
Time: 10:00 - 11:15am
Dates: June 17, 24, July 1, 15
Instructor: Chuck Mishaan lectures and writes on the intellectual, political and artistic history of Western Europe from the period of the Enlightenment to the present day. He has been presenting his popular classroom series on Opera as Politics for many years at Vassar, Bard, Marist, SUNY New Paltz and other area lifelong learning institutes, is a guest lecturer at the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie NY and has been a lecturer at the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society and Rhinebeck's Starr Library. He was an adjunct professor at NYU, lecturing on technology and healthcare.
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 858 4144 3757
Password: 643435
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
AUTHOR TALK AND READING FROM “THE NEED”
Helen Phillips will read from her novel The Need, and then do a Q & A.
Time: 1:00 pm
Date: July 15
Instructor: Helen Phillips is an Associate Professor of English at Brooklyn College - also a 2007 M.F.A. graduate - and won wide acclaim for her novel, “The Need,” which was cited in Time magazine’s Best of 2019 list, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2019 and was longlisted for the National Book Award.
She has authored five books, including “Some Possible Solutions” (2017 John Gardner Fiction Book Award); “The Beautiful Bureaucrat” (New York Times Notable Book of 2015 and finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award); “And Yet They Were Happy” (2011 Notable Book by The Story Prize); and “Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green,” a children's adventure novel.
Phillips was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2020. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, The Iowa Review Nonfiction Award, the DIAGRAM Innovative Fiction Award, and the Italo Calvino Prize, among others. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Tin House, and on Selected Shorts.
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Meeting ID: 846 0955 1252
Password: 984968
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
FOOD TESTING AT THE FDA
We all care about our food but may not know what might get into it as it is grown, held, processed and transported. The things we eat and drink cannot be “unfit for food” according to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. But what exactly does that mean? What does the laboratory look for in order to protect the American consumer?
Time: 10:30-11:30 am
Date: August 5
Instructor: Rona Goldwitz worked at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for 33 years as a chemist and in laboratory management.
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 858 4144 3757
Password: 643435
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
Friday
THE ART MOVEMENT OF SYMBOLISM
During the late 19th and early 20th century, Symbolism developed as a European art movement, where painters rejected reality and instead used mythological and dream imagery to express ideas and emotions. For each class, we will view film clips and discuss each painter individually: Gustav Klimt, Marc Chagall, and Edvard Munch.
Time: 10:30 am - Noon
Dates: July 16, 23 and 30
Instructor: Sol Makon has had a longstanding interest in art. He enjoys teaching about the history and appreciation of 20th century art and sharing his love for it with others.
Join Zoom Meeting
Meeting ID: 846 0955 1252
Password: 984968
Dial by your location +1 646 558 8656
