Leonard Gilman Lecture on Jewish Culture: "Judaism Mediated: Learning About Jewishness Through the Cultural Arts" with Laura Yares and Sharon Avni

Complimentary book copies are available to the first 20 to request at Jewishst@msu.edu

Most scholarship on religion and learning focuses on formal educational settings like classrooms. But learning doesn’t only happen when we are in school. In their new book, Judaism Mediated, Laura Yares and Sharon Avni explore how adults learn through their leisure time and social activities. Analyzing audience engagements with depictions of Jewish people and content in five different cultural artistic productions, this book makes the case that adults learn about Judaism and Jewishness in significant ways through the cultural arts, expanding our understanding of where and how education about religion happens.

Laura Yares is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Michigan State University. She is the author of Jewish Sunday Schools: Teaching Religion in Nineteenth Century America (NYU Press, 2023), and the coauthor of Judaism Mediated: Learning About Judaism Through the Cultural Arts (NYU Press, 2026).

Sharon Avni is Professor of Academic Literacy and Linguistics at CUNYBMCC. She is the co-author of Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (Rutgers, 2020), Teaching and Learning in Jewish Day Schools (Brandeis, 2025), and Judaism Mediated: Learning About Judaism Through the Cultural Arts (NYU Press, 2026). She is the author of Speaking of Hebrew: What Language Does for American Jews (Wayne State, 2026).

Organized by the Serling Institute. Co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Letters, James Madison College, College of Social Science, International Studies and Programs, Department of Religious Studies, and the Department of History