Making the Familiar Strange: The Story of Purim with Ariella Rohr

Join Education and Program Associate Ally ZimmerMas and Ariella Rohr, member of Temple Israel, for this session of Making the Familiar Strange as we explore the story of the Jewish holiday Purim as told in the Book of Esther. Using Purim as our example, we will discuss creative ways to use food and drink to celebrate holidays and concepts.

Read or review the story: Esther 1-10 (scripture or summary)

Ariella Rohr’s background includes both formal and informal Jewish education, from teaching Hebrew in a classroom to traveling with teenagers on cultural exchange trips between Israel, Lithuania, and America. She has worked with a variety of ages, from infants to high schoolers. Ariella spent one year as the interim Religious School principal at Temple Israel, was the Associate Youth Director at a synagogue in Los Angeles, and was in charge of community engagement at another synagogue in Omaha. She currently partners with PJ Library as a Parent Connector, helping to create programming for local families with young Jewish children. 

Making the Familiar Strange is an opportunity for interfaith dialogue that inspires people of different religious and nonreligious backgrounds to read the same text together. Rather than providing answers, creating arguments, or shutting down conversation, Making the Familiar Strange gives attendees an opportunity to investigate and share different perspectives on the same texts.

While not required, the program is best if you have access to the stories, which can be through a physical copy or online copy of a Bible, Tanakh, and/or Quran.

Tri-Faith Initiative events are recorded and archived on our YouTube Channel.