I expect this January we can all use a respite from elections and politics and holidays. Northern Exposure was something of a “fish out of water” 1990s television program about a Jewish doctor from New York—Joel Fleischman—who finds himself in a very remote town in Alaska as a way of paying off his medical school loans. The program was about life and love and grief and community and ethnicity, filled with such interesting characters. It discussed environmental issues in a way which was unique for television in that time and has actually been discussed in various articles in scholarly journals.

And it explored Judaism creatively and sincerely, never gratuitously.

This will be a two-hour “class” in which we will watch one of the episodes from the show’s fourth season—“Kaddish for Uncle Manny”—and explore together some of these themes. In this episode Fleischman’s uncle in New York has died, and Fleischman goes on a journey to find ten male Jews in Alaska to say Kaddish.

Led by Steven Goldberg. Please register for the class below.