Oral History Project

On Sunday, Sept. 10, Or Emet will open its fall programming with a continuation of an oral history project focused on its members. The program, led by Or Emet members Scott Chazdon and Michal Moskow, will run from 10 a.m.-noon at the Talmud Torah of St. Paul, 768 Hamline Ave. South in St. Paul. A social time will follow. 

In 2019, Or Emet received a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society to conduct oral history interviews with founding and long-term members. Over two years, a team of Or Emet members conducted 14 interviews, mostly over Zoom. Last September, the group compiled and presented a one-hour video with excerpts from these interviews. 

Chazdon and Moskow will use interview questions from this project to facilitate discussions among members in attendance. The goal will be to deepen members’ knowledge of each other and learn how Or Emet members formed their Jewish identities and how they discovered Humanistic Judaism. Visitors are more than welcome to join in.

Chazdon is a sociologist and program evaluator for the University of Minnesota Extension. He served as president of Or Emet from 2018-21. Moskow is a professor emerita at Metropolitan State University and is rostered at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Her major research areas include social linguistics and human rights.

The Sunday adult programs are free and open to the public and meet concurrently with the Jewish Cultural Sunday School. Attendees can choose to wear a mask and are expected to be up to date on vaccinations or have a same-day negative COVID test. Those who cannot attend in person may join over Zoom. Please register in advance here. 

Or Emet is a secular congregation celebrating and honoring Jewish culture, history and values from a humanistic, inclusive perspective. 

For information about Or Emet’s Jewish Cultural Sunday School, contact JCSS director Molly Phipps at [email protected]. For information about Or Emet, email [email protected] or visit oremet.org.