The Sunday Seminar Committee is pleased to announce the line-up of seminars for January. Seminars are in person and on Zoom on Sundays at 11:30 a.m. Meeting ID: 829 6457 0385 Passcode: 1624
January 4: “One U.S. Historian’s Take on the Current Political Moment” – Warren Goldstein
As we close the book on a dreadful year, are we in truly unprecedented waters? Have we been here before? Does it matter? Does a longer, historical perspective on our current chaos have anything of value to teach us? Historian Warren Goldstein offers some tentative – and some not so tentative – answers to these questions, and, with luck, questions you have on these matters that he hasn’t thought of. He also has no qualms about saying, “I have no idea.” We only have an hour, so we probably can’t get to everything, but we should at least be able to get a lively start on an important conversation.
January 11 – Congregational Meeting (no seminar)
January 18: “From Swastika to Jim Crow” – Jewish Council of North Central Florida and Racial Justice Committee
From Swastika to Jim Crow is a documentary that tells the little-known story of Jewish refugee scholars who taught at historically black colleges in the South, after they immigrated before and during the Second World War. This documentary focuses on anecdotes and observations of the developments between two diverse groups of people, both victims of racist oppression and persecution and is presented in the hopes of contributing to cross-cultural understanding in American society. Following the film there will be a panel discussion. The panel will be Mayor Harvey Ward, Dr. Warren Goldstein, Rev. Dr. Rik Stevenson, and Dr. Norman Goda.
Please plan for extra time this week: The documentary’s run time is one hour, and the panel following it will be 30-45 minutes. Childcare will be provided.
This special event is planned by the Holocaust Education group of the Jewish Council of North Central Florida (JCNCF) in partnership with the Racial Justice Committee of UCG.
We encourage you to purchase your lunch from the Greater Gainesville International Center folks in the courtyard, and bring it with you to the seminar.
January 25: The Creation of the UCG Compact – Rev. Sandy Reimer and Rev. Larry Reimer
The first church service of the newly forming United Church of Gainesville was held on Sunday, February 7, 1965, in the auditorium of the old Florida Union Building with 60 adults and 47 children attending. This service came after a year (1964) of meetings and inviting folks who were interested in creating a new church. The Compact, however, was not written until the spring of 1966 when four separate groups of the fledgling congregation met for several weeks to discuss the concepts and values they most strongly believed should be basic to the life of this congregation. Each group worked independently of the others. Come join us in this seminar to hear what happened next!