A celebration through Music featuring Cantor Azi Schwartz
Presenter: Cantor Azi Schwartz
Sunday, January 10, 2027 | 4:30 PM
Scottsdale

About the Presenter
Cantor Azi Schwartz is the Senior Cantor of Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, as well as a world-renowned vocal performer and recording artist whose music reaches Jewish and interfaith audiences internationally. Azi’s ministry has cultivated a growing online following with over 50 million views. His craft of Jewish liturgical music has been described as emotionally moving, spiritually uplifting, and artistically dynamic.

Passionate about bringing Jewish liturgy to the broader world, Azi performs in concerts internationally and has released over 18 albums containing traditional and new Jewish liturgical music. Azi has performed at Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, Madison Square Garden, the US Capitol Rotunda, and the Israeli Knesset. Azi was featured in a PBS special entitled, The New York Cantors, which brought cantorial music to millions of viewers across the US and in Europe. During Pope Francis’ visit to New York, Cantor Schwartz represented the Jewish people at the multi-religious service at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. He plays the cantor’s role in Richard Gere’s movie Norman. Azi co-produced and performed in Hanukkah on Broadway, as well as Shabbat on Broadway, the first Jewish worship service on Broadway.

Israel Three Years after October 7: Assessing the State of the Nation
Presenter: Avi Shilon
Sunday, January 31, 2027 | 4:30 PM
Scottsdale

Join Avi Shilon, a historian who specializes in Israel Studies. His talk will focuses on the attitudes of the leaders of the Revisionist Movement toward Jewish religion from 1925 to 2027.

About the Presenter
Avi is the author of Menachem Begin’s biography, Menachem Begin: A Life (Yale University Press, 2013); Ben Gurion: His Later Years in the Political Wilderness (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); and The Decline of the Left-wing in Israel: Yossi Beilin and the Politics of the Peace Process (I.B. Tauris, 2020). He is the editor of the new book To The Right of Zionism: Studies in the History of the Zionist Right: From Jabotinsky to Netanyahu (Am Oved, 2026), currently available only in Hebrew.

He was a visiting scholar at NYU from 2019 to 2022, he taught courses at the Hebrew University and Ben-Gurion University in Israel, as well as at NYU and Rutgers University in the U.S., and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Shilon is also the editor of the non-fiction section at Am-Oved Publishing House and writes op-ed columns for the YNET website. He is currently teaching at the new university, The University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee.

American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt & the Jews
Presenter: Andrew Porwancher
Sunday, February 27, 2027 | 4:30 PM
Scottsdale

Join Professor Andrew Porwancher as he uncovers the close-knit and often surprising relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and the Jewish community. This lecture traces Roosevelt’s deep connection with the Jewish people at every step of his dazzling ascent. But it also reveals a man of contradictions whose checkered approach to Jewish issues was no less conflicted than the nation he led. Drawing on fresh research from his newest book, American Maccabee, Porwancher explores the complicated relationship between the leader of a youthful nation and the people of an ancient faith.

About the Presenter
A native of Princeton, Andrew Porwancher earned degrees from Brown and Northwestern before completing his PhD in history at Cambridge. He currently serves as the Chaplik Professor in the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas.

His books include The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton (Princeton University Press, 2021), which won the Journal of the American Revolution Book-of-the-Year Award; and The Devil Himself (Oxford University Press, 2016), which was adapted for the stage at Dublin’s historic Smock Alley Theatre. Porwancher’s fifth book is American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews (Princeton University Press, 2025), winner of the Theodore Roosevelt Book Prize.

He previously served as the May Fellow at Harvard, the Horne Fellow at Oxford, and the Garwood Fellow at Princeton. In 2023, Porwancher won a national prize for mentorship—the Craig L. Brians Award—from the American Political Science Association.

His writing has appeared in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

(RE)Defining Zionism: Portraits and Perspectives from a Post-October 7 Israel
Presenter: Shlomit Levy Bard
Sunday, March 28, 2027 | 4:30 PM
Scottsdale

Artist Shlomit Levy Bard’s photography exhibition, “(RE)Defining Zionism: Portraits and Perspectives from a Post-October 7 Israel”, captures the complexity of what Zionism means in the aftermath of Oct. 7, challenges simplified narratives and highlights the diversity of Israeli society.

About the Presenter
hlomit Levy Bard emigrated to Los Angeles from Israel at a young age, carrying a deep connection to her homeland. After graduating magna cum laude in Political Science from UCLA, she began her photography career as a photojournalist, and worked for organizations including The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the Associated Press. During that time, she earned multiple awards from the National Press Photographers Association and Women in Photojournalism. Her work has been shown in numerous juried exhibits and collected privately.

Capturing images that reflect the authentic complexity of her subjects, she is known for her intuitive approach. Shlomit brings warmth and empathy to her craft, creating images that transcend the physical form to reveal a profound sense of presence and connection. Her artistic practice has grown to include a diverse range of commissioned work for hundreds of families and individuals globally, through Studio SLB Photography.