Can a video game be Jewish? It sounds like the setup to a joke — but it's actually one of the more interesting questions you can ask about contemporary culture.
Millions of people encounter Jewishness for the first time through a screen and a controller. Jewish characters appear in blockbuster games; Jewish history gets dramatized, romanticized, or quietly erased; players are sometimes placed inside moral dilemmas that resonate — knowingly or not — with centuries of Jewish ethical thought. And yet almost nobody is asking what any of this means.
This workshop does. Drawing on ongoing PhD research at the University of Potsdam at the intersection of Jewish education, game studies, and learning sciences, the session explores how contemporary commercial and independent games construct, challenge, and sometimes distort representations of Jewish identity, history, and ethics.
We will look at specific examples, think together about what we find, and explore questions like:

How is Jewishness represented — or conspicuously absent — in popular games?
What does it mean to play a Jewish character, narrative, or ethical position?
Can role-taking in a game foster genuine reflection, or does it risk flattening complexity into stereotype?
And, seriously: can a video game actually be Jewish?

The session combines short visual inputs with guided discussion — no passive lecture, no controllers required. We'll close by reflecting honestly on both the educational potential and the real limitations of bringing video games into Jewish learning spaces.
Whether you're a gamer, an educator, a parent skeptical of screens, or simply curious about where Jewish culture turns up in unexpected places — this one's for you.

For the first time at Limmud Deutschland, Judaísmo Pop presents the Latino Kabbalat Shabbat: a service that brings the warmth, musicality, and inclusive spirit of Latin American Jewish communities — Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and across denominations — that flourished throughout the past century in Latin America. A meaningful, joyful, dynamic, and interactive Kabbalat Shabbat, open to everyone regardless of background or level of knowledge.

Latino Kabbalat Shabbat – Judaísmo Pop
For the first time at Limmud Deutschland, Judaísmo Pop presents the Latino Kabbalat Shabbat: a service that brings the warmth, musicality, and inclusive spirit of Latin American Jewish communities — Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and across denominations — that flourished throughout the past century in Latin America. A meaningful, joyful, dynamic, and interactive Kabbalat Shabbat, open to everyone regardless of background or level of knowledge.

What if morning prayer looked like a walk in the forest?
This Shabbat, Judaísmo Pop invites everyone — dog owners, dog lovers, families with kids, anyone craving fresh air — to an alternative Shacharit in nature. We'll take a guided walk together, then sit for a few minutes among the trees for a reflection on the weekly parasha and on the deep connection between Torah and the care of animals.
Jewish tradition has long honored and protected the natural world and the creatures we share it with. This session brings those sources into conversation with the modern reality of multi-species families — because for many of us, our dogs are not pets. They are family.
The session will be held in English and is designed for all ages. Dogs are more than welcome — they're founding members of the club.

In 2023, Argentina elected a president who quotes Torah in speeches, holds study sessions with his personal rabbi — now appointed as Argentina's ambassador to Israel — visits the tomb of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, wears a kippah at public events, and publicly declares his intention to convert to Judaism. This session does not ask whether Javier Milei's connection to Jewish tradition is sincere — it argues that sincerity is beside the point. What matters is how Jewish symbols, messianic narratives, and sacred texts are being instrumentalized to legitimize a specific political project, and what that means for Jewish communities, democratic institutions, and the public image of Judaism itself.
Drawing on the collective volume Las fuerzas del cielo: Argentina, Milei y los judíos (2024) and the presenter's own chapter in it, this lecture examines the dangers of messianic political grammar, the distortion of Jewish textual tradition in the service of far-right libertarianism, and a global pattern in which the far right increasingly claims Jewish and Israeli symbols — regardless of its historical relationship with antisemitism. The session includes original Spanish-language sources with translation and commentary, and closes with open discussion.