Spring has sprung

You learn something new every day, if you’re lucky. Today I learned that my mother was not the original author of the springtime ditty, “The Spring is Sprung.” Many people think it was Ogden Nash who wrote it, but they’re wrong too. It was actually written by the ever prolific Anonymous. If you had known my mother, you’d understand why I would think she wrote it. At the first sight of a robin, I can hear her voice in my head: “It’s spring! It’s spring! The boid is on the wing! But that’s absoid! The wing is on the boid!” She recited it in her thick New York accent on the first truly nice day after a long, cold winter. She took some artistic license—adding a phrase here and taking away a phrase there. But if you ask me, I think she improved it. As absoid as that might sound, I’m pretty sure that even Anonymous would agree.

Stay safe and healthy,

Tracy Jacobs

Osher at Towson University presents

The Return of Brood X: The Mysterious Magicicada

Jane Wolfson, Ph.D.
Friday, April 23 at 11:00 a.m.

Periodical Cicadas, Magicicada spp, remain a mystery to biologists. The public becomes aware of their existence only when vast numbers emerge from the ground synchronously, every 13 or 17 years. While their presence is hard to ignore when they are out and about, what they are doing the rest of their lives and why they are doing it is only partially understood. Emerging broods consist of more than one species and different broods are emerging in different regions of North American almost every year. Discover what we know about Periodical Cicadas, their development, how they sing, their impact on wildlife, and the threats that they face so that you will better be able to appreciate Brood X when it appears in May.

Osher members are invited to watch this recorded lecture through May 2.

The Klan Whisperer: Daryl Davis

Music is his profession, but bettering race relations is his obsession. In between gigs, Daryl Davis has spent 37 years intentionally meeting with Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi and Alt Right leaders and members. He has become the impetus for over 200 White supremacists to renounce that ideology. Not an easy feat for a White person, let alone someone who is Black. Davis will share the stories of his encounters with those who have hated him and his successful methods that have turned some into his friends and supporters.

Tiny House Concerts

Your front row seat is right in your living room.
Tiny House Concerts offer music with meaning.

Sunday, April 11 at 3 p.m.

TU Department of Music distinguished faculty invite you into their homes with a 50-minute live-streamed ‘concert with context.’ You’ll enjoy hearing perspectives from the musicians about their chosen piece and a chance to talk about it afterwards via a moderated Q&A. Enjoy a diverse array of intimate chamber music, virtuoso solo performances and thrilling jazz combos. Concerts are free through partnering senior communities and organizations.

Featuring Dave Ballou & Friends (jazz/trumpet), John Thomas (saxophone), Michelle Humphreys (percussion), Christopher Dillon (piano), Cecylia Barczyk (cello), Troy KIng (guitar)

The Sraiah and Chana Shoubin Lecture
Hebrew Roots, Jewish Routes: A Tribal Language in a Global World

Jeremy Benstein, Ph.D.
Monday, April 12 at Noon

Why does Hebrew matter? And how does engagement with the language enrich Jewishness? Learn about the Hebrew language's role in Jewish history, identity and peoplehood.

Amsterdam's People of the Book: The Untold Story of the Jews, the Reformation and the Bible

Benjamin Fisher, Ph.D. and Rita Costa-Gomes, Ph.D.
Wednesday, April 28 at 5:30 p.m.

The Protestant Reformation permanently altered the political and religious landscape of Europe in the sixteenth century. It shattered and transformed the institutional authority of the church in Europe, and changed the way that religion was practiced across the continent. The Reformation altered Jewish society and culture as well. Dr. Fisher surveys how Jews in the seventeenth-century Netherlands interacted with diverse Protestant movements, new teachings, and Christian religious texts, and how these encounters unexpectedly changed Jewish thinking about Judaism, the Bible, and even Jesus and Christianity.

Osher Online Book Discussion: Not in My Neighborhood

Thursday, April 29 at 3 p.m.

Join Osher members and others to discuss “Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City” by Antero Pietila.

Study Tour and Retreat in Jordan and Israel
with Father Bob Albright

January 5–18, 2022

For more information and a copy of the itinerary and registration form, contact Father Bob at (410) 630-2210 or robert.albright2006@comcast.net. Note: This program is not sponsored by Osher at Towson University.