Can We Talk?
125 episodes - English - Latest episode: 16 days ago - ★★★★★ - 136 ratingsIn each episode of Can We Talk?, the Jewish Women’s Archive features stories and conversations about Jewish women and the issues that shape our public and private lives. Visit us at jwa.org.
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Episodes
Episode 25: A Visit to Pittsburgh
November 02, 2018 14:28 - 9 minutes - 12.6 MBOn October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews during Shabbat services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. While taking lives, the gunman shouted that “all Jews must die.” That morning, he had posted on social media that Jews were responsible for bringing immigrants into our country. Can We Talk? Producer Nahanni Rous went to Pittsburgh with a group from her synagogue, and attended a funeral for two victims of the attack. She shares this reflection.
Episode 24: Archiving #MeToo
October 23, 2018 20:14 - 30 minutes - 41.8 MB“Why aren’t women believed?” “Why is a man’s reputation considered more important than a woman’s physical safety?” In the first episode of the 2018-2019 season of Can We Talk?, we explore questions like these and share stories from our Archiving #MeToo project. Historian Keren McGinity shares her own #MeToo story and discusses how the movement has impacted the Jewish community. Please note that this episode contains depictions of sexual assault. This episode of Can We Talk? was funded in p...
Episode 23: Can We Talk? Season Wrap
June 19, 2018 19:59 - 14 minutes - 20.6 MBAs they wrap up another season of Can We Talk?, Nahanni Rous and Judith Rosenbaum look back on their favorite episodes and interviews. They reflect on how the podcast has addressed both timely events and timeless stories—and they look ahead to an exciting new season in 2018-2019!
Episode 22: The Red Tent: Claiming Our Place in the Story
May 23, 2018 04:42 - 34 minutes - 47 MBAnita Diamant's 1997 novel The Red Tent began as a word-of-mouth book club favorite, and went on to become a publishing phenomenon and the inspiration for women's organizations around the world. In this first-ever Can We Talk? episode recorded in front of an audience, we bring you a lively conversation with Anita Diamant, host-producer Nahanni Rous, JWA Executive Director Judith Rosenbaum, Rabbi Liza Stern, and Rev. Gloria White-Hammond. They discuss the book's lasting impact, within the Jew...
Episode 21: TRYmester: Lifting the Silence on Infertility
March 29, 2018 14:35 - 26 minutes - 36.7 MBInfertility is seldom discussed openly in a tradition that prioritizes children and families, but many Jewish adults struggle with it, and isolation compounds the painful experience. With a new theater piece called TRYMESTER, Naomi Less is working to de-stigmatize infertility and build support for families going through it. This episode is the second in our series exploring infertility in the Jewish community. It was funded in part by the UJA Federation of New York to support awareness of ...
Episode 20: Breaking the Sound Barrier
February 19, 2018 02:28 - 23 minutes - 32.2 MBWhy do women’s voices generate more criticism than men’s? Susan Stamberg – the first woman in America to host a nightly national news broadcast – talks with us about voice and gender bias, losing her New York accent, and becoming the sound of NPR. We also hear from Emily Bazelon of Slate’s Political Gabfest about the reception of her voice and owning her sound.
Episode 19: Dirty Dancing Turns 30
December 19, 2017 18:59 - 21 minutes - 30 MBA surprise hit in 1987, Dirty Dancing has captivated audiences of all ages for 30 years with its story of Catskill culture, a young woman’s coming of age, and the class divide in America. This episode celebrates the staying power of a film that was originally rejected by studios for being too “small and soft”—and explores Dirty Dancing’s powerful portrait of class, gender, and Jewish life. Co-hosts Nahanni Rous and JWA Executive Director Judith Rosenbaum discuss the cultural impact of the fi...
Episode 18: Mah Jongg Tov
November 21, 2017 14:24 - 13 minutes - 18 MBWe join the Mah Jongg Tov Mah Jongg Club for an evening of laughs, nostalgia, and the sounds of Mah Jongg … an ancient Chinese table game that’s embedded in Jewish culture. Mah Jongg is tactile, competitive, and social. Long played in China, Mah Jongg fever struck America in the 1920s. The general population lost interest during the Great Depression, but Jewish women have held on to the game for nearly a century. For years Mah Jongg has been stereotyped as an old lady’s game, but today, it’s...
Episode 17: Four Mothers: Orna’s Story
October 19, 2017 15:42 - 22 minutes - 30.6 MBShe was protesting a war she thought was futile—and then her son was killed in it. Hear the poignant story of Orna Shimoni, an Israeli woman who 20 years ago turned her pain into action—and today is inspiring a new generation of activists. A matriarch of Women Wage Peace, Shimoni was an early member of the Four Mothers movement in the late 1990s, who channeled her private grief over her son’s death into a wider movement for peace. She is now a model for women who are newer to peace activism—...
Episode 16: Women Wage Peace
October 19, 2017 15:38 - 25 minutes - 35.1 MBAre women the key to peace in the Middle East? In this episode, we hear voices from Women Wage Peace, a powerful new movement in Israel demanding peace with the Palestinians—and insisting on women's place at the negotiating table. Uniting women from across the country and across the political spectrum, the movement hopes that it can solve the country’s most intractable issues. As one member says: "There are a lot of problems that only women can solve."
Episode 15: A Day at the Met with the Mixed-Up Files
June 14, 2017 19:54 - 22 minutes - 30.8 MBBeloved children’s book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler turns 50 this year. E.L. Konigsburg’s best-selling novel tells the story of two suburban children who run away to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. To celebrate the book’s anniversary—and to gear up for summer reading—Can We Talk? took two ten-year-old girls to the Met for an official tour retracing Claudia and Jamie Kincaid’s week in the museum. Tune in to join us on the tour and to hear an interview with Koni...
Episode 14: Making a Family
May 11, 2017 14:48 - 18 minutes - 25.5 MB“I think people need to talk about how families are created and there’s so many different ways, and there’s more every day. And it’s not easy and it’s not a given.” In this month’s episode, we tell the story of a Jewish couple who struggled with infertility for years, then decided to hire a surrogate to deliver their children. They talk about the emotional trials of infertility, what it was like to be part of a family-centered Jewish community while they struggled to have children, and the s...
Episode 13: Borders of Love
April 20, 2017 13:59 - 16 minutes - 23.2 MBIsraeli author Dorit Rabinyan’s novel All the Rivers is a steamy, Middle Eastern “Romeo and Juliet”: an Israeli-Palestinian love affair that confronts themes of borders, identity, and assimilation. The book sparked controversy in Israel, where the government removed it from the high school curriculum, while it shot to the top of the bestseller list. In this month’s episode, we talk with Dorit Rabinyan about this love story that doubles as political allegory, and about the tragic personal exp...
Episode 12: A New Era for the ERA
March 15, 2017 15:51 - 22 minutes - 31.1 MBSurveys show that around 90 percent of Americans support an Equal Rights Amendment—and yet, still, the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee equal rights for women. On this month's episode, we explore the history of this amendment, from its roots as a feminist cause in the 1920s, to the failed attempts to pass the amendment in the 1970s, to the renewed efforts to revive the ERA today. We speak to activist and former NOW president Ellie Smeal about how cultural conservatism and anti-femi...
Episode 11: Still Marching
January 26, 2017 15:45 - 21 minutes - 28.9 MBThe day after Trump’s inauguration, millions of people around the world took to the streets in protest. March along with us in this episode! We'll meet participants in the Women's March on Washington, and go back to where it all began—the first women’s march in Washington, on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration in 1913, before women even had the right to vote. Plus, two very special daughters make their Can We Talk? debut.
Episode 10: Rededication
December 22, 2016 15:13 - 15 minutes - 21.9 MBFor many Jews, the election of Donald Trump signals a time of uncertainty. In this episode, we turn for guidance to three Jewish women who have spent their lives working for social change. Ruth Messinger, April Baskin, and Idit Klein share their responses to the election and how they’re finding focus in this new political climate. We also visit the Obama’s final White House Hanukkah party.
Episode 9: Sonnet for America
November 23, 2016 15:52 - 12 minutes - 17.2 MBIn search of some post-election, pre-Thanksgiving meaning, host Nahanni Rous and JWA Executive Director Judith Rosenbaum explore that great American symbol, the Statue of Liberty—and the Jewish woman who gave her a voice. Emma Lazarus was a poet and writer who is remembered for the sonnet that redefined the Statue as the Mother of Exiles. But she was also an activist who worked with the poor immigrants of the 1880s and challenged her upper class Jewish community to take responsibility for th...
Episode 8: WITCH in Action
October 27, 2016 15:20 - 16 minutes - 22.4 MBOn Halloween of 1968, a coven of witches in black robes and pointy hats hexed Wall Street. They called themselves WITCH—Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell—but there was nothing international or violent about this guerrilla theater protest group that emerged in the early days of the women’s liberation movement. We talk with Bev Grant about WITCH’s origins at the Miss America Beauty Pageant, and Heather Booth, who was part of a coven in Chicago. Historian Joyce Antler puts WI...
Episode 7: Women of the Wall
September 21, 2016 19:16 - 19 minutes - 27.1 MBThis month, Can We Talk? attends a Bat Mitzvah with Women of the Wall at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The group has been fighting for women's right to read Torah at Judaism’s holiest site for nearly three decades—there have been arrests, multiple lawsuits, and a rift in the organization. The Israeli Supreme Court recently took the government to task for failing to provide a non-Orthodox prayer space at the Wall—and indicated it will take matters into its own hands if the government doesn’t...
Episode 6: JWA at the DNC
July 29, 2016 18:13 - 13 minutes - 18.3 MBIn this episode, host Nahanni Rous and JWA Executive Director Judith Rosenbaum report from the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where they were invited to cover Hillary Clinton’s historic presidential nomination. They speak to both Hillary and Bernie supporters and interview such powerful women as former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton Ann Lewis, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and Delegate Elizabeth Schlesinger.
Episode 5: “Jewish Hair”
June 16, 2016 01:10 - 16 minutes - 23.3 MBSummer's coming, and here at the Jewish Women's Archive, we're thinking about…hair. Curly, Jewish hair. The kind that turns to frizz in summer weather. And we're not the only ones—thousands of people every week visit our seven year old blog post on the topic. In this roundtable edition of Can We Talk?, we explore curly, wavy, frizzy hair and its deeper cultural and historic significance for Jewish women.
Episode 4: Mothering
May 04, 2016 15:28 - 14 minutes - 20.1 MBA man with a beard admits he's the stereotypical Jewish mother…a woman who's always been afraid of teenagers explains why an 18-year-old from Somalia is calling her mom…and a veteran stage actor waxes philosophical about all the mother roles she has played—though she's not a mother herself. In this Mother’s Day episode, we celebrate the many forms motherhood can take, and look at what it means to wholeheartedly step into the role.
Episode 3: People of the Cookbook
April 05, 2016 21:57 - 14 minutes - 20.6 MB“Every cuisine tells a story,” writes Claudia Roden in the Book of Jewish Food. “Jewish food tells the story of an uprooted, migrating people and their vanished worlds.” Claudia’s childhood world vanished when the Jewish community was forced out of Egypt in the 1950s. Her quest to collect family recipes led to a celebrated career as a cookbook author. But Claudia writes more than recipes—she traces the DNA of cuisine. In this Passover edition, Claudia Roden talks about Passover cooking, her ...
Episode 2: Body of Knowledge
February 29, 2016 01:24 - 16 minutes - 27 MB45 years ago a group of women in the Boston area collectively published Our Bodies Ourselves—a groundbreaking book that put forward the radical notion that women should get to know their own bodies and take charge of their health and sexuality. Since its first publication, the book has sold more than four million copies and been adapted into 30 languages. In this episode, we talk to Vilunya Diskin, one of the founders of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, Juanita Crider, who particip...
Episode 1: The Pilot's Pilot
January 25, 2016 15:49 - 19 minutes - 27 MBOur pilot episode is about… pilots! Elynor Rudnick and Zahara Levitov grew up on different continents: one in America, one in British-ruled Palestine. In the 1940s, they were both young Jewish women with pilot's licenses. During some of the most turbulent years in modern Jewish history, their stories were woven together—not by fate, but by flight. Plus, Deb Dreyfus, a modern day Jewish woman pilot, takes our host Nahanni Rous for a spin in her four-seater Cessna.