New Books in Jewish Studies
1,034 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★ - 67 ratingsInterview with Scholars of Judaism about their New Books
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Episodes
Anton Weiss-Wendt, "On the Margins: Essays on the History of Jews in Estonia" (CEU Press, 2017)
January 29, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourEstonia is perhaps the only country in Europe that lacks a comprehensive history of its Jewish minority. Spanning over 150 years of Estonian Jewish history, Anton Weiss-Wendt's On the Margins: Essays on the History of Jews in Estonia (CEU Press, 2017) is a truly unique book. Rebuilding a life beyond so-called Pale of Jewish Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Jewish cultural autonomy in interwar Estonia, and the trauma of Soviet occupation of 1940-41 are among the issues addressed in the bo...
John J. Michalczyk et al.. "Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and the Holocaust: A Prelude to Genocide" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
January 27, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourFor decades scholars have pored over Hitler's autobiographical journey/political treatise, debating if Mein Kampf has genocidal overtones and arguably led to the Holocaust. For the first time, Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and the Holocaust: A Prelude to Genocide (Bloomsbury, 2022) sees celebrated international scholars analyse the book from various angles to demonstrate how it laid the groundwork for the Shoah through Hitler's venomous attack on the Jews in his text. Split into three main sections w...
Hillel Goldberg, "Across the Expanse of Jewish Thought: From the Holocaust to Halakhah and Beyond" (Ktav, 2022)
January 27, 2024 09:00 - 40 minutesDrawing on Isaiah Berlin’s inferential essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Hillel Goldberg opens this volume: “By commitment I am a hedgehog – I believe in a single central principle, the Torah. By temperament I am a fox, drawn to the wide Jewish intellectual horizon, buoyed by its diversity and ever-expanding reach.” The kaleidoscopic breadth of Jewish thought marks this volume on prayer, biblical interpretation, musar, theology, and biography – tributaries highlighting the mainstream, halak...
On Zionism and the Left: A Discussion with Author and Cultural Critic Susie Linfield
January 22, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour“How has it come to this? How has ‘Zionist’…become the dirtiest word to the international Left?” Susie Linfield poses that ripe question at the outset of her book, The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky (Yale University Press, 2019). In the podcast, our discussion focuses on three prominent figures examined in The Lions’ Den: Isaac Deutscher, I.F. Stone, and Fred Halliday. And we explore present-day sentiments about Zionism among the Left amid the Gaza-Israel ...
Chaim Miller, "Torah, the Five Books of Moses (with Complete Haftarah Cycle)" (Kol Menachem, 2011)
January 19, 2024 09:00 - 21 minutesWith a charming, colorful presentation, multiple strands of commentary, and groundbreaking, interactive features, Torah, the Five Books of Moses (with Complete Haftarah Cycle) (Kol Menachem, 2011) transforms the text into an experience. Join us as we speak with Rabbi Chaim Miller about how his edition of Torah endeavors to uncover the spiritual potential and human relevance of its every line. Rabbi Chaim Miller was educated at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School in London, England and studied Med...
Yitzhak Teutsch, "The Cyprus Detention Camps: The Essential Research Guide" (Cambridge Scholars, 2019)
January 18, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourBeginning in August 1946, stateless and visaless Jews, most of them survivors of the Nazi death camps, who sought to immigrate to the Land of Israel were intercepted by the Royal Navy and deported to the nearby island of Cyprus, where they were detained in camps surrounded by barbed wire. Despite occupying a dramatic and fateful position in modern history, this saga has remained largely inaccessible due to the widespread dispersal of the primary sources and the linguistic difficulties present...
On Henry Einspruch's 1941 Yiddish Translation of the Christian Bible
January 17, 2024 09:00 - 59 minutesToday we are going to explore a peculiar volume in the history of Yiddish literature, the Yiddish translation of the Christian bible written by Khaim Yekhiel, “Henry,” Einspruch, titled Der Bris Ḥadoshe, first published in Baltimore in 1941. The saga of Einspruch’s translation of the Christian bible is the subject of a new Yiddish drama, “The Gospel According to Chaim,” written by Mikhl Yashinsky, and recently produced by the New Yiddish Rep theater company in New York. Interviewee: Professor...
Geoffrey Levin, "Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948-1978" (Yale UP, 2023)
January 16, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourAmerican Jews began debating Palestinian rights issues even before Israel’s founding in 1948. Geoffrey Levin recovers the voices of American Jews who, in the early decades of Israel’s existence, called for an honest reckoning with the moral and political plight of Palestinians. These now‑forgotten voices, which include an aid‑worker‑turned‑academic with Palestinian Sephardic roots, a former Yiddish journalist, anti‑Zionist Reform rabbis, and young left‑wing Zionist activists, felt drawn to su...
Adin Stinsaltz, "The Steinsaltz Humash, 2nd Edition (Hebrew and English Edition)" (Koren, 2019)
January 16, 2024 09:00 - 21 minutesThe Steinsaltz Humash is the long-awaited English version of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz’s pioneering translation and commentary on the Torah. Like his monumental translation and commentary of the entire Talmud, the new Steinsaltz Humash includes a treasure trove of information to make the text clear, fascinating, and relevant to users of all backgrounds. Join us as we speak with Rabbi Meni Even Israel about his father’s Torah insights. Rabbi Meni Even-Israel serves as the Executive Dir...
Uri Kaufman, "Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East" (St. Martin's Press, 2023)
January 15, 2024 09:00 - 57 minutesOctober 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, a conflict that shaped the modern Middle East. The War was a trauma for Israel, a dangerous superpower showdown, and, following the oil embargo, a pivotal reordering of the global economic order. The Jewish State came shockingly close to defeat. A panicky cabinet meeting debated the use of nuclear weapons. After the war, Prime Minister Golda Meir resigned in disgrace, and a 9/11-style commission investigated the "debacle." But, ar...
Aviva Ben-Ur and Wim Klooster eds., "Jewish Entanglements in the Atlantic World" (Cornell UP, 2024)
January 13, 2024 09:00 - 45 minutesAviva Ben-Ur and Wim Klooster's edited volume Jewish Entanglements in the Atlantic World (Cornell UP, 2024) represents the first collective attempt to reframe the study of colonial and early American Jewry within the context of Atlantic History. From roughly 1500 to 1830, the Atlantic World was a tightly intertwined swathe of global powers that included Europe, Africa, North and South America, and the Caribbean. How, when, and where do Jews figure in this important chapter of history? This ...
Jacob L. Wright, "Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
January 13, 2024 09:00 - 55 minutesWhy did no other ancient society produce something like the Bible? That a tiny, out of the way community could have created a literary corpus so determinative for peoples across the globe seems improbable. For Jacob Wright, the Bible is not only a testimony of survival, but also an unparalleled achievement in human history. Forged after Babylon's devastation of Jerusalem, it makes not victory but total humiliation the foundation of a new idea of belonging. Lamenting the destruction of their h...
More on "Decisiveness" (harizut)
January 12, 2024 09:00 - 38 minutesIn discussing this week's Torah portion, Va'era (Ex. 6:2-9:35) in light of the character trait of Decisiveness, Modya and David ponder big questions: Do we have untrammeled free will? Or are there limits -- and how would we know? What is the right balance between decisiveness and the weighing of options? How can we make decisions more mindfully -- being cognizant of their effects on others? Pharaoh's hardened heart, Moses and Aaron's determination, and the Israelites' crushed spirits after ce...
Yair Furstenberg, "Purity and Identity in Ancient Judaism: From the Temple to the Mishnah" (Indiana UP, 2023)
January 10, 2024 09:00 - 38 minutesThe concern for purity was the cornerstone of the religious culture of ancient Judaism, shaping the worldview of Jewish people during the Second Temple period as well as their daily practices and social relations. In his book, Purity and Identity in Ancient Judaism: From the Temple to the Mishnah (Indiana UP, 2023), Yair Furstenberg examines how different groups offered competing visions and methods for living a life of purity, which embodied a promise for personal and cosmic salvation and at...
Ayelet Brinn, "A Revolution in Type: Gender and the Making of the American Yiddish Press" (NYU Press, 2023)
January 09, 2024 09:00 - 33 minutesA Revolution in Type: Gender and the Making of the American Yiddish Press (NYU Press, 2023) by Dr. Ayelet Brinn offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex and often unexpected ways that women and ideas about women shaped widely read Jewish newspapers. Between the 1880s and 1920s, Yiddish-language newspapers rose from obscurity to become successful institutions integral to American Jewish life. During this period, Yiddish-speaking immigrants came to view newspapers as indispensable parts of...
Ofer Ashkenazi, "Anti-Heimat Cinema: The Jewish Invention of the German Landscape" (U Michigan Press, 2020)
January 09, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourAnti-Heimat Cinema: The Jewish Invention of the German Landscape (U Michigan Press, 2020) studies an overlooked yet fundamental element of German popular culture in the twentieth century. In tracing Jewish filmmakers' contemplations of "Heimat"-- a provincial German landscape associated with belonging and authenticity -- it analyzes their distinctive contribution to the German identity discourse between 1918 and 1968. The book shows how these filmmakers devised the landscapes of the German "H...
James Robson, "Word and Spirit in Ezekiel" (T&T Clark, 2006)
January 09, 2024 09:00 - 18 minutesIn comparison with other prophetic books, the Book of Ezekiel sets forth a unique angle on the relationship of the Lord's word and spirit. In his monograph, Word And Spirit in Ezekiel (T&T Clark, 2006), James Robson argues that the relationship between the Lord's spirit and the Lord's word in Ezekiel is to be understood not so much in terms of inspiration and authentication of the prophet, but in terms of the transformation of the book's addressees. James Robson is Principal of Oak Hill Colle...
Bryan Mark Rigg, "The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers: Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and His Astonishing Rescue" (UP of Kansas, 2016)
January 07, 2024 09:00 - 55 minutesWhen Hitler invaded Warsaw in the fall of 1939, hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped in the besieged city. The Rebbe Joseph Schneersohn, the leader of the ultra-orthodox Lubavitcher Jews, was among them. When word of his plight went out, a group of American Jews initiated what would ultimately become one of the strangest—and most miraculous—rescues of World War II. And this is the incredible but true story that Bryan Mark Rigg tells in The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers: Rebbe Jo...
A Roundup Conversation About Indian and Israeli Ethnonationalism
January 04, 2024 09:00 - 47 minutesAjantha Subramanian and Lori Allen turn from hosts to interlocutors in an episode that ties a bow on our Violent Majorities conversations about Indian (episode 1) and Israeli (episode 2) ethnonationalism. The three friends discuss commonalities between Balmurli Natrajan’s charting of the "slippery slope towards a multiculturalism of caste" and Natasha Roth-Rowland's description of the "territorial maximalism" that has been central to Zionism. The role of overseas communities loomed large, as ...
The Trait of "Decisiveness" (harizut)
January 04, 2024 09:00 - 34 minutesIn this week's episode, Modya and David explore Sh'mot, the first parsha in the Book of Exodus, in light of the trait of harizut, or decisiveness. The hosts explore the idea, suggested by the relationship between God and Moses, that being decisive is not "all about us", but involves other traits, like humility and patience. We must be aware that others can help move processes forward, that we must let events unfold, and that decisiveness is not a purely intellectual process: it is, rather, a ...
Scott D. Seligman, "Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)
December 28, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutesOn an August night in 1933 Harbin in then-Japanese controlled Manchuria–Semyon Kaspe, French citizen, famed concert musician, and Russian Jew, is abducted after a night out. Suspicion falls on the city’s fervently anti-semitic Russian fascists. Yet despite pressure from the French consulate, the Japanese police slow-walk the investigation—and three months later, Semyon is found dead. The abduction, murder and trial catch the world’s attention right as Japan is trying to win international supp...
Naming The Need For "Order"
December 27, 2023 09:00 - 30 minutesIn this episode David and Modya look at the final Torah portion of Vayechi in the book of Genesis through the lens of order (seder). In this parsha the patriarch, Jacob, bestows blessings on each of the 12 sons, well, 13 actually since Joseph’s two sons each get the blessing. We look at the purpose of names and how our future may be determined by a complexity of current decisions. Modya Silver is an author and psychotherapist based in Toronto. David Gottlieb is Director of Jewish Studies at t...
David M. Freidenreich, "Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy" (U California Press, 2023)
December 21, 2023 09:00 - 58 minutesUncovering the hidden history of Islamophobia and its surprising connections to the long-standing hatred of Jews. Hatred of Jews and hatred of Muslims have been intertwined in Christian thought since the rise of Islam. In Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy (U California Press, 2023), David M. Freidenreich explores the history of this complex, perplexing, and emotionally fraught phenomenon. He makes the compelling case that, then and now, hate-mongers target "them" in a...
"Order" and the Big Reveal
December 20, 2023 09:00 - 23 minutesDavid and Modya explore the challenges of balancing relationships with getting things done in life. They see how in parsha VaYigash order and disorder play against or with each other and how missteps can cause suffering for self and others. The path forward is to find one’s purpose and see how the Divine is included or is central in life. Modya Silver is an author and psychotherapist based in Toronto. David Gottlieb is Director of Jewish Studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning an...
Yaron Eliav, "A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean" (Princeton UP, 2023)
December 17, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourPublic bathhouses embodied the Roman way of life, from food and fashion to sculpture and sports. The most popular institution of the ancient Mediterranean world, the baths drew people of all backgrounds. They were places suffused with nudity, sex, and magic. A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean (Princeton UP, 2023) reveals how Jews navigated this space with ease and confidence, engaging with Roman bath culture rather than avoiding it. In this landmar...
Simone Gigliotti, "Restless Archive: The Holocaust and the Cinema of the Displaced" (Indiana UP, 2023)
December 16, 2023 09:00 - 49 minutesThe global refugee, the ship passenger, the displaced person. How did their homeseeking routes and visual motifs intersect and diverge in the early Holocaust film archive? Simone Gigliotti's Restless Archive: The Holocaust and the Cinema of the Displaced tracks the footsteps and routes of predominantly Jewish refugees and postwar displaced persons in what I call a “restless archive” of photographic, cinematographic and visual material that was created and re-used between 1933 and 1949. The hi...
Violent Majorities: Indian and Israeli Ethnonationalism. Episode 2
December 14, 2023 09:00 - 49 minutesNatasha Roth-Rowland is a writer and researcher at Diaspora Alliance, a former editor at +972 Magazine, and an expert on the Jewish far right. She joins anthropologists Lori Allen and Ajantha Subramanian midway through a three-part RTB series, "Violent Majorities: Indian and Israeli Ethnonationalism." Listen to episode 1 here. The three discuss the transnational formation of the Jewish far right over the 20th and 21st centuries, the gradual movement of far right actors into the heart of the I...
More on Joseph and "Order": On Genesis 41:1-44:17
December 13, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutesThis week, Modya and David explore parshat Miketz (Gen. 41:1-44:17) and consider its lessons for the character trait of Order. As Joseph gains power and influence, and preserves order and wellbeing in Egypt, he also confronts both his brothers and his own feelings about them. The hosts consider the many ways in which our own senses of order must be balanced with other traits in order to create an approach to life that is both freeing and disciplined, informed by both a desire for justice and ...
Julia Watts Belser, "Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole" (Beacon Press, 2023)
December 12, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourA transformative spiritual companion and deep dive into disability politics that reimagines disability in the Bible and contemporary culture. "What's wrong with you?" Scholar, activist, and rabbi Julia Watts Belser is all too familiar with this question. What's wrong isn't her wheelchair, though--it's exclusion, objectification, pity, and disdain. Our attitudes about disability have such deep cultural roots that we almost forget their sources. But open the Bible and disability is everywhere. ...
Martin C. Dean, "Investigating Babyn Yar: Shadows from the Valley of Death" (Lexington Books, 2023)
December 11, 2023 09:00 - 36 minutesInvestigating Babyn Yar: Shadows from the Valley of Death (Lexington Books, 2023) pieces together the story of the destruction of Kyiv's Jews using history's shattered fragments. Martin Dean traces their journey out of the city, using discarded clothing and distinctive terrain as a trail of breadcrumbs to identify the killing site in the ravine. Shadowy figures in photographs and escape stories from the mass grave reveal the suffering of many that is documented by the survival of just a few. ...
Jeffrey S. Gurock, "Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend" (NYU Press, 2023)
December 09, 2023 09:00 - 39 minutesFor close to half a century after World War II, Marty Glickman was the voice of New York sports. His distinctive style of broadcasting, on television and especially on the radio, garnered for him legions of fans who would not miss his play-by-play accounts. From the 1940s through the 1990s, he was as iconic a sports figure in town as the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle, the Knicks’ Walt Frazier, or the Jets’ Joe Namath. His vocabulary and method of broadcasting left an indelible mark on the industry, ...
Raquel Ukeles et al., "101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel" (Scala Arts, 2022)
December 09, 2023 09:00 - 39 minutes101 Treasures from the National Library of Israel (Scala Arts, 2022) provides a thematic journey through the rich and diverse collections of the National Library of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. Selected by the Library's curators and collections experts, this fine-art volume presents 101 of the most precious items in the Library's collections, from 5th century Babylonia to modern-day Tel Aviv, and shares illuminating stories and anecdotes about these significant works and the intrig...
Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah et al., "Life & Legacy: A Window into Jewish Life Across the Islamic World" (U Groningen Press, 2023)
December 08, 2023 09:00 - 50 minutesThrough stunning images, maps and insightful commentary, Life & Legacy: A Window into Jewish Life Across the Islamic World (U Groningen Press, 2023) offers a glimpse into the diversity, historical legacy, and rich culture of Jewish communities within the Muslim world. From the growing Jewish community of Dubai to ancient synagogues and shrines, these photographs capture the beauty and complexity of Jewish life around North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Above all, this photographi...
"Order" in Joseph's Extraordinary Dreams
December 07, 2023 09:00 - 33 minutesIn this week's episode, Modya and David read Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) and consider what can be learned about the character trait of Order from Joseph's extraordinary dreams, the deep antipathy his brothers feel toward him, and from the episode of Judah and Tamar. How might we best control our appetites and deploy our natural gifts to build a disciplined life without hurting others? The hosts explore these and other questions with examples from other readings, and from their own lives. Mo...
Guy Miron, "Space and Time Under Persecution: The German-Jewish Experience in the Third Reich" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
December 06, 2023 09:00 - 46 minutesThe rapid and radical transformations of the Nazi Era challenged the ways German Jews experienced space and time, two of the most fundamental characteristics of human existence. In Space and Time Under Persecution: The German-Jewish Experience in the Third Reich (U Chicago Press, 2023), Guy Miron documents how German Jews came to terms with the harsh challenges of persecution-from social exclusion, economic decline, and relocation to confiscation of their homes, forced labor, and deportation...
Joshua Skarf, "ArchitecTorah: Architectural Ideas in Judaism and the Weekly Torah Portion" (Urim, 2023)
December 02, 2023 09:00 - 45 minutesJoshua Skarf's book ArchitecTorah: Architectural Ideas in Judaism and the Weekly Torah Portion (Urim, 2023) is a collection of 178 short essays that investigate the Torah through the lens of architecture. Each essay briefly introduces a piece of architectural theory, a building, or a section of building code and then reexamines a well-known topic in the Torah to uncover new and insightful interpretations. Matthew Miller is a graduate of Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah. He studied Jewish Studies and...
J. Christopher Edwards, "Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus" (Fortress Press, 2023)
December 02, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourIn his book Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2023), J. Christopher Edwards explores the early Christian teachings regarding who actually killed Jesus. Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general population who have seen a Jesus movie or an Easter play and remember Roman soldiers hammering the nails. However, for early Christians, the detail ...
Loving Acts Through Patience: On the VaYishlach
November 30, 2023 09:00 - 40 minutesDavid and Modya complete their four episode exploration of patience by looking at the Torah portion of VaYishlach. The focus in this episode is on the role of patience in managing internally-motivated desires and external temptations. They explore how using patience can lead to healthier decisions made from a place of love rather than fear. Modya Silver is an author and psychotherapist based in Toronto. David Gottlieb is Director of Jewish Studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning ...
On “Henry Kissinger and His World” with author Barry Gewen
November 30, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourIn my talk with Barry Gewen on his 2020 book, The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World (W. W. Norton, 2020), we explore the disparate influences that shaped Kissinger as both an intellectual and as a practitioner of power. Our conversation touches on Kissinger’s upbringing in a German-Jewish community in Bavaria at the time of Hitler’s rise to power and pivots to an understanding of Kissinger’s Realism as his pessimistic yet unwavering approach to foreign affairs and exige...
Ian Probstein, trans., "Centuries Encircle Me with Fire: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam" (Academic Studies Press, 2022)
November 29, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourOsip Mandelstam (1891-1938) is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's most influential poets. This collection, compiled, translated, and edited by poet and scholar Ian Probstein, provides Anglophone audiences with a powerful selection of Mandelstam's most beloved and haunting poems. Both scholars and general readers will gain a deeper understanding of his poetics, as Probstein situates each poem in its historical and literary context. The English translations presented in Centurie...
Roslyn Weiss, "Hasdai Crescas: Collected Writings" (Library of the Jewish People, 2023)
November 27, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourToday I talked to Roslyn Weiss, editor of Hasdai Crescas: Collected Writings (Library of the Jewish People, 2023). Hasdai Crescas spent his life in public service - as a rabbi and community leader in desperate times in 14th-century Spain. Despite having limited time for writing, he produced several important works, which Collected Writings presents in their entirety. The first of these, Epistle to the Jews of Avignon, he wrote in the immediate aftermath of the anti-Jewish riots in Aragon in 1...
Dan Senor and Saul Singer, "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World" (Simon and Schuster, 2023)
November 26, 2023 09:00 - 27 minutesHow has a small nation of 9 million people, forced to fight for its existence and security since its founding and riven by ethnic, religious, and economic divides, proven resistant to so many of the societal ills plaguing other wealthy democracies? Why do Israelis have among the world’s highest life expectancies and lowest rates of “deaths of despair” from suicide and substance abuse? Why is Israel’s population young and growing while all other wealthy democracies are aging and shrinking? How...
Katerina Lagos, "The Fourth of August Regime and Greek Jewry, 1936-1941" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
November 26, 2023 05:00 - 1 hourDelving into a traditionally underexplored period, this book focuses on the treatment of Greek Jews under the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas in the years leading up to the Second World War. Almost 86% of Greek Jews died in the Holocaust, leading many to think this was because of Metaxas and his fascist ideology. However, the situation in Greece was much more complicated; in fact, Metaxas in his policies often attempted to quash anti-Semitism. The Fourth of August Regime and Greek Jewry, 193...
Donating Books to Children: A Chat with Alex Zabolotsky of PJ Library
November 25, 2023 09:00 - 46 minutesAlex Zablotsky is the Managing Director of PJ Library, a philanthropy that donates millions of books on Jewish themes to children around the world every year. We talk about the confluence of Jewish and universal themes, the similarities and differences between PJ Library and its Israeli sister, Sifriat Pajama, which shares hundreds of thousands of picture books in Arabic, as well as in Hebrew, the process by which books are chosen, and the importance of sharing books on Jewish themes with non...
Jacob, Leah, Rachel and the "Middah" of Patience
November 23, 2023 09:00 - 25 minutesIn this week's episode, Modya and David discuss parshat Va-Yetzei (Gen. 28:10-32:3) and its lessons for the middah (character trait) of patience. Is the patriarch Jacob a model of patience, or does his predilection for deceit suggest a person too eager to get what he wants? What does the matriarch Leah teach us about the relationship between patience and acceptance of what is? Does the matriarch Rachel provide her own lessons? Modya and David look to these tangled, archetypal personalities an...
Israel, Hamas, and American Jews in a Time of War
November 22, 2023 09:00 - 37 minutesOn today’s episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey speaks with Jodi Rudoren, editor-in-chief of the Forward magazine, about the situation in Israel and Gaza. She notes that Hamas’s incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023, shattered the paradigm of how Israel and even the Arab world understood what Hamas was all about. The result has been a deep sense of shock and mourning among Israelis for those who have lost loved ones or had them taken hostage. At the same time, some J...
Providence and Power: Rabbi Meir Soloveichik on Jewish Statesmanship from King David to David Ben Gurion
November 21, 2023 09:00 - 53 minutesFor thousands of years, the Jewish people lacked a political state; yet, what can we say about the Jewish tradition of statesmanship? What makes it distinctive, and what can we learn from it? In Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship (Encounter Books, 2023) , Rabbi Meir Soloveichik investigates ten Jews, from King David all the way to the foundation of Israel, what we can learn from their examples, and how history can provide hope amidst recent events in Israel. Rabbi Dr....
Nechama Price, "Tribal Blueprints: Twelve Brothers and the Destiny of Israel" (Maggid, 2020)
November 20, 2023 09:00 - 53 minutesThe Jewish nation begins with a collection of twelve brothers and half-brothers, linked through their father, Jacob. From these close familiar beginnings, each develops into a distinct tribe, with unique characteristics and destinies that have indelible imprints on the rest of Tanakh. Tribal Blueprints: Twelve Brothers and the Destiny of Israel (Maggid, 2020) examines each of Jacob's sons, revealing their individual stories in Genesis and the impact of their shifting places within the family...
Maxim D. Shrayer, "I Saw It: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah" (Academic Studies Press, 2013)
November 19, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourIn I Saw It: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah (Academic Studies Press, 2013), based on archival and field research and previously unknown historical evidence, Maxim D. Shrayer introduces the work of Ilya Selvinsky, the first Jewish-Russian poet to depict the Holocaust (Shoah) in the occupied Soviet territories. In January 1942, while serving as a military journalist, Selvinsky witnessed the immediate aftermath of the massacre of thousands of Jews outside the Crime...
Mira Balberg, "Fractured Tablets: Forgetfulness and Fallibility in Late Ancient Rabbinic Culture" (U California Press, 2023)
November 16, 2023 09:00 - 43 minutesThe Rabbinic Sages of the Tannaitic era were fixated on memory and terrified of forgetfulness. In promulgating their own interpretations of Jewish law, the Tannaim not only took seriously Moses’s admonitions to remember and not forget, they painstakingly constructed a system of laws thar recognized that helped create and enhance a powerful and dynamic memory form. The rabbis also knew, however, that people are fallible and they’re going to forget. To try to ensure communal coherence within th...