18Forty Podcast

This episode is sponsored by Eden Beit Shemesh. Contact Rina Weinberg at info@edenbeitshemesh.com for more details. In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Mickey and Ortal Flaumenhaft—David Bashevkin’s Israeli neighbors in Teaneck—about their experiences living Jewishly in three different countries.  When the Flaumenhafts were in Israel for their son’s bar mitzvah on October 7, Mickey...

This episode is sponsored by Eden Beit Shemesh. Contact Rina Weinberg at info@edenbeitshemesh.com for more details. In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Rabbi Yehuda Turetsky—a rosh mesivta of Yeshiva Sha’alavim—and Dr. Ilana Turetsky—a Yeshiva University faculty member supervising student-teachers in Israel—about their experience raising kids in Israel. North American Orthodox Juda...

This episode is sponsored by Eden Beit Shemesh. Contact Rina Weinberg at info@edenbeitshemesh.com for more details. Noam Taragin, son of our recent guest Rabbi Moshe Taragin, was seriously injured in Lebanon. We ask to pray for his quick healing: Noam Avraham ben Atara Shlomit. In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Shayna Goldberg—a teacher, mashgicha ruchanit , yoetzet halacha , and...

This episode is sponsored by Eden Beit Shemesh. Contact Rina Weinberg at info@edenbeitshemesh.com for more details.  Noam Taragin, son of our previous guest Rabbi Moshe Taragin, was seriously injured in Lebanon. We ask to pray for his quick healing: Noam Avraham ben Atara Shlomit. In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Malka Simkovich—a scholar of Jewish history, the editor-in-chief o...

This episode is sponsored by Eden Beit Shemesh. Contact Rina Weinberg at info@edenbeitshemesh.com for more details.  In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Rav Moshe Taragin, rosh mesivta at Yeshivat Har Etzion, about the interrelated missions of American and Israeli Jews—and the stake that each of us holds in the Jewish redemptive story.  In this episode we discuss: How should young...

We're taking a week off from our main podcast, but we want to share with you an episode of our new podcast, 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers , recorded on Sept. 9. Subscribe to on  Spotify  or  Apple Podcasts  to catch the latest episode every Monday.  Until Hamas is gone, Haviv Rettig Gur says, Gaza will be unable to recover after the war. The  Times of Israel journalist and political analyst ha...

This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org . In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to musician Matisyahu Miller—known as “Matisyahu”—who has publicly re-embraced his Judaism and Zionism since October 7. Matisyahu’s public persona has long been subject to scrutiny and analysis. Comparatively few people, though, have listened to his...

In this special episode of the 18Forty Podcast , in honor of the anniversary of October 7, we revisit and reflect on the conversations we’ve had that have helped us process this tumultuous time.  The past year has been long and painful, and we’ve been constantly reminded that the trajectory of Jewish history is still at stake. This makes it imperative for us to examine our lives and our relationsh...

This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org . In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Emmi Polansky, known on social media as @livingemunah , about her journey finding agency as a single mother.  Sometimes, when we talk about teshuva, we’re referring to repentance for our specific sins. Another type of teshuva, as we explore, is...

This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org . In this episode of the 18Forty Podcas t, we talk to Tuvia Tenenbom, a formerly Haredi and now secular Jew and the author of Careful, Beauties Ahead! , about how he developed a new love for Haredi religious life. When Tuvia Tenenbom wrote a book about Haredim in Mea Shearim, he found that all Jews...

This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org . In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Yussie Zakutinsky, rabbi of K’hal Mevakshei Hashem in Lawrence, New York, about his vision for a Judaism that unites the entire Jewish People—no matter how wide the gaps between us.  Since October 7, of the many schisms within the Jewish People,...

This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org . In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Joshua Leifer and Shaindy Ort, married progressive activists who are reembracing traditional Jewish life. Joshua and Shaindy grew up in Conservative and Yeshivish communities, respectively, but struggled to find a Jewish community as they joined...

This episode is sponsored by Nishmat, the Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women, whose Online Beit Midrash returns on Sept. 8. Women of all backgrounds can learn Talmud, Tanach, Halacha, and more from the comfort of home. For a full class schedule and registration, go here .  In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to historian and professor Pawel Maciejko about t...

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we speak to the Perez family, whose son Daniel, Hashem yikkom damo , was killed defending Israel and the Jewish People on October 7.  We’re joined by Daniel’s father, Doron; his mother, Shelley; and his siblings, Shira, Adina, and Yonatan, to hear about Daniel’s courageous life and the unfathomable loss endured by his family and the Jewish People. In this e...

We're taking a week off from our main podcast, but we want to share with you an episode of our new podcast, 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers  Subscribe to on  Spotify  or  Apple Podcasts  to catch the latest episode every Monday.  The Israeli government’s draft of Haredi men is no simple matter—but Yehoshua Pfeffer has some ideas for moving forward. Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer is a Haredi social think...

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Eli Rubin—a scholar, Lubavitcher Hasid, and author of the forthcoming book Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism —about life’s big cosmic questions. Chabad and the Rebbe are so ubiquitous in Jewish life that we tend to overlook Chabad’s underlying philosophy. Here, we take the time to look under the hood...

Join our email list to receive, among other great 18Forty content, a coupon code for 10% off your Koren Publishers order, good through Aug. 31.  In this episode of the 18Forty Podcas t, we talk to Yosef Bronstein—a rabbi, writer, and scholar—about the philosophy of Chabad and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  For much of the Jewish world, the Chabad movement plays a part in our lives, but it’s not necessari...

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Chava Green—an emerging scholar who wrote her doctoral dissertation on “the Hasidic face of feminism”—about how the Lubavitcher Rebbe infused American sensibilities with mystical sensitivities, paying particular attention to the role of women. Some stereotype mysticism as something out of this world. But the Lubavitcher Rebbe showed us the import...

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to renowned Chabad speaker Rabbi YY Jacobson about Chassidus , Chabad, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  In honor the Rebbe’s 30th yahrtzeit , YY Jacobson helps us explore the purpose of Creation, our role in the world, and how the soul of the universe relates to the soul of the human being. In this episode we discuss: What is Hasidic thought, and what di...

This series is sponsored by Joel and Lynn Mael in memory of Estelle and Nysen Mael. In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we follow up with Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch to break down the anti-Zionist crisis facing the Reform Movement. As young Jews feel increasingly disconnected from the Jewish People, America’s non-Orthodox synagogues, summer camps, and day schools are challenged to ensure continuity a...

Subscribe to 18 Questions, 40 Israeli Thinkers on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to catch the latest episode every Monday.    — If you want to understand Israel, then you need to know Benny Morris. Prof. Benny Morris is a leading Israeli historian who revolutionized the field of Israeli history by digging into the government’s declassified archives in the ‘80s, ushering in the era of “New Historians” w...

This series is sponsored by Joel and Lynn Mael in memory of Estelle and Nysen Mael. In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Rabbi Adam J. Raskin—a  Conservative rabbi in Maryland—and Mia Raskin, his Orthodox daughter.  In discussing the ideological and sociological realities of Jewish denominations, we often lose sight of their real-world manifestation in Jewish life. By hearing how a...

While we return to Jewish Denominations next week, enjoy this ever-necessary 2020 conversation about Jewish infighting, division, and unity—pulled from the 18Forty vault.  In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we sit down with Professor of Journalism at Columbia and author, Samuel G. Freedman, to talk about dissent not as a cause of ugliness and divide, but of beauty and unity. Some would say th...

This series is sponsored by Joel and Lynn Mael in memory of Estelle and Nysen Mael. In this episode of the  18Forty Podcast , we talk to author and historian Dr. Marc B. Shapiro about the blurry borders that distinguish Reform, Conservative, yeshivish, Modern Orthodox, and the many other Jewish sects from one another. We take today’s Jewish denominational and cultural differences for granted, but...

This series is sponsored by Joel and Lynn Mael in memory of Estelle and Nysen Mael. In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast , we talk to Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish History at JTS, about the radical transformations of American Jewish practice over the last century. We can’t understand the Jewish People without a sobered look at what happens in our synagogues, homes, and communit...