Frankely Judaic: Explorations in Jewish Studies

This episode explores the research of Uri Schreter, who examines the impact of Jewish LP records in shaping American Jewish identity and culture. Hosted by Jeremy Shere, the discussion delves into 'Olives, Almonds, and Raisins,' an enigmatic 1950s album by Ray Martin, highlighting its multiple versions and regional adaptations. The episode also covers the evolution of recording formats, the market...

Historian Ayelet Brin discusses her research on the American Yiddish press during World War I, focusing on government censorship and surveillance. She highlights the immense influence of the Yiddish press, the broad powers of the Espionage Act and Trading with the Enemy Act, and the role of the Bureau of Translation. Brin also examines the complex dynamics between newspapers, the government, and p...

In this episode, film scholar Olga Gershenson (University of Massachusetts Amherst; co-head fellow at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies, (University of Michigan) discusses her project, "The Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Film", a 38-chapter Oxford University Press volume available online through library access. She explains why she chose “Judaism and film” over the slippery categor...

In this episode we explore Sigal Yona’s research on Tel Aviv’s Eden Cinema, a landmark venue that opened in 1914 on the edge of the Neve Tzedek area, operated with for six decades, and closed in 1974. Yona describes how the cinema began as a contested Zionist-era project that depended on Egyptian distribution networks and multilingual advertising, drew mixed audiences during the silent-film era, a...

In this episode, we tell the story of the precursor to The Jerusalem Post--the Palestine Post, with the help of journalist and media historian Gilad Halpern. We delve into the life of Gershon Agronsky and explore how the newspaper navigated the complex terrain of British Mandate Palestine, WWII, and the establishment of the State of Israel. This narrative examines the paper's balancing act between...

In this episode, we explore the work of Matt Handelman, Associate Professor of German and core faculty in Digital Humanities at Michigan State University. We delve into his research on German Jewish intellectuals, particularly those linked to the Frankfurt School, and the concept of 'cultural politics.' The narrative traces the origins of this intellectual movement from the Weimar Republic through...

This episode explores the research of Uri Schreter, who examines the impact of Jewish LP records in shaping American Jewish identity and culture. Hosted by Jeremy Shere, the discussion delves into 'Olives, Almonds, and Raisins,' an enigmatic 1950s album by Ray Martin, highlighting its multiple versions and regional adaptations. The episode also covers the evolution of recording formats, the market...

Historian Ayelet Brinn discusses her research on the American Yiddish press during World War I, focusing on government censorship and surveillance. She highlights the immense influence of the Yiddish press, the broad powers of the Espionage Act and Trading with the Enemy Act, and the role of the Bureau of Translation. Brinn also examines the complex dynamics between newspapers, the government, and...

In this episode, host Jeremy Shere talks with Shachar Pinsker, a professor of Judaic and Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan, about the historical and contemporary relevance of the feuilleton–an arts and entertainment section of newspapers that during the 19th and 20th centuries became known as a Jewish genre of journalism. The discussion covers the origins of the feuilleton during t...

In this insightful podcast episode, Iris Rachamimov, a historian of modern European history and a visiting fellow at the Frankl Center at the University of Michigan, discusses her book project that chronicles the history of trans people in Israel from the establishment of the state to the present day. Iris delves into the personal stories of individual trans people, the formation of trans communit...

In this episode, Frankel fellow Oren Yirmiya explores how Hebrew writers have grappled with the gendered structure of Hebrew, exploring ways to express non-gendered or gender-fluid characters and concepts that work within and beyond conventional Hebrew.

In this episode, cultural historian and literary scholar Golan Moskowitz discusses his current book project, which explores the cultural history of Jewish drag and its relationship with Jewish identity in America. Through detailed analysis of significant figures such as Adah Isaacs Mencken, Flawless Sabrina, Harvey Fierstein, Charles Busch, Sadie Sadie the Rabbi Lady, and Sasha Velour, Moskowitz h...

In this captivating episode, host Jeremy Shere from Connversa speaks with Marce Gutierrez, a research fellow at the National University of Salta in Argentina. Marce shares her unique perspective as a trans woman and an anthropologist, studying the interconnected histories of Jewish and LGBTQ+ persecution in Argentina. She delves into the story of Rabbi Marshall Meyer, a key figure during Argentina...

In this episode, we explore the work of Raphael Rachel Neis, a professor of ancient history at the University of Michigan, whose book, When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven, delves into ancient rabbinic understandings of reproduction and identity, focusing on how the rabbis of the Talmud viewed the emergence of new life. The book aims to reveal a more complex, varied, and open ancient world, counter...

In this episode, historian Dr. Anna Hejkova from the University of Warwick explores rarely discussed queer histories and enforced relationships during the Holocaust. The narrative delves into the lives of concentration camp guard Anneliese Kohlmann; Helene Sommer, a female prisoner who Kohlmann forced into a relationship; Margot Heumann, a teenage prisoner who witnessed the relationship; and Willi...

In this episode, Debora Kantor, a lecturer at the National University of San Martin, Buenos Aires, discusses her research on the representation of Jews and Jewishness in Argentine modern and contemporary cinema. She delves into her specific project on Argentine nonfiction films about Israel, examining how these films reflect both collective and personal understandings of Jewish identity. The discu...

In this episode, we explore the fascinating history of the Jewish Museum in New York City. From its humble beginnings in 1904 as a small collection of ceremonial objects to its current status as a renowned institution grappling with questions of identity and purpose, the museum's story is one of constant evolution and debate. We discuss the museum's origins and early years, including the significa...

The history of European fashion typically focuses on singular, Christian European geniuses who conjured bold designs and created cutting-edge garments. But in Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jews from the Middle East and North Africa played important roles in shaping European tastes in fashion. In this episode, Devi Mays, an associate professor of Judaic Studies and history at the...

From Gold Mountain to Tinseltown: Ethnic Identity in California’s Architectural Vernacular It’s well known that millions of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe immigrated across the Atlantic to the United States, settling mostly in New York and other large cities. But some Jewish immigrants crossed the Pacific and settled on the West Coast of the United States, in cities such as San Francisco an...

Jews are no strangers to horror. They’ve encountered and dealt with horrifying events throughout their history - exile, destruction of two temples, expulsion, blood libels, ghettoization, genocide, terrorism. The list goes on and on. And so, it’s perhaps not surprising that Jewish critics and filmmakers have done some really interesting work in the horror film genre, creating what scholar Adam Low...

The rise of the Nazis and their antisemitic agenda during the early 1930s was the beginning of the darkest era of modern Jewish history. For obvious reasons, we tend to not make jokes about it. And yet, at the time, some Jewish writers and artists, including photographers, did exactly that. In this episode, Louis Kaplan, a professor of visual studies and art history at the University of Toronto, a...

2023-24 Frankel Institute "Jewish Visual Cultures" Today's Guest: Deborah Dash Moore Project Title: “Camera as Passport” During the 1930s, ‘40, and ‘50s, throughout the great depression and into the post-WWII era, photographers who were members of the NY Photo League, many of whom were Jews, documented working-class street life in New York City. And without quite realizing it at the time, they pio...

Since the earliest years of the modern state of Israel, Jews from Arab and Muslim lands, known as Mizrahim, have had to fight for equal rights and opportunities. Mizrahi Jews were looked down upon by the Zionist establishment as primitive–in many ways the very opposite of the image of the New, Western-style Jew that the establishment hoped to foster. And so, Mizrahi activists have for decades stru...

Like most Jews living in Muslim lands, the Jews of Algeria had over the centuries built a vibrant culture, with homegrown traditions, institutions, and religious practices. Tying it all together was the Algerian Jewish community’s unique dialect of Judeo-Arabic, which rendered Arabic in Hebrew script–much like Yiddish, a German dialect written in Hebrew, spoken by Jews of Eastern Europe. For centu...

Mizrahiyut, or Mizrahi identity and consciousness, is an Israeli phenomenon, born in the decades after hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab and North African lands immigrated to Israel. But recently, a version of Mizrahi identity has taken root in the United States among the sons and daughters of Mizrahi Jews who have relocated to America. In this episode of Frankely Judaic, scholar and Frankel...