Identity/Crisis

As we enter the first year of a new yet familiar U.S. presidency, American Jews are reflecting on their relationship with governance and power structures as individuals and as a collective. On this episode of Identity/Crisis, Yehuda Kurtzer is joined by Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish History and Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University. They discus...

With right-wing ultranationalism on the rise in Israel, how can the left reclaim a language of safety and morality? Yair Golan, leader of the Israel Democratic Party, has some ideas. This week he joins host Yehuda Kurtzer for a surprisingly frank discussion of the complicated (or in Golan’s view, not so complicated) challenges facing Israeli society and its leaders.. You can now sponsor an episode...

How do the books we read shape our memories? To close out the year, we’re bringing you a special episode from The Five Books Podcast, a new podcast that celebrates the role of books in our lives, featuring Yehuda Kurtzer.   Each week on The Five Books, host Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen speaks with a Jewish author about the books that have shaped them, shifted their perspective, or guided their journey. T...

The relegation of Hanukkah merchandise to a tiny corner of the grocery aisle can cause Jews to feel excluded or marginalized by the Christmas holiday season. But the impact of Jews on the history and culture of secularized Christmas is deeper than you might think. In this exciting new Yuletide episode of Identity/Crisis, host Yehuda Kurtzer and American composer and music commentator Rob Kapilow s...

In times of turmoil, Jewish communities rely heavily on their leaders for guidance. On this episode of Identity/Crisis, guest host Claire Sufrin, editor of Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, sits down with Rabbi Elka Abrahamson to discuss her article in the new Fall/Winter 2024 issue about how Jewish leaders are rising to the challenge of this moment and guiding their communities through turbulen...

This political moment may cause American Jews to ask: “Where have we seen this before?” In this episode recorded live in NYC, Yehuda Kurtzer challenges the impulse to reach backwards for old frameworks to describe our current situation, and instead offers a vision for a new era in American-Jewish politics – one shaped by a culture of compromise and defined by an embrace of kindness. You can now sp...

Donald Trump’s presidential comeback has many fearful for the future of American democracy. As with most recent election cycles, last week’s process was mired in a discourse of absolute and incompatible truths, creating conflicts in local communities that many are struggling to reconcile.     Yehuda Kurtzer approached six Hartman faculty, fellows, and staff with the question: What should be the ag...

In addition to their responsibilities as leaders and shapers of local Jewish communities, rabbis are responsible for leading the Jewish people forward into the future. The weight of this work is heavy, but the number of people who choose the rabbinic profession is dwindling. In the third and final episode of Rabbinic Identities/Rabbinic Crises, our guests discuss the boundaries of the Jewish tent,...

North American Jews are seeking different types of belonging, marked by a steady decline in synagogue membership over the last several decades. What are people searching for in their Jewish communal lives, and how are rabbis adjusting their work to accommodate these new communal needs? In this second episode of Rabbinic Identities/Rabbinic Crises, our guests discuss the considerations in finding t...

For rabbis, the line between the personal and the professional is not always clear cut. As leaders of communities, they are in the public eye and trusted as models of Jewish living, while also living in and among the community. In this first episode of Rabbinic Identities/Rabbinic Crises, Yehuda Kurtzer explores our guests’ paths to the rabbinate and the challenges and blessings of working in and...

In the hours following October 7, 2023, Yehuda Kurtzer reached out to friends and colleagues in Israel, both expressing his concern and support and asking them to share their personal experiences following Hamas’ deadly attack. He gathered their responses in A Nation That Can’t Sleep, released on October 11. This year, Yehuda reconnected with those same friends and colleagues, inviting them to ref...

As we gather in synagogues across the world for Rosh Hashana this week, we confront human mortality with the fresh memory of so much violent death since October 7, and the threat of more to come. This week Yehuda Kurtzer spoke with Yair Furstenberg, Professor of Talmud at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, about how Jewish tradition can help us confront death’s senselessness.     You can now spon...

November is rapidly approaching, and with it the end of the tumultuous U.S. presidential election cycle. In this week's episode, Yehuda Kurtzer speaks with Aaron Dorfman, Founder and Executive Director of A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy, about his efforts to mobilize the American Jewish community to strengthen U.S. democracy, what’s at stake in this election, and how Ame...

At a time when society feels more divided than ever, Yair Zivan, diplomatic advisor to Yair Lapid and author of the new book, The Centre Must Hold, is advocating for centrism. On this week’s episode, Yair chats with guest host and Shalom Hartman Institute Vice President Justus Baird about topics ranging from the politics around hostage deals to the American two-party divide and shares his vision f...

The recovery of the bodies of six hostages over the weekend, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin z”l, brought with it a fresh round of mourning in the ongoing collective grief for Israelis and Jews around the world since October 7. In this week’s episode, Yehuda Kurtzer explores the personal, political, and ethical questions that emerge during this painful and uncertain moment. You can now sponsor an e...

This episode was originally released on January 16, 2024. The relationship of many Jews to top tier American universities has recently undergone a transformation from an aspiration to study at an ivy league institution to a desire to join more hospitable campuses. On this episode of Identity/Crisis, Yehuda Kurtzer is joined by Mark Oppenheimer to examine the longstanding and evolving relationship...

With the fall academic semester just around the corner, guest host Claire Sufrin, Editor of Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, shares two of the winning essays from the first student writing contest in the summer issue, Jewish on Campus. In the first essay, Princeton University senior Stephen Bartell rejects the claim that the Israel-Hamas War can only be understood in black-and-white terms in hi...

This year on Tisha b’Av—the ninth of the Jewish month of Av—we’re bringing you an episode from our podcast TEXTing featuring Hartman fellows Elana Stein Hain and Leora Batnitzky: Living through crisis propels us to reflect on historical crises and consider the consequences of our behavior on future generations. As Tisha B’av approaches, Elana and Leora study a text from Jeremiah (Yirmiyahu) chapte...

This episode was originally released on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. The whole world is watching Israel’s next moves in Gaza, particularly on the amplified information battleground of social media where images of civilian suffering and desolation abound. What is the ethical calculus at play for the IDF in continuing to conduct this war? In this episode, Yehuda Kurtzer speaks to writer and philosopher Ra...

This episode was originally released on May 28th, 2024. October 7th and its unfolding aftermath have triggered a seismic shift in Jewish communal life. In this episode, Yehuda Kurtzer sits down with Mimi Kravetz, Chief Impact and Growth Officer for the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), to talk about JFNA’s recent surveys on Jewish community engagement, vulnerability, and solidarity with...

With elections top of mind for Jews in the U.S, Israel, and around the world, growing threats to liberalism and the rise of religious fundamentalism, populism, and identitarianism pose the question – are we going back in time? This week on Identity/Crisis, Yehuda Kurtzer and Tomer Persico discuss the current challenges to liberalism as a Jewish value and why its survival may be the only path forwa...

At a time when it can be easy to focus on the threats to North American Jewish life, it’s important to remember that the current generation of American Jews benefits from more affluence, influence, power, and privilege than any other Jewish community in history. In this episode recorded in front of a live audience, Yehuda Kurtzer argues that we are heirs to a golden age of American Jewry, and that...

The Democratic congressional primary in New York’s 16th District was one of the most closely watched this year and ended with Representative Jamaal Bowman losing to George Latimer. Yehuda Kurtzer and J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami discuss Bowman’s visit to Israel with J Street and the shift in Bowman’s politics and strategy during his time in office. You can now sponsor an episode of Identity/C...

With looming threats and escalating violence from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel is being forced to shift its gaze to the North. In this episode, Yehuda Kurtzer speaks with journalist and author Matti Friedman about the rising tensions with Lebanon, Hezbollah’s history and ethos, and the ideological and geopolitical challenges currently faced by Israel. You can now sponsor an episode of Identity/Cri...

The latest issue of Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, centers around Jewish life on university campuses, where anti-Zionism and antisemitism have become frighteningly visible. In this week’s episode, guest host Claire Sufrin, editor of the award-winning Journal, speaks with Adena Kirstein, Executive Director of Hillel at the George Washington University, about her article in this issue where she...