Jew Oughta Know

As the century turns, two waves of Jewish immigration come to Palestine. Immortalized through poetry and the building of lasting institutions like Tel Aviv, these immigrants set the stage for the future Jewish homeland.

Today I interview Kathy Kacer and Jordana Lebowitz, who have written a book, To Look a Nazi In the Eye. It's an account of Jordana's experience attending the 2015 trial of Oskar Groening, a Nazi SS officer stationed at Auschwitz. Was he complicit in the murder of 300,000 Hungarian Jews? Is it too late for justice? And how did this experience inspire Jordana to devote herself to human rights and Ho...

You know the story of Hanukah -- or do you?

How to revive a language that hasn't been spoken for 18 centuries? The Jews had been working to revive Hebrew for decades, but it was the Zionists -- led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and his family -- who succeeded in turning Hebrew into the national language. 

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: the Arab natives of Palestine. Who came first -- the Jews or the Arabs? And how did the early Zionists feel about the Arabs?

It's not enough just to create a new Jewish homeland. We need a New Jew. Physically strong, spiritually renewed, and connected to the land through hard physical labor. The big picture of Zionism that is emerging is that it's a movement to create an entirely new kind of Judaism for a new phase of our history.

In contrast to Herzl, Ahad Ha'Am wants "a Jewish state, and not merely a state for Jews." As the Zionist movement takes off at the turn of the century, a new branch, the Cultural Zionists, form to bring the Jewish. But events conspire to make the Zionist project more urgent.

What is Zionism? It's a tree. And Theodore Herzl outlines his vision of what the Jewish state should look like.

The trial of Alfred Dreyfus in France rallied Western European Jews around the idea of Zionism, and gave one man in particular, Theodore Herzl, a really big dream about creating a Jewish state.

We begin the story of modern Israel with the assassination of Czar Alexander II in Russia, in 1881. How the Jewish community responded tells us a lot about the origins of Zionism.

Live recorded at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, I'm kicking off Season 2. I'll be delving into modern Israel -- the rise of Zionism, the creation of Israel, the Palestinian conflict. Look out for the first episodes in August!

The Book of Genesis comes to an end as the Israelites go back and forth between Canaan and Egypt. Joseph has to decide between revenge and reconciliation. And we close out the era of the patriarchs and matriarchs, who set the Jewish People on their course.

We know from the story of Moses and the Exodus (and our recent Passover Seders) that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. But how did they get there in the first place? It has to do with Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, his coat of many colors, his 11 jealous brothers, Pharaoh, and dreams.

On the run from both Laban and Esau, Jacob wrestles with a strange being, earning him the name "Israel". He arrives back in the Promised Land to build an altar to God, but tragedy strikes his beloved wife, Rachel.

Jacob crosses the threshold on the hero's journey, dreaming of a ladder with angels going up and down. He marries both Rachel and Leah, who then compete with each other to produce male heirs. This is what we call in Hebrew a balagan​.

Esau sells his birthright -- the family inheritance -- to his younger brother, Jacob, who connives with his mother, Rebecca, to deceive his father, Isaac. But the story is also a metaphor for the historical Kingdom of Judah.

Abraham sends his servant to find Isaac (the under-appreciated patriarch) a wife. We meet Rebecca, a decisive and kind woman who seizes her destiny to become a Jewish leader.

Judaism's second holiest site is the cave where Sarah and Abraham are buried. But for someone so connected to the Promised Land, Abraham still felt like a stranger.

Abraham attempts to sacrifice Isaac but is stopped at the last second. Why did he do it?

Taking a break from the Bible to catch up on current events in Israel this past week: the evacuation of Amona, a West Bank settlement, and the Knesset's approval of a law that allows Israel to seize private Palestinian land.

Justice, divine punishment, hospitality, sexual deviancy, kindness to strangers, people getting turned into salt -- all this and more as Abraham argues with God, and opens up a new relationship between the human and the divine.

We begin the story of a great adventurer: Abram, and his wife Sarai. Starting at the age of 70, Abram will travel across the known world, sell his wife as a mistress to Pharaoh, kill some kings, circumcise himself, exhibit great generosity, try to murder his own son, and buy a crucial piece of real estate. He's also the first Jew.

So there was a major flood, Noah built an ark, and successfully landed it back on dry land. What happened next connects today's Jews with the Armenian people across a familiar historical narrative. Plus we get the first set of seven laws to govern humanity. Nice!

The human adventure begins. And almost comes to a crashing halt. From eating from the forbidden tree, to getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, to lying to God, to murdering brothers, what are these first humans trying to tell us about the nature of humanity, freedom, and moral choice?

We begin at the beginning! With nothing, and go from there. The Book of Genesis gives us two stories of creation, but they're different. So which is the "real" story?