Judaism Unbound

Jeremy Dauber , the author of American Comics: A History and Jewish Comedy: A Serious History , who serves as the Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture at Columbia University, joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about these two books. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound , please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbo...

This bonus episode of Judaism Unbound is presented in partnership with Theatre Dybbuk . Once a month, their podcast -- called The Dybbukast -- releases a new episode, and we are proud to feature their second season's first episode as a bonus episode here on Judaism Unbound's channel. In each episode, they bring poems, plays, and other creative texts from throughout history to life, all while revea...

Dan and Lex celebrate the 3-century mark of podcast episodes. They consider the drastic growth of Jewish creativity and experimentation, all around the country and in the digital world, over the 6 years that Judaism Unbound has existed, and they ask what a recent New York Times magazine article can help us understand about the idea of "Jewish leadership." There are also, as a fun treat, some outda...

Julie Weitz , a performance artist whose work "uses humor and ritual to propose ethically-grounded and intersectional reconsiderations of pressing contemporary issues," joins Dan and Lex for a conversation exploring the legend of the Golem -- and how it might be relevant to our observance of the Sh'mitah year (the once-every-7-year sabbatical year, marked via a recalibration of humans' relationshi...

Musician and songwriter Ezra Furman , whose albums include Twelve Nudes (2019) and Transangelic Exodus (2018), and whose work serves as the soundtrack to the Netflix series Sex Education , joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about her spiritual journey, weaving the ancient with the new, breaking Judaism out of its "glass box," and more. Throughout, Furman speaks to the importance of creating a wo...

Ginna Green and Lynn Harris , co-hosts of A Bintel Brief -- another podcast in the ever-growing Jewish pod-o-sphere -- join Dan and Lex for a conversation about A Bintel Brief . In their discussion, they explore the evolution of A Bintel Brief from (over 100 years ago) a written advice column in Yiddish to an oral podcast, released via the internet. They also consider the value of one of the scari...

Shaul Magid , the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College and author of Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical , joins Dan and Lex for a conversation exploring this new book, which opens up discussions around some of the most important Jewish issues of our time — pride (“identity”), survival (“continuity”), unity (disunity), power, and...

Omri Harel and Gil Kidron, co-hosts of A Podcast of Biblical Proportions , join Dan and Lex for a conversation looking at the Bible as a literary text. They explore how its writing can provide hints about its authors -- and the time periods that they inhabited -- and they ask whether we might read the Bible differently from how it was taught to us when we were children. If you're enjoying Judaism...

LUNAR: The Jewish Asian Film Project , cultivates connection, belonging and visibility for Asian American Jews through authentic multimedia storytelling and intersectional community programming. Jenni Rudolph , LUNAR's Executive Creative Director, and Gen Xia Ye Slosberg , LUNAR's Executive Producer, join Dan and Lex to explore the origin and first season of LUNAR. They also offer a sneak preview...

Ilana Kaufman is the Executive Director of the Jews Of Color Initiative , which recently commissioned a study entitled Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Color . Ari Y. Kelman was a member of the research team that conducted the study. The two of them join Dan and Lex for a conversation about this new study, and how we might apply its findings to American-Jewish life,...

Dan and Lex dive into a brand new Judaism Unbound initiative called The UnYeshiva . The UnYeshiva is a brand-new, digital-first, center for Jewish learning (and unlearning, hence the name Un Yeshiva!), offering a mixture of synchronous (in-real-time) and asynchronous (at your own pace) courses. Learn more at www.unyeshiva.com ! Learn more about Dan's first course, Leadership in a Time of Wandering...

Aimee Lucido , author of the brand-new book Recipe for Disaster , joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about the book's themes of being "Jewish enough" -- even and especially when others suggest that you're not! They also touch on other topics featured in the book, including Jewish food, the Shmita year, and more. You can purchase Recipe for Disaster via this link! Also, Judaism Unbound will be ho...

Nigel Savage , the founder and former CEO of Hazon: the Jewish Lab for Sustainability , joins Judaism Unbound on the eve of Rosh Hashanah (and the Shmita year that Rosh Hashanah commences), for an inside look at Shmita in the 21st century. They explore how the recent wave of Shmita observances (beginning in 2000 and partially spearheaded by Hazon) began, and how Shmita has evolved and grown over t...

David Seidenberg , author of Kabbalah and Ecology: God's Image in the More-Than-Human World , joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about why Shmita is the central commandment of the entire Torah.  This episode is the fourth in a series of episodes about the Shmita year. The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion, first described in the Bible, and its next occurrence begins on Rosh Hashan...

Wendie and Lex are back for a special bonus episode, to think together about the holi-month of Elul, and the upcoming holi-year of Shmita (sabbatical year). In this conversation, they connect Shmita to the practice of land acknowledgement. This “mini-episode” is the second of two that have been released as part of Elul Unbound 2021 (our 13th and 14 Elul episodes overall). To listen to all of our p...

Cindy Milstein , editor of There is Nothing so Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists , joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about what anarchism is, and why "Jewish Anarchism" isn't at all a contradiction.  This episode is the third in a series of episodes about the Shmita year. The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion, first described in the Bible, and its ne...

Eli Kaplan-Wildmann , a designer and artistic director who has worked extensively on designing spaces for television and theater, along with designing Jewish ritual objects, joins Dan and Lex on this episode of Judaism Unbound. Their conversation begins with an exploration of Kaplan-Wildmann’s new project ( Shmita Steps ), which is simultaneously a “cooperative strategy game about redistribution o...

The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion. For an entire year, the land is given its own Shabbat -- a chance to rest. And it's not only humans' relationship to land that gets "reset." It is also a Biblical commandment for debts between human beings to be forgiven when the Shmita year rolls around. In this first episode devoted to the topic of Shmita (the next Shmita year begins on Rosh...

One year ago, Wendie Bernstein Lash and Lex Rofeberg released a bonus episode of this podcast entitled "Prepping for the Holi-Year." At that point, Sh'mitah, a once-every-seven-years opportunity to radically recalibrate our relationship to the planet, and to our society, was a year away. But now...it ain't a year away anymore! It's one month away. So it's time to really, truly gear up for this hol...

Dan and Lex like books! Very much! So much that...they want to consider what American Judaism would look like, if contemporary Jews centered reading Jewish fiction to the same extent that we center other elements of Jewish experience, like synagogue attendance. They also explore what might be different, if we understood that the seemingly mundane Jewish literature of one era is, potentially, the J...

Dan and Lex  continue their deep-dive into the Pew Research Center's recently-released study on Jewish Americans. They also bring in another study of American Jews -- the Jewish Electorate Institute 's National Survey of Jewish Voters -- which garnered a number of headlines due to its findings around shifting approaches of American Jews to Israel-Palestine. There are a lot of numbers/percentages f...

Tema Smith , Director of Professional Development for 18 Doors , joins Dan and Lex to discuss -- and re-frame -- the Pew Research Center's 2020 study of Jewish Americans. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound , please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unbound by clicking here! To access shownotes for this episode, click here .

Philip Graubart , author of Planet of the Jews and Women and God (and many other books ), joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about those two books. Each of them, in different ways, provides commentary on what it is to be an American Jew, and what Judaism could look like in various alternate universes. If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound , please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthl...

Rachel Sharona Lewis , author of The Rabbi Who Prayed With Fire: a Rabbi Vivian Mystery , joins Dan and Lex to talk about her book, a mystery novel that doubles as a deep-dive into Jewish communal institutions, racial justice, queer representation, and more! If you're enjoying Judaism Unbound , please help us keep things going with a one-time or monthly tax-deductible donation. Support Judaism Unb...

Dan and Lex reflect on recent conversations (7 of them!) that have intertwined explorations of Judaism, through lenses of transgender experience, and explorations of gender, through lenses of Jewish experience. They consider the myriad ways in which trans Jews are (and will continue to be!) on the front lines of efforts to pioneer sacred forms of Judaism for our time and the future, and they ask w...