Judaism Unbound

Analucía Lopezrevoredo is the founder of Latin Jewish cultural and educational organization Jewtina y Co , as well as an award-winning activist and sociologist known for her work on human migration, immigrant identity development and global Jewish communities. She joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about Latin Jewish diaspora, diversity, and emerging creative movements. Access...

Eleyna Fugman is a Jewish community-builder focused on populations that have been historically marginalized. She is the co-founder of the leadership development organization, TischPDX , and the alternative grassroots Jewish community, The Alberta Shul , both based on the Eastside of Portland, Oregon. She joins Lex Rofeberg and Dan Libenson for a conversation about crafting Jewish community outside...

Nate DeGroot is a Jewish experiential educator and activist, and currently serves as the Associate Director for The Shalom Center . He joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about Judaism as a prompt for making the world a better place. It’s not too late to register for our full-semester spring courses in the UnYeshiva! We’ve got Biblical animals, Jewish apocrypha, mythic approache...

Yosef Rosen is a historian of Kabbalah and Jewish magic, a creative Jewish educator, and an immersive ritual designer. Laura Duhan-Kaplan is an award-winning author, teacher, and spiritual leader serving as Rabbi Emerita of Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver and Professor Emerita of Philosophy at UNC Charlotte. The two thinkers join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about their upcomi...

Vanessa Harper is the Senior Director of Adult Jewish Living at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, MA and as the Reform Rabbi-in-Residence at Gann Academy in Waltham, MA. She bakes challah that interprets the Torah portion each week in what was originally an Instagram-based educational project, then a kinetic midrash class, and now a book: Loaves of Torah: Exploring the Jewish Year Through Challah ....

Jessica Tamar Deutsch is an artist whose work explores the connections between ancient Jewish tradition and contemporary creative culture and expression. Her newest visual story, Rebbe Nachman’s The Lost Princess , will be released in February and is available for pre-order through Ayin Press. In this episode, Deutsch joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about Hasidism, the creative process, and a...

Jill Hammer – award-winning author, scholar, ritualist, poet, dreamworker and midrashist – is co-founder of Beit Kohenet and of the Kohenet movement, and currently serves as the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion . She joins Dan Liebenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about dreaming as a medium for communal connection, Jewish meaning-making, and divine revelat...

This bonus episode of Judaism Unbound is presented in partnership with Theatre Dybbuk . We are proud to feature their fourth season's first episode as a bonus episode here on Judaism Unbound's feed. In each episode, they bring poems, plays, and other creative texts from throughout history to life, all while revealing their relationships to issues still present today. Subscribe to The Dybbukast on...

Laura Leibman is an award-winning author and scholar of religion in the early Americas and currently serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Adriana Brodsky is an award-winning author and scholar of Sephardic Jews in Argentina and currently serves as Professor of History at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The two thinkers join Lex...

Digital Judaism is the geography in which Judaism Unbound operates! In this conversation Dan, Lex, and Miriam reflect upon the digital Jewish past, present, and future, and consider Judaism Unbound’s continued role as a leader in — and lover of — the digital Jewish landscape. This episode is the 7th and final episode in a series of Judaism Unbound episodes exploring digital Judaism. Registration f...

LGBTQIA+ folks are among the most creative people on this planet, creating realities and reimagining a world from the inside out—not of how things are but to how things could be. Queer creativity is visionary. In what has been a time of isolation for so many people, Reed Love is teaching a mini-course in the UnYeshiva, called Cosmic Bodies: Celebrating Queer & Jewish Creativity, that will serve as...

David Biale is the Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at the University of California, Davis and the the award-winning author/co-author of seven books on Jewish history. He joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about counterculture, secularism, and reaching for our roots, all in the context of understanding the Jewish past and present. New 3-week...

Adam Mansbach is a best-selling author, screenwriter, cultural critic and humorist. His newest novel, The Golem of Brooklyn , tells the fictional story of a stoned Brooklyn art teacher who accidentally creates the Golem, a Jewish folkloric creature. He joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a discussion of the book and its broader explorations of race, faith, healing, and humor. Access full shown...

Hasia Diner is the Director of the Goren-Goldstein Center for American Jewish History at New York University , and the award-winning author of over twenty books, many of which focus on the history of American-Jewish minority communities. She joins Lex Rofeberg and Dan Libenson for a conversation about questioning tradition, raising up long-quieted voices, and turning towards under-represented indi...

In this 4th and final episode of a four-episode Hanukkah mini-series, Apocry-Fest: Hanukkah Unbound & Un-Canonized ...When we talk about Apocrypha, people tend to presume that we are focused on ancient books. Texts that were written a couple thousand years ago, but which did not make it into the Jewish Biblical canon. That’s…true, usually, even in our Apocry-Fest initiative! But we also are intere...

In this 3rd of a four-episode Hanukkah mini-series, Apocry-Fest: Hanukkah Unbound & Un-Canonized ...Have you ever thought “Dang, there aren’t enough demons in Jewish text. Especially demons with a hobby of killing potential husbands on their wedding nights.” No? That probably reflects well on you. But if, after hearing that question, you’re intrigued…wowee is the book of Tobit going to be exciting...

David Zvi Kalman , owner of the independent publishing house Print-O-Craft Press , is a scholar, writer, and entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology, religion, and art. Kalman joins Lex Rofeberg and Dan Libenson for a conversation about the present and future relationships between Judaism and artificial intelligence (AI). This episode is the sixth in an ongoing series of Judaism Unb...

In this 2nd of a four-episode Hanukkah mini-series, Apocry-Fest: Hanukkah Unbound & Un-Canonized , Lex and Liana want you to know that the book of Esther isn’t (just) what you think it is. It’s even BIGGER! And it’s in GREEK, not just Hebrew. Lex and Liana dive into expansions of the book of Esther — expansions that came along long after the original book was written — and they explore what those...

In this 1st of a four-episode Hanukkah mini-series, Apocry-Fest: Hanukkah Unbound & Un-Canonized , Lex Rofeberg and Liana Wertman (from Judaism Unbound and The Torah Studio , respectively) open up the second annual edition of Apocry-Fest: the greatest Hanukkah initiative this side of the Mississippi. And Lex and Liana are located on different sides of the Mississippi River, so that actually encomp...

Brett Lockspeiser , product designer , mosaic artist , co-founder of Sefaria , and now the co-founder of Spiritual Hardware Labs, joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about the intersection between accessible technology and meaningful ritual. This episode is the fifth in an ongoing series of Judaism Unbound episodes exploring digital Judaism. Access full shownotes for this episod...

Miriam Anzovin is a visual artist, writer, content creator, and massive Jewish nerd, exploring the juxtaposition of pop culture, nerd culture, and Jewish culture. Through her #DafReactions, an ongoing video series where she shares her reactions to the daily Talmud page on TikTok, she has become one of the world's best-known commentators on the Talmud -- though despite that, she hesitates to call h...

Olivia Devorah Tucker is a demonologist, Talmud educator, and artist teaching a course called Developing a Demon: Ashmodai Through the Ages in the UnYeshiva this fall. They join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about the world of Jewish demons and its radical, imaginative potential. This episode is the third in an ongoing series of Judaism Unbound episodes exploring digital Judaism...

Jonathan Branfman , the Eli Reinhard Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies at Stanford University, researches and teaches about Jewish identity in U.S. popular culture -- focusing on the way that Jewish stars perform race, gender, and sexuality. He joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about his upcoming mini-course in the UnYeshiva, Rude, Lewd, and Fabulous: 21st-Century Jewish Feminist Comedy, fr...

Rena Singer and Samantha Frank are the masterminds behind the viral Jewish Instagram account, Modern Ritual . When they aren’t crafting innovative Jewish social media content, Singer serves as a rabbi at Temple Sholom of Chicago , and Frank works at Sanctuary , the 92nd Y , and is a Rabbinic Fellow and DC’s Temple Micah . In this episode, they join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation...

Molly Tolsky is the founding editor of Hey Alma , and the editor of Kveller . She joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about digital Judaism, pop culture as Torah, and finding humor in dark spaces.  Learn more about Shawn Harris's upcoming (un)course, called Dungeons & Dragons & Dreidels ,  by clicking here!   It starts in just a few days (November 5, 2023), as this episode is re...