Tablet Studios

Producer Josh Kross goes deep into the Facebook group to make another Havdalah service to bring a little light into your Saturday night social distancing. If you want to keep these minisodes going, we’d love for you to rate Unorthodox on iTunes and set up a recurring donation—we suggest $5/month, which is to say one fancy coffee a month—at tabletmag.com/donate And, as always, if you want to keep u...

On today’s Unorthodox dispatch, Liel prepares for a much-needed Shabbat with a joke by Columbia University professor Jeremy Dauber, an expert on Jewish humor, as well as a couple songs by Avi Wisnia, and a few timely words of wisdom from this week's parsha. Avi Wisnia is an award-winning singer, songwriter, storyteller and educator based in Philadelphia. For more information visit www.aviwisnia.co...

This week on Unorthodox, the hosts catch up from their home studios and discuss the latest News of the Jews in this strange new world. Actor and writer Jesse Eisenberg returns to the show to discuss his two new movies out this week, Resistance and Vivarium. He tells us about playing a young Marcel Marceau saving Jewish children in France during the Holocaust in Resistance, and how Coronavirus shut...

Producer Josh Kross does another impromptu Havdalah service to bring a little light into your Saturday night social distancing. If you want to keep these minisodes going, we’d love for you to rate Unorthodox on iTunes and set up a recurring donation—we suggest $5/month, which is to say one fancy coffee a month—at tabletmag.com/donate And, as always, if you want to keep up with all things Unorthodo...

On today’s Unorthodox dispatch, Liel prepares for a much-needed Shabbat with a joke by Columbia University professor Jeremy Dauber, an expert on Jewish humor, as well as a song by the Jewbador, Jim Knable, and a few timely words of wisdom from this week's parsha. If you want to keep these minisodes going, we’d love for you to rate Unorthodox on iTunes and set up a recurring donation—we suggest $5/...

This week, our hosts are connecting via Zoom conference to discuss their new remote realities and read a lot of listener mail. We also hear from Tablet writer Yair Rosenberg, who composed and recorded an album of original modern melodies for traditional Jewish songs (listen to the first single, a Mumford and Sons-esque “Shalom Aleichem,” here). We’re going to continue dropping mini episodes in add...

On today’s Unorthodox dispatch, producer Sara Fredman Aeder shares an audio diary recorded over the last week as her family has been living under quarantine in Westchester, NY. If you want to keep these minisodes going, we’d love for you to rate Unorthodox on iTunes and set up a recurring donation—we suggest $5/month, which is to say one fancy coffee a month—at tabletmag.com/donate And, as always,...

On today’s Unorthodox dispatch, we’re talking to Tablet’s book critic Adam Kirsch about what to read now that you might have a bit more time on your hands. If you want to keep these minisodes going, we’d love for you to rate Unorthodox on iTunes and set up a recurring donation—we suggest $5/month, which is to say one fancy coffee a month—at tabletmag.com/donate. And, as always, if you want to keep...

On the latest Unorthodox COVID-19 minisode, Mark pulls his daughter Klara, age nine, into his basement studio, where she offers reflections on how real-life self-quarantine differs from the good times she’d come to expect from the scarlet-fever chapter in Sydney Taylor’s classic children’s novel. Also, Mark reflects on attending twins’ double bat mitzvah on Shabbat morning ... despite all the shul...

Unorthodox producer Josh Kross tries to bring some light at the end of Shabbat with some help from our Facebook group and Stephanie's talk with Swipe Out Hunger's Rachel Sumekh about her organization's response to COVID-19.

While the world is quarantining and canceling around us, we decided to bring you all a little Shabbat light.

This week, it’s coronavirus vs. Purim, with a quarantine update from one of our producers. Our Jewish guest is Wall Street Journal sports reporter Ben Cohen, who joins us to discuss his new book, The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks. The last of the host’s spouses to appear on the show, Ben tells us about his deep dive into the world of patterns, probability, and statistics, plus the m...

This week, we’re getting into the festive Purim spirit. Our first guest is fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, who tells us about growing up gay in Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community, how his years at Yeshiva at Flatbush instilled in him a strong work ethic, and getting his first taste of high fashion at synagogue. For more from Isaac, check out his memoir, I.M. (You can read Adam Kirsch’s review for...

 This week on Unorthodox: Jewish royal watching, Belgian parades, and more. Liel speaks with Harvard professor emeritus Ruth Wisse about the reissue of her book Jews and Power. She shares her theory about how the impulse to want to be a mensch might be leaving Jews defenseless, why she thinks the Holocaust is being mistaught in American schools, and more. Our Gentile of the Week is Antonia Eliason...

This week we’re bringing you two interviews from our live show at the Valley of the Sun JCC in Phoenix, Arizona. First up, we get a double shot of rabbinical wisdom from Pinchas Allouche, the founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Tefillah, and Shmuly Yanklowitz, the president & dean of Valley Beit Midrash. They each share the story of their unlikely journey towards becoming a rabbi, and explain how...

This week, we’re celebrating secular Tu B’Av, aka Valentine’s Day. The creator of stars of Soon By You, the popular web series that’s basically ‘Friends’ with modern Orthodox Jews, return to the show to update us on their latest season, deciding to take on controversial issues like LGBT dating in the religious world, and what it’s like to write and star in a show about singles now that they’re mar...

This week, we’re putting more truth on the wheel. First, Mark talks to Mark Galli, who until recently was the editor in chief of evangelical magazine Christianity Today. Just before retiring he published a highly controversial editorial arguing that President Trump should be removed from office. He describes the fallout from the article, and shares his thoughts about where evangelical Christians s...

This week, presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg are leaning into their Jewishness (see here and here), and we’re here to analyze their efforts. Our Jewish guest is Andrew Rehfeld, the new president of Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement’s rabbinic and educational training ground. He tells us how the institution is adapting to face the challenges of the 21st century, targ...

This week, we learn how to complain better. Our first guest is Amy Fish, the ombudsman for Concordia University in Montreal and the author of I Wanted Fries with That: How to Ask for What You Want and Get What You Need. She tells us what she learned working as “chief complaints officer” for a university (and before that a Jewish nursing home!), and shares a few simple tricks to help us all better...

This week on Unorthodox: Three Jews, infinite opinions. First, Mark sits down with Yiscah Smith, a Jewish educator, spiritual activist, and author. Yiscah discussed her journey as a trans woman and teacher of Torah; her documentary, I Was Not Born a Mistake will be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival on Tuesday, January 21. More info here. Our next guest is Danny Dayan, Israel’s Consul Gene...

Unorthodox is off this week, so instead we're introducing you to Take One, the new Daf Yomi podcast from Tablet Magazine hosted by our own Liel Leibovitz. As Jews around the world begin a new seven-and-a-half year cycle of Daf Yomi, reading the entire Talmud one page per day, Tablet Magazine's new podcast, Take One, will offer a brief and evocative daily read of the daf. We launch the cycle with a...

We’re starting 2020 with our favorite combo: Talmud and food. First, Adam Kirsch reflects on completing the seven-year cycle of Daf Yomi, the practice of reading one page of Talmud each day, which he chronicled in a column for Tablet. He tells us what he learned as a reader and literary critic from this intense textual undertaking, plus how his life has changed in the seven years since he started....

This week, we’re coming to you live from Denver’s JCC Mizel Arts and Culture Center as part of the 12th annual Neustadt Jewish Arts, Authors, Movies, and Music Festival. Our Jewish guest is Sue Salinger, director of the Denver region of Hazon, the environmental organization working to strengthen Jewish life and contribute to a more environmentally sustainable world. She tells us what Jewish tradit...

New York-area listeners: Enter to win a spot at our first-ever Unorthodox Shabbat dinner, January 3rd at the Freehand New York. This week on Unorthodox, we’re getting into the Hanukkah spirit.  But first, a discussion of the terrifying anti-Semitic shooting at a Jersey City kosher market that killed four people. Then, Rabbi Ari Lamm explains the real story of Hanukkah, which is less about oil and...

This week on Unorthodox, we’re very literally all over the place. First, we bring you News of the Jews from our live show earlier this week at the Valley of the Sun JCC in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. Then we call Wall Street Journal reporter Louise Radnofsky to figure out why so many figure skaters perform to the Schindler’s List theme song. Stephanie sits down with Sarah Hurwitz, a former speechw...