The Art/Lab Podcast: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture

As season 2 kicks off, Rabbi Josh will be adding weekly reflections and teachings about things that you might find interesting in the Jewish world and beyond the Jewish world. This week he shares an ancient Jewish teaching that resonates with what's happening in the United States right now. It's a midrash - an ancient Jewish retelling of a Bible story - that offers a wild take on a story from the...

We're back for Season 2 of the Genesis,  continuing to explore Jewish identity and culture. In addition to now weekly conversations, Season 2 will feature weekly-ish reflections from Rabbi Josh on a variety of Jewish topics.  Alicia Jo Rabins is a Jewish writer, musician, composer, performer and Torah teacher. She combines words, music, ritual and performance to create works exploring the intersec...

Rabbi Josh shares a powerful teaching about Purim, about the Jewish response to a world in a crappy state of suffering.... and the true meaning of faith PLUS: more to come from the podcast in coming weeks, an awesome Israeli movie and more. 

This week Rabbi Josh raps with Jeff Alden - if that really is his name - who tells a beautiful and moving story about uncovering an important piece of his own autobiography rather late in life. We cover a little bit of Jewish immigrant history, how America allowed people of all backgrounds to reinvent themselves, and how Jewish identity and culture are sometimes at work in the background of our li...

Is Self-Criticism a Jewish trait? What role does it play in inspiring us - or damaging us?  Liz Asch Greenhill is no stranger to the  Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish universe. I came to know Liz through our Jewish artist fellowship, Art/Lab, and have come to really respect how her ongoing search for self-overcoming and renewal has led her down new pathways. We discuss Jewish identity, self criticism and...

Rabbi Josh sat down with Zac Banik, an alumnus of our Art/Lab program (second cohort) and a thoughtful, creative human (actually this was two conversations SEAMLESSLY woven together through editing). Their conversation covers the tension between creativity/innovation and tradition in Jewish life and art, how we think about what we owe the Jewish past and the Jewish future, and they delve into Zac'...

This is a stressful, nail-biting week of argumentation, animosity and election stress. So, we take you in another direction: music that brings people together in literal and figurative harmony.  Jewish music has been an entryway for those in the Jewish community  who otherwise have felt alientated from Jewish prayer.  A Niggun is a wordless melody that people sing together and can be transcedent....

This is an episode from a partner podcast, Unveiling Death, hosted by Rabbi Josh's dear friend Rabbi Jeffrey Weill. Rabbi Weill asked Rabbi Josh and antoher dear friend Rabbi Matt Reimer to have a discussion on the anniversary of October 7th.

An unusual episode this week - Rabbi Josh is the interlocutor instead of the interviewer as he and his friend Shawn Weiss take up the war in Israel. The two have different takes on how to think about the meaning of the War and its implications, and how to reckon with the values at stake. They differ on how to think about the war but do so without polemics, cheap shots, labels or acrimony. Instead...

Rabbi Brian Mayer joins us to discuss his new book and his organization, Religion Outsisde of the Box.  Rabbi Brian is a lot of fun to talk to as you'll see - but the conversation also gets very serious and even intense.  Enjoy!

Daniela Molnar is a friend, a graduate of the first Art/Lab cohort, an accomplished poet and artist, and a brainy Jew trying to figure out how to be a responsible human living a life of meaning. Enjoy the convo!  

Eleyna Fugman is the co-Founder and Director of TischPDX in Portland, a leadership development organization whose mission is to "Bolster the Leadership of Young and Marginalized Jews in Portland, OR."  Eleyna and Rabbi Josh worked together back in 2016 in a Portland synagogue. In this conversation they reflect on the relationship between syagogues and the emerging Jewish world, the ways in which s...

Listen to find out!

My friend Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder constatly strives for authenticity and growth in his life. That makes him a great haver (friend) and a good conversational partner. We talk about why Jewish wisdom is so powerful and why services are so often boring, whether our lives are just scripts that we act out, and what Gavriel would do if he were appointed Emperor of the Jews. Enjoy!

Professor Moshe Rachmuth and Rabbi Josh discuss Rachmuth's wide-ranging interest, what keeps him hopeful in the face of terrible events, his research on Israeli singer Noa and her political work, finding truth in an era of political scream-fests, Zionism(s) and Judaism(s), and more. Enjoy. 

In this week's episode of The Genesis I get to speak with Roy Kaufman, a smarty-pants with a political and comedic mind. We touch on sarcasm as (hilarious) Jewish trauma response, shamanism, the politics of the drugware, weed, and Roy's podcast. Roy is the Communications Director for Oregon's Attorney General but more important, a thoughtful Jewish guy with a lot of ideas to share. Enjoy. 

Metasabiya (aka Tammy) and Rabbi Josh get into it, exploring shifts in Jewish identity, post October 7th politics, Jews of color, racism on the left, Israeli punk, and more. Tammy is a brainy Jewish lady in Portland who has a useful perspective on these issues - she is an Israeli-born Jew of Ethiopian descent. She doesn't pull punches in this wide-ranging conversation, this inaugural podcast of Th...