The Jew Function Podcast

What the hell freezes over? Why is there a swastika and a star of David on the same commemorative medal? Who would commemorate such an unholy alliance and for what reason? Was there a moment in the dark days before the holocaust that offered a way out for European Jewry? And if there was one, why didn't we take it? Why didn't all Jews unite and return to their homeland? Was it a matter of personal...

WWI was one of the most pointless wars in the history of mankind. But it did serve to prove one point, namely, that try as they may, society will always look at Jews as social pariahs. It didn't matter that Jewish deaths in the war were proportional to their numbers in the population or that the wealthy industrialist Walther Rathenau used his resources and ingenuity to give Germany a lease on life...

Tolstoy said that everyone thinks to change the world but nobody thinks to change themselves. But what if your life depended on it? would you change then? Can the most stubborn people on earth look at one of its most painful episodes and draw new lessons? Although it was recorded mid 2020, this episode was eerily prophetic in anticipating the meteoric rise of antisemitism we see today. As we muste...

This is part three on the birth of Zionism and the relationships between Jews in Europe at the turn of the 19th century. The world is not a nice place but if you have a desire for unity, then maybe, just maybe, you have a little Jew in you. Why is it so hard for us to accept the conditions that led to the birth of Zionism? Why is it so difficult to connect with someone when you disagree? How come...

The moment the gates of the shtetl were thrown open by the Tzar, there was nothing keeping the Jews of Eastern Europe together. Why do some Jews feel compelled to keep to the religious tradition while others become hopeless social revolutionaries? Is this because we intuitively feel the plight of the oppressed? Or is it an unconscious defense mechanism working to ensure the society we’re in will g...

The state of Israel wouldn’t be born if not for the effects of the holocaust which in turn wouldn’t have happened if not, in part, due to the assimilation attempts of German Jews and the deep schism between them and Orthodox and Zionist Jews, the latter of which wouldn’t have existed if Jews didn’t feel they needed to aspire to return to Israel, which wouldn’t have happened if not for the “Storms...

They say history repeats itself. But it's not an exact rerun. There's always room for free choice to change the course we're on - but only if we have enough relevant information.  The human-animal was endowed by nature to be a pattern cognition machine,  evaluating the past in real-time, to predict a good positive outcome in the future. The events of the first days of 2021 and the reacti...

What's a crypto Jew and why is the very idea freaking people out? Why were Jews expelled, banished and sent out from over 800 places in the last 2000 years? Can we prevent the next big expulsion or worse? To find out, travel back in time with us to the dawn of the Spanish inquisition in the late 1400's. Indeed, in the Jewish collective consciousness, before the Holocaust the expulsion from Spain w...

“Why does he make us feel the questions if he’s not going to give us any answers?” asks Larry Gopnik in the Cohen brothers's A Serious Man.  It feels like it's the story of our people, the perfect  Schadenfreude, a bitter-sweet mystery that never lets us revel in one state alone. A life lived under the constant threat of annihilation, where every good fortune that visits us is shadowed b...

Some 2000 years ago, a gentile joined the budding Jewish nation to become the greatest teacher that ever lived. He had 24,000 students and he taught one rule: love your fellow man as you love yourself. "As yourself", meaning you love yourself more than anything else, so love this person next to you more than anything including yourself. But Akiva didn't teach a moral code, he taught a reality hack...

The bloody great revolt marked the end of the age of antiquity in the history of the Jews and the beginning of life in exile. But what actually took place inside the walls of Jerusalem in those last moments before the Romans marched in, will make your stomach turn. Unfounded hatred paved the road to the destruction of the 2nd temple with the bodies of our brothers and sisters. And the scary part i...

If Jews were not meant to be rulers, kings, and conquerors then what WERE they meant to be? Why was the victory of the Maccabees doomed from the start and, really, is there really a problem with philosophizing while hot tubbing in a gymnasium? It feels like we Jews aren’t supposed to have it good for too long but why? What is behind that recurring pattern and can we break the chain that separates...

What if the famous saying uttered during most Jewish holidays was actually " We tried to kill each other , then they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!"? What if Hanukkah wasn't the sweet festive week we were sold on as kids but actually a memory of a moment in our history that was anything but ? Something happened at 161BCE that is still happening today inside each and every person. It's happen...

When people blame Jews for all their misfortunes, are they subconsciously wishing for all their fortunes to come through them as well? Of all the empires that dominated the ancient world, none could boast a Woodstock joy fest, 3 times a year, complete with food, accommodations, and celebrations of brotherly (and sisterly) love like the Israeli nation. Little is known about those several hundred ye...

What is the real danger of intermingling? Is it about ethnic purity or ideological purity? Could it be that the horrors of the destruction of the temple we commemorate every year were brought on the Jews by the Jews themselves? Are we our own worst enemies? This is a hard pill to swallow but as we read through the mystery book, and delve into the story of Purim, it's apparent that much of the narr...

Jews built the pyramids! Some say aliens. Maybe we Jews are those aliens? Have we been sent by the universe to provide a universal example? If so of what? Is it possible that we are unconsciously controlling the switch that activates and deactivates Antisemitism? What's so peculiar about the hatred of the world to this group? Do we truly have something, a social technology that the world really ne...

Why is this, "blame the Jews for the plague", thing even an issue in 2020? Why do people feel compelled to include the Jews in every plight that humanity faces? Whats going on! In this podcast we will take a break from unpacking our mystery book on the root of antisemitism to mull over this real time phenomenon of implicating and blaming the Jews for the corona virus, covid19 and maybe, just maybe...

What is this hippy s#!%t mumbo jumbo? We jews are a proud rational people. We pride ourselves on Noble Prizes, books, ethical reasoning and the invention of Waze. What do you mean that a sticky human emotion can make the difference between persecution and reverence? Is it just wishful thinking couched in Biblical tales or an expression of the laws that govern the system of nature, evident througho...

Babylon, 3500 years ago. A great civilization plunges into chaos after attempting to build a really tall skyscraper. Or was nature trying to tell us something and Abraham was the only one who could hear it? Beyond the campfire tales and the shared mythology we want to trace the roots of the Jewish nation and use that to try and understand what it means for today and for humanity’s future. Hear ful...

"Street anti-semitism" is little more than bullying. But the great anti-semites of the past century, who have written extensively against the Jews chose to include surprisingly loving and tender messages to Jews hidden in plane sight inside their most inciting texts. Like the antidote that can only be extracted from the snake's venom, perhaps the solution to anti-semitism is lurking in the very wo...

The recent wave of anti-semitism in 2019 had sent people to the Brooklyn bridge in protest. The Coronavirus outbreak will offer little or no respite from the onslaught and I’m willing to bet the hate will only grow stronger. Join us as we go sleuthing through history with the help of a mystery book, network science, big data, and small personal stories to find the patterns that might point at a so...