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PODCAST

New Books in Jewish Studies

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

religion & spirituality judaism

All Episodes

53:25

Elisheva Baumgarten, "Beyond the Elite: Everyday...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/28

What can we learn about Jewish history when we stop focusing on great rabbis and turn instead to ordinary people? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz speaks with historian Elisheva Baumgarten about the groundbreaking volume she edited, Beyond the Elite: Everyday Jewish Lives in Medieval Northern Europe (Cornell UP, 2026). Beyond the Elite invites readers into the everyday world of Jews in medieval northern and central Europe—not through the voices of famous scholars, but through the lives of

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71:01

Yiddish in Israel: A History

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/27

The new book Yiddish in Israel: A History (Indiana UP, 2020) challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities for ideological reasons, offering instead a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew cultures. Following the Israeli Yiddish scene through the history of the Yiddish press, Yiddish theater, early Israeli Yiddish literature, and high Yiddish culture, author Rachel Rojanski tells the compelling and yet

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63:17

The Remarkable Life and Afterlife of Sholem Aleichem

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/24

Novelist, playwright, journalist, essayist, and editor, Sholem Aleichem was one of the founding giants of modern Yiddish literature. The creator of a pantheon of extraordinary characters, his literature provided readers with a window into the world of Eastern European Jews as they confronted the forces of modernity that tore through Russia at the end of the 19th century. But just as compelling as the fictional lives of his characters, was Sholem Aleichem's own life story. Born Sholem Rabinovitch in

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69:21

The Jews in Poland-Lithuania and Russia: 1350 to the...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/23

For centuries, Poland and Russia formed the heartland of the Jewish world. Until World War II, this area was home to over forty percent of world Jewry: nearly three and a half million Jews lived in Poland, and nearly three million more lived in the Soviet Union. Although the majority of American and European Jews originate from Eastern Europe, the history of this life and civilization is not well known, or has been reduced to a story of persecution and martyrdom. In his masterful three-volume

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62:20

The Vilna Gaon and the Making of Modern Judaism

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/22

The beginnings of contemporary Jewry are often associated with Jewish figures in Western Europe such as Moses Mendelssohn. But in his book, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism, Eliyahu Stern offers a new and provocative narrative for understanding contemporary Jewish life, which begins in the East, with the leading East European mystic and rabbinic scholar of the 18th century, Elijah ben Solomon, or the “Vilna Gaon.” Eliyahu Stern joined in conversation with Jeremy Dauber

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53:19

Craig Perry, "Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt:...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/21

What did slavery actually look like in the everyday lives of Jews in the medieval Middle East? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with historian Craig Perry to discuss his groundbreaking book Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt: A History (Princeton UP, 2026).Drawing on the extraordinary archive of the Cairo Geniza, Perry reconstructs a hidden world of enslaved people, merchants, and households in medieval Egypt. These fragments—letters, contracts, and legal questions preserved for

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64:16

Marc Chagall: Reflections of a Granddaughter

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/19

Marc Chagall is widely recognized as the preeminent Jewish artist of the 20th century, but little is known of his work to preserve Jewish culture. In this program, his granddaughter Bella Meyer interweaves images of Chagall’s artwork and personal letters to reflect on his life, passion for Yiddish and dedication to perpetuating Jewish heritage and culture.This program originally took place on February 17, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by

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65:22

Zainab Saleh, "Political Undesirables: Citizenship,...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/17

Political Undesirables: Citizenship, Denaturalization, and Reclamation in Iraq (Stanford UP, 2025) considers the legal making and unmaking of citizenship in Iraq, focusing on the mass denaturalization and deportation of Iraqi Jews in 1950–51 and Iraqis of Iranian origin in the early 1980s. Since the formation of the modern state of Iraq under British rule in 1921, practices of denaturalization and expulsion of citizens have been mobilized by ruling elites to curb political opposition. Iraqi

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78:46

Jewface: “Yiddish” Dialect Songs of Tin Pan Alley

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/16

With his fake beard, putty nose, and thick Yiddish accent, the “stage Jew” was once a common character in vaudeville, part of a genre that mocked immigrants and minorities. Essentially a variant of blackface minstrelsy, the music that accompanied these “Jewface” performances was not only performed on stage, but also published as colorfully illustrated sheet music so fans could play them at home. Outrageous and offensive by today’s standards, these “Yiddish” dialect songs exploited a variety of

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33:15

Michael Kimmel, "Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/14

The untold story of the first-generation Jewish American toymakers who literally manufactured “the century of the child.”In 1902, Morris and Rose Michtom invented the Teddy Bear―bound by clothing scraps, stuffed with sawdust, and given button eyes with a sad, longing expression―in the back room of their Brooklyn candy store. Together they launched the Ideal Toy Corporation, joining a set of other poor, first-generation Jewish toymakers: the Hassenfeld brothers of Hasbro, Ruth Moskowicz and Elliot

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67:03

An Evening with Philip Roth: A Conversation with...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/13

The YIVO Institute was pleased to present a special evening with acclaimed novelist Philip Roth. Roth read excerpts from his new novel, Nemesis (2010), which tells the story of a terrifying polio epidemic raging in Newark, New Jersey in the summer of 1944 and its devastating effect on the closely knit, family-oriented community and its children. Through this story, Roth addresses profound questions of human existence: What types of choices fatally shape a life? How does the individual withstand

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28:05

Joshua Berman, "Echoes of Egypt: A Haggada" (Koren,...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/09

“In every generation a person must see himself as if he himself came out of Egypt.” Mishna Pesachim 10:5 Now, Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman’s new work, The Echoes of Egypt Haggada (Koren, 2026), does just that. By incorporating the latest discoveries from archaeology, Near Eastern studies, Egyptology and more to connect the ancient world with modern scholarship, Berman’s Haggada helps this generation re-experience the exodus out of Egypt more deeply. Echoes of Egypt is a visually sumptuous journey that

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64:26

The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/08

The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City (SUNY Press, 2025) offers a new look at over a century of Yiddish culture in New York City. Author Henry H. Sapoznik focuses on theater, music, architecture, crime, Black-Jewish cultural interactions, restaurants, real estate, and journalism to tell the history of New York’s Yiddish popular culture from 1880 to the present. Culled from over five thousand Yiddish and English newspaper articles of the period, and thanks to new research from previously

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56:05

Vladka Meed's "On Both Sides of the Wall"

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/06

Vladka Meed, born Feigele Peltel, was just a teenager when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. Increasingly devastated by the deportation and murder of 300,000 Jews—including her mother, brother, and sister—who were sent from Warsaw to the death camp of Treblinka, she heeded the call for armed resistance, joining the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), established in Warsaw in July 1942. With her typically “Aryan” looks and fluency in Polish, Vladka could pose as a Gentile, so the ZOB asked her to

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43:32

Ofer Idels, "Embodying the Revolution: The Hebrew...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/03/04

Join Rabbi Marc Katz for a powerful and unexpected conversation with historian Ofer Idels author of Embodying the Revolution: The Hebrew Experience and the Globalization of Modern Sports in Interwar Palestine (Rutgers UP, 2025).This episode dives into a fascinating paradox at the heart of modern Jewish history:Why did Zionism—especially during the era of “muscular Judaism”—remain deeply ambivalent about sports? Drawing on rich archival research and contemporary theory, Idels reveals a surprising

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48:30

Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, "Lincoln and...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/02/28

In this expanded edition to a groundbreaking work, now in paperback, Lincoln and the Jews: A History (NYU Press, 2025), Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell reveal how Abraham Lincoln's unprecedentedly inclusive relationship with American Jews broadened him as president, and, as a result, broadened America. A conversation with Professor Jonathan D. Sarna.Co-authored with collector and scholar Benjamin Shapell, the book began as a lush coffee-table volume built around Shapell’s remarkable Civil

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74:56

Zev Eleff et al. eds., "The Oxford Handbook of Jewish...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/02/27

Jewish law, known as halakhah, is a unique legal system that has developed over a period of nearly two millennia, across multiple continents, and in innumerable different contexts. Dealing not only with ritual, Jewish law extends to virtually every aspect of life including ethics, business, war, and sex. This Handbook highlights foundational questions about the nature of Jewish law, emphasizing what distinguishes it from other legal systems and illuminating its vitality throughout history. The

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68:45

The Shtetl: Myth and Reality with Samuel Kassow

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/02/27

Even those who do not know much Yiddish have probably heard the word “shtetl,” but what does that word mean exactly? Can we just say that it was a small town in Eastern Europe with a lot of Jews—and leave it at that? Or was the shtetl that nostalgic world of “tradition” so lovingly celebrated in Fiddler on the Roof? How are we to understand imaginary shtetls like Sholom Aleichem’s Kasrilevke, where the “little people” ran around, talked non stop, and tried to make sense of a world they could no

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82:37

Todd H. Weir and Lieke Wijnia, eds., "The Bloomsbury...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/02/23

The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners, who explore the key challenges facing the organizations, churches, and government bodies concerned with religion and heritage. Featuring polemics, case studies, and analysis, the volume is united by

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78:55

Zalman Newfield, "Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of...

New Books in Jewish Studies ·

2026/02/23

Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth.Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of

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443 results

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