Jewish Studies

July 13, 2026

Jewish Firebugs

Why were Jews once stereotyped as America's arsonists? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with historian Jeffrey Marx to discuss his fascinati…

July 13, 2026

Heidegger in Ruins

Martin Heidegger’s sympathies for the conservative revolution and National Socialism have long been well known. As the rector of the University of Fre…

July 10, 2026

Yiddish Tangos and Klezmer Mambos

This panel discussion will explore the remarkable influence of Latin American music and dance on the culture of Yiddish speaking communities in the Un…

July 8, 2026

Psychoanalysis and Jewish Languages

There is an academic interest in the "Jewish Freud," aiming to detect Jewish influences on Freud, his own feelings about being Jewish, and suppressed …

July 6, 2026

Mixed-Sex Dancing and Jewish Modernity

Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prej…

July 6, 2026

Who Is American?

The history of Jews in the United States is often told as if they immigrated, gained citizenship, and almost immediately achieved full legal rights. Y…

July 5, 2026

Here Where We Live Is Our Country

Molly Crabapple joins Michael Stauch to discuss the history of the Jewish Labor Bund, the subject of her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Count…

July 4, 2026

Chai Noon

Only a few Westerns contain explicitly Jewish stories or themes, and very rarely do Old West tales involve identifiably Jewish characters. Yet Jewish …

July 3, 2026

Max Weinreich and the Meaning of Yiddish

Max Weinreich spent the entirety of his adult life building YIVO and the field of Yiddish Studies. A 'convert' to the cause of Yiddishism in his adole…

July 1, 2026

Good Goy, Bad Goy

Gentiles often appeared in the news sections of the London Yiddish press, and sometimes they also appeared in the regular “feuilleton” section in char…

June 29, 2026

The 'Tsenerene'

Arguably the most popular book in the history of Yiddish literature, the Tsenerene (alternative Romanization: Ze’enah U-Re’enah) has been reprinted, b…

June 25, 2026

The Jewish Press Today

In 1897 when the Forverts was founded, the need for a Jewish newspaper—a Yiddish newspaper that is—was self-evident: millions of Yiddish speaking Jew…

June 24, 2026

Antizionism as a Distinct Anti-Jewish Bigotry

In contemporary discourse, antizionism is treated either as legitimate political critique or as bigotry only when it resembles recognizable forms of c…

June 22, 2026

A Very Jewish Christmas

In Jewish memory, Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi were heretics, false messiahs who rebelled against the rabbis and against normative Judaism. But a funny thin…

June 20, 2026

Hidden Heretics

In her recent publication, Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age, scholar Ayala Fader tells the fascinating, often heart-wrenching stories …

June 18, 2026

European Jews in the 21st Century

What is the status of Jews in Europe in the 21st century? How do they maintain vital communities? Do they desire to remain in Europe? To remain Jewish…

June 17, 2026

Contesting Zion

The modern relationship between the Vatican and the State of Israel is rooted in a long history of hostility between Judaism and Roman Catholicism. Th…

June 17, 2026

Always Carry Salt

I had the privilege of speaking with writer Samantha Ellis about her deeply moving new book, Always Carry Salt: A Memoir of Preserving Language and Cu…

June 17, 2026

In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Ingrid Piller speaks with Frank Stahnisch, Professor of the History of Medicine and Health Care a…

June 16, 2026

Jewish Identity in Lithuania Today

Join YIVO for a conversation about the resurgence of interest in Jewish identity and history in Lithuania today. Jonathan Brent will moderate a conver…