New Books Network
Jewish Studies
German Studies October 26, 2021

Jewish Difference and the Arts in Vienna

Composing Compassion in Music and Biblical Theater

Caroline A. Kita

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
During the mid-19th century, the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner sparked an impulse toward German cultural renewal and social change that drew on religious myth, metaphysics, and spiritualism …

Jewish Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Judaism about their new books.

Jewish Studies October 26, 2021

Is Superman Circumcised?

The Complete Jewish History of the World's Greatest Hero

Roy Schwartz

Hosted by Amber Nickell
​Introduced in June 1938, the Man of Steel was created by two Jewish teens, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the sons of immigrants from Eastern Europe. They based their hero’s …
Jewish Studies October 25, 2021

Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn

Philosophy and Jewish Thought

Ethan Kleinberg

Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this episode, I interview Ethan Kleinberg, professor of history and letters at Wesleyan University, about his new book, Emmanuel Levinas’s Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought, recently published by …
Jewish Studies October 15, 2021

A Fortress in Brooklyn

Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg

Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
The Hasidic community in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn is famously one of the most separatist, intensely religious, and politically savvy groups of people in the entire United States. Less …
Jewish Studies October 15, 2021

The Prince and the Emperors: The Life and Times of Rabbi Judah the Prince

Dov Zakheim

Hosted by Michael Morales
Rabbi Judah the Prince transformed the Mishnah into a text, and now Dov Zakheim, culling from a fascinating array of sources, has brought to life the story and historical times …
Jewish Studies October 14, 2021

Survival on the Margins

Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union

Eliyana R. Adler

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Between 1940 and 1946, thousands of Jewish refugees from Poland lived and toiled in the harsh Soviet interior. They endured hard labor, bitter cold, and extreme deprivation. But out of …
Politics & Polemics October 13, 2021

The Dawn of Redemption

Ethics and Tradition in a Time of Power

Mikhael Manekin

Hosted by Yakir Englander
In The Dawn of Redemption: Ethics and Tradition in a Time of Power (Evrit, 2021), Mikhael Manekin argues that modern Jewish nationalism--widespread today among secular as well as religious Israeli-Jews--is …
Eastern European Studies October 12, 2021

In the Midst of Civilized Europe

The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust

Jeffrey Veidlinger

Hosted by Leslie Waters
Between 1918 and 1921, over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in Ukraine by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. In …
Eastern European Studies October 12, 2021

Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust

OUN and UPA's Participation in the Destruction of Ukrainian Jewry, 1941-1944

John-Paul Himka

Hosted by Steven Seegel
One quarter of all Holocaust victims lived on the territory that now forms Ukraine, yet the Holocaust there has not received due attention. John-Paul Himka's Ukrainian Nationalists and the Holocaust …
Jewish Studies October 12, 2021

The Soul of the Mishna

Yakov Nagen

Hosted by Michael Morales
As the foundational text of the Oral Torah in Judaism, the Mishnah is generally analyzed to understand Jewish law and the workings of the halakhic system. But Yakov Nagen, in …
Israel Studies September 29, 2021

Dear Palestine

A Social History of the 1948 War

Shay Hazkani

Hosted by Avery Weinman
In 1948, a war broke out that would result in Israeli independence and the erasure of Arab Palestine. Over twenty months, thousands of Jews and Arabs came from all over …
Genocide Studies September 22, 2021

Comrades Betrayed

Jewish World War I Veterans under Hitler

Michael Geheran

Hosted by Kelly McFall
What claims could Jewish veterans make on the Nazi state by virtue of their having fought for Germany?  How often did Germans treat Jewish veterans differently from Jewish men without …
Religion September 21, 2021

A Most Peculiar Book

The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible

Kristin Swenson

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
The Bible is not only a book but also a collection of books. It has many authors but also at the same time many editors. It has not only been …
Israel Studies September 20, 2021

Yiddish in Israel

A History

Rachel Rojanski

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
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 …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel September 16, 2021

The Star and the Scepter

A Diplomatic History of Israel

Emmanuel Navon

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
The first all-encompassing book on Israel’s foreign policy and the diplomatic history of the Jewish people, The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic History of Israel (Jewish Publication Society, 2020) retraces …
Poetry September 13, 2021

The Things We Are Not Talking About

Shlomit Naim Naor

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Shlomit Naim Naor’s poetry is a unique voice in Israel. She is inviting the readers to delve deeper and engage in a dialogue with the Jewish religion and texts …
Israel Studies September 9, 2021

Leaving Zion

Jewish Emigration from Palestine and Israel after World War II

Ori Yehudai

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Ori Yehudai's erudite examination of Jewish emigration from Israel in the early years of the state presents a fascinating study of the lived experiences of Israeli refugees from Israel. This …
Jewish Studies September 2, 2021

Hebrew Infusion

Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps

Sarah Bunin Benor, Jonathan Krasner, and Sharon Avni

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Each summer, tens of thousands of American Jews attend residential camps, where they may see Hebrew signs, sing and dance to Hebrew songs, and hear a camp-specific hybrid language register …
Biblical Studies September 1, 2021

Memoir of Moses

The Literary Creation of Covenantal Memory in Deuteronomy

A. J. Culp

Hosted by Michael Morales
Memory plays a central role in the book of Deuteronomy, meant to shape Israel’s life as a nation in the land. In Memoir of Moses: The Literary Creation of Covenantal …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel August 31, 2021

From Africa To Zion

The Shepherd Boy Who Became Israel's First Ethiopian-born Journalist

Danny Adeno Abebe

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
In 1984, in an unprecedented act of brotherhood, Israel airlifted thousands of persecuted and starving Ethiopian Jews from Africa to Israel. They had been waiting in Ethiopia for millennia, sustained …