Jewish Studies

Jewish Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Judaism about their new books.

Jehanne Dubrow, "Exhibitions: Essays on Art and Atrocity" (U New Mexico Press, 2023)

March 24, 2024

Exhibitions

Jehanne Dubrow
Hosted by Amber Nickell

What happens when beauty intersects with horror? In Exhibitions: Essays on Art and Atrocity (U New Mexico Press, 2023), Jehanne Dubrow interrogates th…

Chiara Renzo, "Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy 1943-1951: Politics, Rehabilitation, Identity" (Routledge, 2023)

March 24, 2024

Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy 1943-1951

Chiara Renzo
Hosted by Drora Arussy

Chiara Renzo's book Jewish Displaced Persons in Italy 1943-1951: Politics, Rehabilitation, Identity (Routledge, 2023) focuses on the experiences of th…

Kira Sirote, "Haftorah Unrolled: Weekly Insights from the Prophets" (2018)

March 22, 2024

Haftorah Unrolled

Kira Sirote
Hosted by Matthew Miller

Haftorah Unrolled explores the weekly readings from the Prophets (known as the "haftorah") and their connections to the corresponding Torah portions. …

Shoshanna Lockshin and Efrayim Unterman, "The Devash Megillat Esther" (Hadar Press, 2024)

March 21, 2024

The Devash Megillat Esther

Shoshanna Lockshin and Efrayim Unterman
Hosted by Matthew Miller

The Devash Megillat Esther (Hadar Press, 2024) includes the full Hebrew Megillah text, an original kid-friendly English translation, and carefully sel…

Yaacov Nir, "Establishment and History of the Cyprus Detention Camps for Jewish Refugees (1946-1949) (Cambridge Scholars, 2024)

March 19, 2024

Establishment and History of the Cyprus Detention Camps for Jewish Refugees (1946-1949).

Yaacov Nir
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Yaacov Nir's Establishment and History of the Cyprus Detention Camps for Jewish Refugees (1946-1949) (Cambridge Scholars, 2024) explores the nature of…

Rachel Blumenthal, "Right to Reparations: The Claims Conference and Holocaust Survivors, 1951–1964" (Lexington, 2021)

March 18, 2024

Right to Reparations

Rachel Blumenthal

Right to Reparations: The Claims Conference and Holocaust Survivors, 1951–1964 (Lexington, 2021) examines the early years of the Claims Conference, th…

Rachel Gordan, "Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American" (Oxford UP, 2024)

March 18, 2024

Postwar Stories

Rachel Gordan
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The period immediately following World War II was an era of dramatic transformation for Jews in America. At the start of the 1940s, President Roosevel…

Dan Stone, "The Holocaust: An Unfinished History" (Mariner Books, 2023)

March 18, 2024

The Holocaust

Dan Stone
Hosted by Kelly McFall

The Holocaust is much-discussed, much-memorialized and much-portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning …

Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa, "The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust" (Simon & Schuster, 2024)

March 17, 2024

The Counterfeit Countess

Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa
Hosted by Piotr Kosicki

World War II and the Holocaust have been the subject of many remarkable stories of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Wom…

Stephanie Chasin, "British Jews and Imperial Service: Nationalism, Pan-Islamism and Zionism in Mandate Palestine and Colonial India" (I. B. Tauris, 2023)

March 17, 2024

British Jews and Imperial Service

Stephanie Chasin
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the wake of the devastating WWI, three Jews headed the most valuable territory in the British Empire in addition to a strategically important new a…

Robin Baker, "Hollow Men, Strange Women: Riddles, Codes, and Otherness in the Book of Judges" (Brill, 2016)

March 16, 2024

Hollow Men, Strange Women

Robin Baker
Hosted by Michael Morales

In Hollow Men, Strange Women: Riddles, Codes, and Otherness in the Book of Judges (Brill, 2016), Robin Baker provides a masterly reappraisal of Israel…

Julie Kalman, "The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World During the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond" (Princeton UP, 2023)

March 14, 2024

The Kings of Algiers

Julie Kalman
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

On July 27th, 1827, the dey of Algiers struck the French consul over his country’s refusal to pay back its debts–specifically, to two Jewish merchant …

Sarah A. Cramsey, "Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the Ethnic Revolution in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946" (Indiana UP, 2023)

March 9, 2024

Uprooting the Diaspora

Sarah A. Cramsey

In Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the Ethnic Revolution in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946 (Indiana UP, 2023), Sarah Cramsey explor…

The Reeducation of Race with Sonali Thakkar (JP)

March 7, 2024

The Reeducation of Race

Sonali Thakkar

NYU professor Sonali Thakkar’s brilliant first book, The Reeducation of Race: Jewishness and the Politics of Antiracism in Postcolonial Thought (Stanf…

Leona Toker, "Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intercontexual Reading" (Indiana UP, 2019)

March 6, 2024

Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps

Leona Toker
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Devoted to the ways in which Holocaust literature and Gulag literature provide contexts for each other, Leona Toker's Gulag Literature and the Literat…

Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, "The Jewish Annotated New Testament" (Oxford UP, 2017)

March 4, 2024

The Jewish Annotated New Testament

Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

First published in 2011, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford UP, 2017) was a groundbreaking work, bringing the New Testament's Jewish backgroun…

Yaniv Feller, "The Jewish Imperial Imagination: Leo Baeck and German-Jewish Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 3, 2024

The Jewish Imperial Imagination

Yaniv Feller
Hosted by Amir Engel

The Jewish Imperial Imagination: Leo Baeck and German-Jewish Thought (Cambridge UP, 2024) discusses the life and work of Leo Baeck (1873–1956) the rab…

Roman Dziarski, "How We Outwitted and Survived the Nazis: The True Story of the Holocaust Rescuers, Zofia Sterner and Her Family" (Cherry Orchard, 2024)

March 3, 2024

How We Outwitted and Survived the Nazis

Roman Dziarski
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

In World War II's Poland, thirty year old Zofia Sterner and her husband Wacek refuse to be classified as Jews destined for extermination. Instead, the…

Maxine Lowy, "Latent Memory: Human Rights and Jewish Identity in Chile" (U Wisconsin Press, 2022)

February 27, 2024

Latent Memory

Maxine Lowy
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

In the first half of the twentieth century, Jewish immigrants and refugees sought to rebuild their lives in Chile. Despite their personal histories of…

Marcia Bricker Halperin, "Kibbitz and Nosh: When We All Met at Dubrow's Cafeteria" (Cornell UP, 2023)

February 25, 2024

Kibbitz and Nosh

Marcia Bricker Halperin
Hosted by Robert Snyder

In the middle decades of the twentieth century in New York City, Dubrow’s cafeterias in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and the garment district of M…