New Books Network

About David Gottlieb

NBN Episodes hosted by David:

Intellectual History September 18, 2020

Unbinding Isaac

The Significance of the Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought

Aaron Koller

Hosted by David Gottlieb
In Unbinding Isaac: The Significance of the Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought (Jewish Publication Society, 2020), Aaron Koller, professor of Near Eastern and Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University, provides a compelling contemporary perspective on one of the Bible's most famous and difficult texts, the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac. By plumbing the depths of commentaries both ancient and modern, Koller breaks new scholarly ground and reaches convincing ethical conclusions derived …
Literature February 28, 2020

Family Papers

A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century

Sarah Abrevaya Stein

Hosted by David Gottlieb
In Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), Sarah Abrevaya Stein weaves a narrative tapestry whose threads are drawn from the archives of …
German Studies November 11, 2019

Martin Buber

A Life of Faith and Dissent

Paul Mendes-Flohr

Hosted by David Gottlieb
In Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent (Yale University Press, 2019), Paul Mendes-Flohr, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem …
German Studies February 18, 2019

Martin Buber's Theopolitics

Samuel Hayim Brody

Hosted by David Gottlieb
Martin Buber is known as one of the 20th century's greatest Jewish scholars and thinkers, but he is less well known for his political theory and activism. In Martin Buber's …
Food August 6, 2018

A Rich Brew

How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture

Shachar M. Pinsker

Hosted by David Gottlieb
The café, long a European institution, was also a stimulant and a refuge for European Jewish culture. In cities across Europe, and later in Palestine, Israel, and the United States …
Literary Studies May 10, 2018

The Talmud

A Biography

Barry Wimpfheimer

Hosted by David Gottlieb
​In The Talmud: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2018), Barry Scott Wimpfheimer, associate professor of religious studies and law at Northwestern University, introduces the reader to the Babylonian Talmud, the …
European Studies March 23, 2018

Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy Confronts Modernity, Zionism, and Women's Equality

Motti Inbari

Hosted by David Gottlieb
Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy, in its numerous manifestations, continues to exert profound influence on the Jewish world, even as it undergoes pressure to change from both within and without. In Jewish Radical …
American Studies January 16, 2018

Bad Rabbi And Other Strange But True Stories from the Yiddish Press

Eddy Portnoy

Hosted by David Gottlieb
In Bad Rabbi And Other Strange But True Stories from the Yiddish Press (Stanford University Press, 2017), Eddy Portnoy, Academic Advisor and Exhibitions Curator at the YIVO Institute for Yiddish …
Biblical Studies October 23, 2017

The Great Shift

Encountering God in Biblical Times

James L. Kugel

Hosted by David Gottlieb
In a career spanning several decades, James L. Kugel has illuminated the Hebrew Bible from the perspectives of both a biblical scholar of enormous skill and eloquence and as an …
Christian Studies October 16, 2017

Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

David L. Weddle

Hosted by David Gottlieb
Is there one principal avenue of exploration that could lead to the very heart of the religious experience? For David L. Weddle, professor emeritus of Religion at Colorado College, that …
Genocide Studies September 20, 2017

Witnessing Unbound

Holocaust Representation and the Origins of Memory

Henri Lustiger-Thaler and Habbo Knoch, eds.

Hosted by David Gottlieb
​​Witnessing Unbound: Holocaust Representation and the Origins of Memory (Wayne State University Press, 2017) is a ​collection of essays and interviews that offer fresh ​insight on the last of the …
Biography July 31, 2017

Moses Mendelssohn's Living Script

Philosophy, Practice, History, Judaism

Elias Sacks

Hosted by David Gottlieb
The work of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), one of Judaism's great philosophers and defenders, has nonetheless defied easy categorization or definitive depiction. While advocating for the granting of full rights to …