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New Books Network

About Yakir Englander

Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He can be reached at: Yakir1212englander@gmail.com

NBN Episodes hosted by Yakir:

Intellectual History April 25, 2022

In God’s Image

The Making of the Modern World

Tomer Persico

Hosted by Yakir Englander
In God’s Image: The Making of the Modern World (Yediot Aharonot, 2021) examines the central role that the biblical idea of the “image of God” has played in the development of …
Poetry April 19, 2022

Machluta

Sigal Naor Perelman

Hosted by Yakir Englander
This episode is part of a series of recordings I do with artists and scholars from Israel and Palestine. To allow people from the conflict to make their voices heard …
Literature March 22, 2022

The Benefits of Eating White Folks

Leslie T. Grover

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Today I talked to Leslie T. Grover about her book The Benefits of Eating White Folks (Jaded Ibis Press, 2022). The Sickness, a disease with unknown origins, is killing white children in …
Jewish Studies December 1, 2021

Abraham the Hebrew Believer

Secularism and Religion in the Work of Avraham Shlonsky

Rani Jaeger

Hosted by Yakir Englander
How can it be that deeply religious poetry is being written by a committed socialist, literary revolutionary and modernist? How sacredness appears in working in the field? How one can …
Jewish Studies November 4, 2021

Kabbalah in Print

The Study and Popularization of Jewish Mysticism in Early Modernity

ANDREA GONDOS

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Long before Kabbalah books lined multiple books shelves in bookstores, Jewish educators in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thought of copious ways of making Kabbalah more accessible for readers who …
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 …
Animal Studies October 13, 2021

Beast Without Purpose

On Post-Domestication and Other Monstrous Rules

Oren Ben Yosef

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The book Beast Without Purpose: On Post-Domestication and Other Monstrous Rules (Resling, 2019) emerges from the idea of an end to human sovereignty over non human animals. From this A-humanistic …
Literature September 23, 2021

On Wandering Beaches

Rawya Jarjoura Burbara

Hosted by Yakir Englander
On Wandering Beaches (Pardes, 2020) is a novel of journeys, a novel of migration that conceals contradictions that summarize a whole world. Along the shores of Tel Aviv- Haifa-Acre-Nahariyya, all the …
Poetry September 22, 2021

Make Room for the Rain

Shahar-Mario Mordechai

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The poet Shachar-Mario Mordechai was born 1975 in Haifa and he currently lives in Tel Aviv. He has published four volumes of poetry, all of which attracted critical attention. Mordechai is …
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 …
Literary Studies September 13, 2021

The Small Literary Press

An Interview with Nana Ariel and Uri Yoeli of Home Press (Israel)

Nana Ariel and Uri Yoeli

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Home Press is a tiny local publishing house and press in Tel Aviv Jaffa. Uri Yoeli and Nana Ariel, a couple, established it in their apartment in 2019. The Home …
Literature July 19, 2021

The Prize

Mati Shmuelof

Hosted by Yakir Englander
In 2016, the German government announces a new prize for Hebrew writers around the world, the Berlin Prize for Hebrew Literature, which will return the Hebrew Literary Center to it …
Journalism June 16, 2021

On Heels in the Middle East

Xenia Svetlova

Hosted by Yakir Englander
On Heels in the Middle East (Pardes Publishing, 2020) is the first book of Ksenia Svetlova, an Israeli journalist of Russian origin who covered the Middle East extensively during the last …
Environmental Studies June 16, 2021

Wildness

Relations of People and Place

Gavin Van Horn and John Hausdoerffer

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Whether referring to a place, a nonhuman animal or plant, or a state of mind, wild indicates autonomy and agency, a unique expression of life. Yet two contrasting ideas about …
Education June 1, 2021

Behind the Mirror

The Story of a Pioneer in Autism Treatment and Her Work with Children on the Spectrum

Jeanne Simons and Sabine Oishi

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Jeanne Simons devoted her career as a social worker and educator to the study, treatment, and care of children with autism. In 1955, she established the Linwood Children's Center in …
Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness April 14, 2021

What's Beyond Mindfulness?

Waking Up to This Precious Life

Stephen Fulder

Hosted by Yakir Englander
What is the power and significance of mindfulness and similar practices in conflict zones and conflict situations? Does a person need to challenge the norms and authority of the society …
Law April 12, 2021

Human Dignity in Context

Dieter Grimm, Alexandra Kemmerer, and Christoph Möllers

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Human dignity is the key term that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights placed at the center of legal discourse on a global level. In 1949, Germany incorporated the concept …
General History April 6, 2021

Vengeance and Retribution Are Mine

Community, the Holocaust, and Abba Kovner's Avengers

Dina Porat

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Vengeance and Retribution Are Mine: Community, the Holocaust, and Abba Kovner's Avengers (Pardes, 2019) is a book by Israeli historian Dina Porat on Nakam, a small group of Holocaust survivors …
Jewish Studies March 5, 2021

Migrating Tales

The Talmud's Narratives and Their Historical Context

Richard Kalmin

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Migrating Tales: The Talmud's Narratives and Their Historical Context (University of California Press, 2014) situates the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, in its cultural context by reading several rich rabbinic stories …
Israel Studies March 2, 2021

Leaving Zion

The Israeli Diaspora in Europe

David Stavrou

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The meaning of being an immigrant has changed significantly in the 21st century. The internet, social media and networks, cost of travels, homeland products of food that one can find …
Religion February 26, 2021

Dangerous Religious Ideas

The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Rachel S. Mikva

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Beacon, 2020) reveals how faith traditions have always passed down tools for self-examination and debate, because …
Genocide Studies November 11, 2020

The Struggle for Understanding

Elie Wiesel's Literary Works

Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith

Hosted by Yakir Englander
An in-depth look at Elie Wiesel’s writings, from his earliest works to his final novels. Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) was one of the most important literary voices to emerge from the …
Literature November 10, 2020

You Exist Too Much

Zaina Arafat

Hosted by Yakir Englander
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in …
Psychology November 10, 2020

To Heal a Wounded Heart

The Transformative Power of Buddhism and Psychotherapy in Action

Pilar Jennings

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Early on in her clinical practice, psychoanalyst Pilar Jennings was presented with a particularly difficult case: a six-year-old girl who, traumatized by loss, had stopped speaking. Challenged by the limitations …