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About Ari Barbalat

Ari Barbalat holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of California in Los Angeles. He lives in Toronto with his family.

NBN Episodes hosted by Ari:

Jewish Studies May 30, 2023

The White Terror

Antisemitic and Political Violence in Hungary, 1919-1921

Béla Bodó

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
The White Terror was a movement of right-wing militias that for two years actively tracked down, tortured, and murdered members of the Jewish community, as well as former supporters …
Jewish Studies May 26, 2023

Undesirables

A Holocaust Journey to North Africa

Aomar Boum

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In the lead-up to World War II, the rising tide of fascism and antisemitism in Europe foreshadowed Hitler's genocidal campaign against Jews. But the horrors of the Holocaust were not …
Jewish Studies May 20, 2023

Flights of Spirit

Elly Gotz

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Today I talked to Elly Gotz, author of the memoir Flights of Spirit (Azrieli Foundation, 2018). Sixteen-year-old Elly Gotz hides with his family in an underground bunker in the Kovno ghetto in …
Jewish Studies May 19, 2023

Romania and the Holocaust

Events, Contexts, Aftermath

Simon Geissbühler

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
From summer 1941 onwards, Romania actively pursued at its own initiative the mass killing of Jews in the territories it controlled. 1941 saw 13,000 Jewish residents of the Romanian city …
African American Studies May 18, 2023

More than a Glitch

Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech

Meredith Broussard

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
The word "glitch" implies an incidental error, as easy to patch up as it is to identify. But what if racism, sexism, and ableism aren't just bugs in mostly functional …
Jewish Studies April 22, 2023

Beyond the Pale

The Holocaust in the North Caucasus

Crispin Brooks and Kiril Feferman

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Crispin Brooks and Kiril Feferman's edited volume Beyond the Pale: The Holocaust in the North Caucasus (U Rochester Press, 2020) is the first book devoted exclusively to the Holocaust in the North Caucasus …
Jewish Studies April 21, 2023

For Out of Babylonia Shall Come Torah and the Word of the Lord from Nehar Peqod

The Quest for Babylonian Tannaitic Traditions

Barak S. Cohen

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In For Out of Babylonia Shall Come Torah and the Word of the Lord from Nehar Peqod (Brill, 2017), Barak S. Cohen reevaluates the evidence in Tannaitic and Amoraic literature of …
Jewish Studies April 20, 2023

The Legal Methodology of Late Nehardean Sages in Sasanian Babylonia

Barak S. Cohen

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Barak S. Cohen's The Legal Methodology of Late Nehardean Sages in Sasanian Babylonia (Brill, 2011) consists of a systematic analysis of the halakhic/legal methodology of fourth and fifth century Nehardean …
Jewish Studies April 18, 2023

Apiqoros

The Last Essays of Salomon Maimon

Timothy Sean Quinn

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Although Kant considered him the greatest critic of his work, and Fichte thought him the most impressive mind of the generation, Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) has fallen into relative obscurity. Apiqoros …
Caribbean Studies April 17, 2023

World War II and the Caribbean

Karen E. Eccles and Debbie McCollin

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Karen E. Eccles and Debbie McCollin edited volume World War II and the Caribbean (U West Indies Press, 2017) focuses on one of the most exciting periods in the history of …
Genocide Studies April 17, 2023

The Holodomor and the Origins of the Soviet Man

Reading the Testimony of Anastasia Lysyvets

Vitalii Ogiienko

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Anastasia Lysyvets’s memoir Tell us about a happy life … (Skazhy pro shchaslyve zhyttia …), published in Kyiv in 2009 and now available for the first time in an English …
Literature April 16, 2023

The Beckoning World

A Novel

Douglas Bauer

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Douglas Bauer's novel The Beckoning World (U Iowa Press, 2022) is set in the first quarter of the twentieth century and follows Earl Dunham. His weeks are comprised of six days mining …
General History April 12, 2023

Muppets in Moscow

The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia

Natasha Rogoff

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the timing appeared perfect to bring Sesame Street to millions of children living in the former Soviet Union. With …
Military History April 9, 2023

The Fine Art of Camouflage

Lauren Kay Johnson

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Lauren Kay Johnson is just seven when she first experiences a sacrifice of war as her mother, a nurse in the Army Reserves, deploys in support of Operation Desert Shield/Desert …
Jewish Studies April 7, 2023

The Atrocity of Hunger

Starvation in the Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow Ghettos during World War II

Helene J. Sinnreich

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
During World War II, the Germans put the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland into ghettos which restricted their movement and, most crucially for their survival, access to food. The Germans saw …
Jewish Studies April 2, 2023

The Land Is Mine

Sephardi Jews and Bible Commentary in the Renaissance

Andrew D. Berns

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardi Jews such as Isaac Abravanel, Abraham Saba, and Isaac Arama wrote biblical commentaries that stressed the significance of land. They interpreted Judaism …
Biography April 1, 2023

Helmi's Shadow

A Journey of Survival from Russia to East Asia to the American West

David Horgan

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Helmi's Shadow: A Journey of Survival from Russia to East Asia to the American West (U Nevada Press, 2021) tells the sweeping true story of two Russian Jewish refugees, a …
Jewish Studies March 30, 2023

A Political and Economic History of the Jews of Afghanistan

Sara Koplik

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
A Political and Economic History of the Jews of Afghanistan (Brill, 2015) by Sara Koplik describes the situation of Jews in that country during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly 1839-1952. It …
Jewish Studies March 29, 2023

Memory Is Our Home

Loss and Remembering--Three Generations in Poland and Russia 1917-1960s

Suzanna Eibuszyc

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
A courageous young woman escaping Nazi Germany, with no choice other than to leave her family behind... Roma Talasiewicz-Eibuszyc was born in Warsaw near the end of World War I …
Jewish Studies March 28, 2023

Remembering the Holocaust in a Racial State

Holocaust Memory in South Africa from Apartheid to Democracy (1948-1994)

Roni Mikel-Arieli

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
The lens of apartheid-era Jewish commemorations of the Holocaust in South Africa reveals the fascinating transformation of a diasporic community. Through the prism of Holocaust memory, Roni Mikel-Arieli's Remembering the …
Jewish Studies March 18, 2023

Is Superman Circumcised?

The Complete Jewish History of the World’s Greatest Hero

Roy Schwartz

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Superman is the original superhero, an American icon, and arguably the most famous character in the world--and he's Jewish! Introduced in June 1938, the Man of Steel was created by …
African American Studies March 17, 2023

It's Always Been Ours

Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies

Jessica Wilson

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In It's Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women's Bodies (Hachette Go, 2023) eating disorder specialist and storyteller Jessica Wilson challenges us to rethink what having a "good" …
Jewish Studies March 10, 2023

The Butterfly and the Axe

Omer Bartov

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Spring 1944. A Jewish family is murdered in a remote Ukrainian village. Who were they? Who were the killers? Three generations later, an Israeli woman and a British man of …
Caribbean Studies March 9, 2023

Errol Walton Barrow and the Postwar Transformation of Barbados

The Late Colonial Period

Hilbourne A. Watson

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Beginning in the 1920s, Barbadians and other British West Indians began organizing politically in an international environment that was marked by a severe capitalist economic and financial crisis that intensified …