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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 September 29, 2023

The Unknown History of Jewish Women Through the Ages

On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty

Rachel Elior

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Rachel Elior's book The Unknown History of Jewish Women: On Learning and Illiteracy, On Slavery and Liberty (de Gruyter, 2023) is a comprehensive study on the history of Jewish women, which discusses their …
Canadian Studies September 28, 2023

Gifts from Amin

Ugandan Asian Refugees in Canada

Shezan Muhammedi

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
In August 1972, military leader and despot Idi Amin expelled Asian Ugandans from the country, professing to return control of the economy to "Ugandan citizens." Within ninety days, 50,000 Ugandans …
Jewish Studies September 22, 2023

A Nazi Camp Near Danzig

Perspectives on Shame and on the Holocaust from Stutthof

Ruth Schwertfeger

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Within the vast network of Nazi camps, Stutthof may be the least known beyond Poland. This book is the first scholarly publication in English to break the silence of Stutthof …
Genocide Studies September 21, 2023

Przemysłowa Concentration Camp

The Camp, the Children, the Trials

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert's book Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) explores one of the most notorious aspects of the German system of oppression …
Genocide Studies September 20, 2023

Remnants

Embodied Archives of the Armenian Genocide

Elyse Semerdjian

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Foremost among the images of the Armenian Genocide is the specter of tattooed Islamized Armenian women. Blue tribal tattoos that covered face and body signified assimilation into Muslim Bedouin and …
Military History September 17, 2023

Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War

Forgotten Fronts

Chris Murray

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Chris Murray's book Unknown Conflicts of the Second World War: Forgotten Fronts (Routledge, 2019) is a collection of chapters dealing with various overlooked aspects of the Second World War. The aim is to …
General History September 16, 2023

An Introduction to the Irish Civil War

John O'Donovan

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
During the Irish Civil War, events of late 1922 and early 1923 together with waves of 'dishonourable' killings created poisoned relations between Republicans and 'Free Staters' which would last for …
Jewish Studies September 15, 2023

Under a Bloodred Sky

Avigdor Hameiri’s War Stories and Poetry

Avigdor Hameiri

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Under a Bloodred Sky: Avigdor Hameiri’s War Stories and Poetry (Academic Studies Press, 2023) represents an anthology of Avigdor Hameiri’s ten most compelling war stories and poetry. His war stories …
Jewish Studies September 13, 2023

The Sultan's Communists

Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging

Alma Rachel Heckman

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
The Sultan's Communists: Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging (Stanford UP, 2020) uncovers the history of Jewish radical involvement in Morocco's national liberation project and examines how Moroccan Jews …
Jewish Studies September 13, 2023

Who Gets In

An Immigration Story

Norman Ravvin

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
In 1930, a young Jewish man, Yehuda Yosef Eisenstein, arrived in Canada from Poland to escape persecution and the rise of Nazism in the hopes of starting a new life …
Middle Eastern Studies September 8, 2023

Famine Worlds

Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon's Great War

Tylor Brand

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
World War I was a catastrophe for the lands that would become Lebanon. With war came famine, and with famine came unspeakable suffering, starvation, and mass death. For nearly four …
Australian and New Zealand Studies September 7, 2023

Making Mala

Malaita in Solomon Islands, 1870s–1930s

Clive Moore

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Malaita is one of the major islands in the Solomons Archipelago and has the largest population in the Solomon Islands nation. Its people have an undeserved reputation for conservatism and …
Jewish Studies September 6, 2023

Ilse Koch on Trial

Making the “Bitch of Buchenwald”

Tomaz Jardim

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
On September 1, 1967, one of the Third Reich's most infamous figures hanged herself in her cell after nearly twenty-four years in prison. Known as the "Bitch of Buchenwald," Ilse …
Jewish Studies September 5, 2023

The Twin Children of the Holocaust

Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive. Photographs from the Twins’ 40th Anniversary Reunion at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Nancy L. Segal

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
The Twin Children of the Holocaust: Stolen Childhood and the Will to Survive (Academic Studies Press, 2023) is an annotated collection of original, informative, and moving photographs of the twins …
Latin American Studies September 3, 2023

Until the Storm Passes

Politicians, Democracy, and the Demise of Brazils Military Dictatorship

Bryan Pitts

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Bryan Pitts' book Until the Storm Passes: Politicians, Democracy, and the Demise of Brazil's Military Dictatorship (U California Press, 2023) reveals how Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship contributed to its own demise …
Jewish Studies September 2, 2023

Gente Como Uno

Class, Belonging, and Transnationalism in Jewish Life in Lima

Romina Yalonetzky

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
In Gente Como Uno: Class, Belonging, and Transnationalism in Jewish Life in Lima (Academic Studies Press, 2021), Dr. Romina Yalonetzky introduces readers to a physical microcosm of the intersection between Peruvian and …
Jewish Studies August 30, 2023

The Secret of the Torah

A Translation of Abraham Ibn Ezra's Sefer Yesod Mora

H. Norman Strickman, trans.

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra is one of the most important Jewish personalities of all time. Aside from being a Bible commentator of great consequence, his works in Jewish philosophy - …
Jewish Studies August 29, 2023

Resisters

How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany

Wolf Gruner

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Today I talked to Wolf Gruner about his new book Resisters: How Ordinary Jews Fought Persecution in Hitler's Germany (Yale UP, 2023). Drawing on twelve years of research in dozens of archives …
Jewish Studies August 29, 2023

Learning to Read Talmud

What It Looks Like and How It Happens

Jane L. Kanarek and Marjorie Lehman

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Jane L. Kanarek and Marjorie Lehman's Learning to Read Talmud: What It Looks Like and How It Happens (Academic Studies Press, 2017) is the first book-length study of how teachers …
Jewish Studies August 29, 2023

Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Greece

Memory, Testimony and Subjectivity

Pothiti Hantzaroula

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
Today I talked to Pothiti Hantzaroula about her book Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Greece: Memory, Testimony and Subjectivity (Routledge, 2020). Age, generation, and geographic context all influenced postwar Jewish identities, according …
African Studies August 27, 2023

Djibouti

A Political History

Samson A. Bezabeh

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Wedged between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, at the intersection of the world’s busiest shipping routes, Djibouti has long been a global geostrategic hub. In Djibouti: A Political History (Lynne Rienner …
Jewish Studies August 26, 2023

The Specter of the Jews

Emperor Julian and the Rhetoric of Ethnicity in Syrian Antioch

Ari Finkelstein

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
In the generation after Constantine the Great elevated Christianity to a dominant position in the Roman Empire, his nephew, the Emperor Julian, sought to reinstate the old gods to their …
Public Policy August 25, 2023

Journeys Out of Homelessness

The Voices of Lived Experience

Jamie Rife and Donald W. Burnes

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
How do individuals move from being homeless to finding safe, stable, and secure places to live? Can we recreate the conditions that helped them most? What policies are needed to …
Mexican Studies August 25, 2023

Arise!

Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution

Christina Heatherton

Hosted by Ari Barbalat
Listen:
The Mexican Revolution was a global event that catalyzed international radicals in unexpected sites and struggles. Tracing the paths of figures like Black American artist Elizabeth Catlett, Indian anti-colonial activist …