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About Zalman Newfield

Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020).

Zalman's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Zalman:

Medieval History May 27, 2023

Stories Between Christianity and Islam

Saints, Memory, and Cultural Exchange in Late Antiquity and Beyond

Reyhan Durmaz

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Stories between Christianity and Islam: Saints, Memory, and Cultural Exchange in Late Antiquity and Beyond (University of California Press, 2022), Reyhan Durmaz offers an original and nuanced understanding of …
Religion May 14, 2023

The Politics of Religious Literacy

Education and Emotion in a Secular Age

Justine Ellis

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Religious Literacy has become a popular concept for navigating religious diversity in public life. In The Politics of Religious Literacy: Education and Emotion in a Secular Age (Brill, 2022), Justine …
Jewish Studies May 7, 2023

Peak TV's Unapologetic Jewish Woman

Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy

Samantha Pickette

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Peak TV’s Unapologetic Jewish Woman: Exploring Jewish Female Representation in Contemporary Television Comedy (Lexington Books, 2022), Samantha Pickette analyzes the ways in which contemporary American television is establishing a …
American Studies March 30, 2023

We Are Not One

A History of America's Fight Over Israel

Eric Alterman

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Fights about the fate of the state of Israel, and the Zionist movement that gave birth to it, have long been a staple of both Jewish and American political culture …
Early Modern History March 14, 2023

Fictions of Credit in the Age of Shakespeare

Laura Kolb

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Fictions of Credit in the Age of Shakespeare (Oxford University Press, 2021), Laura Kolb examines how Shakespeare and his contemporaries represented credit-driven artifice and interpretation on the early modern …
Jewish Studies March 5, 2023

On Chaim Grade’s "The Yeshiva"

A Discussion with Yehudah DovBer Zirkind

Yehudah DovBer Zirkind

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Chaim Grade’s novel, Tsemakh Atlas: Di Yeshivah, was originally published in Yiddish in the late 1960s. Considered a landmark of modern Yiddish literature, the novel now known as The Yeshiva …
Media February 25, 2023

Political Junkies

From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy

Claire Bond Potter

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
With fake news on Facebook, trolls on Twitter, and viral outrage everywhere, it's easy to believe that the internet changed politics entirely. In Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter …
Jewish Studies February 14, 2023

Karaism

An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism

Daniel Lasker

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Karaite Judaism emerged in the ninth century in the Islamic Middle East as an alternative to the rabbinic Judaism of the Jewish majority. Karaites reject the underlying assumption of rabbinic …
Politics & Polemics February 7, 2023

Christopher Hitchens

What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters

Ben Burgis

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters (Zero Books, 2022), Ben Burgis reminds readers about what was best in Hitchens's writings …
Sociology January 15, 2023

On Émile Durkheim's "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" (1912)

A Discussion with Steven Lukes

Steven Lukes

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In 1912, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim published The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Centered around the experience of religion in tribal cultures, this masterpiece explores the nature of religion …
Jewish Studies January 8, 2023

Reconstructing the Talmud

An Introduction to the Academic Study of Rabbinic Literature

Joshua Kulp and Jason Rogoff

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Reconstructing the Talmud: An Introduction to the Academic Study of Rabbinic Literature (Hadar Press, 2014), Joshua Kulp and Jason Rogoff introduce the modern Talmud student to the techniques developed …
Medieval History December 24, 2022

Poisoned Wells

Accusations, Persecution, and Minorities in Medieval Europe, 1321-1422

Tzafrir Barzilay

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Poisoned Wells: Accusations, Persecution, and Minorities in Medieval Europe, 1321-1422 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022), Tzafrir Barzilay explores the origins of the charges of well poisoning leveled at European …
General History December 21, 2022

The New Freedom and the Radicals

Woodrow Wilson, Progressive Views of Radicalism, and the Origins of Repressive Tolerance

Jacob Kramer

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In The New Freedom and the Radicals: Woodrow Wilson, Progressive Views of Radicalism, and the Origins of Repressive Tolerance (Temple University Press, 2015), Jacob Kramer examines how progressivism emerged at …
American Studies December 14, 2022

The Presidents vs. the Press

The Endless Battle between the White House and the Media--from the Founding Fathers to Fake News

Harold Holzer

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle between the White House and the Media--from the Founding Fathers to Fake News (Dutton, 2020), Harold Holzer examines the dual rise …
Children's Literature December 7, 2022

A Gift of Feathers

Ken Schept

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
When she finds a feather, Grandma Dot adds it to her collection. Feathers, she tells her two granddaughters, remind Grandma Dot of people she’s lost. At first, the girls see …
Jewish Studies December 6, 2022

The Heresy of Jacob Frank

From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth

Jay Michaelson

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth (Oxford University Press, 2022), Jay Michaelson explores the religious philosophy of the mercurial eighteenth-century figure Jacob Frank, who …
Intellectual History November 23, 2022

The Books that Made the European Enlightenment

A History in 12 Case Studies

Gary Kates

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (‎Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. Kates …
Sociology November 23, 2022

When Race Meets Class

African Americans Coming of Age in a Small City

Rhonda F. Levine

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In When Race Meets Class: African Americans Coming of Age in a Small City (Routledge, 2019), Rhonda Levine provides a 15-year ethnography that follows the lives of individual, low-income African …
Film October 26, 2022

The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist

Seventy-Five Years Later

Larry Ceplair

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Seventy-five years ago, the Hollywood blacklist ruined lives, stifled creativity, and sent waves of proscription and censorship throughout United States culture. When the Hollywood Ten refused to answer the questions …
Jewish Studies September 19, 2022

Demons in the Details

Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia

Sara Ronis

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
The Babylonian Talmud is full of stories of demonic encounters, and it also includes many laws that attempt to regulate such encounters. In Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and …
Jewish Studies August 3, 2022

The Bible with and Without Jesus

How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently

Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (HarperOne, 2020), Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler take readers on a guided tour …
American Studies July 27, 2022

Benjamin Franklin

The Religious Life of a Founding Father

Thomas S. Kidd

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Renowned as a printer, scientist, and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin also published more works on religious topics than any other eighteenth-century American layperson. Born to Boston Puritans, by his teenage years …
Gender Studies July 6, 2022

Black Masculinity and Hip-Hop Music

Black Gay Men Who Rap

Xinling Li

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Black Masculinity and Hip-Hop Music: Black Gay Men Who Rap (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), XinLing Li offers an interdisciplinary study of hip-hop music written and performed by rappers who are …
Policing, Incarceration, and Reform June 24, 2022

Gifts from the Dark

Learning from the Incarceration Experience

Joni Schwartz and John R. Chaney

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
While in no way supporting the systemic injustices and disparities of mass incarceration, in Gifts from the Dark: Learning from the Incarceration Experience (Lexington Books, 2021), Joni Schwartz and John …