Jewish anti-literature and resisting tidy narratives

Dr. Dara Horn, award-winning novelist and scholar of Yiddish and Hebrew literature, joins the podcast to help us dig deep into the Jewish bookshelf, the whirlwind of antisemitism in which so many Jews find themselves, and, unavoidably, into Judaism’s most successful go-to solution for seemingly every problem: Education.

We talk about Jewish “anti-literature,” about why people (and museums and politicians) so often seem to love stories about dead Jews but get uncomfortable with living ones, and about how American Jews, the biggest, wealthiest and possibly most Jewishly illiterate diaspora community in the history of Jews, reclaims the richer, deeper Jewish culture it abandoned in generations past.

We also discuss Dara’s new nonprofit, the Tell Institute (at https://www.thetellinstitute.org), which aims to enable a new generation of Americans to learn about Jewish life, history and civilization, tackling head-on the ignorance in which antisemitism spreads.

This episode is sponsored by the Greenberg family, Freyda, Bob and their daughter Sara Rose. For them this podcast is not only essential in the struggle for the survival and thriving of Israel and Jews everywhere, but it has become their “headspace” where Haviv provides both the enrichment, and the calm reason so needed in the midst of so much chaos.

(Thank you to the Greenbergs for this dedication.)

The Greenbergs would also like to recognize their cousin, the award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg, who passed away far too young on July 4. Richard represented all that was right and wonderful about being a Jew. His work was filled with insight and the irony and humor of being a Jew in 20th century America. And more important than his work was who he was as a person. He created his own family and community based on the values of listening and doing good to others.

This episode is also dedicated to the memory of Tal Movshovitz, a young reserve soldier who fell in Gaza in June of 2025, amid the war with Iran. Tal served as a deputy company commander in the 7086th Combat Engineering Battalion in reserves. He was killed by an explosive device planted in a building in Khan Younis. Tal left behind a wife and two small children. His death was swallowed up in the news cycle and so we wanted to take the time to remember him here.

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Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.