The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

J.J. and Dr. Hindy Najman on authorship, authority, and the creation of the Jewish canon. If you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  podcasts@torahinmotion.org Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsHindy Najman (MA and PhD Harvard, NELC) is the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture and a fellow at Oriel College.  She is the director and founder of the Centre for the Study of the Bible in Oriel College.  In the University of Oxford, she is a member of the faculty of Theology and Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and member of the Sub-faculty Classics, and a member of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.  Prior to her joining the faculty in Oxford, she has held posts at the University of Notre Dame, University of Toronto, and Yale University.  Her areas of research are entanglement of Ancient Culture; Reading Practices in Jewish Antiquity; Comparative Philology; Performance; Formation of the Self and the Subject; Collection and Canon; Authority and Author Function; Biblical Figures and Exemplarity; Practices of Pseudepigraphy and Pseudonymous Attribution; Revelation; Diaspora and Exile; Trauma Studies; and Nature and Law.  Her major publications include Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014; Past Renewals: Interpretive Authority, Renewed Revelation, and the Quest for Perfection. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 53. Leiden: Brill, 2010.; Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 77. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Reissued in paperback by the Society of Biblical Literature in April 2009.  She has published over 50 articles and has edited 20 volumes. She has contributed as editor and associate editor to a variety of journals and book series, among them are Journal of Biblical Literature from; Dead Sea Discoveries and the Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series. Her most recent monograph has appeared in December 2024 with Oxford University Press, Scriptural Vitality: Rethinking Hermeneutics and Philology.  In current projects are on Pluriformity and hermeneutics, Metathinking in Ancient Judaism, and Aesthetics and Poetics in ancient Jewish Song.

J.J. and Dr. Adena Tanenbaum unravel the dynamics of late medieval and early modern Jewish intellectual life in Yemen. This episode is sponsored by the Touro Graduate School of Jewish Studies, a leading academic program in Jewish Studies. For information on admission and course offerings, including generous scholarships, please visit gsjs.touro.edu/history/ or get in touch by calling 212-463-0400, ext. 55580 or emailing karen.rubin@touro.eduIf you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  podcasts@torahinmotion.org Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsDr. Adena Tanenbaum is an associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures at THE Ohio State University. Her research focuses on medieval Jewish intellectual history with a special emphasis on literary works from Islamic lands. She has a long-standing interest in philosophical themes in Hebrew poetry from Spain, and has published a book entitled The Contemplative Soul: Hebrew Poetry and Philosophical Theory in Medieval Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2002). Before coming to OSU, Dr. Tanenbaum spent twelve years in England as a Member of the Oriental Studies Faculty of Oxford University, a Senior Associate of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and a Visiting Lecturer at University College London.

J.J. and Dr. Shmuel Feiner tell tales of 1782 CE, a turning point in Modern Jewish History. This episode is sponsored by the Touro Graduate School of Jewish Studies, a leading academic program in Jewish Studies. For information on admission and course offerings, including generous scholarships, please visit gsjs.touro.edu/history/ or get in touch by calling 212-463-0400, ext. 55580 or emailing karen.rubin@touro.eduIf you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  podcasts@torahinmotion.org Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsShmuel Feiner is Modern Jewish History Professor Emeritus at The Department of Jewish History, Bar Ilan University, Israel. He is the Chairperson of The Historical Society of Israel. Shmuel Feiner was born in Tel Aviv (1955) and studied at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (BA, 1980, MA, 1984, PhD 1990). After receiving the Alon scholarship he joined the Jewish History Department at Bar Ilan University, Jewish Studies Faculty. He is full Professor from 2001. Between 2001-2004 he served as Head of Department, and until 2023 as the Head of The Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany. He retired from teaching in 2023. He published many books in Hebrew and English on the history of the Jewish Enlightenment in Central and Eastern Europe, on the origins of Jewish secularization, and on the Jewish Kulturkampf in the 19th Century. His biography of Moses Mendelssohn was published in Hebrew, English, German and Chinese. Recently he completed a two volume project: The Jewish Eighteenth Century, A European Biography (Indiana University Press).Shmuel Feiner is editor of “Zion” (Jewish History), served as the Chairperson of the Jerusalem Leo Baeck Institute, and the recipient of the Koret Jewish Book Award in History (2004), The Meyer Struckmann Prize (2007), the Shazar Prize, and the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (2011-2012).

J.J. and Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein stay current. They discuss 21st century Jewish thinkers like Jonathan Sacks, Irving Greenberg, and Goshen-Gottstein himself. This is the fifth and final episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we explored and complicated Jewish attitudes to these ideas across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsRabbi Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein is acknowledged as one of the world's leading figures in interreligious dialogue. He is the founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute since 1997. His work bridges the theological and academic dimensions with a variety of practical initiatives, especially involving world religious leadership. A noted scholar of Jewish studies, he has held academic posts at Tel Aviv University and has served as director of the Center for the Study of Rabbinic Thought, Beit Morasha College, Jerusalem. His most recent publications are Idolatry - A Contemporary Jewish Conversation (Academic Studies Press, 2023) and Covenant and World Religions - Irving Greenberg, Jonathan Sacks and the Quest for Orthodox Pluralism (Littman Library, 2023), finalist of the Rabbi Sacks Book Prize for 2023.

J.J. and Dr. Jeremy Fogel reflect on the oneness of nature, the nature of oneness, and particularism vs. universalism in the thought of Benedict Spinoza, Moses Mendellsohn, and Hermann Cohen. This is the fourth episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we will explore and complicate Jewish attitudes to these categories across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsJeremy Fogel is a senior faculty member in the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel Aviv University. He is also the academic director of Alma Home for Hebrew Culture and a faculty member in the Mandel Program for Leadership in Jewish Culture. In addition, Jeremy lectures on philosophy in a variety of public forums and records popular podcasts on cultural and academic topics. Among his books are "Tel Aviv is Water and Other Seasidian thoughts" (Haba Laor, 2019) and Jewish Universalisms (Brandeis University Press, 2023).

J.J. and Dr. Menachem Kellner pitch Maimonides against Judah HaLevi and explore the extremes of Jewish universalism and particularism in the middle ages. Thank you to Kestenbaum and Co. for sponsoring today's episode!Click here to see the auction catalogue and place your bids on rare Judaica and Hebraica. This is the third episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we will explore and complicate Jewish attitudes to these categories across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsMenachem Kellner is Wolfson Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa and was founding chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Thought at Shalem College, Jerusalem. His most recent book is We Are Not Alone: A Maimonidean Theology of the Other (Academic Studies Press, 2021). In connection with the discussion with JJ, his most relevant book is Maimonides the Universalist: The Ethical Horizons of the Mishneh Torah (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2020), co-authored with David Gillis.

J.J. and Dr. Marc Hirshman dissect the schools of R. Akiva and R. Yishmael to understand the central rabbinic arguments about universalism and particularism. This is the second episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we will explore and complicate Jewish attitudes to these categories across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsMarc Hirshman is Mandel Professor Emeritus at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a visiting professor at a number of leading American universities, including Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, The Jewish Theological Seminary, and the University of Notre Dame. Additionally, he was a Starr Fellow at Harvard, a Joyce Zeger Greenberg Fellow at University of Chicago and a Strauss Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (1995) and The Stabilization of Rabbinic Culture 100 C.E.–350 C.E.: Texts on Education in their Late Antique Context (2009).

J.J. and Dr. Ethan Schwartz explore the categories of religious universalism and particularism in the Bible.This is the first episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we will explore and complicate Jewish attitudes to these categories across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsEthan Schwartz is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University. He studies the Hebrew Bible in both the ancient Near Eastern setting in which it emerged and the Second Temple setting in which it became Jewish and Christian scripture, with particular interests in the prophetic literature, the Pentateuch, the ancient Jewish context of the New Testament, and the intellectual history of academic biblical studies. He is also an active participant in Jewish-Catholic and broader Jewish-Christian dialogue.

J.J. and Dr. Michael Satlow offer an authentic account of this apocryphal book of wisdom literature. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsProfessor Michael L. Satlow (Ph.D. in Ancient Judaism from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America) specializes in the history of Jews and Judaism in antiquity but also writes and teaches more broadly. His most recent authored book is How the Bible Became Holy and has recently edited two volumes, Judaism and the Economy: A Sourcebook and Strength to Strength: Essays in Honor of Shaye J. D. Cohen.  He has held fellowships from the NEH, ACLS, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Fulbright program among others.  He also directs several digital projects, including Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine.

J.J. and Dr. Lital Levy explore the Jewish Nahda, and the border-ignoring breadth of the Haskalah. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsLital Levy is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, where she teaches literature, critical theory, and intellectual history, with specializations in Hebrew, Arabic, Jewish studies and Middle Eastern studies. Her research encompasses the modern intellectual and cultural history of Arab Jews, literature and film from Israel/Palestine, the interface of Jewish literature and world literature, global Jewish literary history, and comparative non-Western literary modernities. She is the author of the award-winning book Poetic Trespass: Writing between Hebrew and Arabic in Israel/Palestine (Princeton UP, 2014) as well as numerous scholarly articles, and is co-editor of Unsettling Jewish Knowledge: Text, Contingency, Desire (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023). She is completing a book about the Arabophone Jewish writer Esther Azhari Moyal (1873–1954) and is engaged in another book project on the Global Haskalah.