The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

J.J. and Dr. Tamar Rudavsky trace the responses to Maimonides among Medieval Jewish Philosophers. T.M. Rudavsky is Professor of Philosophy at The Ohio State University. She specializes in medieval Jewish philosophy and has edited three volumes: Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy: Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives(1984), Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition (1995); along with Steven Nadler, she is co-editor of the Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: From Antiquity through the Seventeenth Century (Jan, 2009). Her volume Time Matters: Time, Creation and Cosmology in Medieval Jewish Philosophy appeared in 2000, her recent book on Maimonides appeared in the “Great Minds” series with Blackwell-Wiley Press in 2010; and her most recent work Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Science, Rationalism, and Religion appeared in July 2018. The author as well of numerous articles and encyclopedia entries, her major research continues to focus on issues connected to philosophical cosmology in medieval Jewish and scholastic thought.

J.J. and Dr. Michah Gottlieb shed light on the origins of the Haskalah in Berlin, and examine Mendelssohn's role in it. Michah Gottlieb is Director of Graduate Studies and Associate Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at NYU. An expert on the German Haskalah and its reverberations, he has authored several books and dozens of articles. His books include *Faith and: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought* (Oxford University Press, 2011) and most recently *The Jewish Reformation: Bible Translation and Middle Class German Judaism as Spiritual Enterprise* (Oxford 2021, paperback 2023), which won the Dorothy Rosenberg Prize from the American Historical Association. His current research project focuses on Maskilic Musar literature.

J.J. and Dr. Noah Feldman attempt uncover what Maimonides was really trying to do in his halakhic and philosophical works. Noah Feldman is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Chairman of the Society ofFellows, and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and IsraeliLaw, all at Harvard University. He specializes in constitutional studies, with particularemphasis on power and ethics, design of innovative governance solutions, law andreligion, and the history of legal ideas. Feldman is the author of 10 books, including his latest forthcoming title, Bad Jew: A Perplexed Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People (Farrar Straus and Giroux, Spring 2024).

J.J. and Dr. Naomi Seidman wonder why Jews want to claim Freud so badly, and if that claim has merit. Dr. Naomi Seidman is the Chancellor Jackman Professor of the Arts in the Department for the Study of Religion and the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her publications include Faithful Renderings: Jewish—Christian Difference and the Politics of Difference (Chicago, 2006), The Marriage Plot, Or, How Jews Fell in Love with Love, and with Literature (Stanford, 2016), and Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement: A Revolution in the Name of Tradition (Littman, 2019), which won a National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies. She is presently working on a study of Freud in Hebrew and Yiddish translation.

J.J. and Dr. Simon Goldhill try to nail down exactly what Midrash really is and try to place the classical Rabbis in their historical context.Simon Goldhill is a Professor in Greek Literature and Culture and Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at King's College. His latest book is Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity. Previously, Professor Goldhill was Director of CRASSH from 2011-2018. CRASSH is dedicated to interdisciplinary research, with 16 faculty research groups, Humanitas Visiting Professors, and longer term interdisciplinary research projects.

J.J. and Dr. Ruth Wisse unpack the world or modern Yiddish literature from its beginnings with Rav Nachman of Breslov through Chaim Grade and the contemporary state of Yiddish studies. Ruth R. Wisse is professor emerita of Yiddish literature and Comparative Literature at Harvard University and senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund. Her books on literature include The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Literature and Culture (2000); No Joke: Making Jewish Humor (2013); A Little Love in Big Manhattan: Two Yiddish Poets (1988); The Schlemiel as Modern Hero (1971). On politics, Jews and Power (2007, 2020); If I am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews (1992), and a memoir Free as a Jew (2021). She publishes frequently in Mosaic, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and elsewhere.

Dr. Yonatan Brafman, an expert in modern Jewish thought and philosophy of religion, discusses the philosophy of halakha and the competing philosophies of Yeshayahu Leibovitz and Eliezer Berkovits. They explore the historical evolution of the philosophy of halakha, the influence of Elia Zabukovic's moral teleology approach, the empowerment brought by Berkowitz's work on halakh, and differing perspectives on Judaism and the role of commandments. They also delve into the ever-changing nature of Jewish philosophy and the stability of Halakha, as well as reactions to views on idolatry and potential flaws in Berkovitz's perspective.

Dr. Shaye Cohen, the Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University, discusses the origins and composition of the Mishnah, the historical context of Roman influence on Jewish communities, the unique format and nature of the Mishnah, the differentiation between Jews and Christians, different perspectives on the Mishnah's portrayal of Jewish life, difficulties in translating concepts in the Mishnah, and future directions in Mishnaic studies.

In this episode J.J. and Dr. Miriam Feldmann-Kaye get into the nature of postmodernism and how it relates to Judaism. Also, meta-narratives and mega-narratives. For more information visit our website, and to support more thoughtful Jewish content like this, donate here.Dr. Miriam Feldmann Kaye is a Lecturer in Jewish Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University. A graduate of the Universities of Cambridge, London and Haifa, Miriam is Editor of the international St Andrews University Encyclopaedia of Jewish Theology. Her fields of thought, teaching and research are: Modern Continental Philosophy of Religion, Jewish Theology in the modern and postmodern periods, Ethics, Biblical Interpretation, Interreligious Theology and the Study of Religions. Miriam previously co-founded and directed the Faith and Belief Forum Middle East, a dialogue project in Israel dedicated to developing relations between faith communities in partnership with the Hebrew University and the Truman Research Institute for the Development of Peace and Reconciliation. Miriam’s publications include her book Jewish Theology for a Postmodern Age, (LUP & Littman). She was included in the Jewish News’ Aliyah 100 list recognising those who have made a significant contribution to the State of Israel.

In this episode J.J. and Peter Cole discuss Jewish poetry, aesthetics, and why Samuel ibn Naghrillah would probably make an excellent rapper.For more information visit our website, and to support more thoughtful Jewish content like this, donate here. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1957, Peter Cole is the author of six books of poems—most recently Draw Me After (FSG, November 2022) and Hymns & Qualms: New and Selected Poems and Translations (FSG, 2017)—as well as many volumes of translation from Hebrew and Arabic, medieval and modern. Praised for his “prosodic mastery” and “keen moral intelligence” (The American Poet), and for the “rigor, vigor, joy, and wit” of his poetry (The Paris Review), Cole has created a body of work that defies traditional distinctions between old and new, foreign and familiar, translation and original. He is, Harold Bloom writes, “a matchless translator and one of the handful of authentic poets in his own American generation.” Among his many honors are an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Jewish National Book Award, the PEN Prize in Translation, and, in 2007, a MacArthur Fellowship. He divides his time between Jerusalem and New Haven.