The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

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.

In this episode J.J. and Dr. Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg try to figure out what exactly we mean when we say "the Early Modern Period", also legal codes, and the scientific revolution.Tamara Morsel-Eisenberg is Assistant Professor of Jewish History. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy and the Humanities from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania.Tamara is a historian of the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Jewry. Her research deals with the transmission of Jewish religious knowledge in early modern Europe, especially Jewish law,or "halakha" in early modern Ashkenaz (the German lands, Northern Italy, Central and Eastern Europe). For her doctoral thesis, Tamara studied how these communities passed on their halakhic knowledge in the sixteenth century at a time of profound change at a communal, technological, and intellectual level. Communities were dismantled and rebuilt in new locations, the printing press was transforming the realities of text, and systematized organizational schemes became the standard order for Jewish legal writings. These three shifts completely changed how this culture passed on its traditions. Tamara analyzed these changes, employing rabbinic responsa (answers about concrete questions of Jewish law) to examine their significance. She is currently working on a monograph that treats this transformation (Remaking Rabbinic Culture) and another dealing with early modern rabbinic responsa as an alternative genre to legal codifications (Law and Disorder).Tamara has written numerous articles on early modern Jewry, including on topics such as rabbinic responsa and epidemics, scholarly archives and practices of organizing knowledge among rabbis, print and its impact on the conception of knowledge and religious law, and Renaissance art in rabbinic responsa. Her articles have appeared in the Journal for the History of Ideas, AJS Review, Critical Inquiry, Tablet, and other publications. Tamara's research interests include questions of religious law, legal authority, codification, knowledge organization, scholarly culture, intellectual practices, the material history of books, print history, and the intersection of technology and information. Prior to joining NYU, Tamara was a Junior Fellow at Harvard's Society of Fellows, a Starr Fellow at Harvard's Center for Judaic Studies, and a Berkowitz Fellow at NYU Law.

In this episode J.J. and Dr. Lenn Goodman discuss Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed, and the challenges of a brand new translation. Also: What Strauss, Pines, and the UChicago school of interpretation got wrong.For more fantastic Jewish content follow Torah in Motion on instagram or visit torahinmotion.orgLenn E. Goodman is Professor of Philosophy and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He was honored with the Baumgardt Prize of the American Philosophical Association, and with a volume in Brill Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophy. He is a rare humanities winner of the Sutherland Prize, Vanderbilt University’s highest research award. Goodman’s book-length contributions in Jewish philosophy include The Holy One of Israel (2019), Judaism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (2017), Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself, his Gifford Lectures (2008), Judaism, Human Rights & Human Values (1998), God of Abraham (1996, which won the Gratz Centennial Prize), Judaism, Human Rights & Human Values (1998), and On Justice: An Essay in Jewish Philosophy (2008). Goodman has also written extensively on Islamic philosophy, including work on Razi, Farabi, Avicenna, Ghazali, Ibn Tufayl, and Ibn Khaldun. His books in general philosophy include In Defense of Truth, Coming to Mind: The Soul and its Body (co-authored with D. Greg Caramenico), Religious Pluralism and Values in the Public Sphere, and Creation and Evolution. Goodman has lectured widely, in Oxford, Jerusalem, Taiwan, Morocco, and in many venues in the United States and Canada. His new translation/commentary of Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed (co-authored with Phillip Lieberman), and a companion volume of his own titled A Guide to Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed, will be published by Stanford University Press early in 2024. He is now at work on a new book titled God and Truth.

In this episode J.J. and Dr. Simkovich dig into the differences between the Pharisees and the Saducees, and air some more second temple laundry. Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich is the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies and the director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She is the author of The Making of Jewish Universalism: From Exile to Alexandria (2016), and Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism (2018), which received the 2019 AJL Judaica Reference Honor Award. Simkovich’s articles have been published in the Harvard Theological Review and the Journal for the Study of Judaism, as well as on online forums such as The Lehrhaus and the Times of Israel. She is involved in numerous local and international interreligious dialogue projects which help to increase understanding between Christians and Jews.

In this episode J.J. and Dr. Derek Penslar get into the evolution of Zionism, and the ideas (or lack of ideas) of Theodore Herzl. You can find more fantastic Jewish content like this at torahinmotion.orgDerek Penslar is the William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History. He takes a comparative and transnational approach to Jewish history, which he studies within the contexts of modern capitalism, nationalism, and colonialism. Penslar’s books include Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (2001), Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (2006), The Origins of the State of Israel: A Documentary History (with Eran Kaplan, 2011), Jews and the Military: A History (2013), Theodor Herzl: The Charismatic Leader (2020/German ed. 2022), Zionism: An Emotional State (2023) and Unacknolwedged Kinships: Postcolonial Theory and the Historiography of Zionism (co-edited with Stefan Vogt and Arieh Saposnik, 2023). He is currently writing an international history of the 1948 Palestine War. Penslar is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy for Jewish Research and is an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, Oxford. At Harvard, Penslar is a resident faculty member at The Center for European Studies and as of July will be the Director of the Center for Jewish Studies.

In this episode J.J. and Dr. Alter explore the literary approach to the Bible, Dr. Alter's magnificent translation, and the impact of both of these works on the study of Bible in the university and the yeshiva. Also typescenes and how Dr. Alter met his wife at a modern-day well. Robert Alter is Professor of the Graduate School and EmeritusProfessor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. He is amember of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, theAmerican Philosophical Society, the Council of Scholars of theLibrary of Congress, and is past president of the Association ofLiterary Scholars and Critics. He has twice been a GuggenheimFellow, has been a Senior Fellow of the National Endowment for theHumanities, a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies inJerusalem, and Old Dominion Fellow at Princeton University. He haswritten widely on the European novel from the eighteenth century tothe present, on American fiction, and on modern Hebrew literature.He has also written extensively on literary aspects of the Bible. Histwenty-eight published books include two prize-winning volumes onbiblical narrative and poetry and award-winning translations ofGenesis and of the Five Books of Moses. He has devoted book-length studies to Fielding, Stendhal, Nabokov, and the self-reflexivetradition in the novel. Books by him have been translated into tendifferent languages. Among his publications over the past thirtyyears are Necessary Angels: Tradition and Modernity in Kafka,Benjamin, and Scholem (1991), Imagined Cities (2005), Pen ofIron: American Prose and the King James Bible (2010),The Art ofBible Translation (2019), and Nabokov and the Real World 2021).His completed translation of the Hebrew Bible with a commentarywas published in 2018 in a three-volume set. In September 2023 hisbiography of Amos Oz will appear.In 2009 he received the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los AngelesTimes for lifetime contribution to American letters and in 2013 theCharles Homer Haskins Prize for career achievement from theAmerican Council of Learned Societies. In 2019 the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters conferred on him an award for literature.He has been given honorary degrees by Yale, Northwestern, theHebrew University of Jerusalem, and three other institutions.