The College Commons Podcast

Bridging the gap between politically liberal and conservative Jews. Rabbi Peter S. Berg is the Senior Rabbi of The Temple: The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation. The Temple is Atlanta’s oldest synagogue, founded in 1867. Rabbi Berg was named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of the most influential rabbis in United States, by Georgia Trend as one of the 100 most influential Georgians, and by Atlanta Magazine as one of Atlanta’s most powerful leaders.

How does music unlock and inspire learning and prayer, and even love? Singer-songwriter, composer, and educator Rory Michelle Sullivan has recorded four studio albums and performed internationally. She and her music have been featured at festivals such as ISH, Cincinnati’s Jewish and Israeli Arts and Cultural Festival, on Jewish Rock Radio’s Emerging Artist Showcase, and in Philadelphia RowHome magazine. Rory Michelle’s work explores relating to ourselves, others, and a spiritual Source in healthy, authentic, creative, and constructive ways. Her Jewish-themed musical endeavor, The God Album, includes fun folk, funk, rock, and swing music with songs infused, inspired, and informed by Jewish text. She is currently working on the musical Rising in Love.

A comedy show in Auschwitz? Exploring Holocaust and humor — and its limits. Ferne Pearlstein is a critically acclaimed filmmaker & renowned cinematographer. She won the Sundance Cinematography Prize for "Imelda” about the former first lady of the Philippines. She has produced and/or directed dozens of films including THE LAST LAUGH which was released theatrically in over 25 cities and screened at over 100 film festivals including London, Munich, Jerusalem, and Rome. Ferne is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and a 2018 inductee into Brooklyn Jewish Hall of Fame. View THE LAST LAUGH is available on Amazon Prime.For more information, visit www.lastlaughfilm.us. THE LAST LAUGH is on all social media, including Facebook @lastlaughfilm.

Parenting as spiritual practice, the complexity of cultural appropriation, and the challenging work of intersectionality and feminism today. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is an award-winning author and writer. She was named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of ten “rabbis to watch,” by the Forward as one of the top 50 most influential women rabbis, and called a “wunderkund of Jewish feminism” by Publishers Weekly. She written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, Time, and many other publications, and contributes regularly to The Washington Post and The Forward. She has been featured on NPR a number of times, as well as in The Atlantic, USA Today, NBC News, MTV News, Upworthy, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Al Jazeera America, Reese Witherspoon’s podcast How It Is, and elsewhere. She is the author of seven books; Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting (Flatiron Books), which a the National Jewish Book Award finalist and PJ Library Parents’ Choice selection; Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion (Beacon Press), nominated for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature and a Hadassah Book Club selection. Her other books include The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism (NYU Press), Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism (Seal Press), and, with Rabbi Elliot Dorff, three books for the Jewish Publication Society’s Jewish Choices/Jewish Voices series: Sex and Intimacy, War and National Security, and Social Justice. She is an avid Twitter user (@TheRaDR), with more than 80,000 followers. She worked as a freelance writer before her ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in 2008, and has since served as rabbi and educator at Tufts and Northwestern Universities, for Hillel International, for the dialogue project Ask Big Questions and Avodah, an organization dedicated to creating leaders for economic justice.

Policy analyst Jordan Reimer unpacks the complexities of geopolitics in the middle east. Jordan Reimer is currently a policy analyst at RAND in the defense and political sciences department. He has an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and studied in Egypt and Yemen. He served as a policymaker at the Department of Defense under two administrations, focusing on Iraq, Iran, and the Arabian Peninsula. Before RAND, Jordan was an intelligence analyst at the New York City Police Department, working on counter-terrorism investigations with a nexus to Syria. He is also a lecturer and course instructor on conflict and insurgency in the post-Arab Spring Middle East, radicalization, and political Islam, most recently at New York University.

Campus speech and our values. Michael S. Roth is the 16th president of Wesleyan University. A professor, author and curator, Roth's scholarly interests center on how people make sense of the past. His most recent book is Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist's Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech and Political Correctness on College Campuses (2019), published by Yale University Press. Among his many notable books, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, (2014) won the Frederic W. Ness Book Award given annually by the Association of American Colleges & Universities to the book that best illuminates the goals and practices of a contemporary liberal education. He regularly publishes essays, book reviews, and commentaries in the national media and scholarly journals.

Cole Imperi: Death Becomes Us by HUC-JIR

Is belief of one type or another necessary to lead a good life? Scott Shay is a leading businessman, thought leader, and author of two widely read books: Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry, and In Good Faith: Questioning Religion and Atheism, the latter of which has been recognized as one of the best books of 2018 by Mosaic Authors and earned a finalist award from National Jewish Books. Scott co-founded Signature Bank in 2001, which has become known as one of the best banks in New York for private business owners. And he is a highly sought-after speaker, giving talks around the country throughout the year. For more information, visit: http://scottshay.com.

Palestinian author and vigorous advocate of Israeli-Palestinian peace, Yousef Bashir shares his compelling personal story of why we must focus on the human aspect of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Author of, The Words of My Father: Love and Pain in Palestine, Yousef Bashir is a Palestinian-American from the Gaza Strip, and the son of Khalil Bashir, a highly respected educator. Still suffering the effects of a near catastrophic injury at the hands of an anonymous IDF soldier, Yousef made his way to the United States where he earned a BA in International Affairs from Northeastern University and an MA in Co-existence and Conflict from Brandeis University. Now living in Washington DC, Bashir has worked on Capitol Hill, and served as a member of the Palestinian Diplomatic Delegation to the United States. Yousef is an accomplished author, a vigorous advocate of Israeli-Palestinian peace, and much sought-after public speaker.

Does Judaism have a spiritual blindspot that draws some away, even to cults? Josh Bloch was the host and co-producer of CBC Podcast's Uncover Escaping NXIVM. He has worked on CBC's daily current affairs show The Current since 2012 as a documentary editor. He co-created the CBC show The Life Game, which tells people's life stories with the help of improv actors, and How To Do It: the guide to things you hope you never need to know. He also produced CBC's first Virtual Reality documentary Highway of Tears. Photo credit: Evan Aagaard, CBC