Tablet Studios

Our Jewish guest this week is Fred Kuhr, who hosts The Point, a Toronto-based talk show that brings gay and straight men together “to see what happens.” He explains the stereotypes gay men have about straight men, the difference between American and Canadian homophobia, and adjusting to Montreal bagels as a Brooklyn-born expat.Our Gentile of the Week is Jonathan Frakes, best known for his portrayal of Commander William T. Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He tells us about navigating obsessive Star Trek fans at conventions and his thoughts on the state of sci-fi today. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, @stuffism. We're also on Facebook and Instagram.Music:  "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"People" by Barbara Streisand"Too Much (ft. Sampha)" by Drake"Star Trek: The Next Generation Theme" by Alexander Courage and Jerry Goldsmith"Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus and Chaka Khan

This week on Unorthodox, we’re still full from all that Shavuot cheesecake. Our Jewish guest is actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who plays Jack Barker on HBO’s Silicon Valley, and whose latest book is My Adventures with God. He tells us about getting recognized in shul (he started going to synagogue twice a day to say kaddish after his mother died), what it’s like to tackle something as intimate as faith while working in Hollywood, and the time he had to shoot a movie on Yom Kippur, even though five of the actors in the film were Jewish. Our Gentile of the week is Esquire columnist Stephen Marche, author of The Unmade Bed: The Messy Truth About Men and Women in the 21st Century. He tells us about quitting his job and leaving New York when his wife landed her dream job in Toronto, adjusting to life as the primary caregiver for their children, and why he hates the term ‘bro.’Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.This episode is also brought to you by AT&T. Enjoy unlimited entertainment with unlimited data from AT&T. Learn more at att.com/unlimited. Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Good  News" by Randy Newman"I Got You, Babe" by Sonny & Cher"HUA!" by Brazzmatazz"Toxic"  by Britney Spears, cover by Yael Naim

This week, we break down Donald Trump’s Holy Land adventure.Our Jewish guest is Yascha Mounk, a lecturer at Harvard whose area of research—how to preserve liberal democracy in the face of populism—has made him extremely popular lately. He tells us how worried we should be about rising populist tides in Europe and the U.S., explains some of the difficulties currently facing multiethnic societies, and tells us how it felt when he became a U.S. citizen in March. Our Gentile of the week is Irish novelist Ruth Gilligan, whose latest book, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan, was inspired by the largely unknown story of the Jewish community in Ireland. She tells us about the similarities between the Jews and the Irish and explains her research for the novel, which started over tea in the homes of the remaining Jews of Cork and took her to Israel, where she met Irish emigrants.Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by AT&T. Enjoy unlimited entertainment with unlimited data from AT&T. Learn more at att.com/unlimited.This episode is also brought to you by PJ Library, a free book program for families raising Jewish children. Sign up at pjlibrary.org/unorthodox, and they’ll send you a free picture book each month until your child turns nine.Music: "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash"Walk this Way" by Aerosmith"The Boys of the County Cork" written by Tom Murphy"Sunday Lights" by Blue Dot Sessions

Unorthodox host Mark Oppenheimer recently published an op-ed in The New York Times about our aversion to using the word 'Jew,' as opposed to 'Jewish.' Is 'Jew' still considered a slur? By many, yes. Should we reclaim it? Definitely, says Mark.He discussed his op-ed with On the Media's Brooke Gladstone a couple of weeks ago, and we're pleased to share their conversation with you here in full. (Don't worry, the next full episode of Unorthodox will go live as scheduled on May 25!)As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com.

When Maya Jankelowitz and her husband Dean opened Jack’s Wife Freda in New York City in 2012, they mined their respective Israeli and South African upbringings for family recipes and traditional spices. The result was trendy downtown dining with a home-cooked vibe and a dash of nostalgia (the restaurant is named after Dean's grandparents). The pair now run two restaurants, identically named, and just published the Jack's Wife Freda cookbook, which features recipes like peri peri chicken, malva pudding, and Maya’s mother’s chicken schnitzel. Maya joins us to talk about offering a Sephardic take on Jewish comfort food in a city dominated by bagels and lox, serving green shakshuka to Israeli tourists in Manhattan, and the first meal she eats when she goes back to Israel.We also talk to scholar Barry Holtz, whose latest book is Rabbi Akiva: The Sage of the Talmud. He shares some of his favorite stories about the preeminent teacher, whom he describes the model of Jewish intellectual creativity, and explains why we should approach the Talmud as a “multivolume, postmodern experimental novel.”Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.This episode is also brought to you by PJ Library, a free book program for families raising Jewish children. Sign up at pjlibrary.org/unorthodox, and they’ll send you a free picture book each month until your child turns nine.

This week's guest is comedian and writer H. Alan Scott, who was raised Mormon in St. Louis and converted to Judaism when he was 31. He’s preparing for his bar mitzvah by immersing himself in Jewish life and culture, and it’s all being chronicled in Latter Day Jew, a documentary by Aliza Rosen. H. Alan tells us about coming out to his Mormon family, how cancer jumpstarted his conversion to Judaism, and his deep love of The Golden Girls.Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by PJ Library, a free book program for families raising Jewish children. Sign up at pjlibrary.org/unorthodox, and they’ll send you a free picture book each month until your child turns nine.Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts"Baby ft. Ludacris" by Justin Bieber"Love Me Too" by The Losers"Some People" by Jule Styne and Steven Sondheim, performed by Bette Midler, from the 1993 TV Movie of Gypsy"Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye

This week on Unorthodox: chocolate sausage! Our Jewish guest is Tablet’s food columnist Joan Nathan. Her latest cookbook is King Solomon’s Table: a Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World, which features recipes like schokoladenwurst, a dessert that made its way from Berlin to El Salvador in the 1920s (and doesn’t actually have any meat in it). She tells us about drawing inspiration from the flavors and spices of the ancient Jewish world and why so many Jewish chefs today are winning top honors in the food world.Our Gentile of the week is Rolling Stone columnist Rob Sheffield, whose new book is Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World. He tells us why the Beatles have remained so rabidly popular half a century after the band broke up, what British pop sensation One Direction owes to the Fab Four, and what his favorite new music acts are.Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Oops I Did it Again" by Max Martin and Rami, cover by Max Raabe"School Spirit" by Kanye West"Buddy Guy" by Action Bronson"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by The Beatles

This week on Unorthodox, we speak to the author of Donald Trump’s favorite book.Our Jewish guest is Danya Shults, the founder of Arq, a website and community inspired by Jewish culture. She tells us how her own interfaith marriage inspired her to help people “connect with Jewish life and culture in a relevant, inclusive, and convenient way,” and explains where—if anywhere—actual religion fits into the Arq universe. Our Gentile of the Week is Michael Knowles, managing editor of the Daily Wire and the mind behind the Amazon bestseller Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide, which is a completely blank book. He tells us about the book’s unexpected success—he self-published it to get a rise out of his liberal friends—culminating in a Twitter endorsement from the president, and describes the stereotypes that dog a young conservative today.Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.This episode is also brought to you by PJ Library, a free book program for families raising Jewish children. Sign up at pjlibrary.org/unorthodox, and they’ll send you a free picture book each month until your child turns nine.Music: "Mikveh Bath" by Golem "I Need a Dollar" by Aloe Blacc"We Did It" by Dora the Explorer "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" by James Brown"The Ballad of Eva Braun" by Noam Osband"Ricky Bobby" by Kenny Floreat"Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield 

This week on Unorthodox, we’re still trying to find those Holocaust centers Sean Spicer was talking about. Our Jewish guest is filmmaker Ferne Pearlstein, whose latest documentary, The Last Laugh, asks comedians like Mel Brooks and Sarah Silverman whether or not we can joke about the Holocaust. She tells us why she decided to tackle such a taboo topic, how gallows humor can be a survival mechanism, and whether it matters if the joke-teller is Jewish or not. The Last Laugh premieres Monday, April 24 on Independent Lens on PBS.Our Gentile of the Week is Ashley McKinless, associate editor at America magazine, the Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture. She co-hosts the new podcast Jesuitical, which we lovingly call the Catholic version of Unorthodox. She explains who the Jesuits are, tells us about life as a 20-something practicing Catholic in New York City, and confirms that Liel is the only Leibovitz currently subscribed to America magazine.Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.This episode is also brought to you by PJ Library, a free book program for families raising Jewish children. Sign up at pjlibrary.org/unorthodox, and they’ll send you a free picture book each month until your child turns nine.Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Anti Anti" by Bonaparte"Frolic" by Luciano Michelini"Make 'Em Laugh" Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, from the 2012 London Cast Recording of Singin' in the Rain"Hitler the Vegetarian" by Noam Osband"Camino Rojo ft. Lulacruza" by The Polish Ambassador"We Were the People Our Parents Warned Us About" by Jimmy Buffett 

This week on Unorthodox, we’re filling up on chametz before Passover starts. We talk to bagel makers from Montreal to Australia (and Cleveland!), get the scoop on the bagel scene in Israel, and find out how bagels became the unofficial food of the Jews.Our guests span the globe, but have one thing in common: they love bagels. We talk to Ben Pigette, a lieutenant in the Royal Australian Navy who taught himself how to make bagels to impress his Jewish girlfriend. Geoff Hardman, co-founder of the Cleveland Bagel Company, tells us how he and his neighbor Dan Herbst decided to start making bagels despite having zero baking experience—and how their chewy-on-the-inside, crisp-on-the-outside creations are putting Cleveland on the bagel tourism map. Tel Aviv-based Tablet contributor Dana Kessler fills us in on the beigale scene in Israel: American bagels, Romanian bagels, Jerusalem bagels, and more. Vince Morena calls in from the famed St. Viateur Bagel in Montreal to describe (and defend) Montreal-style bagels. He also tells us how his Italian father was hired as a teenager by Myer Lewkowicz, the Holocaust survivor who founded the shop in 1957, and ended up learning Yiddish and taking over the business when Lewkowicz died. Shannon Sarna, editor of The Nosher and author of the forthcoming cookbook Modern Jewish Baker: Challah, Babka, Bagels & More, tells us how bagels came to be such strong cultural markers of Judaism, and the newfangled bagel trend she can’t get on board with.And a special low-carb treat: Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg, who just published The (Unofficial) Hogwarts Haggadah, explains why Harry Potter is such a good language for teaching his students about Judaism.Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.Sponsors: HelloFresh: For $35 off your first week of deliveries, enter code UNORTHODOX35 when you subscribe. Harry’s: Enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post-shave balm.Music Credits:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Tradition" written Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, from the original Broadway cast recording of Fiddler on the Roof"Hot Salsa Trip" by Arsonist"Dear Future Husband" by Meghan Trainor"Toledo Surprise" by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, from the original Broadway cast recording of The Drowsy Chaperone"It's Magic" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, performed by Keely Smith"Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread" by Bob Dylan and The Band"Finagle the Bagel" by Troy Ave"Dayenu" by The Maccabeats