Identity/Crisis

As events rapidly unfold in Ukraine, the Jewish community around the world is mobilizing in support of nearly 200,000 Jews who call it home. Roman Shmulenson, Executive Director of the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations (COJECO) and Nancy Kaufman, consultant and former CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), join Yehuda Kurtzer to discuss the prism of identities, the historic pains of Ukrainian nationalism and antisemitism, and ways to support Russian-speaking Jews in times of peace and in times of crisis.

Anti-Palestinian violence committed by disaffected young Israelis increased by 50% in 2021. Why do the IDF, the police, and society turn a blind eye towards these Jewish terrorists? Who is responsible for prosecuting their crimes? Haviv Rettig Gur, Senior Analyst for The Times of Israel, sat down with Yehuda Kurtzer to discuss the violence perpetrated by the Hilltop Youth, the politics around holding them accountable, and how internal divisions in Israeli society create an environment in which this behavior can proliferate.

Miriam Anzovin is a millennial TikToker who is transforming Talmud study for the social media age. Her “hot takes” on Daf Yomi, where a person learns one page of Talmud every day, have drawn viral attention from supporters and critics alike. She joins David Zvi Kalman, a Hartman Scholar in Residence and Director of New Media, and Yehuda Kurtzer, to discuss the future and accessibility of Torah study, the whirlwind of going viral on social media, and sh*tposting on the Torah – literally.

How did a small contingent of Hasidic families establish a thriving, insular enclave with a powerful local government? Authors Nomi Stolzenberg and David Myers join Yehuda Kurtzer to chronicle how the upstate New York town of Kiryas Joel created a world apart by using the very instruments of political and legal power that are uniquely American. They explore religious, social, and economic norms, delve into the roots of Satmar Hasidism, and uncover the American dream in the unlikeliest of places.

Norman Lamm was a rabbi and the longtime leader of Yeshiva University who championed the idea that Orthodox Jews could maintain their faith while engaging with modern society. Our special guest host, Elana Stein Hain, is joined by Avi Helfand, a Hartman Senior Fellow, Shlomo Zuckier, a David Hartman Center Fellow and a Research Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Philosophy of Religion, and Tova Warburg Sinensky, a member of the Frisch School faculty and Rabbi Lamm’s granddaughter, to discuss the life of Rabbi Lamm, the value of secular learning in a religious Jewish context, and how to actualize his legacy today.

We have never had the national reckoning that we need over the August 2017 events in Charlottesville, and this week’s synagogue hostage crisis in Colleyville, TX, reminds us that more than four years later, Jews are still unsafe. In this episode, Hartman Senior Fellow and The Atlantic contributor James Loeffler, who spent a month chronicling the civil trial against Charlottesville’s white supremacist organizers, speaks with Yehuda Kurtzer about what the trial of white supremacists means for the Jews, strategies to fight antisemitism, the recent events in Colleyville, and the American Jewish relationship with the justice system.   Read James Loeffler’s recent article in The Atlantic, Charlottesville Was Only a Preview.

Jews have a significant interest in the world of ideas and playing a role in them.  In this episode Yehuda Kurtzer chats with Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize winning conservative journalist, Editor of the Sapir Journal and op-ed columnist for The New York Times op-ed columnist, about the power of ideas to spark change. They examine topics in the US public discourse: meritocracy, wokeness, cancel culture, and antisemitism.

This episode covers sexual abuse and suicide. Listener discretion advised. Chaim Walder, an Israeli rabbi, author of literature for children, and one of the most trusted voices on child psychology in the Haredi community, committed suicide in December after widely publicized child abuse and rape allegations came to light. Despite these allegations, leaders of the Haredi community came to his defense to discredit and silence his accusers.   Nechumi Yaffe, an expert on the ultra-Orthodox, joins Yehuda Kurtzer to discuss the impact of the Walder crisis, the Haredi community’s distinct reactions to sexual abuse, and the ways in which power seeks to maintain power.

In the wake of recent Antisemitic comments by Zahra Billoo and CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Imam Abdullah Antepli (Duke University, Co-Director of Hartman’s Muslim Leadership Initiative) offers the Jewish community words of consolation and a path to build more honest and resilient relationships between Jews and Muslims in America.   In a frank conversation with Yehuda Kurtzer, Imam Antepli shares a unique perspective on the impact of political partisanship on religious communities, moral leadership, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the critical importance of interfaith dialogue in creating a more just world. Yehuda's recent article on the subject for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency can be read here.

The role of the Rebbetzin in Jewish life has always been significant. But what happens when the rabbi’s spouse is a successful professional with a career? What implicit and explicit expectations persist, and how are they influenced by gender? How is the synagogue community affected? What does this mean for the rabbi’s family and the community’s relationship with it?Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt and Maital Friedman, two accomplished, professional women married to rabbis (one Orthodox and one Conservative), open up to Yehuda Kurtzer with intimate reflections on their experiences on this complex, evolving role.