Podcast appearances and mentions of Michael Goldfarb

College student's 1982 photos revisited by modern pros For his 1982 senior project at SUNY New Paltz, Patrick Prosser toted a camera around the streets of Beacon, his hometown. In May, about the time he received his bachelor of fine arts, Prosser exhibited 20 photos at what is now the Howland Cultural Center. When Prosser, who grew up at 14 Miller St., died from pancreatic cancer in 2023 at age 64, his widow, Kathy, donated the 1982 shots to the Beacon Historical Society. Theresa Kraft, president of the Howland Cultural Center, read about the gift in the society's newsletter and arranged to display excerpts from the collection. A team that included photographers Tony Cenicola, Michael Goldfarb, Pierce Johnston and Willam Loeb winnowed the selections to 38 photos before three of the curators fanned out to revisit some of the locations. The exhibit's title, Work in Decay, borrows from Prosser's 1982 exhibit. His subtitle had been "The City of Beacon, New York"; the new one is "The Renaissance of Beacon - Then and Now." In 1982, Prosser captured mostly decay. Nearly every pane of glass in the abandoned factories and weatherbeaten buildings on and near Main Street is broken or boarded up, including the picture windows at Mozekos Market by the dummy light. In one photo, a crossing guard stands in front of the door. Prosser combed ruins from the inside. In the factory that became the Roundhouse, he was enamored with the bathroom stalls: "The shape of the toilets and the simple arithmetic of the walls give this great feeling for the working man's environment in Beacon," he wrote. He also took interior shots of the abandoned Highland Hospital and a junk-filled apartment. One photo shows Cisco, a white dog sitting in the decrepit doorway of Certified TV Sales & Service. Goldfarb's photo of what is now the Maria Lago Studio captures a life-size sculpture depicting a human figure in anguish. Enticed by structures, Prosser climbed vantage points like the Beacon Theatre and the firehouse that is now home to Hudson Beach Glass. Though he took a well-situated shot of the Mount Beacon Incline Railway gear-house, the photos of people could be Prosser's apex. In "High Noon at Richie's Bar," a grizzled bartender plays cards with a patron wearing a dapper hat. Regulars scratched scrawl onto a 24 beam at the bar's edge, along with the panel below, including the jab, "$100 fine to write here." (Pierce Johnston's modern reply, "A Day at Melzingah Tap House," focuses on a relaxed young bartender polishing a pint glass, flanked by two fancy, backlit cases with high-end hooch. In the background, the shelves are stocked with swag.) One of Prosser's favorite photos captured the owners of Beacon Auto Salvage, which once filled the Churchill Street parking lot with heavy machinery, car parts and mud. The father makes no attempt to smile while the son's half-cocked grin hints at a brighter future, although he may just be resigned to his lot. "The whole history of Beacon can be told by their faces," Prosser wrote. The Howland Cultural Center, at 477 Main St., is open from 1 to 5 p.m. on most Saturdays and Sundays. "Work in Decay" continues through July 21.

Photographer 'can't leave the material alone' Sometimes it's difficult to believe that William Loeb's experimental photos began inside a camera. His black-and-white print "Manuscript," which looks hand-drawn, zooms in on a microscopic section of a chandelier's reflection on a Grand Central Station window. Loeb does manipulate his shots with shading, cropping and "deciding what slice of the world the camera is focused on to create what's inside the frame," he says. "I take it to an extreme, so maybe it's not exactly photography. It could be something else." At first glance, a shot of the Churchill Downs racetrack in his home state of Kentucky seems like a nightfall crowd scene, but the ominous sky is disproportionately huge. "I can't leave the material alone because it never captures the thing that I want," he says. "I only know what I want after tinkering with it for hours." Prominent photos hanging in his house include a colorization of the iconic coin-operated binocular found at tourist locations and a street scene. But several enigmatic works feature white markings against black backgrounds. Loeb, who arrived in Beacon more than a year ago after splitting time between Brooklyn and Columbia County, is one of four local photographers participating in an exhibit, Work in Decay: The Renaissance of Beacon, Then and Now, that opens April 19 at the Howland Cultural Center. It will focus on photos taken by Patrick Prosser in 1982 and donated to the Beacon Historical Society, paired with modern updates by Loeb, Michael Goldfarb, Pierce Johnston and Tony Cenicola. "Age" "Gaslight" "Harbinger" "Iphigenia" "Manuscript" "Unseen" Loeb climbed Mount Beacon to shoot the incline railroad's rusting gear house and promises to avoid surrealism when processing the final images. In darkroom days, he viewed photos as the beginning of a process that required interacting with instruments. All those instruments are now digital, such as Topaz, software Loeb relies on to "de-noise, play with the visible spectrum, sharpen smaller images within the photo and upscale the detail." In a photo of an abandoned industrial site in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, nearly all the 400 windows look individually hand-tinted. For one favored behind-the-lens technique, he shakes the camera with intent, which turned photos of Manhattan buildings after dark into "Surveillance State." Its intertwined, squiggly lines look like they were etched with a stylus. Another quasi-political photo, shot in Greenwood Cemetery during the pandemic, depicts a vague Manhattan skyline looming beyond the graves and mausoleums to represent the plague subsuming the city. "I'm trying to see the world beyond the world - to throw the viewer off-balance and enliven, entertain and create unsettling perceptions," Loeb says. "Where does the digital art begin and the photos end? No matter what you call it, there is a camera involved, but I also live inside Photoshop." The Howland Cultural Center, at 477 Main St., is open Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. "Work in Decay" begins with a reception from 1 to 3 p.m. on April 19 and continues through July 21.

In this FRDH podcast first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, host Michael Goldfarb looks at the history of NATO since its founding in 1949 and asks Now What? Can NATO survive the second coming of the Trump regime. Using archive sound and interviews with former NATO ambassadors and national security and defense experts he tells the Alliance's story, goes on patrol with American soldiers on a NATO mission in the Balkans and looks at whether European nations will ever be able to breakaway from US dominance of the organization. A long listen.

The last week has seen the dramatic beginning of a new historical era based on a US and Russia alliance. Donald Trump has thrown in with Vladimir Putin and thrown Ukraine and 80 years of the Transatlantic Alliance under a bus. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb speaks with Charles Hecker, who has lived an worked in Moscow for the last thirty years. His new book Zero Sum looks at the lessons learned -- and not learned by Western businessmen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also talk about what ithis new era might mean for the future of global democracy with the US clearly taking giant steps towards embracing the autocratic ruler of Russia.

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, once told Michael Goldfarb of people going to their deaths at Auschwitz asking who will say Kaddish for me? Kaddish is the Jewish prayer for the dead. On the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz' liberation Michael Goldfarb explores the origins and meaning of Kaddish. How did a prayer for the dead, in which death is not mentioned, become the centrepiece of Jewish mourning?

Journalist and author Michael Goldfarb, talks to Jonathan Freedland about the legacy of the former secretary of state under Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger Because of industrial action taking place by members of the National Union of Journalists at the Guardian and Observer this week, we are re-running an episode from the archive.

The cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris nearly burned to the ground five years ago, now, fully restored it is about to re-open. It is a remarkable rebirth. Agnes Poirier, native Parisienne, journalis and author of Notre Dame: the Soul of France, talks to FRDH host Michael Goldfarb about the fire, the restoration and the deep meaning of the cathedral being re-born for contemporary France. Give them 30:34 to tell you about it.

Since November 5th, 2024 the question on many lips is, So now what?, and the Financial Times' Edward Luce has some thoughts on Trump's second term, aka the Revenge Tour. Trump has promised retribution, will he follow through? In this wide-ranging conversation Luce and FRDH host Michael Goldfarb look at his cabinet appointments, his courtiers, and the likely trajectory of American history in the next four years and global history for the next century. Give us 38:56 to explain.

Georgia will be as important to Election 2024 as it was in 2020 when Donald Trump accused official of rigging the vote. This laid the foundation for his mendacious and deadly claim that the vote was stolen. IN this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb speaks with University of Georgia professor of History James Cobb about the state's inglorious tradition of using rules to thwart the will of the people.

Anti-Semitism in places without Jews is a strange historical phenomenon in Poland where most of the deaths in the Holocaust took place. It is a tale of History vs Nationalism the story of how Poles deal with the Holocaust. In this FRDH podcast Professor Jan Grabowski, author of, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, and host Michael Goldfarb explore anti-Semitism without Jews in the country where before the war more than 3 million Jews lived and where today the Jewish population is a mere four thousand.

Sepharad is the Hebrew word for Spain and Jews who trace their ancestry there are called Sephardic Jews. Five hundred years ago they were expelled from Spain. Their exile created new communities stretching from Brazil to Amsterdam to Istanbul and today, Israel. It is a culture filled with food and songs of longing for a homeland. Michael Goldfarb goes on a journey from the past to the present in search of Sepharad.

The US Supreme Court is considering what Presidential immunity means in 2024 in the case of Donald J. Trump. In this wide-ranging conversation with constitutional law professor Frank Bowman FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb discusses the case, its merits, where political considerations enter Supreme Court discussions and whether Trump is just another guy, in the legal sense.

Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times. He recalls meeting John Gielgud at the theatre door and understudying in a play where a huge Styrofoam mountain was the star of the show.In this essay: theatrical superstition says you shouldn't mention the play Macbeth, by name. But how else to speak of the play on which Michael finally got his equity card?

Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times. In this essay, he appears in Maxim Gorki's Summerfolk, a play about the Russian upper-middle classes at their summer homes, as their country teeters on the brink of revolutionary catastrophe. He remembers Russian theatre, theatrical friendships and after-show drinking.

Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times. In this episode, it's the story of The Count of Monte Cristo, as performed by James O'Neill, father of playwright Eugene O'Neill. It was the play that made him rich and his family miserable, as depicted in Long Day's Journey Into Night. Nearly fifty years ago, it was revived by the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, located on the Bowery in New York. The Cocteau was the only rotating rep theatre in New York and Michael Goldfarb was part of the company.

Preparation for a performance on stage goes beyond just memorising lines, learning blocking and hoping it will be alright on the night. A diligent actor studies the history of the period of the play, learns about the intentions of the playwright, and absorbs from older colleagues knowledge of how the play has been done in the past.In his less than stellar career as an actor, Michael Goldfarb went through this process many times. In this essay, Michael recalls his admiration for John Gielgud. He remembers The Motive and the Cue, the play about John Gielgud directing Richard Burton in Hamlet. He also had a chance meeting with the legendary actor at the stage door of the Apollo theatre in London when Gielgud was starring in David Storey's 'Home'.

During his less than stellar acting career Michael Goldfarb spent a lot of time watching from the wings waiting to go on for his single scene. In this series, he talks about the plays he appeared in, their histories, and the lives of the actors who performed them.In this essay, he's understudying in K2: a play about two climbers trapped on an ice ledge, having fallen on their way down from the summit of the mountain. It wasn't a very good play but had an amazing set with the capacity for near cinematic feats of climbing and falling. The play made it to Broadway for a brief Tony-winning run and Michael talks about performing in a show where a huge Styrofoam mountain was the star and the jostling for supremacy among actors, directors and set designers.

The Ukraine war is now in year 3 and its people still want to fight. Why? We are witnessing the birth of a political nation. In this conversation with journalist and author Vladislav Davidzon who has lived in Ukraine on and off for the last 14 years, FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb looks at the tensions attending this birth to find the explanation for why, after 3 years of bloody, destructive conflict Ukrainians still fight.

Gene Hackman is a brilliant but troubled surveillance expert who gets drawn unwittingly into a conspiracy to murder. Released at the height of the Watergate scandal, Coppola's 1974 film about covert surveillance and wire-tapping reflected the mood of paranoia in the USA at the time. Matthew Sweet his guests, film historians Lucy Bolton and Phuong Le, writer Michael Goldfarb and writer and filmmaker Adam Scovell discuss the film and how our attitudes to being subjected to surveillance have changed in the fifty years since it was released.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

US expat Erich McElroy reaches across the pond to find out what is happening in America - this week Erich talks to journalist, broadcaster and host of podcast First Rough Draft of History. Michael is also based in the UK and keeps a keen eye on his home country as well. This week he and Erich discuss the current state of the race for the White House, the impact on the UK and Michael's experience with those he calls the unswayable Trump supports that will never leave him. Find his podcast here: https://www.goldfarbpod.com/ @FRDHPodcast Follow Michael here @MGEmancipation and on threads @goldfarbmichae

2023 was marked by two terrible wars of disproportion in Israel/Palestine and Ukraine and Channel 4 News's International Editor Lindsey Hilsum spent most of the year on one frontline or the other. In this FRDH podcast she talks with host Michael Goldfarb about what she learned covering Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza and Ukraine's fight against the Russian invasion. Hilsum learned a lot particularly covering Israel's war with Hamas. Give us 45 minutes to tell you about it.

Britain in 2023 is a country where much has gone wrong and it is not a happy place. Gavin Esler, former BBC news presenter, has noticed and written a book, Britain is Better Than This, about how so much went wrong. In this FRDH podcast he explains why to host Michael Goldfarb.

Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state under Richard Nixon, died at the age of 100 this week. One of the most famous and powerful diplomats of the 20th century, some will remember him as the person who won a Nobel peace prize for his work negotiating the end of the Vietnam war. For others, he will forever be known as a war criminal. So what is Kissinger's legacy? This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to journalist and author Michael Goldfarb about how Kissinger came to be one of the most powerful people of the 20th century, and why back in the 1970s he had the opportunity to criticise the man to his face – and chose not to. Does he regret staying quiet?

On the sixtieth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, two people who lived through that day share their memories of Kennedy's assassination and the days and decade that followed. FRDH host Michael Goldfarb talks with Richard Parker, former professor at Harvard, and co-founder of Mother Jones magazine about what might have been had JFK lived and the meanning of the President's assassination today.

The war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, 2023 with a terror attack that killed 1400 Israelis and now the world is waiting for the next phase, an expected israeli invasion of Gaza. In the lull before the assault begins FRDH host Michael Goldfarb speaks with two veteran journalists who have been living the story and reporting on it for nearly 50 years. What can be done and how far will Israel be allowed to go by the US in its aim of eradicating Hamas? What are the prospects for gettting nearly 200 Israelis held hostage by Hamas safely returned?

Paul Lay and Alastair Benn are joined by Suzanne Raine, national security and counter-terrorism expert, and Michael Goldfarb, author and broadcaster, to discuss Hamas' terrorist outrage and the uncertain future that follows for the region. Image: Members of the Hamas Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo 

It is a war with many names - The Yom Kippur War, the Ramadan War, the October War. What is clear 50 years after it was fought is that it was a conflict that really did change the world. Michael Goldfarb tells the story of the war that began on the 6 October 1973 and ended less than three weeks later - yet somehow the Israeli and Arab states combatants, as well as the rest of the world, still live with the aftermath today.

September 16 marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman killed in police custody. Since her death Iran has been rocked by a year of protests in which over 500 people, many of them women, have been killed.  Joining Bronwen Maddox in the studio this week are former BBC journalist Rana Rahimpour, Dr Sanam Vakil, the Director of our Middle East and North Africa programme and journalist Michael Goldfarb. Read our expertise: Making climate an election issue risks undermining the UK's international role The G20 showcases India's growing power Whether 1.5°C is ‘alive' or ‘dead', a new climate plan will be required Subscribe to Independent Thinking wherever you get your podcasts. Please listen, rate, review and subscribe. Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Produced by John Pollock. Sound by Alex Moyler.

Christian nationalism is an increasingly loud form of the faith and many evangelical Christians in America are tired of its hypocrisy. In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb speaks with Andrew Whitehead, evangelical Christian and professor of sociology about his book American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens The Church.

For decades Saudi Arabia was a place of official silence but now it is taking its place and the center of the geo-political stage. Whether it is paying exorbitant sums to entice football stars to play in its new league or holding peace conferences on Ukraine or opening up diplomatically to Israel, Iran AND the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia's leader, Mohammed bin Salman has put his kingdom in the center of the global conversation without revealing much about the place. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations about the Silent Kingdom.

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers. In this essay, he focuses on Joan Williams and her novel Old Powder. After her first novel was shortlisted for the National Book Award, this one failed. Did her former lover William Faulkner have something to do with it? For much of the 60s, literary fiction remained a male preserve, Joan Williams looked like being the person to break that mould, then she disappeared. Why?

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers. In this essay, he focuses on Philip Roth. Roth became permanently alienated from American Jews and even his own mother asked him if he was anti-Semitic. In light of his continuous production and the miraculous late flowering of his art, from The Counterlife to The Plot Against America, it's easy to forget that Portnoy's Complaint, despite its sales, nearly destroyed his career within his own community. It also coloured how he was seen until his death: as a misogynist who, depending on one's view, had to be forgiven because of his talent, or could not be forgiven, because of his talent. The irony is that while many Jews at the time would like to have had Portnoy's Complaint pulled from bookshops and libraries and pulped, his authorised biography, published in 2021, actually was pulled from sale and pulped because the author, Blake Bailey, was accused of sexual assault.

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers. In this essay, he focuses on Norman Mailer. His reputation as a novelist had gone down the toilet before he reinvented himself with the non-fiction novel. But there was a cost. Writers should be read and not heard was the ethos of the profession. But mass media provided authors with many different platforms to reach the public. Mailer was on all of them, courting controversy - too successfully. Mailer was a monstrous misogynist before Harvey Weinstein and #metoo. For a while his talent gave him a pass, and then it didn't.

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers. This essay looks at Amiri Baraka previously known as LeRoi Jones. He was seen as a genuine heir to James Baldwin. A decade younger than Baldwin, Jones/Baraka arrived in Greenwich Village just as the Beat scene was reaching its zenith. He wrote poetry and award-winning off-Broadway plays that dealt with race with the greater fire and frankness the 60s demanded. Then in one public appearance, he cancelled himself with comments about the Jewish young men Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered with James Chaney in Mississippi. The story of a career ruined and a notorious evening that split the liberal coalition in New York, a fracture that continues to this day.

The 1960s are celebrated for the paradigm shift in American society. This shift was reflected in art and culture as well as politics. But these great changes were not accomplished without controversy. Even in the most slow-flowing art form, literature, great controversies burst out that are now forgotten, but they anticipate what is going on with today's cancel culture. They occurred without the multiplier effect of social media but dominated not just book pages but the society at large. Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of this cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers. In this essay, he focuses on William Styron and his book 'The Confessions of Nat Turner' and asks can a white man write about a black revolutionary hero? Is this taking cultural appropriation too far? Styron was a southerner writing about an important event in his local history. The story was part of his culture, as well. But as a white man does he have the right to imagine the thoughts of an enslaved black man?

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Michael Goldfarb, a general dermatologist practicing in Dearborn, MI and serving as adjunct faculty at the University of Michigan Department of Dermatology. Tune in to learn about what Dr. Goldfarb loves about dermatology, how he approaches challenging patient encounters (luckily few and far between), and his advice for medical students who would like to follow suit and become dermatologists! Hosted by Grace Hobayan   Learn More: https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/dermatology/michael-goldfarb-md   Music:   District Four by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3662-district-four License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/derminterest/message

To say Democracy is in crisis today is not hyperbole but people don't have an idea about fixing it. Forty years ago Oxford professor Maurice Pope saw the crisis coming and wrote a book about one possible solution. Needless to say the book couldn't find a publisher. Their attitude was crisis, what crisis? The manuscript was lost for forty years, rediscovered and has recently been published and in this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with the author's son, Hugh Pope, about his father's big idea to bypass electoral politics and take democratic decision making back to the people.

One of the founding principles of the United States is that religion and politics, church and state, are separate. Yet today in America religious belief and politics have become inseparable. Self-styled "evangelical" Christians have become the dominant grassroots force in the Republican Party. "Evangelical" is not a denomination, it can mean different things to different people in terms of religious doctrine. The unifying principle seems to be in the political outlook of its adherents: deeply conservative in the 21st Century American political context. Michael Goldfarb explores the tension between a life of Christian faith and the dirty realities of secular politics.

Michael Goldfarb is an accomplished journalist and political author, and one of Peter's oldest and best friends. Michael has produced several award winning documentaries on NPR and the BBC, and published books on the Iraq War (Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace) as well as the 1,000 year old modern Jewish Diaspora (Emancipation). More recently, he started a podcast called FRDH, where he examines current events through his unique journalistic lens from his ex-pat home base in London, England.After interviewing Peter on NPR, things have come full circle; Peter now interviews Michael on Pizza Quest. Hear all about Michael's amazing journey as he and Peter catch up with each other, yet again, in this new and special episode of Pizza Quest.Click here for the video versions of Pizza Quest. If you count on HRN content, become a monthly sustaining donor at heritageradionetwork.org/donate.Pizza Quest is Powered by Simplecast.

The voice missing from most US/UK histories of the Iraq war is that of Iraqis who saw their hopes raised and then ruined. This sound history was made by FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb who covered the Iraq War as an unembedded reporter. He followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein through the eyes of someone who had suffered terribly under Saddam's regime. This radio documentary first aired in 2003 a few weeks after Saddam's statue in Baghdad came down, it contains essential Iraqi voices and stands as a sound history of that conflict.

One day, three decades after the event, the German poet and man of letters, Heinrich Heine, stood on the site of the battle of Marengo, one of Napoleon's earliest and most important victories and had an epiphany - or he invented one for his readers: ""Gradually, day by day, foolish national prejudices are disappearing; all harsh differentiations are lost in the generality of European civilization. There are no more nations in Europe, only parties; and it is marvellous to see how these parties, for all their varying colouration recognize one another and how they understand one another, despite many differences in language." This move past national differences would be a force for unalloyed good because, if Europeans could see themselves as a unified "civilisation" then their example would be a force that "could" lead to the liberation of the world from prejudice. Well, he was a child of the romantic age, you can forgive his enthusiastic language but his vision anticipates the principles that created and still guide the EU. The writer produced astounding amounts of work: poetry, verse dramas, and essays and letters while conducting love affairs and just generally being in the public eye. His poetry became the lyrical basis for lieder by Schubert, Schumann and many others. He had huge appeal in the middle of the 19th century. George Eliot wrote four monographs about him including one on his wit - bitterly ironic ,very Jewish. Today he is remembered in the English speaking world for this quote, "Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too." When the Nazis held their book burnings outside the Berlin Opera House, Heine's were among those immolated. And when the Nazis initiated the war that would burn down a significant portion of the Europe Heine dreamed of, the connection to much of 19th century German culture was cut including the life and work of Heinrich Heine. Michael Goldfarb tells the story of Heine's life and the Europe in which he lived through interviews and using the musical settings of his poetry in lieder, readings from his poetry and plays, and George Eliot's perceptive comments. Heine's was a tremendous life - he endured censorship and was harassed by the police spies of the Federated German speaking nations. He lived as a celebrity - albeit an impecunious one - despite the fact his uncle was one of the German-speaking world's richest men. All the drama created a truly contemporary, 21st century sensibility Producer: Julia Hayball Readers: Jonathan Keeble, Robbie Stevens, Clare Corbett and Pavel Douglas Sound design: Chris Maclean A Certain Height production for BBC Radio 3

In the year 2023 Israel reached a crossroad. Hundreds of thousands of citizens demonstrated every week against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and its lurch towards authoritarianism. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb talks with former Knesset Member Ksenia Svetlova about Netanyahu's power grab and the dangerous, violent nationalism of the the religious Zionists on whom he depends for power, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir.

Greenwich Village in 1944 as World War 2 came to an end saw the beginnings of an explosion of artistic expression among the Village bohemians. In this FRDH podcast Michael Goldfarb tells the origin story of two of them: Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. The pair met by chance and became lifelong friends in an unrepeatable time and place: Greenwich Village 1944

Created in a natural landscape feature, a conclave hillside, the Hollywood Bowl had already hosted religious services before its stage arrived. In 1922 the Los Angeles Philharmonic played its first season of open air concerts inaugurating a music venue. Lisa Mullen hears how the amphitheatre has hosted some of the greats of classical and popular music from Felix and Leonard Slatkin to Ella Fitzgerald. Michael Goldfarb and Mark Glancy discuss the emergence of a cultural landmark. Producer: Ruth Watts You can find a collection of programmes called Modernism on the BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking programme website which discuss other art and culture from the 1920s https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07p3nxh

In this FRDH holiday special to mark the end of 2022, Michael Goldfarb plays Jewish Ukrainian music recorded by him while on assignment in L'viv before Putin's war. The stories behind these pieces are interesting and the music is unique, lovely and presciently defiant.

In this edition of Bible Study for Atheists, FRDH host MIchael Goldfarb looks at the results of the 2022 Midterm Election through the story of the children of Israel's search for a strongman, a King. What does it say about American society that nearly half the country want to give over their democratic republic to an autocrat, if not Donald Trump than Ron DeSantis? Give him 13:30 to lead you through a Bible Study that gives an answer

FRDH podcast host Michael Goldfarb was in L'viv Ukraine recently and this is his diary. L'viv is a city he knows well and he explores how war has changed it and how different the courage of Ukrainians who are living through real war is to the enervated resignation of Britons and Americans to their own deteriorating democracies. Give him 13:30 precisely to explain it to you.

The autumn of 2022 has brought Britons local and global economic crises and in this podcast the Financial Times' Martin Wolf tries to make sense of both. Did new British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng not know their budget that they said wasn't a budget would cause a crisis in the markets? Didn't they think for a minute about the difficult state of the world economy reeling from three years of pandemic and now war? Give Wolf and FRDH host Michael Goldfarb 35 minutes to untangle the factors creating these economic crises and perhaps find a bit of hope for getting out of them.

Created in a natural landscape feature, a conclave hillside, the Hollywood Bowl had already hosted religious services before its stage arrived. In 1922 the Los Angeles Philharmonic played its first season of open air concerts inaugurating a music venue. Lisa Mullen hears how the amphitheatre has hosted some of the greats of classical and popular music from Felix and Leonard Slatkin to Ella Fitzgerald, The Beatles and James Taylor. Michael Goldfarb and Mark Glancy discuss the emergence of a cultural landmark. Producer: Ruth Watts

Dedicated in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial is a neoclassical temple built to honour the 16th president of the United States. Lisa Mullen discovers why America chose to mark the man who led the nation in the civil war and issued the Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves forever. Michael Goldfarb, Professor Sarah Churchwell and Dr Joanna Cohen discuss the how the Lincoln Memorial became the backdrop for the continuing civil rights movement. Producer: Ruth Watts