Podcasts about vox tablet

Since 2005, the Vox Tablet team—producer Julie Subrin and host Sara Ivry—have done our best to create a Jewish podcast with conversations, stories, and reports from across the Jewish cultural world. But good things—even pioneering, award-winning podcasts—come to an end, and their makers move on to new adventures elsewhere. In our final episode, we take a brief walk down memory lane to some of our favorite moments from the past decade. Among highlights we feature are our visits with actor Fyvush Finkel; illustrator and author Roz Chast; Silver Jews’ frontman David Berman; tourists en route to the Statue of Liberty; South African justice Albie Sachs; attendees at an annual deli luncheon in a small Mississippi town; Israeli musician Noam Inbar; and West Side Story aficionado Alisa Solomon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Exactly a century ago, President Woodrow Wilson nominated Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. After a contentious confirmation process, he became the first Jewish justice, serving on the bench for 23 years. His rulings on privacy, workers’ rights, and free speech feel as relevant today as they did when he issued them, and his foresight, wisdom, and clear-spokenness cemented his reputation as nothing short of a visionary. In Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet, writer Jeffrey Rosen explores Brandeis’s personal and professional life. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss the influence Thomas Jefferson had on Brandeis—known as the "Jewish Jefferson," the justice’s ruling in Whitney v. California—a landmark free speech case, and why Brandeis is uniquely relevant in the fractious political climate of our day. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Earlier this year, the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement put out a new prayer book, or siddur. Siddur Lev Shalem, which means ‘full heart,’ is full of innovations. There are new translations of traditional prayers. Poems are included. There are commentaries on different parts of the Sabbath and holiday services. There are straightforward explanations of simple rites and gestures, like when and why to bow during the Amidah. The last time the Conservative movement published a new siddur was 15 years ago—not so very long. What compelled rabbis to put together a new siddur so soon? How does it differ from what preceded it? Rabbi Edward Feld, who oversaw the creation of Siddur Lev Shalem, joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the whats, whys, and hows behind this new prayer book. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rob Weisberg, the host of the world music radio program Transpacific Sound Paradise, joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about a trio of new genre-bending projects: A-Wa, Sandaraa, and Schizophonia. A-Wa are Israeli sisters of Yemeni ancestry who invoke the music of legendary singer Ofra Haza. Sandaraa joins Pashtun songs from Pakistani singer Zeb Bangash with the Eastern European klezmer clarinet of Michael Winograd. And Schizophonia, a project of guitarist Yoshie Fruchter, reconceives cantorial songs by setting them in a rock and roll context. Weisberg shares a bit of background about each project and we listen in for ourselves to these energetic and riveting sounds. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Barbra Streisand turns 75 next year. In her 50-plus year career, she has made her mark on the silver screen, on Broadway, in nightclubs, and on the record charts. Her beginnings were humble—she grew up poor and scrappy in Brooklyn with a mother and stepfather who were far from encouraging, and knew early on that she wanted to be a star regardless of her unconventional looks and comportment. How did she do it? What was the source of her broad appeal? And why does she stand out as a unique cultural figure in the landscape of so-called ethnic performers? Writer Neal Gabler tackles these and other questions in Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power, a new title in Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives Series. Gabler joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss Streisand as an ersatz Christ figure, how she has functioned as a metaphor for American Jewishness, and the deep debt she's owed by Melissa McCarthy and Adele. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

February is Black History month. To celebrate, Tablet contributor and JN Magazine editor MaNishtana is writing a series of blog posts introducing readers to Jews of Color whose religious affiliation you might not have known. Think: less Drake, more Lani Gunier. MaNishtana joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss the whats and hows of this project, his own Jewish roots, and why questions about the different parts of his identity makes no sense. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For the past nine years, at this time of year, Andy Bachman, a favorite Vox Tablet guest, would be gathering his thoughts in order to lead High Holiday services at Brooklyn’s Congregation Beth Elohim. Bachman was the head rabbi there. It’s a synagogue with a reputation for community engagement and social activism, and claims among its congregants a host of outspoken and influential personalities (Sen. Charles Schumer and Jonathan Safran Foer are among them). This year is different. Bachman stepped down from the pulpit earlier this summer and... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There are roughly three weeks until the summer clock unofficially runs down. How will you spend these last lazy days? Maybe you’ll be under an umbrella by the sea or in a hammock next to a green meadow or flopped on a big, soft couch in your very own living room. Wherever you are, you’ll want a good book by your side. To help you figure out exactly what that good book will be, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry asked some experts what they’ve enjoyed reading this summer and what they’re still yearning to dive into. Music for this week’s podcast comes from Podington Bear. *** Book Recommendations:

First there was Vox Tablet. Then there was Israel Story. Now, we are excited to present Unorthodox, Tablet’s newest podcast and part of Slate’s Panoply network. Hosted by Tablet Editor-at-Large Mark Oppenheimer and featuring Deputy Editor Stephanie Butnick and Senior Writer Liel Leibovitz, the weekly show includes fresh, fun, and “disturbingly honest” (says Oppenheimer) discussion of the latest Jewish news and culture, plus interviews with two guests—one Jewish, the other not. In the first episode, which you can listen to below or by subscribing to Unorthodox on iTunes, after a weighty disquisition on the place of Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg in contemporary Jewish culture, the panelists chat with... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For many Jews, the fact that Albert Einstein was Jewish is a point of pride. But what do we know about his Jewish self-identification? And how many folks out there could claim to have a basic understanding of his General Theory of Relativity? In Einstein: His Space and Time, biographer Steven Gimbel tackles these and other fundamental aspects of Einstein’s life and work. Gimbel is chairman of the philosophy department at Gettysburg College. He spoke with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about Einstein’s religious period (it came to an abrupt end when he discovered geometry at age 10), his clashes with all forms of authority, and his love of Israel, which fit uneasily with his profound distrust of nationalism. Gimbel also lays out the basic tenets of Einstein’s achievements in physics in terms that will make even science-phobes comfortable. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

During his political career, Léon Blum—who served three short terms as French prime minister between 1936 and 1947—was derided by his detractors as “a woman,” a “weak Jew,” and even a traitor. Meanwhile, he was worshiped by many French workers, grateful to him for introducing the 40-hour work week, vacation time, and other legislation from his Socialist agenda. According to sociologist Pierre Birnbaum, author of the new biography Léon Blum: Prime Minister, Socialist, Zionist, none of these characterizations captures the complexity of this under-appreciated figure. In an interview with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry, Birnbaum describes Blum as a remarkably brave, intelligent, and unflappable leader... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

More than a decade ago, an Italian-born Jerusalem-based singer named Shulamit learned of a collection of songs composed in concentration camps during WWII. Written by a handful of women most of whom perished in the war, the songs nearly possessed her. Shulamit began performing them, and in 2013 started working with trumpet player Frank London, of the Klezmatics, and the Israeli pianist Shai Bachar, to make arrangements and adaptations for an album. That album, called For You the Sun Will Shine: Songs of Women in the Shoa, is now out. From her apartment in Jerusalem, Shulamit tells Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the individual... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

These days it’d be pretty hard to walk without a ticket onto a boarding airplane bound for an international locale. Between the TSA and sniffer dogs, any would-be stowaway would likely see the inside of a jail cell pretty fast. But before September 11, in fact, before 1970, it wasn’t quite as challenging. When Victor Rodack, now a psychiatrist in his 60s, was a young teenager he had but one dream: to get to Israel. He tells Vox Tablet producer Julie Subrin exactly how he made that dream come true. Bonus track: Listen to Victor’s press conference at JFK Airport, just after he landed back in the United States. (Thanks to Victor Rodack and Paul Ruest for making this archival interview... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was known for many things, among them his humble origins, his commitment to ending slavery, his assassination exactly 150 years ago at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Less well-parsed were his relationships with Jews. And there were many such ties. Lincoln and the Jews, by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, examines scores of documents and archival materials to show that Lincoln befriended many Jews and also worked to include them in various strata of government. Sarna, a historian at Brandeis University, joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What do we talk about at Passover? Slavery, plagues, food, and of course all the unforgettable stories from Seders past. In this Passover special, produced by Vox Tablet for public radio stations (and you), we’ve got all that and more—hosted by Sara Ivry and Jonathan Goldstein, with stories from Etgar Keret, Sally Herships, Debbie Nathan, Michael Twitty, and Jonathan Groubert. We’ll Be Here All Night, Part 1: Plagues Co-host Jonathan Goldstein speaks with writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret about the narrative strengths and weaknesses of the Passover story, ending with an animated discussion of the 10 plagues. Next, reporter Sally Herships takes us into the home of Abigail Rosenfeld... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Marcus Rothkowitz was born in 1903 in Dvinsk, a town in the Pale of Settlement. As a child, he moved with his family to the United States. It was a journey that changed his life—and that of the world of modern art. Rothkowitz grew up to become the painter Mark Rothko. He’s the focus of Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in the Chapel, a new biography by Annie Cohen-Solal. She joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss Rothko’s revolutionary approach to painting, his ideas about the role of the artist in society, and what made him a Jewish artist. Plus, get ready for a Vox Tablet Passover extravaganza. We’ve got a... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the annals of biblical kings, David stands out. A humble shepherd, he slew Goliath, wrote poetry, dethroned his predecessor, and reigned in Israel for 40 years. His heroics inspired artists throughout history from Michelangelo to Shakespeare to Leonard Cohen. But David’s achievements in helping unite the Jews did not come without costs—he had innocent people killed, looked away at violence among his children, bedded married women. In David: The Divided Heart, out from Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives Series, Rabbi David Wolpe takes a look at this Jewish hero—warts and all. Wolpe joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a sponsored podcast on behalf of Yale University Press and their Jewish Lives series. Students of Jewish history—and the history of Mandate Palestine—are familiar with the name Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky. Born in Odessa, Jabotinsky was a journalist and an ardent Zionist committed to the establishment of the state of Israel. He was also a talented novelist, poet and screenwriter. In Jabotinsky: A Life, writer Hillel Halkin examines the full extent of Jabotinsky’s influence. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss the liberal Jewish... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Last weekend brought bad news from Europe: Far right parties in France, Denmark, Austria and elsewhere won big in the European Parliamentary elections. And in Brussels, four people died after a shooting at the city’s Jewish Museum. The attack came in a spring punctuated by anti-Semitic violence in France, the U.K., and elsewhere. All of these incidents have elicited the question: Is it time for Jews to leave Europe? To find out if things are as hostile for Jews in Europe as they seem from the vantage point of U.S. shores, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry speaks with two young European Jewish leaders. Andi Gergely grew up in Hungary and is the chairperson of the World Union of Jewish Students. Though now based in... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Known for frenzied takes on Yiddish and Eastern European music, the members of Golem bring the party with them wherever the band plays and no matter what they’re singing about. Their new album, Tanz, which means dance in Yiddish, covers religious rites, anti-Semitism in the former Soviet Union, dark children’s poems, and more, in a mix of rollicking interpretations of classic songs and original numbers. Golem’s founder and accordionist, Annette Ezekiel Kogan, and its violinist, Jeremy Brown, join Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the band’s surprising Mexican fan-base, how painful it is to sing the song “Odessa” now that Ukraine is in the throes of Russian occupation, and their ambivalence (now... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fyvush Finkel, 91 years old and still cracking wise, will take to the stage this month in a pair of Purim cabaret performances. Vox Tablet caught up with the legendary actor a few years ago, on the occasion of a different show. To celebrate his impressive vigor, good humor, and all-around affability, we revisit that conversation. Finkel made his stage debut more than eight decades ago, when he was 9 years old, singing “O Promise Me” at a theater in Brooklyn. Soon after, he crossed the East River to take roles in the famous Yiddish theaters of Second Ave. From there, he made his way onto Broadway and then into films by the likes of Sidney Lumet, Oliver Stone, and the

A warning to listeners: This episode of Vox Tablet contains explicit language and content you wouldn’t normally hear on our podcast. To censor such language, offensive as it may be, felt contrary to the spirit of Lambert’s argument, which posits a connection between “obscenity” and Jewish culture and continuity. Jews are oversexed. That’s a long-held stereotype. And, like most stereotypes, it’s baloney. What is true, however, is that Jews in America have been fighters on the front lines in producing, distributing, and defending sexually explicit materials for more than a century. Josh Lambert, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts and a Tablet contributing editor, addresses why that has... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It’s fairly common nowadays to hear renditions of “Sunrise, Sunset,” for instance, or “The Sabbath Prayer,” memorable melodies from the Fiddler on the Roof, at bar mitzvahs or weddings. Songs from that musical—whose story is inspired by the work of Sholem Aleichem—have become an indelible part of our popular cultural lexicon not just in the United States, but worldwide. Directed by Jerome Robbins and starring Zero Mostel, Fiddler debuted on Broadway in 1964 and quickly became a smash, resonating with Jewish audiences comfortable enough in their assimilated lives in America to be able to look fondly back at the shtetl their parents left behind. How the play got made and what its significance has been for peoples of all ethnicities and backgrounds is the subject of a new book by Columbia University professor Alisa Solomon. Solomon joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss

For most of its first 50-plus years, the Yiddish language Jewish Daily Forward (now 116 years old) was edited by its founder, Abraham Cahan. Cahan was a Lithuanian immigrant and socialist who came to this country alone at the age of 22, in 1882. Within five years, he’d established himself as a leader of the Jewish immigrant community and as an industrious reporter with friends like the muckraker journalist Lincoln Steffins and the literary critic William Dean Howells. How Cahan climbed the political, journalistic, and literary (he wrote the critically acclaimed novel The Rise of David Levinsky) ranks of 20th century America is the topic of The Rise of Abraham Cahan, a new biography by Seth Lipsky. In 1990, Lipsky founded the English-language Forward. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss how Cahan managed to wear the seemingly conflicting hats... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sara Ivry is the host of Vox Tablet, the weekly podcast of Tablet Magazine, and a writer who has contributed to the New York Times, Bookforum, the Boston Globe, and other publications.

There’s no other living Israeli author who is as well known around the world as Amos Oz. Inside Israel, he’s one of the country’s most respected cultural figures. Oz has lived a tumultuous life. When he was 10 years old, he witnessed the founding of the Jewish state. When he was 12 years old, his mother committed suicide. When he was 15, he joined a kibbutz and changed his last name to Oz, Hebrew for “strength.” He eventually left the kibbutz for the desert because of his son’s asthma, but as he tells Vox Tablet contributor Daniel Estrin, he still dreams of kibbutz life at least once a week. In his newest short story collection, Between Friends, he revisits the early years of the kibbutz, when the collective farms were still a wild Israeli ideological experiment. Estrin sat with Amos Oz in his home in Tel Aviv for a far-ranging discussion about... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When guitarist and composer Dan Kaufman headed to Rome in 2009 to study the liturgical melodies of the city’s ancient Jewish community, he stumbled upon the site of a famous partisan attack against the Nazis. Bullet-marked, the building where the action took place remained as a testament to resistance. That story joined together in his imagination with that of the city’s inhabitants from millennia before, inspiring him to create the new album Bella Ciao. Like previous projects Kaufman has undertaken with his band Barbez—he joined the podcast in 2007 to discuss his album inspired by the work of Paul Celan—Bella Ciao draws on poetry and uses theramin, vibraphone, and more traditional instruments to produce an invigorating mix of sound and ideas. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about how he... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Questions of character shape public discourse. From Paula Deen to Edward Snowden—the choices people make and actions people take raise questions about free will, personal responsibility, and morality. And yet, researchers in sociology, psychology, and neuroscience are increasingly asserting that the independent self that we are all so attached to doesn’t really exist. What’s more, there are philosophical traditions dating back to Aristotle, Maimonides, and Spinoza that may offer more useful ways of thinking about how to foster ethical behavior and moral societies. In The Self Beyond Itself: An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free Will, Heidi Ravven, a professor of religious studies at Hamilton College, examines these questions. She joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry on the podcast to discuss how the myth of free will took hold, what Spinoza had to say... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What are the three words a woman never wants to hear when she’s making love? Honey, I’m home. Whether their circumstances are happy or fraught, Jews have been pointing out the humor in their predicaments since the biblical era, when Sarah the matriarch saw the fact that she’d bear a child at her advanced age as a cruel joke. But it was only since the Enlightenment that, as a people, the Jews became known as a witty lot—reveling in word play, contradiction, and self-deprecation. Yiddish scholar Ruth Wisse loves a good punchline (and, with her grandmotherly comportment, has perfected the straight-man delivery) but rejects the idea that Jewish humor is a uniform thing and, furthermore, that it’s something of which to be proud. In No Joke: Making Jewish Humor, Wisse considers the variations of humor from Heinrich Heine to YouTube. She joins Vox Tablet host Sara... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In his debut novel, The Path of Names, Vancouver-based writer Ari Goelman conjures Dahlia, an intrepid 13-year-old who we meet as she begrudgingly attends her first summer at Camp Arava, the Jewish overnight camp where her brother is a beloved counselor. Ever interested in figuring out sleights of hand, she’d rather spend her time learning magic. Then strange things start to happen. Dahlia spots two apparitions—little girls dressed for the 1940s who beckon to her in her bunk. Suddenly she has memories and dreams of yeshiva life and understands Hebrew words she has never before known. Unruffled by the increasingly intense fantastical phenomena around her, Dahlia forges on, keen to figure out what’s happening to her and to the sweet ghosts who keep reappearing. Ari Goelman talks with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the fantasy novels that accompanied his childhood, how he came up with the idea for Dahlia and her story, and why he set the action at a... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Joshua Prager is a reporter best known for tracking down elusive characters whose lives were altered in an instant—people like Tehran-based photographer Jahangir Razmi, the only anonymous winner of a Pulitzer Prize, and Albert Clark, who was unexpectedly bequeathed the royalties of the wildly popular children’s books Goodnight, Moon, Runaway Bunny, and other titles by Margaret Wise Brown. Now Prager has written Half-Life, the story of how his own life changed in an instant. When he was 19 and spending the year studying at a yeshiva in Israel, he was a passenger on a minibus headed to Jerusalem that was struck by a speeding truck. Prager’s neck was broken, and he nearly died. Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry talks with Prager about how the accident altered the course he’d... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Last week, the Society of Professional Journalists named Tablet contributor Daniel Estrin a Sigma Delta Chi Award honoree for his 2012 Vox Tablet report about a new light-rail system in Jerusalem, a city hardly known for its high-functioning infrastructure. With a rapidly growing population squeezed between sacred sites, and as ground zero for an intractable territorial conflict, Jerusalem is more or less an urban planner’s worst nightmare. When the light-rail system was first proposed, it was meant to ease congestion and unify the city. In addition to facing a host of logistical obstacles on its way to completion, the project prompted considerable opposition because... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the Book of Numbers, it is written that God said to Moses: “Speak to the sons of Israel, and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner a cord of blue.” Yet it is comparatively rare to see Jews wearing prayer shawls with blue thread added to the fringes. Why this intransigence? The short answer is that it’s an extraordinarily difficult commandment to fulfill, and one over which people have puzzled for centuries. Religious Jews believe that the blue used on tzitzit must be the same blue as was used in ancient times, and the source of that blue, referred to in the Bible as tekhelet, has been shrouded in mystery for over a thousand years. Now, thanks to the efforts of a motley crew of rabbis, chemists, marine biologists, and archaeologists from around the world, it appears the mystery has been solved. Vox Tablet sent reporter Zak Rosen to... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As an author and literary critic (including for Tablet), Adam Kirsch has written about Lionel Trilling, Benjamin Disraeli, Emily Dickinson, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, among many others. This past August, he moved into less familiar territory when he joined the tens of thousands of Jews participating in Daf Yomi, studying a page of Talmud a day. The study cycle will take seven and a half years to complete. Since he began, Kirsch has been writing a weekly column to share his reflections on these essential Jewish texts, and on the Daf Yomi process itself. On today’s Vox Tablet, Kirsch shares some of those reflections with... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A central component of Purim observance is, of course, the raucous, collective reading of the Book of Esther. That tradition has evolved into a virtual industry of theatrical storytelling events, or Purimspiels. This year, Vox Tablet decided to jump on the bandwagon. We commissioned four young comedians and/or comedy writers—Josh Gondelman (of recent Modern Seinfeld fame), Emily Heller, Rob Kutner, and Judy Batalion—to share personal stories related to one of several Purim-related themes. With guest host Rebecca Soffer as emcee, here are their stories, which take us on ill-advised cross-country road trips, deposit us in awkward dinner conversations, and remind us of the many ways one can hide one’s identity... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Vladimir Vysotsky, Russia’s beloved balladeer, would have turned 75 this week. Though he died more than three decades ago, at the age of 42, he is still revered as a singer and poet who captured the mood, and the soul, of a dejected generation. But while Vysotsky’s music and persona clearly spoke to a particular time and place (the USSR in the post-Stalinist “Thaw” era), his songs have been adopted by social movements all over the world, including, most recently, Israel’s tent protesters during the summer of 2011. Today, on Vox Tablet, Liel Leibovitz looks at the too-short life, and enduring afterlife, of this remarkable man and considers what it is that makes his ballads so resonant for so many. [Running time: 10:11.] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Last summer, 18people paid anywhere between $2,000 and $4,000 to plant cucumbers, scrub potatoes, and build a chicken coop on 200 acres in Goshen, N.Y., all while speaking in a language few of them know. They were enrolled in the first full session of Yiddish Farm, the brainchild of 26-year-old Naftali Ejdelman. Ejdelman comes by his Yiddish honestly; he is the grandson of the late Yiddish professor Mordkhe Schaechter and grew up speaking the language at home. His farming experience, however, is less extensive (as he’s the first to admit). That didn’t stop him from procuring land, recruiting a partner, Yisroel Bass, and launching the first and only Yiddish-language-based shomer-shabbos working organic farm. In September, Vox Tablet sent reporter Nina Porzucki to find out how the farm, and its farmers, were faring. [Running time: 10:40.] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Growing up in the Netherlands, Simon Kuper was raised on soccer and on stories of the Dutch resistance during World War II. It was only as an adult that Kuper, a columnist for the Financial Times, began to understand the level of complicity on the part of the Dutch: more than 75 percent of the Jews in the country were killed during the war. And yet ordinary life—including soccer playing and viewing—continued with little disruption. In his book Ajax, the Dutch, the War: The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe’s Darkest Hour (just out in the United States), Kuper looks at soccer culture during the war and offers fresh insight into the treatment of Dutch Jews. In particular, he digs into the archives and institutional memory of Ajax Amsterdam, the country’s premier club and one that has long been associated with the city’s Jews. Kuper, who has written three other books about soccer, spoke from Paris with Vox Tablet’s Sara Ivry about what he uncovered in his research and... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, Barbra Streisand returns to Brooklyn for her first public performances in her native borough since moving away more than 50 years ago. News of her homecoming shows was announced in May—with tickets to performances tonight and Saturday selling out months before the $1 billion Barclays Center, where she’ll appear, even opened. How did this happen? In 1960, Streisand was a 17-year-old kid from Flatbush trying to make it big in Manhattan. Four years later, she was the country’s top-selling female recording artist and was starring on Broadway as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. How she and her loyal associates transformed her into a beloved and critically acclaimed star is the subject of Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand, a new biography by William Mann. (Mann’s previous subjects include Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn.) Mann joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about how Streisand exaggerated her “kooky”... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Harold Kushner first brought comfort and insight to many in 1981 with his best-selling self-help book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Since then, he’s continued to offer life- and faith-affirming messages, with such titles as When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough, and Living a Life That Matters. Now he returns to his original theme of suffering with The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person. In Job’s anguish and anger toward God, Kushner finds lessons on how one might remain faithful to a God who does not protect us from suffering. Kushner talks with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the very personal roots of this exploration, dating back to the 1970s, when his son Aaron was diagnosed with a rare and incurable disease (Aaron died in 1977, at age 14); about the depth and complexity of the Job verses; and about why he believes we must choose between an all-loving God and an... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hanna Rosin’s new book The End of Men argues that changes in the U.S. economy—specifically the vast reduction of manufacturing jobs combined with growth in health, human resources, education, and other traditionally female-dominated professions—are leaving men in the dust in corporate culture, at universities, in families, and in popular culture. To what extent are these trends reflected in Jewish American communal life and leadership? Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry is joined by Andy Bachman, rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn (and U.S. history and politics buff), and Shifra Bronznick, founding president of Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community, to discuss Rosin’s thesis, and how it might resonate in a Jewish context. They speak as Jewish leaders, as people who are privy to the private concerns of Jewish men and women who are struggling with these changes, and as parents of sons and daughters who will have to navigate... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Theodore Ross moved with his newly divorced mother and brother to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi at age 9, the family pretended not to be Jewish. This deceit was his mother’s idea, and years later it led Ted to question whether he should consider himself a Jew at all, having been discouraged from embracing any religious identification as a young person. In recent years, the desire to answer that question led him to seek out other Jews who are outliers in some way, from crypto-Jews in the Southwest, to the “lost tribe” Ethiopian Jews now resettled in Israel, to ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn who welcome him into their homes for Shabbat. Ross writes about these journeys in Am I a Jew? Lost Tribes, Lapsed Jews, and One Man’s Search for Himself. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about why his mother demanded that he hide his religious identity, what it was like pretending not to be entirely himself, and why he chose to... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

David Rakoff, a contributor to our site, died Aug. 9, 2012, after a battle with cancer. He was 47. Some years ago, Rakoff wrote an essay on the life and work of Viennese writer Felix Salten. The creator of Bambi, Salten was a European Jew who wrote soft porn and a prominent critic in early 20th-century Austria. In concert with this essay, Rakoff joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry for a podcast conversation about the brutality in Bambi, about Salten’s place in literary society, and about the dark side of fairy tales—and life. We re-run this piece now to celebrate David Rakoff, whose wit, warmth, and grace come across in every utterance, and whose reading of a particularly wrenching scene from Bambi gives a sense both of the work’s violence and of Rakoff’s own captivating voice.... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Many people think of Islam, or religion generally, as disempowering for girls and women. The Light in Her Eyes, a documentary by Laura Nix and Julia Meltzer, challenges that notion. It follows Houda al-Habash, a conservative Muslim, wife, mother, preacher, and founder of a girls’ religious school in Damascus. In observing al-Habash, her children, students, and colleagues at school, at home, in shopping malls, and at outdoor cafés, the film explores how modernity and Muslim faith co-exist, challenging many Western assumptions that such co-existence is a fallacy. Meltzer and Nix join Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the difficulties they had filming as American women—one Jewish, one Christian—in Syria and about their audiences’ reactions to the seemingly contradictory values and aspirations expressed by al-Habash and her students. The Light in Her Eyes airs on the PBS series “POV” on July 19, 2012, and... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

By day, Chris Silver works for a Jewish task force trying to raise awareness about civic inequalities facing Israel’s Arab citizens. But he dedicates his free time to Jews in an Arab land, with his blog, Jewish Morocco. Silver created the blog in 2008, while traveling in Morocco, as a way of sharing the stories, photographs, and other artifacts he was collecting to document what Jewish life there had been like in its heyday. Along the way, he developed a particular interest in the country’s Jewish musicians and singers—characters who were beloved by Moroccans of all backgrounds, and to whom he gives ample space on his blog. Silver joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about some of the unique voices he’s discovered, what happened to Jewish Moroccan singers once they left the country in the 1950s and ’60s, and where he gets his missionary zeal (hint: It has to do with Bob Dylan; Mama Cass; Bill Cosby; and Chris’s dad, Roy).... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matthew Lazar grew up singing—at home, at summer camp, everywhere. A trained musician and conductor, he found that singing in a chorus offered him a way to foster community and express joy in being Jewish. That joy reached greater heights when Lazar took over the reins of the Zamir Choral Foundation, an organization dedicated to giving teenagers and adults an opportunity to sing together throughout the United States and Israel, 40 years ago. This Sunday, the voices of the Zamir Chorale will fill the halls of Jazz at Lincoln Center, when they perform with Yehoram Gaon, Alberto Mizrahi, and other special guests in a concert celebrating Yom Yerushalayim, or Jerusalem Day, the holiday that marks the reunification of Jerusalem after 1967’s Six Day War. Matthew Lazar joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about what makes choral music Jewish, about his own musical background, and about what will surely be some... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Aleppo Codex, which dates back to the 10th century, is considered by many Bible scholars to be the most perfect copy of the Hebrew Bible that has ever existed. Yet most Jews have never heard of it. Four years ago, Jerusalem-based reporter Matti Friedman set out to change that fact, researching the codex’s mysterious history: how it changed hands from the Jews of Aleppo, Syria, where it had been safeguarded for centuries, to tightly held institutional control in the state of Israel—where it became decidedly more imperiled, and where large portions of the codex went missing. Friedman explores this journey in The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss the codex’s clandestine journey to Israel in the late 1950s, what might have happened to sections of the codex that have gone missing, and the struggle of the Jews of Aleppo to regain control of their community’s most prized religious... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 1996, just as the Honorable Madeleine Korbelova Albright was confirmed as secretary of State—the country’s first woman to hold that post—revelations came to light that her Czech parents, neither of whom were living by then, had been born Jews. Josef and Anna (née Spieglová) Korbel converted to Catholicism in 1941, when Josef was working for the exiled Czech government in London. The information, which Albright learned of just a few months before it was made public, raised many questions: Why had her parents converted, and why had they never told her? Why had she never figured it out? And what happened to the relatives who remained in Czechoslovakia during World War II and after? It was only when her term as secretary of State ended that Albright was able to pursue answers to these questions in earnest. In her new book, Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, she chronicles her search and the answers she found. She joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 1999, a young woman in Colorado named Shonnie Medina died of breast cancer. Tests revealed that she carried a gene mutation commonly associated with Jews—yet Medina was a Hispano, meaning that her ancestry was both Native American and Spanish, with no known Jewish background. Other family members similarly turned out to be carriers of this potentially deadly gene; some have died from or been diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer. How this clan of Roman Catholic Hispanos became carriers of this mutation is the subject of a new book by Jeff Wheelwright: The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion, and DNA tells Medina’s tragic tale as well as the story of how one specific genetic marker could have made its way from Ancient Babylonia to the contemporary American southwest. Wheelwright joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the resilience of the breast-cancer gene, and how the Jewish Diaspora can be traced... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Growing up in Tel Aviv, pianist Alon Yavnai was exposed to a range of musical traditions including Middle Eastern, jazz, and Latin (his mother is Argentine). Since then, the Grammy-winner has experimented with other influences, touring with a Cape Verdean dance band, for instance, and collaborating with accomplished musicians such as cellist Yo-Yo Ma and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera. Yavnai’s last album featured his own jazz trio. Now he’s trying his hand with a much bigger ensemble. Working with the Hamburg-based NDR Bigband, Yavnai has put out Shir Ahava, a jazz album that sometimes veers into symphony territory, blurring the lines between genres and suggesting, furthermore, that such lines are immaterial—to those making the music, anyway. Yavnai speaks with Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry at his home in Brooklyn about how he first took up the piano, his ventures into big band... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach made a huge splash with his 1999 book, Kosher Sex. The book, along with works including Kosher Sutra and Kosher Adultery, flouts taboos against discussing physical intimacy, desire, and other basic elements of the human experience. Now he’s at it again, taking on perhaps the biggest taboo of all: Jesus. In Kosher Jesus, Boteach argues that Jesus, a faithful adherent and proponent of Judaism, never intended to create a new religion. That turn of events was a corruption of Jesus’ reputation by his followers, argues Boteach, and getting to a place where Jews and Christians alike recognize his Jewishness can only help achieve greater understanding between peoples of different faiths today. Boteach joins Vox Tablet, hosted by Tablet’s Bari Weiss, to talk about his new book. With him on the podcast is Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University and a longtime friend of Boteach’s, who has his own... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the 19th century, Sa’adi Besalel a-Levi was an esteemed (if controversial) journalist, publisher, singer, and composer in Salonica, a Mediterranean port city whose 2,000-year-old Jewish community was later decimated in the Holocaust. He also wrote the earliest known Ladino-language memoir, which was all but lost until Stanford University history professor Aron Rodrigue found a forgotten copy at Jerusalem’s Jewish National and University Library. Now the memoir is available to all, in an edition introduced and edited by Rodrigue and fellow historian Sarah Abrevaya Stein, and translated by Isaac Jerusalmi: A Jewish Voice From Ottoman Salonica has been published in English in tandem with a digital version of the original soletreo, or Ladino cursive. Rodrigue and Stein join Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about Sa’adi’s life, his obsession... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Varian Fry, an American journalist, went to Europe in 1941 on behalf of the Emergency Rescue Committee, he went with a mission: to save a group of European artists and intellectuals from the Nazis. His endeavor succeeded. With the help of a small team, he rescued Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, and more than 2,200 others. But at a time when Oskar Schindler and Raul Wallenberg are familiar names, Fry has been largely forgotten. Journalist Dara Horn was determined to tell his story. In a revelatory Kindle Single published today by Tablet Magazine, Horn reports on how Fry came to his rescue work and what became of him after the war. (You can read a preview on Tablet.) But how did this hero decide whom to save in the first place? Horn spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivy about Fry’s exploits, the arguably eugenics-like nature of his mission, the cultural heritage that was... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Walt Disney was not a controversial figure during his lifetime. But after his death in 1966, historians began putting forth a variety of disquieting revelations about him: The animator and studio chief had testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, it turned out, and he may have been an FBI informant. He was allegedly interested in cryogenics. And he was reportedly prone to making anti-Semitic remarks. But subsequent biographers disagreed, sparking a long battle over Disney’s legacy. Eric Molinsky worked in the animation industry, and has long wondered not only if the claims of Disney’s anti-Semitism are true but also why they remain a point of fascination and ridicule among cartoonists and others nearly a half-century after his death. For this week’s Vox Tablet, Molinsky, now a radio producer, spoke to an animation historian, a Disney-obsessed playwright, and a fairy-tale scholar in an effort to understand if Disney the man, or Disney’s world view, was truly bad for the... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

These days there is a lot to worry about: global warming, financial collapse, terrorism—you name it. For writer Max Brooks, the threat that trumps them all is zombies. He sounded a warning call about these walking dead in 2003 with The Zombie Survival Guide, followed three years later by World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, an immensely popular account of a massive zombie outbreak (the movie version, starring Brad Pitt, is due out in December 2012). Brooks joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry on the podcast to discuss the perils of dressing up like a zombie on Halloween, the particular horrors that a zombie infestation represents to Jews, and the origins of his own zombie fears—traced to one fateful night circa 1985 when Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft opted not to hire a babysitter. [Running time: 14:40.] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Every day, people gather in lower Manhattan to pay tribute to an American icon. They are waiting, often for hours, for the ferry that will take them to the Statue of Liberty. While most visitors to the statue are familiar with the rousing poem displayed inside its base—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” and so on—very few can name the poet who wrote it, Emma Lazarus. Even fewer know that Lazarus was a Sephardic Jew and a scholar, playwright, and novelist. In 2006, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry went to the Statue of Liberty ferry terminal to talk to visitors about Lazarus and solicit from them a group... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sukkot, which begins later this week, celebrates the end of the harvest season. People decorate their sukkahs with branches and fruits as a way of giving thanks for the season’s bounty. Yet Jews generally shy away from nature worship, with its echoes of idolatry and paganism. It is even argued that Judaism’s human-centered worldview—the belief that humans alone are made in God’s image—makes us particularly ill-suited to respond to warnings about shrinking glaciers and dying species. How, then, does a religious Jew who is deeply concerned about threats to the environment galvanize her community? Evonne Marzouk, the founder and executive director of Canfei Nesharim, a Jewish environmental organization, addressed that question for Vox Tablet. She spoke to host Sara Ivry about rabbinical and Torah-based justifications for making environmental sustainability a priority, her own journey to... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ever since his service in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israeli Yuval Neria has been interested in the impact of extreme trauma on mental health. He became an expert on post-traumatic stress disorder and was recruited to Columbia University’s department of clinical psychology shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Since then, he has been working with and studying those most directly affected by the events in New York City: friends and family of those who were killed in the World Trade Center, and the first responders who worked in the wreckage. On the eve of Tisha B’Av, the day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Temples and other catastrophic events in Jewish history, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke to Neria about his own wartime experiences and what his research has taught him about treating trauma. Neria was awarded a Medal of Valor for his service, and in 1986 he published the novel Esh, Hebrew for “fire,” a fictionalized account of his time in... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In an old joke, a Frenchman, a German, and a Jew walk into a bar. “I’m tired and thirsty,” says the Frenchman. “I must have wine.” “I’m tired and thirsty,” says the German. “I must have some beer.” “I’m tired and thirsty,” says the Jew. “I must have diabetes.” Hypochondria is a staple of Jewish humor, but the neurotic disorder is by no means the exclusive domain of Jews, nor is it necessarily funny. Those who suffer from it are consumed by anxiety over the imagined progression of illness in their bodies and obsessively take note of symptoms real or imagined. It disrupts work and family life. And it taxes the healthcare system, as hypochondriacs seek second, third, fourth, and fifth opinions and demand test after test. This week Vox Tablet presents the radio documentary “Living With Hypochondria: The Real Costs of Imagined Illness,” written and produced by Karen Brown and first aired on WFCR in New England. It takes an in-depth look at... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For most women, diamonds prompt reveries of fairytale engagements, or at least daydreams of Marilyn Monroe. For journalist Alicia Oltuski, they connote family. Her paternal grandfather was a diamond dealer; he once traded a single stone for condensed milk, marmalade, and honey when he was a displaced person in Germany just after World War II. Oltuski’s father also dealt in gems—buying and selling antique jewelry on West 47th Street, the heart of New York City’s diamond district. In her new book, Precious Objects: A Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way of Life, Oltuski examines the jewelry trade and some of the characters who work in it. She joined Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss Jewish predominance in the diamond business, her family’s relationship with the industry, and how the gems now represent polar positions—romance and conflict—in popular culture. [Running time: 18:26.] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The inaugural class of fellows at the American Academy in Jerusalem was announced last month by the Foundation for Jewish Culture, which will host the four selected American artists while they develop new work in the dynamically, culturally rich city. The project is the brainchild of Elise Bernhardt, the foundation’s president, who modeled it on the American Academies in Rome and Berlin (each is a separate entity, with no formal ties). The American Academy in Jerusalem, a nine-week residency, also aims to strengthen ties between artists and cultural institutions in the United States and Israel. Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry talked about the program with Bernhardt, discussing how the fellows were selected and whether Jerusalem can compete with European cities as a cultural capital. Ivry also spoke to the four fellows, who are headed to Jerusalem in October: urban planner David Karnovsky, visual artist

Oxford doctoral candidate Rebecca Steinfeld argues in Tablet Magazine today that granting Yigal Amir, the assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the right to conjugal visits and by extension the right to father a child is consistent with the state’s pro-natalist policies. Steinfeld is writing a dissertation on the topic, War of the Wombs: The History and Politics of Fertility Policies in Israel, 1948-2010. She spoke to Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the evolution of these policies, from cash “birth prizes” awarded to mothers on the birth of their 10th child in the early days of the state to today’s heavily subsidized fertility procedures for women who wish to conceive, and about accusations that these policies have favored Jewish citizens over others. [Running time: 17:29.] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tablet Magazine recently moved its offices to a stretch of West 28th Street in Manhattan. The new digs are in an auspicious location—the block that was once Tin Pan Alley, the historic district where George Gershwin and Irving Berlin and many others went to play piano and peddle songs to music publishers. As the 20th century reached its midpoint, tunesmiths moved elsewhere. (The Brill Building, famously home to later generations of songwriters, is just north of Times Square.) Old buildings came down while new ones went up, and our portion of West 28th is now a bustling commercial hodge-podge bookended by the flower district to the west and the perfume district to the east. To learn more about our new neighborhood—where Emma Goldman founded her anarchist magazine, too, and Zero Mostel had a painting studio—Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke to

The holiday of Shavuot brings with it unique forms of observance. In addition to the consumption of dairy-rich delicacies, many people participate in a tikkun layl Shavuot, an all-night study session. During a tikkun, it’s traditional to peruse and discuss a portion from the Bible, the Talmud, or the Mishneh. To mark Shavuot this year, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry asked novelist Nathan Englander, musician Alicia Jo Rabins, Rabbi Phil Lieberman, and theologian Avivah Zornberg what text they’d most like to think about in the early-morning hours, and what... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Death—always around us—seemed especially present in recent days. The killing of Osama Bin Laden revived memories of his 9/11 victims, while Yom HaShoah brought to mind those who perished in the Holocaust. Yet every day, private acts of mourning take place—people grieve over the loss of a loved one, a friend, a neighbor. In the short story “Walter and Edith,” Miami-based writer Jeremy Glazer offers a more intimate glimpse into the experience of personal loss. His story comes to Vox Tablet by way of Alicia Zuckerman, a senior producer of the radio show Under the Sun at WLRN in Miami. [Running time: 9:32.] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the late 1950s, Florence Greenberg was a housewife in Passaic, N.J., with an itch to get into the music business. A tip from her daughters led her to a quartet of young African-American singers. Under Greenberg’s tutelage, the women became the legendary Shirelles, the group behind such hits as “I Met Him on a Sunday” and “Dedicated to the One I Love.” Greenberg’s name in the business was made. She formed three record labels—Tiara, Scepter, and Wand—and had a hand in the successes of talents including Dionne Warwick and the Isley Brothers. As the curtain rises on Baby It’s You, a new musical celebrating Greenberg’s life and work, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry speaks with Slate Magazine music critic Jody Rosen about the obstacles Greenberg might have faced as a pioneering woman, about her ability to identify voices and styles that others didn’t think America was quite ready for, and about the real meaning of the song “Say a Little... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.