Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Thirty years ago, in August 1991, riots broke out in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, a neighborhood shared by African Americans and Jews, the latter of whom were mostly members of the hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In the year 1970, the distinguished American writer Cynthia Ozick published an essay arguing that Jewish literature might succeed if it embraced and conveyed the rich particularism of the Jewish experience. In a famous metaphor, […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Two liberal arts professors were intrigued by a habit of mind they detected in their students, especially their high-achieving ones. Despite material abundance and the freedom to pursue a profession or passion of their choosing, […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The hallmark of the American constitutional system was the idea that all men are created equal. Of course, the American regime did not live up to that ambition for centuries, but the ideal of equality […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher. The United States is undergoing a spike in violent crime. Murder rates have increased drastically in big cities across the country, from Atlanta and New York to Milwaukee and Seattle. For the roughly 7 million Jews […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher. Last week, the language-learning app Duolingo introduced a new course on Yiddish. The course sparked significant interest, and provoked significant controversy. In the app’s menu, each language is represented by the flag of the primary country […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Today, everybody, children and adults alike, is glued to their smartphones and tablets and computers. But much of the content readily available on these devices can be harmful, especially for children. So helping children navigate […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Not long ago, Conservative Judaism was America’s largest and most vital Jewish denomination. Today, things are different; for many years now, the movement has been losing and not replacing its members. In a recent essay […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Most of our podcast guests, especially those focusing on religious issues, tend to look at the world in a traditional way―meaning, their habits of mind tend to be traditional and conservative. Many of our podcast […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  American democracy is a nation of nations. Muslims, Christians, and Jews, women and men from every nation on earth have made themselves into Americans. Nevertheless, a unique majority culture developed within this nation of nations: […]