Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Since its first issue twelve years ago, the Jewish Review of Books, a beautifully-designed quarterly that was founded and supported by Tikvah, has produced 49 issues of high-level Jewish discourse. Much of that success can […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  When Jews celebrate the upcoming holiday of Purim, they’ll also study the Book of Esther, named for the young queen whose Jewish identity was unknown to her husband—Persia’s king—and his court. The Book of Esther […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel changed the Jewish people, giving them a place to live in their historic home, if they wanted it. But what about the Jews who remained, […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In a previous podcast, Professors Benjamin and Jenna Storey explored a habit of mind that frustrated their very best students, a sentiment they called restlessness. As the Storeys saw it, their exceptional students had countless life […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Every week, on the seventh day—the Sabbath—observant Jews rest. They perform no labor and they dedicate the day to serving God. This idea, the Sabbath, has another application in the Hebrew Bible: God also commands […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  This week, Jews celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, during which it is traditional to read one of the most philosophically interesting books of the Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiastes. The narrator of the book, identified by Jewish […]

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 […]

The Book of Ruth tells one of the Hebrew Bible’s most beautiful and beloved stories—chronicling how a childless widow from a foreign land rises to become the ancestress of Israel’s greatest king. But as Dr. Leon Kass and his coauthor (and granddaughter) Hannah Mandelbaum demonstrate in their new book, Reading Ruth: Birth, Redemption, and the […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The idea of social justice marks a cleavage in the American Jewish consciousness. Its advocates believe that social justice represents the very best ethical impulses of Judaism, and that the pursuit of social justice is […]