New Books in Jewish Studies

Jan 20 2025 1207 ep. 56 mins 2.9k
New Books in Jewish Studies Podcast artwork

Interview with Scholars of Judaism about their New Books

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  Religion & Spirituality
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Anthony McElligott, "The Last Transport: The Holocaust in the Eastern Aegean" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

Jan 20 2025 84 mins  
Today I talked to Anthony McElligott about The Last Transport: The Holocaust in the Eastern Aegean (Bloomsbury, 2024). The deportation of 1,755 Jews from the islands of Rhodes and Cos in July 1944, shortly after the last deportation from Hungary, was the last transport to leave Greece for Auschwitz and brought to a close the last significant phase of the genocide of Europe's Jews (

Rafael Rachel Neis, "When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species" (U California Press, 2023)

Jan 20 2025 96 mins  
When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species (U California Press, 2023) investigates rabbinic treatises relating to animals, humans, and other life-forms. Through an original analysis of creaturely generation and species classification by late ancient Palestinian rabbis and other thinkers in the Roman Empire, Rafael Rachel Neis shows how rabbis blurre

Shmuel Goldin, "Unlocking the Torah Text" (Gefen Books, 2014)

Jan 18 2025 28 mins  
Unlocking the Torah Text (Gefen Books, 2014) provides an in-depth journey into the Torah portion through a series of studies on each parsha. In clear and incisive fashion, each study carefully examines deep philosophical issues and perplexing textual questions. Helpful distinction is made between pshat (straightforward literal meaning) and Midrash (rabbinical exegesis) as both of t

Mark Celinscak, "Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp" (U Toronto Press, 2015)

Jan 16 2025 77 mins  
The Allied soldiers who liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 were faced with scenes of horror and privation. With breathtaking thoroughness, Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp (U Toronto Press, 2015) documents what they saw and how they came to terms with those images over the course of the ne

Alec Goldstein, "Maimonides on the Book of Exodus" (Kodesh Press, 2019)

Jan 16 2025 37 mins  
Today I talked to Alec Goldstein about Maimonides on the Book of Exodus (Kodesh Press, 2019). Rabbi Moses son of Maimon, known in Hebrew as Rambam and in English as Maimonides, is one of Judaism’s most influential and enduring figures. His works have shaped Jewish thought for centuries, combining legal precision, philosophical brilliance, and profound spirituality. While Maimonid

Yehudah Cohn, trans., "Mine Is The Golden Tongue: The Hebrew Sonnets Of Immanuel Of Rome" (Centro Primo Levi, 2023)

Jan 14 2025 72 mins  
Mine Is The Golden Tongue: The Hebrew Sonnets Of Immanuel Of Rome (Centro Primo Levi, 2023) contains the first known sonnets written in Hebrew. Their author is Immanuel of Rome, an intensely studied yet little-known 14th-century poet, who adapted the quantitative meter of Arabic and Hebrew poetry from al-Andalous to the syllabic meter of romance poetry. These poems are part of Imma

Yitzchak Etshalom, "Amos: The Genius of Prophetic Rhetoric" (Maggid, 2024)

Jan 14 2025 24 mins  
With timeless poetry and stunning imagery, the prophet Amos of Tekoa, a simple herdsman from the Judean mountains, stands in front of a stubborn, antagonistic audience of Israelite royalty and aristocracy and he rebukes them for their many abuses of power. But he offers them a better vision of themselves by lifting them to the heavens on wings of lyrical brilliance. Join us as we s

Nitzan Lebovic, "Homo Temporalis: German Jewish Thinkers on Time" (Cornell UP, 2025)

Jan 13 2025 102 mins  
Homo Temporalis: German Jewish Thinkers on Time (Cornell UP, 2025) tells the story of a group of twentieth-century Jewish intellectuals who grappled ceaselessly with concepts of time and temporality. The project brings into dialogue key thinkers, including the philosopher of religion Martin Buber, the critical theorist Walter Benjamin, the political scientist Hannah Arendt, and the

Chaya T. Halberstam, "Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Jan 11 2025 71 mins  
What can early Jewish courtroom narratives tell us about the capacity and limits of human justice? By exploring how judges and the act of judging are depicted in these narratives, Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice (Oxford University Press, 2024), Chaya T. Halberstam challenges the prevailing notion, both then and now, of the ideal impartial judge. As a

Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

Jan 09 2025 59 mins  
Our book is: Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts To Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany (Citadel Press, 2025) by Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham, which is an inspiring new narrative of the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet, the longest-serving Labor Secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. In March 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Frances P