New Books in Jewish Studies

Mar 08 2025 1234 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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Ethan Kleinberg, "Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought" (Stanford UP, 2021)

Mar 08 2025 81 mins  
In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levina

Violent Majorities 2.3: Long-Distance Ethnonationalism Roundup (LA, AS)

Mar 06 2025 46 mins  
John joins Lori Allen and Ajantha Subramanian for the roundup episode of the second series of Violent Majorities, focusing on long-distance ethnonationalism. Looking back at their conversations with Peter Beinart on Zionism and Subir Sinha on Hindutva, Lori begins by asking whether Peter underestimates the material entanglements keeping Jewish American support for Israel in place.

Stefan Cristian Ionescu, "Justice and Restitution in Post-Nazi Romania: Rebuilding Jewish Lives and Communities, 1944-1950" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Mar 05 2025 81 mins  
On 23rd August 1944, following the collapse of the pro-Nazi dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, Romania changed sides and abandoned the Axis to join the Allies. Justice and Restitution in Post-Nazi Romania explores the hopes, struggles and disappointments of Jewish communities in Romania seeking to rebuild their lives after the Holocaust. Focusing on the efforts of survivors to recupera

Victoria Khiterer, "Jewish Pogroms in Kiev During the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920" (Edwin Mellen, 2015)

Mar 01 2025 83 mins  
Jewish Pogroms in Kiev During the Russian Civil War discusses how anti-Jewish violence began during the revolution and civil war 1917-1920 raising questions of responsibility of civil and military authorities and the antisemitic propaganda spread by official mass media as well as deliberate exploitation of antisemitism for political purposes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

Irina Rebrova, "Re-Constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus" (de Gruyter, 2020)

Feb 27 2025 55 mins  
The main objective of Re-Constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus (de Gruyter, 2020) is to locate the grass roots initiatives of remembering the Holocaust victims in a particular region of Russia which has a very diverse ethnic structure and little presence of Jews at the same time. It aims to find out how such individual initiatives correspond to th

Bernard McGinn, "Modern Mystics: An Introduction" (Herder & Herder, 2023)

Feb 25 2025 104 mins  
Mysticism is not just a phenomenon of the past, but has been alive and flourishing in Chistianity, Judaism, and Islam over the past century, as well as in many of the other religious traditions. Best understood as a search for the transforming presence of God, the mystical tradition has necessarily undergone changes and developments as it has confronted modernity and its frequently

Blanche Bendahan, "Mazaltob: A Novel" (Brandeis UP, 2024)

Feb 24 2025 68 mins  
Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanch

Malka Z. Simkovich, "Letters from Home: The Creation of Diaspora in Jewish Antiquity" (Eisenbrauns, 2024)

Feb 23 2025 49 mins  
Dr. Simkovich taught in a Catholic University and now is at JPS and YU. She continues her interfaith dialogue throughout. But here we spoke, among other things, about the concept of diaspora and exile - what is a Judean, a Judahite, and an Israelite. These are terms that are often thrown around interchangeably, but understanding the meaning and etymology of each helps us understand

Shay A. Pilnik, "The Ravine of Memory: Babyn Yar Between the Holocaust and the Great Patriotic War" (Purdue UP, 2025)

Feb 22 2025 90 mins  
The Nazis and their collaborators buried over 100,000 victims at Babyn Yar, a ravine in modern-day Ukraine. Most of the individuals were Jewish, making this area one of the most infamous mass murder sites in history. The Ravine of Memory: Babyn Yar Between the Holocaust and the Great Patriotic War (Purdue UP, 2025) starts when the travesty ends, telling the story of the ravine’s

Amit Levy, "A New Orient: From German Scholarship to Middle Eastern Studies in Israel" (Brandeis UP, 2024)

Feb 21 2025 70 mins  
A New Orient: From German Scholarship to Middle Eastern Studies in Israel (Brandeis UP, 2024) explores the fascinating history of Zionist and Israeli "Oriental Studies" (mizrahanut), particularly the study of Islam, Arabic, and the Middle East, as a field deeply rooted in the academic traditions of early 20th-century German universities. Drawing on rich archival documentation in Ge