Episodes

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

    Rafael Rachel Neis, "When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species" (U California Press, 2023)
    Jan 20 2025
    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 blurred the lines between humans and other beings, even as they were intent on classifying creatures and tracing the contours of what it means to be human. Recognizing that life proliferates by mechanisms beyond sexual copulation between two heterosexual “male” and “female” individuals of the same species, the rabbis proposed intricate alternatives. In parsing a variety of creatures, they considered overlaps and resemblances across seemingly distinct species, upsetting in turn unmitigated claims of human distinctiveness. When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven enters conversations in animal studies, queer theory, trans theory, and feminist science studies to provincialize sacrosanct ideals of reproduction in favor of a broader range that spans generation, kinship, and species. The book thereby offers powerful historical alternatives to the paradigms associated with so-called traditional ideas. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Rafael Rachel Neis is Neis is a scholar, writer, educator, and artist. A Professor of History and Judaic Studies, they are Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Ancient History and hold the Jean and Samuel Frankel Chair in Rabbinics. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    1 hr and 37 mins
  • Shmuel Goldin, "Unlocking the Torah Text" (Gefen Books, 2014)

    Shmuel Goldin, "Unlocking the Torah Text" (Gefen Books, 2014)
    Jan 18 2025
    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 these approaches to the biblical text are carefully defined and applied. Join us as we speak with Rabbi Shmuel Goldin about the thought-provoking connections between the eternal Torah narrative and the critical issues of our time. Rabbi Shmuel received his BS in psychology and his MA in Jewish education from Yeshiva University, and his rabbinic ordination from the Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University. He was included in Newsweek’s list of “America’s Top 50 Rabbis for 2012” and in Forward magazine’s list of Jewish communal leaders who have made a difference in the community at large. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    29 mins
  • Alec Goldstein, "Maimonides on the Book of Exodus" (Kodesh Press, 2019)

    Alec Goldstein, "Maimonides on the Book of Exodus" (Kodesh Press, 2019)
    Jan 16 2025
    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 Maimonides never authored a linear commentary on the Torah, his writings are replete with references to and interpretations of biblical verses. These insights offer a glimpse into his unique approach to understanding the narratives, commandments, and themes of the Torah. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    37 mins
  • Mark Celinscak, "Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp" (U Toronto Press, 2015)

    Mark Celinscak, "Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp" (U Toronto Press, 2015)
    Jan 16 2025
    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 next seventy years. On the basis of research in more than seventy archives in four countries, Mark Celinscak analyses how these military personnel struggled with the intense experience of the camp; how they attempted to describe what they had seen, heard, and felt to those back home; and how their lives were transformed by that experience. He also brings to light the previously unacknowledged presence of hundreds of Canadians among the camp's liberators, including noted painter Alex Colville. Distance from the Belsen Heap examines the experiences of hundreds of British and Canadian eyewitnesses to atrocity, including war artists, photographers, medical personnel, and chaplains. A study of the complicated encounter between these Allied soldiers and the horrors of the Holocaust, Distance from the Belsen Heap is a testament to their experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    1 hr and 17 mins
  • Yehudah Cohn, trans., "Mine Is The Golden Tongue: The Hebrew Sonnets Of Immanuel Of Rome" (Centro Primo Levi, 2023)

    Yehudah Cohn, trans., "Mine Is The Golden Tongue: The Hebrew Sonnets Of Immanuel Of Rome" (Centro Primo Levi, 2023)
    Jan 14 2025
    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 Immanuel’s most studied book, Maḥbarot, a collection of poetic tales conceived between satire and allegory, which combine the Arabic maqama with the stilnovistic poetic form immortalized by Dante. Widely published during its author’s lifetime and in the following centuries, the Maḥbarot as a whole has never been translated into any language. Immanuel lived in the Papal city during a period of great turmoil between the communal experience and the Papal exile to Avignon. He moved with ease in the Roman Jewish and non-Jewish worlds that were actively involved in translation. Writing in a milieu where Hebrew, Latin, Arabic, Greek, and the vernaculars were concurrent languages, Immanuel left us brilliant verses in Hebrew and vernacular. He was an admired biblical commentator whose references spanned from the Talmud and Maimonides to Aristotelian and neo-Platonic philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Yitzchak Etshalom, "Amos: The Genius of Prophetic Rhetoric" (Maggid, 2024)

    Yitzchak Etshalom, "Amos: The Genius of Prophetic Rhetoric" (Maggid, 2024)
    Jan 14 2025
    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 speak with Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom about his recent commentary, Amos: The Genius of Prophetic Rhetoric (Maggid, 2024). Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom has been a dynamic and inspiring master educator in Los Angeles since 1984. He received his semicha from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and lectures annually at the prestigious Tanakh Study Days at Herzog College. Etshalom has also written the highly acclaimed series Between the Lines. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020), and a recent 2 volume commentary on Numbers. He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    24 mins
  • Nitzan Lebovic, "Homo Temporalis: German Jewish Thinkers on Time" (Cornell UP, 2025)

    Nitzan Lebovic, "Homo Temporalis: German Jewish Thinkers on Time" (Cornell UP, 2025)
    Jan 13 2025
    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 poet Paul Celan, who stand at the center of our contemporary understanding of religion, critical theory, politics, and literature. All four, and many colleagues around them who identified with their approaches saw time—not space—as the key to their individual and collective experience, rejecting definitions of self based on borders, territory, or geographic/national origin. Following their path teaches us about three “temporal turns”: In the early 1900s, between1933-1945, and ours, in the early 2000s. Nitzan Lebovic is a professor of history and the Apter Chair of Holocaust Studies and Ethical Values at Lehigh University. Nitzan is the author of The Philosophy of Life and Death: Ludwig Klages and the Rise of a Nazi Biopolitics (2013), Zionism and Melancholy: The short Life of Israel Zarchi (2019), and Homo Temporalis: Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and Paul Celan about Time (2025). Nitzan is the co-editor of Catastrophes: The History and Theory of an Operative Concept (2014) and Nihilism and the State of Israel: New Critical Perspectives (2014), and edited special issues about political theology, nihilism, and biopolitics. His new project is titled “The history of complicity, 1945- Present.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    1 hr and 42 mins
  • Chaya T. Halberstam, "Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice" (Oxford UP, 2024)

    Chaya T. Halberstam, "Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice" (Oxford UP, 2024)
    Jan 11 2025
    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 work of intellectual history, the book also contributes to contemporary debates about the role of legal decision-making in shaping a just society. Halberstam shows that instead of modelling a system in which lofty, inaccessible judges follow objective and rational rules, ancient Jewish trial narratives depict a legal practice dependent upon the individual judge's personal relationships, reactive emotions, and impulse to care. Drawing from affect theory and feminist legal thought, Halberstam offers original readings of some of the most famous trials in ancient Jewish writings alongside minor case stories in Josephus and rabbinic literature. She shows both the consistency of a counter-tradition that sees legal practice as contingent upon relationship and emotion, and the specific ways in which that perspective was manifest in changing times and contexts. Interviewee: Chaya T. Halberstam is Professor of Religious Studies at King's University College, University of Western Ontario. Host: Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
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    1 hr and 12 mins