Advertise on podcast: Judaism Unbound

Eleyna Fugman is a Jewish community-builder focused on populations that have been historically marginalized. She is the co-founder of the leadership development organization, TischPDX, and the alternative grassroots Jewish community, The Alberta Shul, both based on the Eastside of Portland, Oregon. She joins Lex Rofeberg and Dan Libenson for a conversation about crafting Jewish community outside of the mainstream as a tikkun (a healing process) for organized Judaism. It’s not too late to register for our full-semester spring courses in the UnYeshiva! We’ve got Biblical animals, Jewish apocrypha, mythic approaches to climate change, and beyond! Visit JudaismUnbound.com/classes to learn more and register.

Nate DeGroot is a Jewish experiential educator and activist, and currently serves as the Associate Director for The Shalom Center. He joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about Judaism as a prompt for making the world a better place. It’s not too late to register for our full-semester spring courses in the UnYeshiva! We’ve got Biblical animals, Jewish apocrypha, mythic approaches to climate change, and beyond! Visit JudaismUnbound.com/classes to learn more and register.

Yosef Rosen is a historian of Kabbalah and Jewish magic, a creative Jewish educator, and an immersive ritual designer. Laura Duhan-Kaplan is an award-winning author, teacher, and spiritual leader serving as Rabbi Emerita of Or Shalom Synagogue in Vancouver and Professor Emerita of Philosophy at UNC Charlotte. The two thinkers join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about their upcoming UnYeshiva classes, which both use Jewish history and tradition to grapple with today’s climate crisis.

Vanessa Harper is the Senior Director of Adult Jewish Living at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, MA and as the Reform Rabbi-in-Residence at Gann Academy in Waltham, MA. She bakes challah that interprets the Torah portion each week in what was originally an Instagram-based educational project, then a kinetic midrash class, and now a book: Loaves of Torah: Exploring the Jewish Year Through Challah. She joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about living in creative relationship to Judaism, and challah as a chevruta (study-partner). Check out our upcoming full semester classes in the UnYeshiva by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes!

Jessica Tamar Deutsch is an artist whose work explores the connections between ancient Jewish tradition and contemporary creative culture and expression. Her newest visual story, Rebbe Nachman’s The Lost Princess, will be released in February and is available for pre-order through Ayin Press. In this episode, Deutsch joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about Hasidism, the creative process, and art’s potential to open up Jewish text. Check out our upcoming full semester classes in the UnYeshiva by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes!

Jill Hammer – award-winning author, scholar, ritualist, poet, dreamworker and midrashist – is co-founder of Beit Kohenet and of the Kohenet movement, and currently serves as the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion. She joins Dan Liebenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about dreaming as a medium for communal connection, Jewish meaning-making, and divine revelation. Check out our upcoming full semester classes in the UnYeshiva by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes!

This bonus episode of Judaism Unbound is presented in partnership with Theatre Dybbuk. We are proud to feature their third season's fourth episode as a bonus episode here on Judaism Unbound's feed. In each episode, they bring poems, plays, and other creative texts from throughout history to life, all while revealing their relationships to issues still present today. Subscribe to The Dybbukast on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else that podcasts are found. --------------------------------------------- In this episode, presented in collaboration with the George Washington University Department of History, we examine the history of the word “ghetto" and look at ways that ideas contained in Shakespeare's play overlap with and deviate from that history. Dr. Daniel Schwartz, Professor of Jewish History at GW, guides us through this exploration, sharing some of the concepts contained in his book, Ghetto: The History of a Word. This is the first in a three episode series connected to concepts that intersect with theatre dybbuk's most recent theatrical work, The Merchant of Venice (Annotated), or In Sooth I Know Not Why I Am So Sad. That production combines text from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice with Elizabethan history and news from 2020 to the present. In doing so, it seeks to illuminate how, during times of upheaval, some people may place blame for their anxieties on an “other." Read the transcription for "The Merchant of Venice: Ghetto."

Laura Leibman is an award-winning author and scholar of religion in the early Americas and currently serves as the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Adriana Brodsky is an award-winning author and scholar of Sephardic Jews in Argentina and currently serves as Professor of History at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. The two thinkers join Lex Rofeberg and Dan Libenson for a conversation about their newly-published book, Jews Across the Americas: A Sourcebook, 1492–Present. Registration for the UnYeshiva’s new mini-courses is now open -- and it's your last chance to register because classes start in just a few days! Visit JudaismUnbound.com/classes for more information and to register.

Digital Judaism is the geography in which Judaism Unbound operates! In this conversation Dan, Lex, and Miriam reflect upon the digital Jewish past, present, and future, and consider Judaism Unbound’s continued role as a leader in — and lover of — the digital Jewish landscape. This episode is the 7th and final episode in a series of Judaism Unbound episodes exploring digital Judaism. Registration for the UnYeshiva’s new mini-courses is now open! We’ve got conversion, bodies, mishnah, and more! Visit JudaismUnbound.com/classes for more information and to register.

LGBTQIA+ folks are among the most creative people on this planet, creating realities and reimagining a world from the inside out—not of how things are but to how things could be. Queer creativity is visionary. In what has been a time of isolation for so many people, Reed Love is teaching a mini-course in the UnYeshiva, called Cosmic Bodies: Celebrating Queer & Jewish Creativity, that will serve as a space to connect – to community, to oneself, and to creative curiosity. In this bonus episode of Judaism Unbound, Reed Love joins Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about how wonderful queerness is, and how our bodies can be understood as intertwining deeply with our minds and our hearts. Learn more about their course by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes!

David Biale is the Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at the University of California, Davis and the the award-winning author/co-author of seven books on Jewish history. He joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about counterculture, secularism, and reaching for our roots, all in the context of understanding the Jewish past and present. New 3-week mini-courses in the UnYeshiva begin soon! Learn more about them by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes!

Adam Mansbach is a best-selling author, screenwriter, cultural critic and humorist. His newest novel, The Golem of Brooklyn, tells the fictional story of a stoned Brooklyn art teacher who accidentally creates the Golem, a Jewish folkloric creature. He joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a discussion of the book and its broader explorations of race, faith, healing, and humor.