New Books in Jewish Studies

Interview with Scholars of Judaism about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Episodes

Scott D. Seligman, "The Chief Rabbi's Funeral" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

October 8, 2025 • 55 mins

On July 30, 1902, tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of New York’s Lower East Side to bid farewell to the city’s chief rabbi, the eminent Talmudist Jacob Joseph. All went well until the procession crossed Sheriff Street, where the six-story R. Hoe and Company printing press factory towered over the intersection. Without warning, scraps of steel, iron bolts, and scalding water rained down and injured hundreds of mourner...

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Árni Heimir Ingólfsson, "Music at World's End: Three Exiled Musicians from Nazi Germany and Austria and Their Contribution to Music in Iceland" (SUNY Press, 2025)

October 5, 2025 • 55 mins

A fascinating story of how three musicians, who escaped the Nazis, inspired Iceland's modern classical music. In Iceland in the 1930s, classical music was only beginning to be seriously practiced, at the same time when musicians of Jewish heritage were fleeing Nazi Germany and Austria. Despite the country's strict immigration policy, three outstanding young musicians were allowed to settle there: Robert Abraham, Heinz Edelstein, a...

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Cooper Smith, "Allusive and Elusive: Allusion and the Elihu Speeches of Job 32-37" (Brill, 2022)

October 5, 2025 • 31 mins

Within the Book of Job, Elihu is one of the most diversely evaluated characters. For example, are Elihu’s speeches so insignificant he’s absolutely ignored afterward, or do they actually form an introduction to the speeches of the LORD? What are we to make of Elihu? Find out as we speak with Cooper Smith about his recent monograph, Allusive and Elusive: Allusion and the Elihu Speeches of Job 32-37. Smith helpfully approaches the s...

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Sarah Hurwitz, "As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us" (HarperOne, 2025)

October 4, 2025 • 50 mins

An urgent exploration of how antisemitism has shaped Jewish identity and how Jews can reclaim their tradition, by the celebrated White House speechwriter and author of the critically acclaimed Here All Along. At thirty-six, Sarah Hurwitz was a typical lapsed Jew. On a whim, she attended an introduction to Judaism class and was astonished by what she discovered: thousands of years of wisdom from her ancestors about what it means to...

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Danya Ruttenberg, "On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World" (Beacon Press, 2022)

October 4, 2025 • 31 mins

Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards in Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice and Myra H. Kraft Memorial AwardOn Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World (Beacon Press, 2022) is a crucial new lens on repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and repair from harm—from personal transgressions to our culture's most painful and unresolved issues.American culture focuses on letting go of grudges and redemption narrat...

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Elizabeth E. Imber, "Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism" (Stanford UP, 2025)

September 26, 2025 • 72 mins

Following the British conquest of Ottoman Palestine, Jews across the British Empire—from Jerusalem to Johannesburg, London to Calcutta—found themselves at the heart of global Jewish political discourse. As these intellectuals, politicians, activists, and communal elites navigated shifting political landscapes, some envisioned Palestine as a British dominion, leveraging imperial power for Jewish state-building, while others fostered...

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Mark A. Schneegurt, "Everyday Holiday: A Jewish Calendar of Events and Observances" (Independently Published, 2024)

September 26, 2025 • 52 mins

Because Every Day Is a Special Day on the Jewish Calendar. Giant Jewish Calendar. More than 2400 Jewish events. Holidays - Biblical - History. Hundreds of Rabbinic Yarzheits. Modern Celebrities and Sports Figures. Every Day Is a Special Day to Celebrate. Everyday Holiday: A Jewish Calendar of Events and Observances (Independently Published, 2024) is simply a list of Jewish events, perhaps the largest Jewish calendar ever assembled...

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Paris Papamichos Chronakis, "The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule" (Stanford UP, 2024)

September 25, 2025 • 71 mins

The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule (Stanford UP, 2024) examines how the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigated the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century. In this social and cultural history, Paris Papamichos Chronakis shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed th...

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Shulamit Reinharz, "Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir" (Amsterdam Publishers, 2024)

September 21, 2025 • 60 mins

Born in Amsterdam in 1946, Professor Shulamit Reinharz grew up amid the lingering shadows of wartime trauma, an experience that shaped her later academic path and her role in the creation of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. With Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir (Amsterdam Publishers, 2024), she has crafted a unique form of Holocaust memoir, describing it as a “piano duet” between her father’s extensive writings and her own hi...

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Hannah Shafiroff, "My Little Book of Big Jewish Holidays" (Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2025)

September 19, 2025 • 33 mins

Hannah Shafiroff is celebrating a book about celebrations! In our interview we talk about her brand new picture book which she both wrote and illustrated, My Little Book of Big Jewish Holidays (Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2025). We talk about her own childhood and memories of Sabbath and holidays, and how her she was able to turn her childhood passion for art into a professional career as writer-illustrator. Hannah also shares som...

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Ofer Ashkenazi, et al., "Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

September 18, 2025 • 61 mins

Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photograp...

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Steven J. Zipperstein, "Philip Roth: Stung by Life" (Yale UP, 2025)

September 17, 2025 • 60 mins

In his literary biography, Philip Roth: Stung by Life (Yale UP, 2025), Steven J. Zipperstein captures the complex life and astonishing work of Philip Roth (1933–2018), one of America’s most celebrated writers. Born in Newark, New Jersey—where his short stories and books were often set—Roth wrote with ambition and awareness of what was required to produce great literature. No writer was more dedicated to his craft, even as he was ru...

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Laura Hobson Faure, "Who Will Rescue Us?: The Story of the Jewish Children who Fled to France and America During the Holocaust" (Yale UP, 2025)

September 12, 2025 • 72 mins

The first account of Jewish children’s flight from Nazi Germany to France—and their subsequent escape to America from the Vichy regime At the eve of the Second World War, an estimated 1.6 million Jewish children lived in Nazi-occupied Europe. While 10,000 of them escaped to Britain in the Kindertransport, only some 500 found a new home in France. Here they attempted to begin again—but their refuge would all too soon become a trap....

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Christopher C. Gorham, "Matisse at War: Art and Resistance in Nazi Occupied France" (Citadel Press, 2025)

September 9, 2025 • 48 mins

In 1940, with the Nazis sweeping through France, Henri Matisse found himself at a personal and artistic crossroads. His 42-year marriage had ended, he was gravely ill, and after decades at the forefront of modern art, he was beset by doubt. As scores of famous figures escaped the country, Matisse took refuge in Nice, with his companion, Lydia Delectorskaya. By defiantly remaining, Matisse was a source of inspiration for his nation....

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Cynthia Paces, "Prague: The Heart of Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025)

September 8, 2025 • 100 mins

Prague: The Heart of Europe (Oxford University Press, 2025) traces Prague's origins in the ninth century through the end of the Cold War. Highlights include the golden ages of Charles IV and Rudolph II; the religious conflicts of the Hussite and Thirty Years Wars; the rich culture of Europe's largest Jewish community; the rivalry between the city's German and Czech speakers; the World Wars and Nazi occupation; and the Communist era...

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Leah Hochman and Stanley M. Davids, "Re-forming Judaism: Moments of Disruption in Jewish Thought" (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2023)

September 7, 2025 • 49 mins

The story of Judaism is the story of change. Throughout Jewish history, revolutionary events and subversive ideas have burst forth, repeatedly transforming Jewish experience. Re-forming Judaism: Moments of Disruption in Jewish Thought (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2023), edited by Rabbi Stanley M. Davids (z’l) and Dr. Leah Hochman seeks to explore these ideas---and the individuals behind them---by delving into historical ...

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Markus Vinzent, "Christ's Torah: The Making of the New Testament in the Second Century" (Routledge, 2023)

September 6, 2025 • 78 mins

This volume explores the creation of the collection now known as the New Testament. While it is generally accepted that it did not emerge as a collection prior to the late second century CE, a more controversial question is how it came to be. Markus Vinzent, who had held the H.G. Wood Chair in the History of Theology at the University of Birmingham (1999-2010) and was Professor for Theology and Patristics at the Department of Theo...

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Ofer Ashkenazi and Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, "Rethinking Jewish History and Memory Through Photography" (SUNY Press, 2025)

September 6, 2025 • 52 mins

Ofer Ashkenazi is a Professor of History and the director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While on sabbatical, in 2025-2026 he is the Mosse Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-author of the recently published monograph Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (2025) , as well as Anti-Heimat Cinema (2020); Weimar Film and Jewis...

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Hyun Ho Park, "Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

September 1, 2025 • 29 mins

In Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence (Bloomsbury, 2023) Hyun Ho Park employs social identity to create the first thorough analysis via such methodology of Acts 21:17-23:35, which contains one of the fiercest intergroup conflicts in Acts. Park's assessment allows his readers to rethink, reevaluate, and reimagine Jewish-Christian relations; ...

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Tracy Slater, "Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp" (Chicago Review Press, 2025)

August 28, 2025 • 42 mins

On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced Executive Order 9066, which authorized the confinement of tens of thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the Western U.S., sending them to cramped, hastily-constructed camps like Manzanar and Amache. One such Japanese-American was Karl Yoneda, a well-known labor activist–and the husband of Elaine Yoneda, a Jewish-American woman. Elaine soon followed her ...

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New Books in Jewish Studies

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Scott D. Seligman, "The Chief Rabbi's Funeral" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)

Cooper Smith, "Allusive and Elusive: Allusion and the Elihu Speeches of Job 32-37" (Brill, 2022)

Sarah Hurwitz, "As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us" (HarperOne, 2025)

Danya Ruttenberg, "On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World" (Beacon Press, 2022)

Elizabeth E. Imber, "Uncertain Empire: Jews, Nationalism, and the Fate of British Imperialism" (Stanford UP, 2025)

Mark A. Schneegurt, "Everyday Holiday: A Jewish Calendar of Events and Observances" (Independently Published, 2024)

Paris Papamichos Chronakis, "The Business of Transition: Jewish and Greek Merchants of Salonica from Ottoman to Greek Rule" (Stanford UP, 2024)

Shulamit Reinharz, "Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir" (Amsterdam Publishers, 2024)

Hannah Shafiroff, "My Little Book of Big Jewish Holidays" (Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2025)

Ofer Ashkenazi, et al., "Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)

Steven J. Zipperstein, "Philip Roth: Stung by Life" (Yale UP, 2025)

Laura Hobson Faure, "Who Will Rescue Us?: The Story of the Jewish Children who Fled to France and America During the Holocaust" (Yale UP, 2025)

Christopher C. Gorham, "Matisse at War: Art and Resistance in Nazi Occupied France" (Citadel Press, 2025)

Cynthia Paces, "Prague: The Heart of Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Leah Hochman and Stanley M. Davids, "Re-forming Judaism: Moments of Disruption in Jewish Thought" (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2023)

Markus Vinzent, "Christ's Torah: The Making of the New Testament in the Second Century" (Routledge, 2023)

Ofer Ashkenazi and Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, "Rethinking Jewish History and Memory Through Photography" (SUNY Press, 2025)

Hyun Ho Park, "Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Tracy Slater, "Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp" (Chicago Review Press, 2025)

Popular Podcasts

Scott D. Seligman, "The Chief Rabbi's Funeral" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)