New Books Network
Jewish Studies
Israel Studies March 2, 2021

Zion

The Israeli Diaspora in Europe

David Stavrou

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The meaning of being an immigrant has changed significantly in the 21st century. The internet, social media and networks, cost of travels, homeland products of food that one can find …

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Religion February 26, 2021

Dangerous Religious Ideas

The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Rachel S. Mikva

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Dangerous Religious Ideas: The Deep Roots of Self-Critical Faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Beacon, 2020) reveals how faith traditions have always passed down tools for self-examination and debate, because …
Jewish Studies February 23, 2021

How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish

Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Is it possible to conceive of the American diet without bagels? Or Star Trek without Mr. Spock? Are the creatures in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are based on …
Jewish Studies February 19, 2021

They Left It All Behind

Trauma, Loss, and Memory Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants and their Children

Hannah Hahn

Hosted by Robert Snyder
Hannah Hahn’s They Left It All Behind: Trauma, Loss and Memory Among Eastern European Jewish Immigrants and Their Children (Roman and Littlefield, 2020) explores the impact of conflict, social change …
Jewish Studies February 19, 2021

Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement

A Revolution in the Name of Tradition

Naomi Seidman

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
Sarah Schenirer is one of the unsung heroes of twentieth-century Orthodox Judaism. In Sarah Schenirer and the Bais Yaakov Movement: A Revolution in the Name of Tradition (Littman Library of …
Jewish Studies February 18, 2021

The Jews of Ottoman Izmir

A Modern History

Dina Danon

Hosted by Makena Mezistrano
Across Europe, Jews were often confronted with the notion that their religious and cultural distinctiveness was somehow incompatible with the modern age. Yet the view from Ottoman Izmir invites a …
Islamic Studies February 12, 2021

The Feeling of History

Islam, Romanticism, and Andalusia

Charles Hirschkind

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
Charles Hirschkind’s lyrical and majestic new book The Feeling of History: Islam, Romanticism, and Andalusia (University of Chicago Press, 2020) represents a profound work of retrieval that launches and executes a …
Jewish Studies February 5, 2021

Transatlantic Russian Jewishness

Ideological Voyages of the Yiddish Daily Forverts in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

Gennady Estraikh

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In the early decades of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Yiddish speaking immigrants actively participated in the American Socialist and labor movement. They formed the milieu of the …
Jewish Studies January 26, 2021

Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism

Sarit Kattan Gribetz

Hosted by Rachel Adelman
The rabbinic corpus begins with a question–“when?”—and is brimming with discussions about time and the relationship between people, God, and the hour. Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism (Princeton UP, 2020) explores …
Islamic Studies January 22, 2021

The Golden Calf Between Bible and Qur'an

Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam

Michael E. Pregill

Hosted by Shehnaz Haqqani
In his exciting and thorough book, The Golden Calf between Bible and Qur'an: Scripture, Polemic, and Exegesis from Late Antiquity to Islam (Oxford, 2020), Michael Pregill explores the biblical and …
Eastern European Studies January 22, 2021

On Civilization's Edge

A Polish Borderland in the Interwar World

Kathryn Ciancia

Hosted by Steven Seegel
As a resurgent Poland emerged at the end of World War I, an eclectic group of Polish border guards, state officials, military settlers, teachers, academics, urban planners, and health workers …
Genocide Studies January 22, 2021

Spain, the Second World War, and the Holocaust

History and Representation

Sara J. Brenneis and Gina Herrmann

Hosted by Kelly McFall
Spain has for too long been considered peripheral to the human catastrophes of World War II and the Holocaust. This volume is the first broadly interdisciplinary, scholarly collection to situate …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel January 19, 2021

The Last Million

Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War

David Nasaw

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
In May 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of global military conflict did not cease with …
Genocide Studies January 18, 2021

Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust

Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt

Hosted by Kelly McFall
I wish I had seen Laura Hilton and Avinoam Patt's Understanding and Teaching the Holocaust (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020) six months ago. I taught a course in the fall titled …
History January 18, 2021

Stargazing in the Atomic Age

Anne Goldman

Hosted by Grant Kleiser
During World War II, with apocalypse imminent, a group of well-known Jewish artists and scientists sidestepped despair by challenging themselves to solve some of the most difficult questions posed by …
Genocide Studies January 14, 2021

Advancing Holocaust Studies

Carol Rittner and John K. Roth

Hosted by Kelly McFall
I think this is the fifth time I've interviewed John K. Roth for the podcast (and the second for Carol Rittner).  He has always been relentlessly realistic about the challenges, intellectual …
Biblical Studies January 11, 2021

Exploring the Composition of the Pentateuch

Roy E. Gane

Hosted by Michael Morales
For many years, the historical-critical quest for a reconstruction of the origin(s) and development of the Pentateuch or Hexateuch has been dominated by the documentary hypothesis, the heuristic power of …
Middle Eastern Studies January 5, 2021

The Lost Archive

Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue

Marina Rustow

Hosted by Nancy Ko
What does it mean that our single greatest source of medieval Islamic government documents comes from the attic of a Jewish synagogue in Cairo? This is the seeming paradox that …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel January 4, 2021

Till We Have Built Jerusalem

Architects of a New City

Adina Hoffman

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
A remarkable view of one of the world's most beloved and troubled cities, Adina Hoffman's Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City (FSG, 2017) is a gripping …
Jewish Studies December 31, 2020

Piety and Rebellion

Essays in Hasidism

Shaul Magid

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In Piety and Rebellion: Essays in Hasidism (Academic Studies Press, 2019), Shaul Magid examines the span of the Hasidic textual tradition from its earliest phases to the 20th century. The …