Featured Episodes
The Jewish Bizarre
Only Murders in the Shtetl
Now streaming: Episode 1 of The Jewish Bizarre Podcast! In December 1875, a Jewish woman named Sarah Alexander is found dead in a Brooklyn cornfield, her neck slashed. The investigation and murder trial sweeps the nation and forever changes the perception of Jews in the United States. Dr. Eddy Portnoy (YIVO), Dr. Tony Michels (UW-Madison), and Jessica Chaffin (ASK RONNA) dive into what happened and why the case was so intriguing. Plus murder pamphlets, Jewish gangsters, and the other stories Jewish Historians didn’t want you to know. Listen Now! Find out more here and listen now to the full season of The Jewish Bizarre podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, YouTube or wherever else you get your podcasts.
The Kibitz
The Secret History of Jews and Drugs
Was Moses tripping when he saw the burning bush? Are psychedelics the key to unlocking the mysteries behind Jewish texts? And did you hear the one about the rabbi who did LSD with Timothy Leary? Featuring Rick Doblin founder and Executive Director of MAPS—the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Plus an excerpt from our friend Moshe Kasher’s comedy central show Problematic, and Rabbi David Ingber of New York’s renewal movement temple Romemu. Turn on, tune in, drop out and prepare to expand your mind with this episode of The Kibitz.
Kitchen Radio
Konafa a la Creme with Claudia Roden
In the season finale of the Kitchen Radio podcast, icon of the Middle Eastern and Jewish food worlds, Claudia Roden, makes an Egyptian-Jewish version of Konafa which is one of the region’s most beloved desserts and her childhood favorite. Roden recounts a story of her family’s passage from Aleppo to Cairo from her book, “The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day,” a new edition of which has just been published. Learn more from Roden, author and cultural anthropologist, in the season one finale of Kitchen Radio, now streaming!
The Kitchen Radio podcast brings listeners to the table of communities from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for intergenerational stories of community life and ritual practices from guests who are part of a rising renaissance of creative food projects exploring the oft-overlooked Jewish history and heritage.
In each episode, hosts Regine Basha and Nathalie Basha will feature a specific dish and a conversation to introduce the still little-known Jewish culture of the MENA region and re-seed Jewish life into a cultural space where their contribution was forgotten, rendered invisible or white-washed. Guests include: Tannaz Sassooni, Sephardic Spice Girls, Rafram Chaddad, and Claudia Roden. Learn more here.
Get a taste of our podcasts through the new Reboot Presents channel with Reboot Replay. Visit our favorite episodes of podcasts past. Every two weeks we will be releasing a favorite episode from our podcast archives, each offering a humorous and insightful guide to Jewish ideas and culture. Subscribe to this channel to catch them all and be the first to know about our upcoming series launches happening in 2023.
Dig into bloody murders, rioting mothers, anarchist parties and pseudoscience – everything you never learned in Hebrew school and that your Rabbi still doesn’t want you to know. Dr. Eddy Portnoy, academic advisor for the Max Weinreich Center and exhibition curator at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Dr. Tony Michels, professor of Jewish American History at UW Madison, and Jessica Chaffin, writer, comedian and host of the popular podcast Ask Ronna join up on The Jewish Bizarre Podcast and discuss the strangest corners of Jewish history. Listen to the full season here!
This year, musician Jeremiah Lockwood presents a Chanukah record that is sure to become a standard in holiday’s lexicon. A Great Miracle: Jeremiah Lockwood’s Guitar Soli Chanukah Record is a beautiful solo guitar tribute to the holiday. With heartfelt appreciation of the 1968 classic The New Possibility: John Fahey’s Guitar Soli Christmas Record, Lockwood has sweetly crafted eight songs, one for each night of Chanukah, to celebrate the dancing candlelight with his new, blues-inspired takes on the most beloved melodies of the holiday’s canon.
In Quarantine with Steve Bodow is a twice-weekly series of funny, insightful, and revealing 10-minute conversations between some of America’s least house-leaving artists and thinkers, and 14-time Emmy-winning former Daily Show executive producer Steve Bodow. Offering a quick hit of connection, In Quarantine is about how creative people are living, personally and professionally, in this very weird time.
A modern-day score to Cecil B. Demille’s 1923 classic silent film The Ten Commandments with Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Steven Drozd (Flaming Lips) and Scott Amendola.
Two brothers, a rabbi and a comedian, try to figure out how to do Judaism during a pandemic. See if you can figure out who’s who.
Hosted by Moshe Kasher and Rabbi David Kasher
Inspired and motivated by quarantine conversations with her 99-year-old grandmother Lucille, actress Jessie Kahnweiler sets out to talk to everyone else’s Bubbe and Zayde on Closening, the true leaders of the Jewish tribe to bring us all closer in these times of isolation.
Your hilarious and insightful guide to Jewish ideas and culture. Join journalist Dan Crane and comedian Jessica Chaffin (Ronna & Beverly) as they explore activism, Jewish atheism, anti-semitism, love, sex, comedy, death and more with guests like David Wain, David Baddiel, Rabbi Sharon Brous, the Sklar Brothers, Tiffany Shlain, Moshe Kasher, Joel Stein and many others.