Digital Series

Reboot Ideas Conversations

Reboot Ideas hosts the critical conversations evolving the Jewish experience and transforming society.

The world is an ever-complicated place and will be even more complicated in the coming years. For 20 years, Reboot has been gathering and catalyzing some of the best and brightest change-agents for off-the-record conversations about Jewish identity and meaning, and has seen first-hand the power of imagination and uncensored dialogue to translate and transform the big issues of our time. We are now amplifying these vital ideas and bringing in wider perspectives to identify and carve new pathways for wandering Jews and the world we live in.

Reboot Ideas Presents: Monster Mash

Reboot, with Detroit Public Theatre and Detroit Public Television, invites you to celebrate the most famous Jewish monster, the Golem, its history and contemporary lessons. This Reboot Ideas conversation, hosted on October 30, 2023 at Third Man Records in Detroit, featured New York Times bestselling author Adam Mansbach and Dr. Justin Sledge, a Detroit-based professor of Ethics, Religion, and Social-Political Philosophy whose research has an emphasis on Jewish esotericism and the occult. In a conversation moderated by Angelique Power, president & CEO of The Skillman Foundation, the two discussed the historical and contemporary connection between the legend of the golem and Jewish links between the supernatural, creativity and tikkun olam (repairing the world). Presented together with PBS Books. Learn more and watch the conversation here.

Reboot Ideas Presents: The Art of Visual Activism

Photographer Gillian Laub, whose exhibition Family Matters is currently on view at The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, joined curator Maya Benton at the museum on March 12 to explore two decades of Laub’s work and what it means to be an artist in this moment of increasingly polarizing politics. This conversation is the first in a 2023 Reboot Ideas series of three events in the San Francisco Bay Area, supported by the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund. The series, “Art as Counterpoint to Antisemitism” foregrounds the role of arts and culture as acts of resistance to a rising tide of antisemitism. Watch the event here.

Reboot Ideas and JW3 Present: The Modern Loss Handbook

Bestselling author Rebecca Soffer (Modern Loss) joined renowned music journalist Pete Paphides (Broken Greek) on Oct. 19 at JW3 in London for a candid, warm, and even humorous conversation exploring Rebecca’s new book, “The Modern Loss Handbook,” and the global movement to destigmatize the universal experience of grief while encouraging people to find meaning and live richly. This program united two best sellers from opposite sides of the pond to explore the common themes of loss, renewal and transformation. Watch the recording here.

Reboot Ideas Presents: Tech, Hate and Web 3.0 with Laurie Segall and Aza Raskin

Welcome to Web3, the decentralized internet built on the utopian promises of open access and ownership of technology, currency and power. But we wonder if we as Jews and as citizens of the planet are prepared for Web3’s implications and unintended consequences in both digital and physical spaces. Reboot Ideas invited our technology experts, award-winning journalist Laurie Segall and tech entrepreneur and artist Aza Raskin, to decipher this critical platform, its seemingly secret corners, how it is informing and transforming our lives and how it might impact our interactions. Watch here.

Reboot Ideas Presents: Five Years Since Charlottesville with Amy Spitalnick and Ilyse Hogue

Join Amy Spitalnick, executive director of Integrity First for America, which successfully sued the Charlottesville neo-Nazis, and Ilyse Hogue, author of bestselling book The Lie That Binds, President of Purpose, former President of NARAL Pro-Choice America as they uncover and connect the dots between the assault on our democracy and our rights, discuss how we can fight back, and consider what it means to live as both Americans and Jews.

Reboot Ideas Presents Never Forget: The American Jewish Response to the Refugee Crisis

Last month, Reboot Ideas partnered with the creative team behind Jewish American Heritage Month to produce a virtual panel featuring Anne-Marie Grey, Executive Director and CEO of USA for UNHCR, and Sloane Davidson, founder and CEO of Hello Neighbor. The two were in conversation with Juliet Simmons, creator of the “What Would You Bring?” Refugee Storytelling Initiative, and Noam Dromi, Managing Director of Reboot Studios. During the chat, they explored the ways in which the American Jewish community has taken an active role in refugee resettlement and support services, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. Learn more and watch it here.

Reboot Ideas Presents: Jewish Resistance – 1960’s London and Beyond with Sarah Solemani and Jessica Yellin

Reboot Ideas hosted British/Persian, writer, actor, activist and show creator Sarah Solemani (credits include Barry and Bridget Jones’s Baby) in conversation with Jessica Yellin, the Peabody, Gracie and Emmy award-winning political journalist and founder of News Not Noise, about the U.S. premiere of Solemani’s critically acclaimed Ridley Road on PBS Masterpiece Theatre May 1. The two held a candid conversation about the toxic and simmering antisemitism, racism, fascism and the complicated work of activism then and now. Watch here.

Reboot Ideas Presents: The Survivor

Reboot was honored to partner with USC Shoah Foundation in hosting a conversation with an inside look at the powerful HBO film The Survivor based on the life story of Harry Haft, a boxer and Auschwitz survivor. In honor of Yom HaShoah, we are resharing our Reboot Ideas conversation featuring director Barry Levinson, actor Ben Foster and producer Matti Leshem, moderated by Sami Sage, co-founder of Betches Media. Watch this deeply reflective discussion about the nature of survival, PTSD, and generational trauma on Reboot’s YouTube channel and learn more here.

Reboot Ideas: Democracy Thrives in Light

Too often the fights for equity and justice ignite surprising and new altercations. Why are long-held allies fracturing? What are we not seeing? With Eric K. Ward, nationally recognized expert on authoritarian movements, and movement pioneer, Ilyse Hogue, Reboot Ideas illuminated the cracks where white supremacy, antisemitism and misogyny jeopardize our social fabric and help shape the multiracial, inclusive democracy that we strive for. This conversation was introduced by Reboot board member and strategy consultant, Brina Milikowsky. Watch here.

Reboot Ideas: Ancient Psalms Meet Contemporary Folk

Reboot Ideas presents a conversation with musician Nathan Salsburg and Reboot CEO David Katznelson, a Grammy-nominated producer in his own right, and also no stranger to the power of the tincture of history and sound to propel us forward. The two dig into Salsburg’s Psalms, the process, his impetus and the impact on him personally of deeply investigating his Judaism now. You will be treated to a musical and thoughtful conversation about the value of listening to the sounds of our past to imagine our future. Watch here.

Reboot Ideas Presents: Gillian Laub and Dr. Orna Guralnik on “Family Matters”

Photographer and filmmaker Gillian Laub and Dr. Orna Guralnik, therapist of the Showtime series Couples Therapy, explore the edges of love and tolerance, family, privilege, wealth and mortality in the highlights from this Reboot Ideas Conversation

Reboot Ideas: Can We Talk About Israel?

In his highly-anticipated book, Can We Talk About Israel? Daniel Sokatch breaks down the hot button issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are tearing up dinner tables, political parties and college campuses. Sokatch sat down with homeland security expert and Harvard Kennedy School professor, Juliette Kayyem for a frank discussion about the conflict and how we might move forward with the humanity and imagination this moment requires. Watch the replay here.

Reboot Ideas: The Lost Art of Connecting

Journalist and founder of Dot Dot Dot, Laurie Segall, interviews Susan McPherson about her book and what it means to connect in the time of COVID.

Reboot Ideas: Forgiveness

In honor of Yom Kippur, Reboot premiered the short and powerful visual poem Forgiveness with a post-film talkback between the filmmaker, poet and Blavity co-founder Aaron Samuels, and Mahogany L. Browne, executive director of Just Media and Poet-in-Residence at Lincoln Center. Forgiveness interrogates the Jewish community’s collective atonement journey, grappling with the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism. Watch it here.

Reboot Ideas: The Ten Commandments – A Film Rescored

For Passover Reboot released a modern-day score to Cecil B. Demille’s 1923 silent film The Ten Commandments featuring Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Steven Drozd (Flaming Lips) and Scott Amendola. They are in conversation with Reboot CEO, David Katznelson, facilitated by filmmaker Liz Nord.

Reboot Ideas: The Future Perceived, The Future Manifested

Laurie Segall (60 Minutes) and Aza Raskin (The Social Dilemma) discuss the ever-changing landscape of technology and social media, and the ways in which they affect our perceptions of the future, and thus the future itself.

Reboot Ideas: Behind the Scenes with Creators of Saturday Night Seder

Saturday Night Seder premiered to an audience of more than 1 million viewers, and has raised more than $3.5 million for the CDC Foundation’s Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund. Rooted in tradition but rewritten to include comedy, music, and sketches, Saturday Night Seder was a grassroots effort put together at the start of the pandemic by a small team working remotely around the country, including Benj Pasek, Adam Kantor, Jen Snow, Alex Edelman and Michael Mitnick.

Season 2 Episode 1

Reboot Ideas: Plastover – An Exodus from Plastic Waste

Reboot hosted Jonathan Bines, social change consultant Jessy Tolkan and Plastic Pollution Coalition CEO and Co-Founder Dianna Cohen for a conversation that leverages Passover’s power of symbology and transformation to use plastic to spark a sustained climate intervention. This conversation kicked off our Plastover project, a commitment to eliminating single-use plastics during Passover this year! This conversation was a part of The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest.

Reboot Ideas: Anti-Semantics – Sifting Through Whiteness and Jewish Identities

Our latest Reboot Ideas Conversation explores identity, race and religion featuring authors Adam Mansbach and Kevin Coval.

Reboot Ideas: The Interplay of Science and Ritual in a Time of Flux

Over the eons, our relationship to science and ritual has been inextricably linked to our understanding of our place in the universe. Join Emmy Award-winning writer, director, producer Ann Druyan and her daughter, author Sasha Sagan, in conversation with Boing Boing co-founder David Pescovitz to talk about emerging philosophies that can provide hope as we struggle to adjust to our new normal on Earth.

Reboot Ideas: Technology in a time of Covid-19 (and Beyond)

Hear from acclaimed tech correspondent Laurie Segall and internet visionary Aza Raskin, as they unpack the present paradox of our unprecedented technological enslavement and forecast its implications on the future. Segall joined Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology to examine the power of technological connection to enslave or liberate us.

Reboot Ideas: Liberation Through Music

A special Passover live music event featuring: Nicki Bluhm, Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi All-Stars), Jeremiah Lockwood (The Sway Machinery) & Zack Rogue (Rogue Wave). The four came together to record this moving version of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” that fits so perfectly in this moment

Reboot Ideas: What Plagues Us? What Liberates Us?

Reboot Ideas hosted Rabbi Sharon Brous (founding Rabbi of IKAR and Reboot faculty member) and Dr. David Agus (USC’s Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine) for an impassioned conversation that explored the spiritual and scientific dynamics of our current moment.