The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

J.J. and Dr. Aaron Koller tremble in fear of this awesome Biblical episode, but they still manage to discuss fascinating theological and historical interpretations of the story. Follow us on Twitter (X) @JewishIdeas_Pod to sacrifice time on the altar of scrolling. Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice!We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected] more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsAaron Koller is professor of Near Eastern Studies at Yeshiva University. Aaron has held research positions at Cambridge University and in the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, he has been a visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and was a fellow at the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in East Jerusalem and the Hartman Institute in West Jerusalem. He is the author of Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Unbinding Isaac: The Akedah for Modern Jewish Thought (JPS/University of Nebraska Press, 2020), among other books, the editor of five more, and is currently working on a cultural history of the alphabet. He lives in Queens, NY with his partner, Shira Hecht-Koller, and their children.

J.J. and Dr. Olga Litvak take the express from Berlin to Eastern Europe in search of the real Jewish enlightenment. Follow us on Twitter (X) @JewishIdeas_Pod to challenge the intellectual geography of other listeners. Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice!We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected] more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsOlga Litvak is the Roth Professor of Modern European Jewish History at Cornell University.  The author of Conscription and the Search for Modern Russian Jewry (2006) and Haskalah: The Romantic Movement in Judaism (2012), she is currently working on a book about M. L. Lilienblum and the origins of Zionism in late imperial Russia.

J.J. and Dr. Sarah Hammerschlag encounter a phenomenal high-school principal and genius: Emmanuel Levinas. Follow us on Twitter (X) @JewishIdeas_Pod to converse with Other listeners. Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice!We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected] more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsSarah Hammerschlag is the John Nuveen Professor of Religion and Literature, Philosophy of Religions and History of Judaism at the University of Chicago. Sheis a scholar in the area of Religion and Literature. Her research thus far has focused on the position of Judaism in the post-World War II French intellectual scene, a field that puts her at the crossroads of numerous disciplines and scholarly approaches including philosophy, literary studies, and intellectual history. She is the author of The Figural Jew: Politics and Identity in Postwar French Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2010) and Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida and the Literary Afterlife of Religion (Columbia University Press, 2016) and the editor of Modern French Jewish Thought: Writings on Religion and Politics (Brandeis University Press, 2018). The Figural Jew received an Honorable Mention for the 2012 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award, given by the Association of Jewish Scholars, and was a finalist for the AAR’s Best First Book in the History of Religions in 2011. She has written essays on Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas and Maurice Blanchot which have appeared in Critical Inquiry, Jewish Quarterly Review and Shofar, among other places. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled “Sowers and Sages: The Renaissance of Judaism in Postwar Paris. Her most recent book is Devotion: Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature and Political Imagination (2021), co-written with Constance Furey and Amy Hollywood. 

J.J. and Dr. Sara Labaton dive into the mysteries of Ibn Ezra’s revolutionary commentary on the Bible. This is episode 2 of our series on the ideas of Abraham Ibn Ezra. Follow us on Twitter (X) @JewishIdeas_Pod to converse with other listeners about secret hermeneutics.Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice!We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected] more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsDr. Sara Labaton is Director of Teaching and Learning at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. She was a member of the inaugural cohort of North American David Hartman Center Fellows. Sara received a B.A. in Religious Studies from Columbia University and a doctorate in Medieval Jewish Thought from the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. Her doctoral thesis focused on the relationship between the esoteric and peshat hermeneutics in the commentaries of Abraham ibn Ezra, particularly with regard to ibn Ezra’s understanding of biblical cultic rituals. Sara was a founding faculty member of Yeshivat Hadar, where she developed a Bible and Exegesis curriculum. She has taught in a variety of Jewish settings, most recently as a history instructor at the Frisch School. Her research interests include the intersection of ritual and relevance, ritual experimentation, and overcoming the binary of halakhic–non-halakhic/insider-outsider in Jewish ritual practice. As part of her participation in the Religious Worlds Seminar at the Interfaith Center of New York, Sara researched ways of integrating comparative religion into Jewish educational contexts.