Three things which divide the stories of American and Israeli Jews
Everybody is talking about the relationship between American and Israeli Jewry – is the romance over? are we headed for a breakup? This relationship will be central to the...
S2 Epilogue: The re-emergence of Jewish political theology and messianism in 1948
What better way to wrap up season two than to talk about the messiah? Here is an exploration of the power of the messianic idea and its centrality to...
TJS S2 Interlude: Who is Rabbi Mike Feuer and why is he telling the Jewish story?
Every story has a teller, and a good listener knows that you can’t really separate the two. In this podcast, Rav Mike sits down with his old friend and...
TJS S2E40: Made in 1948 – Three historic decisions that shaped the birth of modern-day Israel
Declaring a state is a matter of moments, but birthing it can be a much more prolonged process. The last episode in season two is a look at a...
TJS S2 E39: Pre-Independence 1948 – The Battle for the Roads and the birth of the War of Narratives
1948 was a year of Biblical proportions, which means the stories told about what happened often have more power than the events themselves. This is part one of a...
After the Hanukkah Miracle: 3 Disasters that Wiped Out the Maccabees and How Israel Can Avoid Them
One could say that the Maccabees won the battle but lost the war. How is it that the heroes of the Hanukkah story went from the heights of spiritual...
S2:E37 – Survivalist Zionism: How the Zionist Struggle Looked After the Holocaust
Once World War Two ended all the promises of the allies were put to test – would they find a solution to the Jewish problem now that the war...
JS S2:E36 The Revolt Against British Rule and the Struggle Within the Underground
As European Jewry was consumed by the Shoah, the Zionists in the land of Israel gradually came to see the British blocking the gates of Israel as their main...
JS S2:E35: Jewish Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto
By 1942 there was no escape from Europe for the Jews, and even if they had managed to run – who would take them in. This second episode on...
JS S2:E 34: The Holocaust
There are things which need to be spoken about no matter how difficult and questions which need to be asked, no matter how unanswerable. Here is the first of...
Season 2: Episode 33 – The Arab Revolt
The 1930’s saw the hate triangle of Arabs, British and Jews explode into an unprecedented scale of violence known as the Arab Revolt. The revolt brought on yet another...
Season 2: Episode 32 – Under Pressure
In the 1930’s the ideological divides between the Revisionist and Labor Zionists grew, and cracks began to appear within the community of the Yishuv. Meanwhile, pressure on European Jewry...
Season 2 Interlude: On Authenticity
Sometimes I just gotta be me, but the problem is knowing just exactly where to find myself. In this interlude from the flow of the Jewish Story, Rav Mike...
Season 2: Episode 31- Interwar Jewry
Though the land of Israel is the hinge around which the Jewish Story turns, there are many Jews whose future does not lie in Zion. This episode widens the...
Season 2: Episode 30 – Stories of Blood and Fire
Patterns are hard things to break, and we can learn much about ourselves by how they come about. Here is a look at the cycle of riots which rocked...
Season 2: Episode x – Sukkot
The Sukkot holiday is a time of messianic expectation and prophetic inspiration. Here is an interlude with some musings on the meaning of war and prophecy. And as a...
Season 2: Episode 29 – The Conflict Within
Each successive wave of immigrants that came up to the land brought with them their blessings, and their challenges. As the population grew, so did the nature of power...
Season 2: Episode 28 – The Challenge of Jewish Power
The return of the Jewish people to the tools of political and military power was bound up with their return to the land of Israel. This episode explores the...
Season 2 Interlude: Rosh Hashanah and Crowning God King
In this interlude, Rav Mike talks about the intersection of memory and history, and how it can help us crown God king on Rosh Hashanah. Want to help tell...
Season 2: Episode 27 – The Anglo-Zionist Alliance
World War One brought massive destruction and great change. When the smoke cleared from this great conflagration, the British Empire was left in control of the land of Israel....
Season 2: Episode 26 – Rumors of War
The world is starting to shake with the rumbles of the the coming world war. The destruction which is to come will sweep away much of the old, and...
Season 2 Interlude: Passover – Free to Be Redeemed
In this interlude we take a pause from the flow of history in order to consider whether Passover is the festival of freedom or the time of our redemption....
Season 2: Episode 25 – One More Dunam One More Goat
There are times in history which define us even now, and in the state of Israel the Second Aliyah is second to none in that respect. This episode tells...
Season 2 Interlude: Narrative Warfare
We live in a world at war, and the battlefield is your mind. Am Yisrael has been fighting narrative warfare since Jacob was in the womb – and the...
Season 2: Episode 24 -The Religion of Labor
The end of the 19th century was a time of dramatic ideological struggle – cosmopolitanism vs. nationalism, socialism vs. capitalism. Early Zionist thought shows such incredible diversity that every...
Season 2: Episode 23 – The New Jew
Did you ever wonder how the Jews went from being the martyrs of Europe to the military power of the Middle East in less than fifty years? This episode...
Season 2: Episode 22 – One of the People
At the First Zionist Congress, Herzl awakened the Jews of Europe to their national political life. But Asher Zvi Ginsberg, better known as Ahad Ha’am, tried to teach them...
Season 2: Episode 21 – The Awakening
Return to the land of Israel had been a dream for almost 2000 years, and in the late 19th century it began to become a reality. It took a...
Season 2 Interlude: Sacred Masculinity
Here is a break from our story for a conversation with dear friend and fellow traveler Eitan Press, creator of Aleph Male brand. But as you will hear, it’s...
Season 2: Episode 20 – Heralders of Zion
In the second half of the 19th century the Jewish problem was pressing, and it took the form of antisemitism. When faced with such a problem, it is not...
Season 2: Episode 19 – The Ultimate Ism
It’s time to talk about nationalism. Here is a presentation of the underpinnings of nationalist thought along with a look at what is happening in the Pale of Settlement....
Season 2 Interlude: Limmud
Rav Mike joins up with Eve Harow at Limmud UK. Surrounded by 2500 Jews from around the world they discuss the nature of community, the challenges of orthodoxy and...
Season 2: Episode 18 – National Jew and International Jew
The struggle between the parochial and the cosmopolitan is a defining tension of the 19th century – for Europe as a whole and the Jews in particular. In this...
Season 2: Episode 17 – Scientific Judaism
The remarkable persistence of Am Yisrael as an ethnic entity, despite the best efforts of emancipation, is what poses the Jewish Question to European society. And while Europe is...
Season 2: Episode 16 – The Emperor and the Jews
As the Emperor of France spreads the ideals of the revolution through Europe, the question arises – is emancipation a right, a privilege or a threat? Every action had...
Season 2: Episode 15 – The Berlin Enlightenment
Mendelssohn’s story continues, but one man does not a movement make. The Berlin Haskalah was a whole generation of transition, one which struggled with the boundaries of Torah, society...
Season 2: Episode 14 – The German Socrates
Moses Mendelssohn was a critical philosopher of the German Enlightenment and the most controversial figure of the Jewish Enlightenment. Whether you think that he was a light to his...
Season 2: Episode 13 – Emden, Eybeschuetz and Enlightenment
Just when you think the Sabbateans have had their last say in the story, one of the greatest conflicts of 18th century rabbinic culture breaks out. This episode explores...
Season 2: Episode 12 – Movement and Controversy
Within two decades after the Baal Shem Tov’s death, a movement sprung up from his revolutionary thoughts. This new current of Jewish life did not emerge without controversy; and...
Season 2: Episode 11 – A Light Out of Darkness
The institutions of the middle ages have already run their course, and the way ahead into modernity is far from clear for Polish Jewry. Out of this darkness and...
Season 2: Episode 10 – A Blessing and a Curse
Baruch Spinoza the was the most famous philosopher the Jews ever produced, but he had to leave the fold in order to speak his truth. He crowned reason king...
Season 2: Episode 9 – The False Messiah
The appearance of Shabbetai Zvi evoked a tidal wave of messianic hope which swept Jews and Christians in its wake. Was his advent just a case of the “perfect...
Season 2: Episode 8 – The Hope of Israel
Hope is a powerful force. The conversos who escaped from Iberia and built a new life were driven by the hope for freedom, prosperity and ultimately redemption. But even...
Season 2: Episode 7 – The Lion’s Roar
The Golden Age of Tzefat had more to it than the writing of authoritative legal texts. There was also a flowering of kabbalistic thought which returned the experience of...
Season 2: Episode 6 – Tradition and Authority
Though the early modern era was a time of throwing off tradition for many Europeans, in the city of Tzefat its power was alive and well. This is the...
Season 2: Episode 5 – The Merchant Queen
Gracia Mendes was the most powerful Jewish woman since Queen Esther. Defying princes and Popes she amassed a fortune, supporting the poor, patronizing culture, and building an underground railroad...
Season 2: Episode 4 – Epistemological Breakdown
Epistemology is not about what you know, but about how you know anything all. The word may seem unsettling, but that is nothing compared to the breakdown which Europeans...
Season 2: Episode 3 – The Power of Print
The printing press helped spark a knowledge explosion which changed the world, and of course, less than fifty years after Gutenberg printed his Bible, Jewish presses were already transforming...
Season 2: Episode 2 – Hope Eternal
One of the hallmarks of the early modern era is mobility, which means we will be jumping around a bit. This episode follows the story of the exiles upon...
Season 2: Episode 1 – The New Homeland
As the Jews of Ashkenaz moved eastward, they brought their customs and language with them. What they found waiting in Poland was a refuge that would allow them to...