The opening episode of the Jewish Story! Rav Mike touches his perspective on history and then tells the story of Daniel as the link between the age of...
Play EpisodeIn Episode 2 of The Jewish Story, Rav Mike explores the walls built by Ezra and Nechemia, and the power which exclusivity over our story gives in the...
Play EpisodeThe Men of the Great Assembly lie on the other side of the mists of the Persian period from Daniel. They will begin to lay the foundations of...
Play EpisodeThe encounter between Greek and Jewish culture was love at first sight. The two cultures were bridged by language, and one of its great products of their fusion...
Play EpisodeIn this episode, Rav Mike describes the rise of Hellenistic Judaism as the background for the Channukah story. Judah and his brothers rose in revolt because they understood...
Play EpisodeRav Mike discusses the rise and fall of the Hasmonean dynasty, from a kingdom of priests to Hellenestic kingdom. Also hear how Judean society began to tear along...
Play EpisodeHerod the Wicked or Herod the Great? In this episode Rav Mike talks about Herod's kingdom, the final phase of Judea preceding the destruction of the Second Temple....
Play EpisodeIn this episode Rav Mike discusses the persona of HiIlel the Elder. Hillel was named Nasi, prince, at the same time as Herod was king. In addition, Jesus...
Play EpisodeWe are on the eve of destruction. As the national vessel begins to fray at the seams and the Temple's burning looms, the cultural battle within the text...
Play EpisodeIn this episode, R' Mike describes the destruction of Jerusalem from without and from within. In order to do so he compares the perspectives of the great Jewish...
Play EpisodeThe ruins of the Temple were still smoldering when Judea burst into the flames of rebellion once again. In this episode Rav Mike discusses the final two rounds...
Play EpisodeR' Yehudah HaNasi redacted the Mishna but he inherited its form and content from R' Akiva. In this episode, R' Mike explores the nature of the mishna and...
Play EpisodeIt is the end of an era. In this episode Rav Mike explores rabbinic chronology, textual evolution and socio-political context in order to illustrate the shift between the...
Play EpisodeIdentity is always a battle. In this episode Rav Mike explores the struggle between Christianity and Judaism in late antiquity, as well the inner struggle of Am Yisrael...
Play EpisodeThe rise of Islam will offer new opportunities and pose new challenges for the survival of Am Yisrael. On one hand, the struggle to claim the title of...
Play EpisodeIt as been quite a long while since R' Yochanan fled the Roman siege of Jerusalem, but now after seven hundred years the Jews have been united under...
Play EpisodeThere is a debate whether great individuals shape history or history shapes them, but there is no argument about the role which R' Saadia Gaon played in shaping...
Play EpisodeSpanish Jewry viewed itself as the nobility of the Jewish people, whose roots were in the legendary past. This episode traces history of the community from the fall...
Play EpisodeThe 10th and 11th centuries of Jewish life in Al Andalus were so rich and productive that they were known as the Golden Age. The Jews struck root...
Play EpisodeYehudah Halevi was the poet of a generation, and perhaps the most celebrated poet of medieval Spain. He also swam against the tide of philosophical rationalism and invited...
Play EpisodeThe Rambam was the second famous Moses in Jewish History. His accomplishments in Jewish law and philosophy tower over his contemporaries, and are pillars of of the Torah...
Play EpisodeThe origins of Ashkenazi Jewry are bound up with the rise of Christian Europe. As the kingdoms of the Middle Ages began to take shape, teachers like Rashi...
Play EpisodeThe twelfth century was a time of spiritual expansion as the Tosafists transformed the Talmud and the Pietists of Ashkenaz awakened new depths of the soul. Darkness grew...
Play EpisodeIn the thirteenth centuries the stories of Ashkenaz and Spain begin to draw together. This is the great age of Christian expansion, which brings on book burning and...
Play EpisodeWhen faced with the choice between the cross and the sword, the Ashkenazi communities of the middle ages chose martyrdom. Why was the decision of their Spanish contemporaries...
Play EpisodeWhen the storm broke in 1391, thousands were dead and even more converted. A new model of identity was born in the century before the expulsion, and it...
Play EpisodeThe forced conversion of tens of thousands of Jews may have seemed like a great victory for Christianity, but in reality these conversos were a ticking bomb in...
Play EpisodeA lot more happened in 1492 than Columbus sailing the ocean blue. Upon their marriage, Ferdinand and Isabella are determined to make newborn Spain a unified country, which...
Play EpisodeThe Expulsion from Spain marks a turning point in Jewish history. In addition to a national trauma which evokes the memory of the Temple's destruction, it challenges the...
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