Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas
Episodes
Robert J. Coplan, "The Joy of Solitude: How to Reconnect with Yourself in an Overconnected World" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Solitude is part of the human experience. But just like other relationships, your relationship with solitude can be satisfying, intimate, and enhance ...
Michael Kimmel, "Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2026)
14 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The untold story of the first-generation Jewish American toymakers who literally manufactured “the century of the child.” In 1902, Morris and Ros...
Oren Harman, "Metamorphosis: A Natural and Human History" (Basic Books, 2025)
08 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A search for the meaning of one of nature's greatest riddles: why do so many creatures transform? “How many creatures walking on this earth / Have ...
Marc Berman, "Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Marc Berman, the pioneering creator of the field of environmental neuroscience, has discovered the surprising connection between mind, body, and e...
Susan Weingarten, "Ancient Jewish Food in its Geographical and Cultural Contexts: What’s Cooking in the Talmuds?" (Taylor & Francis, 2025
13 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ancient Jewish Food in its Geographical and Cultural Contexts: What’s Cooking in the Talmuds? (Taylor & Francis, 2025) is the first in-depth...
William Ury, "Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict" (Harper Business, 2024)
15 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The author of the world’s best-selling book on negotiation draws on his nearly fifty years of experience and knowledge grappling with the world’s ...
Michal Govrin et. al, "But There Was Love―Shaping the Memory of the Shoah" (de Gruyter, 2025)
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
But There Was Love―Shaping the Memory of the Shoah (de Gruyter, 2025) proposes a new paradigm for Shoah remembrance in today’s cultural and p...
Maya Arad, "The Hebrew Teacher" (New Vessel Press, 2024)
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Three Israeli women, their lives altered by immigration to the United States, seek to overcome crises. Ilana is a veteran Hebrew instructor at a Midw...
Shaul Kelner, "A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized To Free Soviet Jews" (NYU Press, 2025)
02 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Winner of The 74th National Jewish Book Award: American Jewish Studies Celebrate 350 Award Reveals the mass mobilization tactics that help...
Danya Ruttenberg, "On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World" (Beacon Press, 2022)
04 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards in Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice and Myra H. Kraft Memorial AwardOn Repentance and Repair: M...
Mary-Frances O’Connor, The Grieving Body: How the stress of Loss Can be an Opportunity for Healing (Harper One, 2025)
14 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Grieving Body: How the stress of Loss Can be an Opportunity for Healing (Harper One, 2025)by Mary-Frances O’Connor, Ph.D. The follow-up to cel...
Nicole Nehrig, "With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this first of a series of episodes on healing, we speak with Nicole Nehrig, whose book With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories (W.W. N...
Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, "The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism" (Jewish Publication Society. 2024)
23 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Triumph of Life is Rabbi Irving Greenberg’s magnum opus—a narrative of the relationship between God and humanity as expressed in the Jewish jo...
David S. Wall, "Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age" (Polity, 2024)
13 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How has the digital revolution transformed criminal opportunities and behaviour? What is different about cybercrime compared with traditional criminal...
Rebecca Lemov, "The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion" (Norton, 2025)
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Because brainwashing affects both the world and our observation of the world, we often don’t recognize it while it’s happening—unless we know wh...
Cary Nelson, "Mindless: What Happened to Universities?" (Jewish Quarterly 259, 2025)
13 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Mindless: What Happened to Universities?, renowned scholar and former president of the American Association of University Professors Cary Nelson d...
Owen Flanagan, "What Is It Like to Be an Addict?: Understanding Substance Abuse" (Oxford UP, 2025)
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A powerful and important exploration of how addiction functions on social, psychological and biological levels, integrated with the experience of bein...
Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025)
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culminat...
Sandra Matz, "Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior" (HBRP, 2025)
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A fascinating exploration of how algorithms penetrate the most intimate aspects of our psychology—from the pioneering expert on psychological target...
David Resnick, "Empowered or Abused: The Bible's Plan to Stop Battlefield Rape and Reduce Sexual Abuse" (BfoT, 2025)
03 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What to do when a victorious soldier lusts for the beautiful woman he’s just taken captive in an overseas war. In fact, her body already belongs to ...
Jerome Gellman, "The Problem of God in Jewish Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Hebrew Bible contains two quite different divine personae. One is quick to anger and to exact punishment while the other is a compassionate God sl...
Keith J. Hayward, "Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood" (Constable & Robinson, 2025)
11 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever noticed that in areas of everyday life, rather than being addressed like a mature adult, you're increasingly treated like an irresponsib...
James Davison Hunter, "Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America's Political Crisis" (Yale UP, 2024)
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Liberal democracy in America has always contained contradictions—most notably, a noble but abstract commitment to freedom, justice, and equality tha...
On Barak, "Heat, a History: Lessons from the Middle East for a Warming Planet" (U California Press, 2024)
10 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the flames of record-breaking temperatures licking at our feet, most people fail to fully grasp the gravity of environmental overheating. What...
Anthony Grafton, "Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa" (Harvard UP, 2023)
08 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa (Harvard UP, 2023) is a revelatory new account of the magus―the learned magician―and his place i...
Josef Stern, "Maimonides' "Guide of the Perplexed" in Translation: A History from the Thirteenth Century to the Twentieth" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
09 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There is a common misconception that the Jewish religion does not believe in an afterlife. While it’s true that Judaism is focused on actions, inten...
Eric Cline, "After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
07 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of Eric Cline's bestselling history 1177 B.C., many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in rui...
On the Book of Psalms: Exploring the Prayers of Ancient Israel by Nachum Sarna
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we delve into one of the most profound and enduring works of sacred poetry: the Book of Psalms. Emotional and spiritual, joyful and de...
Matthew Levitt, "Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad" (Yale UP, 2008)
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The world is reeling from the savage terror attack that brutalized, raped, murdered and kidnapped Israelis and civilians from at least 25 other countr...
Anthony Bale, "A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes" (Norton, 2024)
11 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A captivating journey of the expansive world of medieval travel, from London to Constantinople to the court of China and beyond. Europeans of the Midd...
Writing on the Wall: A Conversation with William Kolbrener
23 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"Writing on the Wall" is a global platform founded by Professor William Kolbrener and novelist Ronit Eitan in response to the traumatic events of Octo...
Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, "What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice" (St. Martin's Press, 2024)
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman's book What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice (St. Martin's Press, 2024) presents a modern argument, g...
The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The essay "The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7" (Mosaic Magazine) by Shany Mor, dated October 7, 2024, examines the intellectual an...
Judaism is About Love: A Discussion with Shai Held
11 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A dramatic misinterpretation of the Jewish tradition has shaped the history of the West: Christianity is the religion of love, and Judaism the religio...
Seth J. Frantzman, "The October 7 War: Israel's Battle for Security in Gaza" (Wicked Son, 2024)
18 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A harrowing account on the frontlines of the war between Israel and Hamas, The October 7 War: Israel's Battle for Security in Gaza (Wicked Son, 2024...
Marilynne Robinson, "Reading Genesis" (FSG, 2024)
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For generations, the book of Genesis has been treated by scholars as a collection of documents by various hands, expressing different factional intere...
Yaacob Dweck, "Dissident Rabbi: The Life of Jacob Sasportas" (Princeton UP, 2019)
08 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1665, Sabbetai Zevi, a self-proclaimed Messiah with a mass following throughout the Ottoman Empire and Europe, announced that the redemption of the...
Cary Nelson, "Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles" (Academic Studies Press, 2024)
04 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Completed shortly before Hamas carried out its barbaric October massacre, Cary Nelson's Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on...
Jay Garfinkel, "Kohelet's Cocktail: Beyond the Pursuit of Happiness" (Illuminated Press, 2024)
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dive into the timeless wisdom of Ecclesiastes in Jay Garfinkel's groundbreaking work, Kohelet's Cocktail: Beyond the Pursuit of Happiness (Illuminat...
Samuel C. Heilman and Mucahit Bilici, "Following Similar Paths: What American Jews and Muslims Can Learn from One Another" (U California Press, 2024)
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Two academics, one Jewish and one Muslim, come together to show how much their faiths have in common—particularly in America. This book provides a b...
Eyal Regev, "The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred" (Yale UP, 2019)
07 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Eyal Regev's The Temple in Early Christianity: Experiencing the Sacred (Yale UP, 2019) is he first scholarly work to trace the Temple throughout th...
Judith Lewis Herman, "Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice" (Basic Books, 2023)
07 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Judith Herman is renowned for her groundbreaking work with survivors of trauma, including sexual trauma. Her earlier books include Trauma and Recover...
Thomas Sparr, "German Jerusalem: The Remarkable Life of a German-Jewish Neighbourhood in the Holy City" (Haus Publishers, 2021)
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1920s, before the establishment of the state of Israel, a group of German Jews settled in a garden city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. During W...
Carl Zimmer, "Life's Edge: The Search For What it Means to be Alive" (Dutton, 2022)
10 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the appl...
David Tal, "The Making of an Alliance: The Origins and Development of the US-Israel Relationship" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Laying the foundation for an understanding of US-Israeli relations, this lively and accessible book provides critical background on the origins and de...
Seth D. Kaplan, "Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time" (Little, Brown Spark, 2023)
14 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The neighborhoods we live in impact our lives in so many ways: they determine who we know, what resources and opportunities we have access to, the qua...
Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (1951)
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, who eventually taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophica...
Brothers and Sisters for Israel (“Achim Baneshek”): A Conversation with Ronen Koehler
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How does an organization change in an instant, shift its focus and mission in response to a new reality? One volunteer organization did just that. In ...
Kenneth Miller, "Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep" (Hachette Books, 2023)
08 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we sleep? How can we improve our sleep? A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness—even a primitive habit that we could learn...
Paul Scharre, "Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" (Norton, 2023)
24 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An award-winning defense expert tells the story of today’s great power rivalry―the struggle to control artificial intelligence. A new industrial r...
Mike Caulfield and Sam Wineburg, "Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
10 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An indispensable guide for telling fact from fiction on the internet—often in less than 30 seconds. The internet brings information to our fingertip...
John Horgan, "Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right" ( Columbia UP, 2023)
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a person want to become a terrorist? Who becomes involved in terrorism, and why? In what ways does participating in violent extremism chang...
What Can We Learn From A Pottery Shard? Uncovering the Ancient Past Through Biblical Archeology with Professor Aren Maeir
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some people are good at what they do, some are enthusiastic about their work. This guest brings both to bear in his exploration of the ancient past. T...
Con Coughlin, "Assad: The Triumph of Tyranny" (Picador, 2023)
12 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Assad: The Triumph of Tyranny (Picador, 2023), Con Coughlin, veteran commentator on war in the Middle East and author of Saddam: The Secret Life,...
John Perlin, "The Forest Journey: The Story of Trees and Civilization" (Patagonia, 2023)
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A Foundational Conservation Story Revived. Ancient writers observed that forests always recede as civilizations develop and grow. The great Roman poet...
Dan Senor and Saul Singer, "The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World" (Simon and Schuster, 2023)
26 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How has a small nation of 9 million people, forced to fight for its existence and security since its founding and riven by ethnic, religious, and econ...
The Enlightened Donor: How to Give Charity Wisely
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Motivated by compassion and hope, and the shared desire to make the world a better place, the immense amount of charitable giving stands as a testamen...
Jeremy Howick, "The Power of Placebos: Unlocking Their Potential to Improve Health Care" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
05 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Should your doctor prescribe a placebo for you, instead of conventional medicine? And if she did, would it work? Is the double-blind placebo-controlle...
Itamar Rabinovich, "Middle Eastern Maze: Israel, the Arabs and the Region" (Brookings Institution Press, 2023)
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Navigating through the intricate web of Middle Eastern geopolitics, few are better equipped to provide insights than Itamar Rabinovich in his compelli...
Andrew J. Hoffman, "The Engaged Scholar: Expanding the Impact of Academic Research in Today’s World" (Stanford UP, 2021)
23 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Society and democracy are ever threatened by the fall of fact. Rigorous analysis of facts, the hard boundary between truth and opinion, and fidelity t...
Gary Smith, "Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)
27 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There is no doubt science is currently suffering from a credibility crisis. Gary Smith's book Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on...
Gadi Sagiv, "Jewish Blues: A History of a Color in Judaism" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)
13 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gadi Sagiv's book Jewish Blues: A History of a Color in Judaism (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) presents a broad cultural, social, and intellectual hi...
Tara Isabella Burton, "Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians" (PublicAffairs, 2023)
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In a technologically-saturated era where nearly everything can be effortlessly and digitally reproduced, we're all hungry to carve out our own unique ...
The Art of Translation: A Discussion with Anne Birkenhauer Molad
22 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Translation is a mysterious process that combines the elements of writing – rhythm and voice, meaning, structure and nuance – with the challenge o...
Housing Insecurity and Homelessness: A Nonprofit Approach
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The problem of housing insecurity and homelessness consumes the resources of many of the world’s major cities. Homelessness undermines urban culture...
Daniel Gordis, "Impossible Takes Longer: 75 Years After Its Creation, Has Israel Fulfilled Its Founders' Dreams?" (Ecco Press, 2023)
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1948, Israel’s founders had much more in mind than the creation of a state. They sought not mere sovereignty but also a “national home for the ...
Benjamin Balint, "Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History" (Norton, 2023)
10 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The twentieth-century artist Bruno Schulz was born an Austrian, lived as a Pole, and died a Jew. First a citizen of the Habsburg monarchy, he would, w...
Daniel Roth, "Third-Party Peacemakers in Judaism: Text, Theory, and Practice" (Oxford UP, 2021)
03 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the race to discover real solutions for the conflicts that plague contemporary society, it is essential that we look to precedent. Many of today's ...
Alan Lightman, "The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science" (Pantheon, 2023)
26 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are science and spirituality incompatible? From the acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams comes a rich, fascinating answer to that question... Gaz...
Dimitris Xygalatas, "Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living" (Little, Brown Spark, 2022)
10 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ritual is one of the oldest, and certainly most enigmatic, threads in the history of human culture. It presents a profound paradox: people ascribe the...
David I. Kertzer, "The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler" (Random House, 2022)
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during...
Russ Roberts, "Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us" (Portfolio, 2022)
15 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Algorithms and apps analyze data and tell you how to beat the traffic, what books to buy, what music to listen to, and even who to date—often with g...
Adrian Bejan, "Time and Beauty: Why Time Flies and Beauty Never Dies" (World Scientific, 2022)
26 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Poets and philosophers are fascinated by time and beauty. They are two of our most visceral perceptions. In Time and Beauty: Why Time Flies and Beaut...
Arthur Keefer, "Ecclesiastes and the Meaning of Life in the Ancient World" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is the search for meaning a luxury of the modern world or have human beings always struggled to find meaning in the human condition – in the face of...
Susannah Heschel, "The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany" (Princeton UP, 2010)
27 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton UP, 2010) documents the process, and relative ease, with which instit...
Hagai Boas, "The Political Economy of Organ Transplantation: Where Do Organs Come From?" (Routledge, 2022)
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is the story of organ transplantation, told from the organ’s point of view. Organs for transplantations come from two sources: living or post-m...
Mary-Frances O'Connor, "The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss" (HarperOne, 2022)
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For as long as humans have existed, we have struggled when a loved one dies. Poets and playwrights have written about the dark cloak of grief, the dee...
Amy Gajda, "Seek and Hide: The Tangled History of the Right to Privacy" (Viking, 2022)
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Should everyone have privacy in their personal lives? Can privacy exist in a public place? Is there a right to be left alone, even in the United State...
Sustainable Agriculture in the Global South: A Religious Response to the Global Food Crisis
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Micha Odenheimer is the founder and director of Tevel B’Zedek, an Israeli NGO that aims to create Israeli and Jewish leadership passionately engag...
Suicide Prevention: Grassroots Intervention for High-Risk Groups
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Suicide has been on the rise in recent years, most frighteningly among young people. Suicide is second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 an...
Corinne E. Blackmer, "Queering Anti-Zionism: Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals, and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism" (Wayne State UP, 2022)
19 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why do some scholars sacrifice truth and logic to political ideology and peer acceptance? With courage and intellectual integrity, queer scholar-activ...
Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, "Minority Of One: The Unchaining of an Arab Mind" (2020)
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even aga...
Addressing Hunger, Food Insecurity--Local Solutions to a Global Problem
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We live in a time of food paradox. In a world of historically unprecedented abundance, many don’t have enough to eat. Life-limiting obesity coexists...
Culturally Competent Health Care, Equality in Health Care: The Case of Muslims and Jews in the UK
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The health care sector frequently emphasizes “Cultural competence”, an elastic concept that stretches from the simplest recognition of diversity o...
Keith W. Campbell, "The New Science of Narcissism: Understanding One of the Greatest Psychological Challenges of Our Time" (Sounds True, 2020)
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Narcissism” is truly one of the most important words of our time―ceaselessly discussed in the media, the subject of millions of online search q...
Robin Dunbar, "How Religion Evolved: And Why It Endures" (Oxford UP, 2022)
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is the evolutionary purpose of religion, and are some individuals more inclined than others to be religious? Our species diverged from the great ...
Jerry Z. Muller, "Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes" (Princeton UP, 2022)
20 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Genius or Charlatan? This is the story of Jacob Taubes, the controversial Jewish thinker whose tortured path led him into the heart of twentieth-centu...
Erich Schwartzel, "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy" (Penguin, 2022)
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From trade to technology to military might, competition between the United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape. But this battle fo...
Randa Khair Abbas and Deborah Court, "The Israeli Druze Community in Transition: Between Tradition and Modernity" (Cambridge Scholars, 2021)
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Randa Khair Abbas and Deborah Court's book The Israeli Druze Community in Transition: Between Tradition and Modernity (Cambridge Scholars, 2021) giv...
Ramadan Violence: A Conversation with Ambassador Dore Gold
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A hilltop at the heart of Jerusalem, Israel, is known to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. It has been th...
Jeffrey Saks and Shalom Carmy, "Agnon’s Tales of the Land of Israel" (Pickwick Publications, 2021)
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"As a result of the historic catastrophe in which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I was born in one of the citi...
Andrew Lawler, "Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World's Most Contested City" (Doubleday, 2021)
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World's Most Contested City (Doubleday, 2021) takes readers into the tombs, tunnels, and trenches of the H...
Peter Mandaville, "Islam and Politics" (Routledge, 2020)
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Mandaville's Islam and Politics (3rd Edition; Routledge, 2020) is a basic and comprehensive account of political Islam in the contemporary w...
Erica Brown, "Esther: Power, Fate and Fragility in Exile" (Maggid, 2020)
25 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Biblical Book of Esther reads like a classic fable, a drama of actors who are recognizable archetypes. There is Esther, the beautiful orphan who b...
In Science We Trust?: An insider Conversation with Health Policy Reporter, Fran Kritz
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Americans are deeply polarized on many issues, including science and medicine. Where once was widespread agreement, today the differences are sharp: o...
R. David Lankes, "The New Librarianship Field Guide" (MIT Press, 2016)
31 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can libraries be radical positive change agents in their communities? R. David Lenkes offers a guide for librarians who see their profession as a chan...
Gideon Sapir and Daniel Statman, "State and Religion in Israel: A Philosophical-Legal Inquiry" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either.” The relationship between religion and sta...
Jonathan Schanzer, "Gaza Conflict 2021" (Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2021)
05 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Jonathan Schanzer about his new book Gaza Conflict 2021 (Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2021). The May 2021 conflict betw...
Seth David Radwell, "American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nation" (Greenleaf, 2021)
29 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why are Americans so angry? American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nation (Greenleaf, 2021) explores history to...
Julian E. Zelizer, "Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement" (Yale UP, 2021)
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” So said Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) of his involvement...