New Books in Jewish Studies

How do people rebuild their lives after unimaginable upheaval—and what stories do they tell along the way? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with author Philip Boris Uninsky to discuss his deeply personal and revealing book, Invented Lives from Troubled Times: A Jewish Family’s Forms of Resilience after Surviving Pogroms, Revolution, and the Holocaust (Cherry Orchard Books, 2025).

Blending family memory with archival research, Uninsky traces the story of an extended Jewish family that endured some of the twentieth century’s most devastating events—pogroms, revolution, and the Holocaust. But rather than focusing only on loss, the book explores resilience in all its complexity. Family memories, sometimes shaped by exaggeration, humor, misdirection, and reinvention, reveal how survivors crafted new identities in the aftermath of trauma.

Through decades of research and personal observation, Uninsky uncovers a remarkable range of responses to survival. Some family members became quiet, responsible citizens; others lived eccentrically, defiantly, or even recklessly. Together, their lives challenge the assumption that trauma leads only to brokenness. Instead, the book paints a vivid portrait of persistence, adaptability, and the many surprising ways people rebuild meaning after catastrophe.

Together, Uninsky and Katz explore the fragile boundary between memory and invention, the role of storytelling in survival, and what resilience really looks like across generations shaped by violence and displacement.

About the Guest

For over three decades, Philip B. Uninsky has brought science and law to service in the US and Africa. An academic social scientist, attorney, and director of non-profits, he has supported highly stressed communities by implementing, evaluating, and sustaining evidence-based models in the areas of mental health, trauma, education, and violence prevention.

About the Host

Marc Katz is the rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid and the author of several books on Jewish thought and the Talmud. Through his teaching, writing, and podcast conversations with scholars and storytellers, Katz brings history, memory, and Jewish experience into conversation with contemporary life.
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Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) is widely considered one of the most creative cultural critics of the twentieth century. Esteemed for his literary acumen and capacious imagination, he developed a unique style of criticism―his friend Hannah Arendt called it pearl-diving―that sought out fragments of redemption in the ruins of bourgeois civilization.

In Walter Benjamin: The Pearl Diver (Yale UP, 2026), award-winning author Peter E. Gordon tells Benjamin’s story in a vivid and poetic style, inviting the reader to look beyond the image of Benjamin as a tragic figure of German-Jewish history and portraying him as a complex personality of unique and multifaceted gifts. Tracing Benjamin’s life from his Berlin childhood to his Parisian exile.

Abe Silberstein is a Ph.D. student in the joint program in History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.
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Kishinev's 1903 pogrom was the first event in Russian Jewish life to receive international attention. The riot, leaving 49 dead in an obscure border town, dominated the headlines of the western press for weeks, intruded on US-Russian relations, and impacted an astonishing array of institutions: the nascent Jewish army in Palestine, the NAACP, and most likely the first version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Why did it have such impact, and why did it become a prism through which Russian Jewish history has been defined?

This keynote address originally took place on January 6, 2014.
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For many Ashkenazi Jews in the United States, Christmastime sparks memories of egg rolls and General Tso's chicken. How did the affinity for Chinese food amongst many Jews begin? Trace this delicious history from the turn-of-the-century Lower East Side to today’s take-out lo mein with Andrew Coe, author of Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States.

This lecture originally took place on December 22, 2020.
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What does it mean to tell the Passover story as a truly diverse people? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with editor Rabbi Sarah Berman to discuss Haggadah Shel Erev Rav: The Mixed Multitude Haggadah (CCAR Press, 2026), a bold and beautiful reimagining of the Passover seder.

Inspired by the biblical image of the erev rav—the “mixed multitude” that left Egypt together—this Haggadah celebrates the many voices that make up the Jewish people. It invites readers to rediscover the Exodus story through four distinctive pathways: the voices of children, the experiences of women, the moral urgency of social justice, and the presence of God in the work of liberation.

With an inclusive and accessible translation, thoughtful commentary, and vivid original artwork by Indian Jewish artist Siona Benjamin, Haggadah Shel Erev Rav blends deep tradition with contemporary insight. Created in celebration of Rabbi Angela W. Buchdahl’s twentieth anniversary at Central Synagogue, the book offers a fresh lens on one of Judaism’s most beloved rituals—helping families and communities transform the seder into a space of reflection, connection, and renewal.

Together, Berman and Katz explore how the Passover story continues to evolve, what it means to honor many voices at the table, and how the ancient narrative of liberation can speak powerfully to modern Jewish life.

About the Guest

Rabbi Sarah Berman is the Director of Jewish Culture and Programming at Central synagogue. She is the editor of Haggadah Shel Erev Rav: The Mixed Multitude Haggadah.

About the Host

Marc Katz is the Senior rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid and the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life.
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