The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

J.J. and Dr. Shmuel Feiner tell tales of 1782 CE, a turning point in Modern Jewish History. This episode is sponsored by the Touro Graduate School of Jewish Studies, a leading academic program in Jewish Studies. For information on admission and course offerings, including generous scholarships, please visit gsjs.touro.edu/history/ or get in touch by calling 212-463-0400, ext. 55580 or emailing [email protected] you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  [email protected] Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected]  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsShmuel Feiner is Modern Jewish History Professor Emeritus at The Department of Jewish History, Bar Ilan University, Israel. He is the Chairperson of The Historical Society of Israel. Shmuel Feiner was born in Tel Aviv (1955) and studied at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (BA, 1980, MA, 1984, PhD 1990). After receiving the Alon scholarship he joined the Jewish History Department at Bar Ilan University, Jewish Studies Faculty. He is full Professor from 2001. Between 2001-2004 he served as Head of Department, and until 2023 as the Head of The Samuel Braun Chair for the History of the Jews in Germany. He retired from teaching in 2023. He published many books in Hebrew and English on the history of the Jewish Enlightenment in Central and Eastern Europe, on the origins of Jewish secularization, and on the Jewish Kulturkampf in the 19th Century. His biography of Moses Mendelssohn was published in Hebrew, English, German and Chinese. Recently he completed a two volume project: The Jewish Eighteenth Century, A European Biography (Indiana University Press).Shmuel Feiner is editor of “Zion” (Jewish History), served as the Chairperson of the Jerusalem Leo Baeck Institute, and the recipient of the Koret Jewish Book Award in History (2004), The Meyer Struckmann Prize (2007), the Shazar Prize, and the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (2011-2012).

J.J. and Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein stay current. They discuss 21st century Jewish thinkers like Jonathan Sacks, Irving Greenberg, and Goshen-Gottstein himself. This is the fifth and final episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we explored and complicated Jewish attitudes to these ideas across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected]  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsRabbi Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein is acknowledged as one of the world's leading figures in interreligious dialogue. He is the founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute since 1997. His work bridges the theological and academic dimensions with a variety of practical initiatives, especially involving world religious leadership. A noted scholar of Jewish studies, he has held academic posts at Tel Aviv University and has served as director of the Center for the Study of Rabbinic Thought, Beit Morasha College, Jerusalem. His most recent publications are Idolatry - A Contemporary Jewish Conversation (Academic Studies Press, 2023) and Covenant and World Religions - Irving Greenberg, Jonathan Sacks and the Quest for Orthodox Pluralism (Littman Library, 2023), finalist of the Rabbi Sacks Book Prize for 2023. 

J.J. and Dr. Jeremy Fogel reflect on the oneness of nature, the nature of oneness, and particularism vs. universalism in the thought of Benedict Spinoza, Moses Mendellsohn, and Hermann Cohen. This is the fourth episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we will explore and complicate Jewish attitudes to these categories across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected]  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsJeremy Fogel is a senior faculty member in the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel Aviv University. He is also the academic director of Alma Home for Hebrew Culture and a faculty member in the Mandel Program for Leadership in Jewish Culture. In addition, Jeremy lectures on philosophy in a variety of public forums and records popular podcasts on cultural and academic topics. Among his books are "Tel Aviv is Water and Other Seasidian thoughts" (Haba Laor, 2019) and Jewish Universalisms (Brandeis University Press, 2023).

J.J. and Dr. Menachem Kellner pitch Maimonides against Judah HaLevi and explore the extremes of Jewish universalism and particularism in the middle ages. Thank you to Kestenbaum and Co. for sponsoring today's episode!Click here to see the auction catalogue and place your bids on rare Judaica and Hebraica. This is the third episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we will explore and complicate Jewish attitudes to these categories across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected]  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsMenachem Kellner is Wolfson Professor Emeritus of Jewish Thought at the University of Haifa and was founding chair of the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Thought at Shalem College, Jerusalem. His most recent book is We Are Not Alone: A Maimonidean Theology of the Other (Academic Studies Press, 2021). In connection with the discussion with JJ, his most relevant book is Maimonides the Universalist: The Ethical Horizons of the Mishneh Torah (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2020), co-authored with David Gillis.

J.J. and Dr. Marc Hirshman dissect the schools of R. Akiva and R. Yishmael to understand the central rabbinic arguments about universalism and particularism. This is the second episode in our miniseries about universalism and particularism in Judaism. Over the course of the series we will explore and complicate Jewish attitudes to these categories across the centuries. Follow us on Bluesky @jewishideaspod.bsky.social for updates and insights!Please rate and review the the show in the podcast app of your choice.We welcome all complaints and compliments at [email protected]  For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcastsMarc Hirshman is Mandel Professor Emeritus at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a visiting professor at a number of leading American universities, including Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, The Jewish Theological Seminary, and the University of Notre Dame. Additionally, he was a Starr Fellow at Harvard, a Joyce Zeger Greenberg Fellow at University of Chicago and a Strauss Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (1995) and The Stabilization of Rabbinic Culture 100 C.E.–350 C.E.: Texts on Education in their Late Antique Context (2009).