Free Daily Podcast Summary
New Books in Jewish Studies: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Marshall Poe
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 5 days ago32 min
Giuseppe Motta, "Jewish Refugees and the International Community Between the Two World Wars: Beyond the State" (Routledge, 2026)
In this episode of New Books Network, Željko Stanojević speaks with historian Giuseppe Motta about Jewish Refugees and the International Community Between the Two World Wars: Beyond the State (Routledge, 2026), a study of Jewish displacement, statelessness, humanitarian action, international law, and international institutions between the First and Second World Wars.Drawing on extensive archival research in the records of the League of Nations and the Joint Distribution Committee, Motta reconstructs the political and legal environment in which Jewish refugees from East-Central Europe struggled to find protection after the collapse of empires and the redrawing of national borders. The book follows the refugee question from the aftermath of World War I through the rise of Nazism and the Évian Conference of 1938, asking how states, international organizations, humanitarian agencies, and Jewish institutions responded to people increasingly left outside effective national protection.A central theme of the conversation is the tension captured in the subtitle, Beyond the State. The interwar refugee crisis exposed a basic contradiction: refugees required protection that crossed national borders, while international law remained dependent on the sovereignty and political choices of individual states. Motta explains how the Jewish refugee question became connected to statelessness, minority protection, humanitarian responsibility, migration control, legal identity, and international cooperation across Europe.The discussion also explores the wider forces surrounding Jewish displacement: the legacies of World War I, new states in Central and Eastern Europe, nationalism, antisemitism, Bolshevism, Zionism, migration policy, and the restrictive political climate of the 1920s and 1930s. Particular attention is given to the League of Nations and the Joint Distribution Committee, whose archives reveal both institutional debates and the practical difficulties faced by refugees seeking safety and legal recognition.Rather than treating Jewish refugees only as a prelude to the Holocaust, Motta places the interwar period in its own historical and legal context. This perspective helps explain how ideas later central to international refugee law and human rights developed through earlier crises, experiments, failures, and negotiations.Giuseppe Motta is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at Sapienza University of Rome and a member of the Editorial Board of the European Hebrew Journal (EHJ).Motta will also speak at the European Hebrew Journal International Online Conference, New Discoveries and New Directions in Biblical, Hebrew, and Theological Studies. On 7 November 2026 at 19:00 CET, he will lead a live scholarly debate based on this book. His biography, book information, presentation details, and conference session are available on Giuseppe Motta’s conference page.The interview is hosted by Željko Stanojević, President of the Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the European Hebrew Journal, and a New Books Network host in Biblical Studies. The Belgrade-based Institute promotes international scholarship in Hebrew language, Jewish studies, Biblical studies, Semitic studies, history, religion, and related interdisciplinary fields.Keywords and themes: Jewish refugees, interwar Europe, League of Nations, Joint Distribution Committee, statelessness, Jewish migration, Évian Conference, antisemitism, minority rights, humanitarianism, refugee law, international law, East-Central Europe, Jewish history, human rights, nationalism, international relations, refugee protection. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 6 days ago28 min
Anthony Julius, "Abraham: The First Jew" (Yale UP, 2025)
Abraham: The First Jew (Yale UP, 2025) is the story of Abraham, the first Jew, portrayed as two lives lived by one person, paralleling the contradictions in Judaism throughout its history In this new biography of Abraham, Judaism’s foundational figure, Anthony Julius offers an account of the origins of a fundamental struggle within Judaism between skepticism and faith, critique and affirmation, thinking for oneself and thinking under the direction of another. Julius describes Abraham’s life as two separate lives, and as a version of the collective life of the Jewish people. Abraham’s first life is an early adulthood of questioning the polytheism of his home city of Ur Kasdim until its ruler, Nimrod, condemns him to death and he is rescued, he believes, by a miracle. In his second life, Abraham’s focus is no longer on critique but rather on conversion and on his leadership over his growing household, until God’s command that he sacrifice his son Isaac. This test, the Akedah (or “Binding”), ends with another miracle, as he believes, but as Julius argues, it is also a catastrophe for Abraham. The Akedah represents for him an unsurpassed horizon—and in Jewish life thereafter. This book focuses on Abraham as leader of the first Jewish project, Judaism, and the unresolvable, insurmountable crisis that the Akedah represents—both in his leadership and in Judaism itself. Host: Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. Guest: Anthony Julius, Deputy Chairman, international law firm of Mishkon de Reya, and professor, University of London. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago48 min
Joseph G. Rosenstein, "Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): The Big Picture" (Academic Studies Press, 2026)
What if Pirkei Avot has a bigger story to tell? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Joseph G. Rosenstein to discuss Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): The Big Picture (Academic Studies Press, 2026), a fresh approach to one of Judaism’s most beloved collections of rabbinic wisdom.The 123 teachings of Pirkei Avot often seem to jump from one subject to another: Torah study, ethics, the afterlife, relationships, leadership, and the responsibilities of living a meaningful Jewish life. Rosenstein argues that beneath this seemingly disconnected collection is a larger conceptual framework. Instead of following the mishnayot in their traditional order, he groups them by theme, revealing connections that can be easy to miss when each teaching is studied on its own.The result is a new way of seeing Pirkei Avot—not as a collection of isolated aphorisms, but as a coherent work that reflects how Judaism was reshaped in the generations following the destruction of the Temple. Rosenstein also turns the book’s ethical teachings into 90 concrete principles for living, organized into 16 themes and accompanied by kavvanot, short meditations designed to help readers put those ideas into practice.Together, Rosenstein and Katz explore what Pirkei Avot is really trying to teach, why its teachings were assembled the way they were, and what happens when ancient rabbinic wisdom is read not simply as something to study, but as a guide for how to live.About the GuestJoseph G. Rosenstein is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Rutgers University. In addition to his careers in mathematics and mathematics education, he has written extensively on Jewish prayer and thought. He is the author of Reflections on Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): Not Just What My Rebbe Taught Me and has published the traditional-yet-unconventional prayer books Siddur Eit Ratzon and Machzor Eit Ratzon – Memorable Verses in the Torah. His website, joerosenstein.com, reflects his wide-ranging work in mathematics, education, and Jewish life.About the HostRabbi Marc Katz is the rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid and the author of several books on Jewish thought and the Talmud including Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life (JPS). Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
- 1 weeks ago51 min
Joseph G. Rosenstein, "Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): The Big Picture" (Academic Studies Press, 2026)
What if Pirkei Avot has a bigger story to tell? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Joseph G. Rosenstein to discuss Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): The Big Picture (Academic Studies Press, 2026), a fresh approach to one of Judaism’s most beloved collections of rabbinic wisdom. The 123 teachings of Pirkei Avot often seem to jump from one subject to another: Torah study, ethics, the afterlife, relationships, leadership, and the responsibilities of living a meaningful Jewish life. Rosenstein argues that beneath this seemingly disconnected collection is a larger conceptual framework. Instead of following the mishnayot in their traditional order, he groups them by theme, revealing connections that can be easy to miss when each teaching is studied on its own. The result is a new way of seeing Pirkei Avot—not as a collection of isolated aphorisms, but as a coherent work that reflects how Judaism was reshaped in the generations following the destruction of the Temple. Rosenstein also turns the book’s ethical teachings into 90 concrete principles for living, organized into 16 themes and accompanied by kavvanot, short meditations designed to help readers put those ideas into practice. Together, Rosenstein and Katz explore what Pirkei Avot is really trying to teach, why its teachings were assembled the way they were, and what happens when ancient rabbinic wisdom is read not simply as something to study, but as a guide for how to live. About the Guest Joseph G. Rosenstein is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Rutgers University. In addition to his careers in mathematics and mathematics education, he has written extensively on Jewish prayer and thought. He is the author of Reflections on Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): Not Just What My Rebbe Taught Me and has published the traditional-yet-unconventional prayer books Siddur Eit Ratzon and Machzor Eit Ratzon – Memorable Verses in the Torah. His website, joerosenstein.com, reflects his wide-ranging work in mathematics, education, and Jewish life. About the Host Rabbi Marc Katz is the rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid and the author of several books on Jewish thought and the Talmud including Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life (JPS). Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
- 1 weeks ago1h 6m
Daniela Gerson, "The Wanderers: A Story of Exile, Survival, and Unexpected Love in the Shadow of World War II" (Grand Central Publishing, 2026)
In The Wanderers: A Story of Exile, Survival, and Unexpected Love in the Shadow of World War II (Grand Central Publishing, 2026), an immigration journalist and her wife trace their family’s intertwined past to unearth a history of how hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews survived Hitler’s Holocaust at the brutal hands of Stalin—a story that sheds light on the enduring power of hope and love.Daniela Gerson and her wife, Talia Inlender, met at a picnic in Los Angeles, not knowing that 75 years earlier, their grandparents had left homes only blocks away from each other in a small Polish town, and fled east to Ukraine. The Gersons and the Inlenders would go on parallel odysseys of 5,000 miles to survive the Holocaust—journeys that would, after a deceitful loyalty test from Stalin, put them on cattle cars to a Soviet Gulag, trap them for years in limbo in Central Asia, and would end, after a decade on the run, with new lives built on secrets and lies.For years, Daniela and Talia simply accepted this painful shared history as a sign that they were b’shert, meant to be. Their families’ refugee past fueled their work: Daniela as an immigration journalist; Talia an immigration attorney. But as Daniela uncovered more, she realized that their grandparents shared this escape path in the Soviet Union with most Polish Jews who survived; a group—sometimes collectively called “the Wanderers”—that is almost entirely absent from popular understanding of World War II. And unlike most Holocaust sagas that focus on the exceptionality of the Nazi genocide, theirs was also a universal story of refugees making impossible decisions when forced to seek safety, protect their children, and find new homes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
- 2 weeks ago1h 0m
An Unchosen People: Jewish Political Reckoning in Interwar Poland
The story of Polish Jewry, pre-Holocaust Europe’s largest Jewish community, is often told as one of creativity and contestation. In his new book, An Unchosen People: Jewish Political Reckoning in Interwar Poland, University of Chicago professor Kenneth B. Moss traces instead a complex and painful story of Polish Jewish reckoning with diasporic vulnerability, nationalism’s terrible potencies, Zionism’s promises, and the necessity of choice. Moss examines the works of Polish Jewry’s most searching thinkers as they confronted political irrationality, state crisis, and the limits of resistance. He reconstructs the desperate creativity of activists seeking to counter despair where they could not redress its causes. And he recovers a lost grassroots history of critical thought and political searching among ordinary Jews, young and powerless, as they struggled to find a viable future for themselves – in Palestine if not in Poland, individually if not communally. Join Kenneth Moss in conversation with Stanford professor Steven Zipperstein for a discussion on this new publication and the history it unveils. Buy the book: here This book talk originally took place on March 2, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
- 2 weeks ago53 min
Agnes Mueller, "Holocaust Migration in German Jewish Literatures" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In Holocaust Migration in German Jewish Literatures (Cambridge UP, 2026), analysing the past two decades of literature on Holocaust memory and migration stories, Agnes Mueller engages with writers such as W. G. Sebald, Thomas Bernhard, Edgar Hilsenrath, Benjamin Stein, Mirna Funk, Fred Wander, Barbara Honigmann, Julia Franck, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Olga Grjasnowa, and Kat Kaufmann to explore current debates on Israel, the German Democratic Republic, gender, Jewish and Muslim identity, and antisemitism. Her new readings of German-language texts by younger authors present robust challenges to entrenched ideas concerning the singularity of the Holocaust, multidirectional memory, and a range of other memory debates. Jewish identity and Muslim identity are shown in direct conversation with other migrants' experiences, and literature is revealed to be a brave space where Holocaust memory is newly imagined. Mueller's study invites a radically new way to think about the Holocaust and sheds new and valuable light on adjacent contemporary discourses. Agnes Mueller (M.A., LMU Munich, Germany; Ph.D., Vanderbilt U), Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina, is an expert on recent and contemporary German literature. She is core faculty in Jewish Studies and affiliated with Women's and Gender Studies. Her essay publications are on German American relations, contemporary literature, German Jewish studies, and Holocaust memory. Her 2004 anthology German Pop Culture: How "American" Is It? (U of Michigan P) is still widely used for teaching and research. Her 2015 monograph is entitled The Inability to Love: Jews, Gender, and America in Recent German Literature, (Northwestern UP), available in German translation as Die Unfähigkeit zu lieben (Königshausen & Neumann, 2017). With Katja Garloff she edited German Jewish Literature After 1990 (Camden House, 2018). In Spring of 2025 she was the Carol Kahn Strauss Fellow in Jewish Studies at the American Academy in Berlin. Her new book, Holocaust Migration in German Jewish Literatures (Cambridge UP, 2026) reveals how, in recent German Jewish literature, Jewish and Muslim migration stories converge to shape the future of Holocaust memory. She is currently at work on a new monograph entitled The Family’s Fight: Resisting State Control, where she investigates how families deal with loved ones who are or were political prisoners, and how that relationship reflects back on authoritarian regimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
- 2 weeks ago1h 7m
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in Court: The Bern Trial (1933-1935) and the "Antisemitic International"
Between 1933 and 1935, a trial was held in Bern against members of the Swiss extreme right-wing National Front who had distributed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a widely disseminated antisemitic publication that spread lies about Jews. The real target of the Jewish organizations that initiated the trial, however, was the pamphlet itself, its origin, its dissemination, and its use in Europe's fascist movements. During the course of the trial, both sides received ample support in the form of material assistance and propaganda. The defendants and their supporters in Nazi Germany were able to rely on an extensive network that had been established in the early 1920s to combat “Judaeo-Bolshevism.” This conspiratorial “Antisemitic International” united German völkisch circles, Italian fascists, Russian monarchists, and French conspiracy theorists. On the other side, the plaintiffs actively sought to expose the “Protocols” as a forgery in the hope that this would counteract their impact. In this lecture, Michael Hagemeister will use the Bern trial as a case study of Jewish legal self-defense in order to shed light on both the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and the concerted efforts against the “Antisemitic International” in the 1930s, which have received little attention from historians. Read more about Michael Hagemeister's research on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This lecture originally took place on April 10, 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
About New Books in Jewish Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from New Books in Jewish Studies in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's New Books in Jewish Studies daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of New Books in Jewish Studies as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the New Books in Jewish Studies podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official New Books in Jewish Studies product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Marshall Poe.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does New Books in Jewish Studies release new episodes?
New Books in Jewish Studies publishes daily. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does New Books in Jewish Studies cover?
New Books in Jewish Studies covers topics including Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality, Judaism. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting New Books in Jewish Studies summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.