Interviews, fiction, poetry, comedy, music, and documentaries about Jewish life today.
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PRODUCERS
Julie Subrin, Producer
Curtis Fox, Podcast Consultant
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08.18.08
In the Land of Cars and Football
Danit Brown on life as an Israeli immigrant in Michigan.
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08.11.08
With a Capital “J”
A conversation with theater critic Alisa Solomon on West Side Story's Jewish roots.
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08.04.08
The Third Way
Sadia Shepard traces her roots to the Jews of India.
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07.28.08
Funny Girls
Cory Kahaney talks about Jewish female stand-up comedians from the 1950s and 60s, like Totie Fields and Jean Carroll, who paved the way for her and her peers.
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07.21.08
Close-Up
Filmmaker Vanessa Engle on "Jews," her three-part documentary for the BBC.
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07.14.08
The Ha-Ha
Jim Holt on the history of jokes - including those collected and interpreted by Sigmund Freud, and by his self-appointed disciple, Gershon Legman.
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07.07.08
No Place Like Home
Tania Grossinger on growing up at the family resort hotel.
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06.30.08
Sonic Youth
A conversation with punk-rockabilly klezmer Israeli musician Noam Inbar.
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06.23.08
Within Four Walls
Joel Rose takes us to an all-but-forgotten synagogue in a defunct prison.
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06.16.08
Born Free
Filmmaker Ran Tal on his documentary about family life in the early days of the kibbutz.
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06.02.08
Pioneer Days
A conversation with Joanna Hershon about her new Wild West novel, "The German Bride."
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05.19.08
Partners in Crime
David Benioff on his new novel, "City of Thieves."
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05.12.08
Raising the Dead
Aleksandar Hemon talks about his latest novel, The Lazarus Project.
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05.05.08
Word Choice
How Hebrew was (and continues to be) transformed into a modern language.
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04.28.08
Radical Riff
How comedians of the '60s and '70s revolutionized stand-up.
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04.22.08
In the Image
A literary—but none-too-sad—Keith Gessen talks about his new novel.
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04.14.08
Before the Exodus
A tour of Streit's matzo factory, while it's still in the neighborhood.
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04.07.08
The Things We Carry
A conversation with journalist Masha Gessen about her new book, Blood Matters, in which she explores the implications of genetic testing and inherited disease.
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03.31.08
Christmas in July
A summer camp story from Sloane Crosley.
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03.24.08
Ties That Bind
A scholar and priest traces the roots of religious violence to Abraham.
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03.17.08
Passion Songs
Yasmin Levy brings her own fire to traditional Ladino music.
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03.10.08
Damascus Minyan
Eric Umansky encounters merchants, widows, and secret police at a Syrian synagogue
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03.03.08
Death of a Pothead
Elisa Albert talks about her first novel—a coming-of-death tragicomedy.
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02.25.08
Goat Days
One man's dispatches from the edge of the New Jewish Food Movement
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02.18.08
Crossing Melodies
Gregorian chant meets Judeo-Iraqi songs of prayer in Miami
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02.11.08
Temple Seeker
Thomas Roma on his efforts to photograph all the synagogues in Brooklyn.
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02.04.08
Chosen People
Reporter Eric Molinsky spends the weekend with one of the largest African American congregations in the United States.
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01.28.08
Place of No Return
Ann Kirschner on two very different trips to Poland, the place her mother swore never to return to.
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01.21.08
The Solipsist
Novelist Howard Jacobson on his most recent novel, Kalooki Nights.
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01.14.08
Digging for Decalogues
Murray Zimiles explores the links between Torah arks and carousel horses
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01.07.08
From Decadence to Minimalism
New Yorker music critic Alex Ross takes us on a music tour of the 20th century.
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12.17.07
Pioneer Tunes
Alisa Solomon on "Milk and Honey," a 1961 Zionist Broadway musical comedy.
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12.10.07
Ocho Kandelikas
Sephardic folk singer Flory Jagoda traces her musical roots.
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12.03.07
Sophie's Choice
A 12-year-old critic gives her insight on three new books for young adult readers.
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11.26.07
Back to Cuba
Anthropologist Ruth Behar on her new book about Jewish Cuba.
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11.19.07
Tevye on the West End
British actor Henry Goodman on exploring the inner workings of a milkman-patriarch.
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11.12.07
A Conversation with Norman Mailer
Conversation with the forever contrarian, but also quite sharp, Norman Mailer about his latest book, a fictional biography of Hitler's early years.
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11.05.07
Hearing Voices
Daniel B. Smith explores the history of the phenomenon—from the Bible to his father.
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10.29.07
Call and Response
Dan Kaufman on his cabaret-punk band Barbez's Paul Celan tribute album.
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10.22.07
Rise and Shine
What happens when 100 klezmer musicians from around the world gather for a photo op?
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10.15.07
The Dude Abides
A. J. Jacobs on what happens when an agnostic attempts to follow every rule in the Bible.
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10.08.07
So Help Me Word
Shalom Auslander on his new memoir, Foreskin's Lament.
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10.01.07
The Etrog Man
A Sukkot-appropriate audio postcard from a busy stall in Jerusalem's Machane Yehuda market.
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09.17.07
Memory Trip
A guided tour of Brick Lane, in London's East End, with writer and artist Rachel Lichtenstein.
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09.10.07
Sing a New Song
Robert Alter on his new translation of the Book of Psalms.
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08.27.07
You Be Saved
A story by Janice Erlbaum about an unusual visit to the local nail salon.
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08.20.07
Stolen Gems
A conversation with Dalia Sofer about her first novel, which chronicles the fearful and bittersweet months before a Jewish gem dealer and his family flee revolutionary Iran.
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08.06.07
Bubbling Over
Barry Joseph, "the Effervescent Jew," is the go-to guy for all manner of fact and apocrypha related to seltzer.
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07.30.07
Sleepaway
A conversation with Eric Simonoff, editor of Sleepaway, an anthology of essays and stories about summer camp.
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07.23.07
Prayer Revival
Re-discovering an 1855 collection of women's prayers written by Fanny Neuda in what was then Moravia.
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07.16.07
A Sailor's Story
Rebecca Sheir reports on how Alaskan sailor Jack Johnson found himself aboard the ship Exodus in 1947, bound for Palestine.
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07.09.07
Staged Rebellion
Arts reporter Eric Molinsky looks at the work and legacy of Yiddish playwright Jacob Gordin.
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07.02.07
Peer Review
A three-kid panel reviews three new works of young adult fiction.
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06.25.07
Gertel's Last Stand
Nextbook editor Joanna Smith Rakoff joins other loyal customers in bidding a fond farewell to Gertel's Bake Shop on the Lower East Side.
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06.18.07
Rise and Tithe
Foundation expert Joel Fleishman talks with host Sara Ivry about the history of Jewish charitable giving, from its origins in the Bible through the present.
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06.11.07
Celebrity Cantor
A conversation with Alex Halberstadt about the life and music of Joseph "Yossele" Rosenblatt.
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06.04.07
Lady Intrepid
An interview with 95-year-old foreign correspondent and photographer Ruth Gruber.
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05.21.07
It's Not About You
The third in a three-part series chronicling Jesse Green's preparations (logistical, intellectual and emotional) for his son Erez's bar mitzvah.
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05.14.07
Possessed
Eric Molinsky talks to playwrights and historians about the staying power of S. Ansky's "The Dybbuk"
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05.07.07
Michael Chabon creates his own Yiddishland
Michael Chabon talks about his new detective novel set in an Alaskan territory where Yiddish is the dominant language and beat cops, called "latkes," attempt to crack Hasidic crime rings.
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05.02.07
Conversation with Nathan Englander
Nathan Englander talks about his new novel and about his recent trip to Buenos Aires, the city his characters inhabit, and which he avoided throughout the decade it took to write his book.
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04.25.07
Jerusalem Time
Journalist Amy Dockser Marcus looks back a century to a time when rival interests energized the city she loves.
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04.23.07
Solomon's Son
April 28 is Freedom Day in South Africa - a national holiday celebrating the anniversary of the first democratic elections to be held, following the collapse of the apartheid regime. Accordingly, this week we hear from human rights advocate Albie Sachs, now serving his 13th year on South Africa's Constitutional Court.
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03.26.07
Next Year in Sulaymaniyah
Jessie Graham on hosting a seder in northern Iraq, complete with slaughtered lamb and debates about Abraham.
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03.19.07
Liberated Bride
A conversation with Alix Kates Shulman, author of "Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen," featuring the intellectually and sexually precocious heroine Sasha Davis and considered by many to be America's first feminist novel.
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03.12.07
Family Photo
Photographer Andrea Stern on a new book of her work titled "Inheritance."
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03.05.07
The Haman Show
Daily Show writer Rob Kutner introduces the stand-up comedy show that's become a sell-out Purim tradition in New York City. Coming soon to a synagogue near you...
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02.26.07
Blues Brother
Music critic Alex Halberstadt on Doc Pomus, born Jerome Felder, blues singer and later songwriter for Elvis Presley, Dion, Joe Turner, the Drifters and the like.
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02.19.07
Andre Aciman turns up the heat
Conversation with Andre Aciman, author of
Out of Egypt, a memoir of his childhood in Alexandria, and, most recently, a steamy novel titled
Call Me By Your Name.
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02.15.07
Bar Mitzvah Breakthrough
The second of three reports from Jesse Green as he chronicles the year leading up to his son Erez's bar mitzvah.
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02.05.07
Aline Kominsky Crumb, comic book pioneer
Aline Kominsky Crumb has rebelled against many, from her Long Island parents, grandparents and great grandparents to the feminists she crossed paths with in the 1970s. She talks with us about these and other chapters in her life, about her longtime collaboration with husband Robert Crumb, and about her new book, Need More Love.
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01.29.07
Conversation with Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer died this past Saturday. In his memory, we're re-posting his conversation with Nextbook, recorded in January, 2007.
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01.22.07
In Search of Iraqi Dates
The story of an unusual import export venture that begins and ends with Iraqi dates.
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01.15.07
Operation Shylock
F. Murray Abraham and the Theater for a New Audience tackle two of the most controversial characters in classic English theater.
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01.08.07
La Nona Kanta
Flory Jagoda shares memories and Sephardic songs from her upbringing in a large musical family that lived in a village outside Sarajevo until World War II.
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12.18.06
Blade II and Fried Rice
Writer/performer Janice Erlbaum on spending Christmas Eve at a homeless shelter.
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12.11.06
Remembering Daniel Fuchs
Growing up Jake Fuchs thought of his father as a screenwriter. At 12, he discovered otherwise.
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12.04.06
Nelly Reifler asks the Big Questions
Fiction writer and Nextbook.org columnist Nelly Reifler asks everyone around her - from the neighborhood barista to the rabbi who married her - where they stand on questions of faith. Now we're turning the tables.
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11.27.06
Nextbook goes to Kosherfest
A visit to the biggest annual kosher food tradeshow in the world.
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11.20.06
Ghetto Music
Interview with Italian musicologist and radio host Francesco Spagnolo.
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11.13.06
Jody Rosen on Jewface
Slate music critic Jody Rosen discusses Jewface, an album of early 20th-century Vaudeville songs that affectionately invoke and mock Jewish stereotypes.
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11.06.06
Bar Mitzvah Blues
Jesse Green's bar mitzvah year, Part I.
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10.30.06
Table Talk
Cooking with Claudia Roden
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10.23.06
Laughing Out Loud
Adam Gopnik follows the yuks from Groucho to his 12-year-old son
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10.16.06
Across the Great Divide
Jeffrey Goldberg goes the distance from an insecure boyhood on Long Island to the muscularity of military policehood in Israel
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10.10.06
Paper Trail
From a Frankfurt stamp auction to a Stockholm apartment, Reinhard Kaiser's search for clues to a wartime romance.
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10.03.06
All the Right Moves
A chess amateur shows how the game has mesmerized through the ages
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09.25.06
Sway to the Music
Bluesman Jeremiah Lockwood finds his voice in his grandfather's liturgical repertoire.
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09.18.06
Family History
Daniel Mendelsohn on the discoveries that led to his new memoir,
The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million.
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09.11.06
A Higher Purpose
Reporter Lauren Sandler shares stories from her journeys among Evangelical Christian youth.
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08.28.06
American Iconoclast
Magnetic and bold, Emma Lazarus straddled worlds
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08.21.06
Rebel Yells
Novelist Naomi Alderman talks about her love-hate relationship with the Orthodox community in London.
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08.14.06
Private Dancer
Jill Slater has found the perfect job - at least on evenings and weekends.
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08.07.06
Oudist Colony
Talking with Jewlia Eisenberg about the Algerian divas who rock her world
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07.31.06
Something Wild
Poetry writer and teacher Eve Grubin talks about combining her poetic and religious strivings.
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07.17.06
Feel the Burn
Poet and cultural critic Wayne Koestenbaum on Germans, Jews, kitsch and porn.
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07.10.06
Childhood in Black and White
Illustrator Miriam Katin discusses her graphic novel,
We Are On Our Own, which recounts her and her mother's escape from Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944.
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06.19.06
Roots Music
Musician and anthropologist Galeet Dardashti finds the Israeli audience her grandfather never had.
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06.12.06
King of the Forest
The Viennese pornographer turned critic who dreamed up Bambi
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06.05.06
The Greatest American Hero
Gary Shteyngart talks about fact, fiction, and religion in his new novel,
Absurdistan.
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05.30.06
Light and Sweet
A factory tour with the makers of S and S Cheesecake in the Bronx
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05.22.06
A Man Possessed
A visit with the composer who took over where Marc Blitzstein left off.
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05.15.06
Free Radical
Rebecca Goldstein talks to Sara Ivry about her biography of Spinoza.
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05.08.06
How to Lose Gracefully
Israeli writer Etgar Keret's short stories look toward Kafka and Vonnegut rather than Yehoshua or Oz.
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05.01.06
Give 'Em Hecht
Neal Pollack talks about screenwriter, book author, and journalist Ben Hecht.
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04.24.06
Sketches of Spain
French writer Marcel Cohen on "Searching for a Lost Ladino: Letters to Antonio Saura," a book he wrote in Judeo-Spanish, the all-but-lost language of his grandparents.
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04.19.06
Halves and Halve-Nots
Laurel Snyder on the challenges of a split religious identity. Snyder is the editor of a new essay collection titled Half/Life: Jewish Tales from Interfaith Homes.
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04.12.06
A Seder in Sulaymaniyah
Writer and reporter Jessie Graham describes hosting her first seder, while living in Sulaymaniya, in Northern Iraq.
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04.03.06
Move Over, Fruit Slices
Do Americans really want cappuccino macaroons and Fluffy Puffs Cotton Candy? Plus: an audio tour of Economy Candy
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03.27.06
Silver Lining
David Berman learns to live up to his band name. Plus: a new song and an old poem.
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03.20.06
Being Leah Bloom
When both Sung-Nam and Jerusalem beckon
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03.13.06
Radical Roots
Why the Yiddish workers' movement was an American phenomenon
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03.06.06
Aunt Linda's a Singer
So why won't she sing at her daughter's wedding?
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02.27.06
My Bachelor Uncle
Journalist Ian Buruma's uncle, John Schlesinger, directed many unforgettable films, including Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Marathon Man.
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02.20.06
Beats Without Borders
Balkan Beat Box's diaspora mix
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02.13.06
My Son, the Assimilator
Allan Sherman's page in the American songbook
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02.06.06
Fists of Fury
Douglas Century talks about Talmud student, champion prizefighter, war hero, gunrunner, and recovered morphine addict Barney Ross.
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01.30.06
Dispatches
An audio interview with the editor of A Writer at War.
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01.25.06
Falling Out
What happens when Hasidim stray outside the fold
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01.23.06
Durban Renewal
Lynn Freed's fiction brings to life the South African city she left behind. Plus: An audio excerpt from the short story "Foreign Student."
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01.06.06
Virgin Territory
Falling for a younger man who wants an arranged marriage. Plus: An audio interview with the author.
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12.28.05
Immaterial Girl
Madonna, Kabbalah, and me
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12.19.05
Barbie, Daughter of Ruth
Tiffany Shlain reaches back to the Pleistocene era to explain assimilation in America
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12.12.05
Ghetto Music
When Italians fell for klezmer, Francesco Spagnolo tuned them in to the forgotten sounds of their own people.
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12.05.05
Headlights
A comedienne's special kind of holiday cheer.
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11.28.05
Pulling Out the Stops
The rise and fall of the synagogue organ
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11.18.05
Food Fight
Scholars debate why a latke is better than a hamantash. Plus: An audio interview with moderator Ted Cohen.
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11.11.05
Spelling Errors
How
Bee Season lost its sting on the screen. Plus: An audio interview with author Myla Goldberg.
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10.21.05
The Good Doctor
Examining Maimonides with Sherwin Nuland
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10.17.05
A History of Violence
Lionel Trilling was a classicist who did not believe in creativity's lower depths. So what did he see in Isaac Babel?
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09.26.05
Faking It
When girls want to know how Stacy Friedman's bat mitzvah compares with my own, I need to be armed with answers.
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09.16.05
Among the Holy Schleppers
The long, strange trip of the woman behind
Heeb.
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09.06.05
Raising King David
Robert Pinsky's new book investigates the life of a Biblical hero.
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09.01.05
From Bukhara With Love
The music of Central Asia by way of Queens.
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08.16.05
The Little Believer
What's a secular couple to do when their 6-year-old gets into religion?
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08.09.05
Block Buster
Jonathan Rosen talks about the tortured vision of Henry Roth. With a reading from
Call It Sleep.
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07.29.05
Third Look
On rereading Leonard Michaels'
I Would Have Saved Them If I Could
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07.22.05
Playing the Jester
Two stories from a perfomer who discovered fun late in life.
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