“Don’t know much about history…” Those were the immortal words of Sam Cooke.

It happens to be true. Many of us don’t know much about history. Just think of the way that we use the word. Someone gets fired from a job, and what do we say? “She’s history.”

But, I love history, especially American Jewish history. No one has nourished that love of history more than Professor Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University, past president of the Association for Jewish Studies and Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

In this podcast, Professor Sarna and I get into the weeds of American Jewish history, and the history of anti-Semitism, American style. Pay attention:

Finally, you must listen to the very end -- because Professor Sarna offers words of hope, determination, and inspiration that will lift your souls.

How does he do it? Because he is, after all, a historian.

Please enjoy my new book -- the first book to outline what a post-October 7 American Judaism will look like -- and how we can restore communal obligation to liberal Jewish life. Tikkun Ha'Am/ Repairing Our People: Israel and the Crisis of Liberal Judaism.

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