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In this season of ghosts and haunted houses, we’re taking you back to a time when communicating with the dead was a popular way to spend an evening. Séances were the main practice of the spiritualist movement, which is based on the belief that when people die, they survive as spirits, and that we can talk to these spirits with the help of a medium. The movement had its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Jews all over the world, from London to Brooklyn to Cairo, were at the forefront. Scholar Sam Glauber-Zimra explains why spiritualism had such appeal among Jews, what rabbis had to say about it, and why Jewish women were prominent as mediums. 

This episode included Taoudella by Blue Dot Sessions. 

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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On a hot, humid day in late August, Nahanni Rous joined a gathering at Linke Fligl, a queer Jewish chicken farm and cultural organizing project in New York's Hudson Valley. (Linke Fligl is a pun—Yiddish for "left wing.") For the past seven years, queer Jews have celebrated holidays, farmed, and built community on this ten-acre, off-the-grid piece of land—but the project is coming to a close. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we walk the land at Linke Fligl, talk to people at the final gathering, and hear from founder Margot Seigle about how the project started and why it's ending.

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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While we're hard at work preparing for Can We Talk's fall season, enjoy this episode of A Bintel Brief, an advice show with a Jewish twist, from our friends at The Forward. In this episode, For Richer or Poorer, hosts Ginna Green and Lynn Harris give their advice to a 30-something woman looking to settle down with a long-term partner. She might've found the perfect match—but if they got married, he definitely wouldn't be the breadwinner.

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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That's a wrap! In this episode of Can We Talk?, Nahanni Rous, Jen Richler, and Judith Rosenbaum recap the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 seasons—from the story of an underground abortion collective in the years before Roe to the 100-year history of the American bat mitzvah to our "Word of the Week" mini-series, and much more. 

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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Jewish summer camps and youth movements are a time-honored tradition—tens of thousands of Jewish teens participate. But a group of young Jews is calling out what they say is a “toxic hookup culture” in many of these institutions. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Jen Richler talks with Dahlia Soussan, Ellanora Lerner and Madeline Canfield, three of the founders of Jewish Teens for Empowered Consent, about how they hope to change the culture. Please note, there are sexual references in this episode.

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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"A woman of valor, who can find? Her worth is far beyond rubies..." So begins a 22-verse acrostic poem from the Book of Proverbs. The poem showers praise on an unnamed woman of valor—eshet chayil, in Hebrew—and is sung in some Jewish families on Friday night before the Shabbat meal. In the final installment of our Word of the Week series, we talk with Rena Nickerson, Miriam Anzovin and Rachel Stomel about the meaning of Eshet Chayil today and their memories of singing it growing up.

This episode includes singing and guitar playing by Julie, Mat, and May Tonti, music by Alicia Jo Rabins (www.aliciajo.com), and the song "Eshet Chayil of Hip Hop" by Lea Kalisch (@leakalisch on Instagram and YouTube, @leakalischentertains on Facebook). 

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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From MSNBC to Fox News, the word "gaslighting" is everywhere these days. But where does it come from and what does it mean? This time in our Word of the Week series, we dig into the ubiquitous term: its roots in a 1944 Hollywood thriller, how it has come to be used today, and whether it's still a useful word. We speak with linguist Rachel Steindel Burdin and psychotherapist Robin Stern. We'll also hear from comedian Judy Gold and TikTok star Miriam Anzovin.

This episode includes music by Alicia Jo Rabins (www.aliciajo.com).

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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How did a popular Yiddish woman's name come to mean gossip and busybody? In the first of our new Word of the Week mini-series, we trace the evolution of the word yenta. Producer Jen Richler talks with Fiddler on the Roof scholar Jan Lisa Huttner, comedian Judy Gold, author Lizzie Skurnick, and TikTok star and Torah commentator Miriam Anzovin. And in a special cameo...Yente the Matchmaker herself!

This episode includes music by Alicia Jo Rabins (www.aliciajo.com).

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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Vlada Nedak lives in Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, only an hour's drive from the front lines of the war. She's a wife and mother and the owner of a menagerie of household pets. She's also the Executive Director of Project Kesher Ukraine, a network of Jewish women building community and leadership. When Russia invaded Ukraine, like many Ukrainians, Vlada was faced with the difficult choice of whether to stay or try to leave the country. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Nahanni speaks with Vlada about her experiences of the war and about how it has affected the women in Project Kesher's network.

This episode included Tionesta by Trailhead from Blue Dot Sessions. 

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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After a career spent telling other people's stories, Eleanor Reissa has finally uncovered her own. It started with 56 letters she found in a drawer while cleaning out her late mother's apartment. They were letters from her father to her mother, just a few years after they had both survived World War II. The letters sent Eleanor on a search to retrace her family history in Europe, which she chronicles in her new memoir, The Letters Project: A Daughter's Journey. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Nahanni Rous talks with Eleanor about how her life has been defined by being the daughter of people who lived through the Holocaust.

You can find Can We Talk? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We're also on YouTube! Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new episode.

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