Who gets to decide what counts as "religion," and how that should shape our understanding of how Judaism can be meaningful in our lives?

What happens when a revolutionary Jewish thinker - fed up with his lower status as a Jew in 1700s Prussia - wants people to start thinking about the very essence of Judaism in a new way?

And what happens when a Prussian Christian theologian has a very different idea of what Judaism should look like?

In Part II of this episode, we reach the conclusion of figuring out: can we even call Judaism a religion?

In This Episode, we learn about…

• What on earth is meant by "Judeo-Christian"?
• How being "spiritual" is not only an inner experience in Judaism
• The problem with "kids these days," not wanting religion (in the 1700s)
• The radical ideas of Jewish individualism that Moses Mendelssohn proposed
• How a German theologian invented "religion"
• How "religion" can be (or was) anti-Jewish
• What Jews Have to Give Up in Exchange for Citizenship
• A Brief Tale of Historical Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations
• How Eastern Europe, North Africa & Central Asia are playing a completely different ball-game
• Today's Jewish Identities & Geo-Politics
• My own answer to the question - "Is Judaism a Religion?"
• And why does all this matter for how we understand what it means to talk about or be Jewish today?

Lots more details and extras can be found in the show notes, including translations of the Hebrew terms we used in this episode.

Read a transcript of this episode.

Credits

Shoot! is written, hosted, and produced by Jesse Paikin. You can always say hi, share your thoughts, or ask your own question at [email protected]

All audio credits for this episode can be found on our website.

Shoot! is supported in part by a grant from the Hadar Institute.