View Zionism from one angle, and it is Theodor Herzl, seeking to rescue the Jews of Europe. From another, it is seeking to resurrect Jewish culture. From another, it is a spiritual connection to the Land; from yet another, a socialist utopia. The images change, depending on where you are, and where we are at this moment of history.  

That is the subject of my podcast with Nadine Epstein, editor-in-chief of Moment magazine, and Gil Troy, the historian and Zionist educator. Several months ago, Epstein wrote a lead essay that argued, in some detail, that we should retire the word “Zionism” because 136 years of accumulated meanings can no longer clarify anything.

Troy had the opposite instinct: we don’t destroy a word just because those who hate it — and its supporters who have distorted it — have made it more challenging.

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Author and musician Daniel Rachel has written a new, disturbing and quite overdue book, "This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich." And I interviewed him about it for my podcast. 

The book documents something that has been hiding in plain sight for more than 60 years. As Rachel writes:

For over seventy-five years, musicians have been drawn to the language and provocative imagery of Nazism, fascinated by its power, menace and underlying sexuality. They have flirted with the theatrical spectacle of the Third Reich, displayed the swastika, flaunted memorabilia, worn Nazi uniforms and marveled at the grandiose rallies of 1930s Germany.

Decades ago, Woody Guthrie had a guitar with the words inscribed on it: "This machine kills fascists." We never thought that future rock stars might have guitars that could say they celebrate fascists.

The worst part is the rock music industrial complex industry spent seven decades simply looking the other way. And so did the audiences, including me.  

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I have done my share of traveling in Europe, and when I am there, I visit cathedrals.

Most are majestic, and they are filled with Christian art that would take a decent docent a decade to unpack for me.

I have never been to Brussels, though I would like to visit. And when I am there, I expect to make a special trip to the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. That is the subject of Flora Cassen's new book, "Stained Glass: A Reflective History of Antisemitism."

The cathedral is, by all accounts, a masterpiece. Built between the 13th and 15th centuries, it rises above the old town on its own little hill, and when the lights hit the stonework at night, it looks like lace carved out of sky.

But I imagine myself stepping inside. I would look intensely and intentionally at the stained-glass windows — the ones donated by Belgium’s first two kings in the 19th century. And inside that beautiful space, an erudite guide might tell a story about a Jew who, in 1370, was accused of torturing Communion wafers. 

It is an expression of one of the libels that tormented Jews during the Middle Ages — one of the most bizarre — the host desecration libel. It resulted in six Jews burned at the stake and the rest expelled from the city.

And there it is. In the windows. In the tapestries. In the chapel. In the capital of the European Union. Today. 

Flora's book is itself a modern medieval tapestry — of Jewish and European history and family memoir, the story of a 15th-century Jewish woman named Beatrice de Luna — also known as Dona Gracia — and the story of Flora’s own grandmother, Pola, who fled the Nazi occupation of Belgium through the Congo. 

So, why does this book matter, and why do you need to read it?

It is because of what you already know. Antisemitism is rising — on university campuses, in social media feeds, even in food co-ops in Brooklyn.

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When I reflect on my rabbinical career, I realize I have spent nearly a third of it south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Yes, that includes about 10 years in South Florida — and lest you see South Florida as a mere extension of Long Island, when I moved to Miami in 1981, it still had traces of an old Southern Jewish community. I enjoyed my time in the South. I found the people gracious, the communities strong, and I did good work there.

However, I never fully grasped Southern Jewish sociology. I famously and infamously missed social cues. I never fully understood what it meant to be a Jew in the South.

If only I had sat at the feet of Nick Lemann, with whom I had a conversation for our podcast. 

His new book, "Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries," is the story of his German Jewish family, who journeyed from a small village in the Rhine Valley to the sugar plantations of Louisiana and into the elegant, complicated world of New Orleans high society. They prospered. They assimilated. They sent their children to Harvard. They built beautiful homes under live oaks and hosted cocktail parties with silver trays and crustless duck sandwiches.

And yet, even at the height of their success, a quiet awareness lingered: Acceptance was real, but never complete.

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I was talking recently with a young man about his social life. He described an evening that did not sound like the stuff of romantic legend.

The dinner seemed to be going well. The wine flowed, as did the conversation -- with just enough spark to suggest possibility. He leaned into the moment, sensing chemistry, feeling that quiet optimism that accompanies a promising first date.

And then she leaned forward, lowered her voice, and asked a question that changed everything.

“I really like you,” she said. “I feel attracted to you.

"But I need to know something. Are you a Zionist?”

He had expected something more intimate, something more personal. Instead, he found himself fumbling through an answer about loving Israel, supporting Israel, caring about Israel.

Let’s just say there would be no second date.

The young woman, by the way, was also Jewish.

There is an elephant in the Jewish living room, and that elephant is: Israel.

That is the subject of my podcast conversation with Dr. Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and one of the most compelling interpreters of contemporary Jewish life. Yehuda writes and teaches with intellectual rigor and moral urgency. He spends his days helping Jews think more honestly about power, responsibility, and identity. He embodies the name Yisrael itself — the one who wrestles — because he refuses easy answers and insists on staying in the struggle.

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I had weird reading habits when I was a kid.

For one thing, no one ever told me that there were certain books that boys should read, and certain books that girls should read, and that there was a mechitza (a barrier in a traditional synagogue that separates the sexes) between the two of them.

What did I know? That was how I came to devour the entire Harriet the Spy series.

Because, well, I liked spies.

And then, there was Judy Blume, born Judith Sussman, in 1938.

Judy Blume is one of the most important Jewish writers of the twentieth century.

Judy Blume? The lady who wrote about training bras and embarrassing gym classes?

Yes, that Judy Blume. OK, she’s not Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, or Cynthia Ozick. And, yes, the "serious" literary establishment never really invited her into their club.

They might have been wrong.

Mark Oppenheimer has just published the definitive biography of Blume: Judy Blume: A Life. As I read the biography, and as I reflected on my podcast interview with Mark, I kept thinking: someone needs to make the Jewish case for Judy Blume.

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What does the Torah actually say about immigrants — and what does it demand of us?

Rabbi Jeff Salkin sits down with one of the Jewish world's leading theologians, Rabbi Shai Held, to explore the Bible's most repeated commandment: love the ger — the stranger, the sojourner, the immigrant. Held argues that "immigrant" is not just the most accurate translation of ger, it's the most morally urgent one. When the Torah says to love the immigrant, it's making a claim on us every single day.

Together, Salkin and Held trace the Torah's radical counter-vision to Egypt — a society built not on cruelty and power, but on empathy and care for the vulnerable. They explore what it means to imitate God by loving those whom God loves, why the stories of Abraham, Sarah, and Lot are really lessons in empathy, and how the Holocaust's legacy shapes the Jewish moral imagination.

And they end with the question Rabbi Held says belongs on the doorpost of every house of worship in the world: It's not whether you believe in God. It's whom your God loves.

Rabbi Shai Held is President, Dean, and Chair of Jewish Thought at the Hadar Institute, which he co-founded. His most recent book is Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life.

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On Purim, Jews read Esther — a story of survival in the face of annihilation.

This episode connects that ancient warning to today’s confrontation with Iran. Is this war, self-defense, or tragic necessity? We explore Amalek, radical evil, human rights, and what it means to hold both the sword and the prayer book in a dangerous world.

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Michael Kimmel’s Playmakers reveals how Jewish immigrants built America’s toy industry—and reshaped modern childhood. From teddy bears to superheroes, they turned outsider grit into imagination, comfort, and cultural revolution. This isn’t just toy history; it’s a story of identity, reinvention, and why play became one of America’s most powerful ideas.

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As the ground shifts beneath our feet, where is our faith?

For your consideration: Rabbi Elan Babchuck. He is the founding director of Glean Network, an incubator for faith-rooted innovation; the executive vice president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL); Fellow with the Faith & Media initiative advocating for improved representation of faith in media; and a nationally recognized commentator on religion, technology, and the evolving needs of communities today.

And what ahs this to do with earthquakes?

In 1837, there was a devastating earthquake in northern Israel that caused major damage to the holy city of Tiberias. Rabbi Babchuck’s great-great-great grandfather was a rabbi in Tiberias at the time, and he had to rebuild a community that had quite literally been leveled.

That experience found its way into Elan’s family story, and it became his own job description.

Because that is what Rabbi Babchuck does now: he teaches us how to live Jewishly in the midst of earthquakes.

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