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 It's Lag Ba'Omer, aka the 33rd day of the Omer, aka the period between Passover and Shavuot! Our Jewish guest is Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose new book, 'With Liberty & Justice: The 50-Day Journey from Egypt to Sinai,' explores the importance of the Omer. He tells us about being one of the most publically observant Jews in politics, why he never wore a yarmulke in the Senate, and whether the Gore White House would have had a kosher kitchen.

Our Gentile of the week is Skylar Inman, the host of Intractable, a podcast that explores the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by sharing the narratives and stories of people living on both sides. Skyler, who was raised Evangelical in Houston, Texas, tells us why she decided to move to Israel after college and the unexpected benefits of approaching such a heated topic as a complete outsider. 

We also call up Tobias Wilinski, host of the German rap podcast ThemaTakt, to get the full story behind the two German rappers whose album featuring anti-Semitic lyrics won a music award.

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air. If you like us, please consider leaving a review in iTunes.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram and join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours at bit.ly/unorthoshirt.

This episode is sponsored by One Day University, which brings together the greatest professors from the world's top schools to present special versions of their best lectures live. Register for upcoming events at www.onedayu.com using the code UNORTHODOX for 30 percent off.

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Natalie Portman won't accept 'Jewish Nobel Prize' in Israel, plus Jewish artichoke drama in Italy.

Our Jewish guest is Rachel Simmons, the author of Enough As She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Healthy, Happy and Fulfilling Lives. Rachel explains the pressures facing young girls in America today, how we can support our daughters and nieces and friends, and whether things are any better at Jewish schools.

Our gentile of the week is Linda Curtis, whose memoir Shunned: How I Lost My Religion and Found Myself, chronicles her decision to leave her close-knit Jehovah’s Witness community and ultimately being formally shunned by the religion. Linda tells us about life as a Jehovah's Witness, why she left, and why she has no animosity towards the community—and family—that shunned her. Her question for the panel is whether Jews are ever formally excommunicated like she was.

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our new listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air. If you like us, please consider leaving a review in iTunes.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours at bit.ly/Unorthoshirt.

This episode is sponsored by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at harrys.com/unorthodox.

This episode is sponsored by One Day University, which brings together the greatest professors from the world's top schools to present special versions of their best lectures live. Register for upcoming events at www.onedayu.com using code UNORTHODOX for 30 percent off.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Unorthodox, we're celebrating 70 years of Israeli food, music, and culture in honor of Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's independence day. First, we're joined by writer and comedian Periel Aschenbrand, who tells us what it's like to be married to an Israeli man. Next, we check out the newest outpost of Israeli chef Eyal Shani's pita empire, Miznon, here in New York, and chat with Shani over his world famous cauliflower pita. We also chat with Israeli singer and activist Yael Deckelbaum, whose song "Prayer of the Mothers" is a call for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our new listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours here: bit.ly/Unorthoshirt.

This episode is sponsored by One Day University, which brings together the greatest professors from the world's top schools to present special versions of their best lectures live. Register for upcoming events at www.onedayu.com using the code UNORTHODOX for 30 percent off.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Unorthodox, a crossover episode! We're joined by Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway, hosts of The West Wing Weekly podcast, an episode-by-episode discussion of one of television's most beloved shows. Malina, who played Will Bailey on The West Wing, currently stars in Scandal, which will air its series finale later this month. Hirway, a musician and composer, is the creator and host of the Song Exploder podcast. We talk about revisiting the glory days of early aughts TV programming, being Jewish on Twitter, and, of course, Jewish food. We also talk to Rabbi Rick Eisenberg, who left the pulpit to work as an opioid addiction counselor in the Jewish community.

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us or leave a message at our new listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more.

Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours here: bit.ly/Unorthoshirt.

This episode is sponsored by the UJA Federation of New York. Join their “Matzah Challenge” on social media. Snap a picture of your matzah using the hashtag #MatzahChallenge. Every photo posted with the hashtag will result in an $18 donation to help someone in need.

This episode is also sponsored by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at harrys.com/unorthodox.

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Download your free copy of the Unorthodox Haggadah!

This week on Unorthodox, everything you ever wanted to know about Passover. We answer listener questions, writer Roya Hakakian tells us about Persian Passover traditions, including scallion whipping at the Seder, and producer Josh Kross’s mother-in-law Elsie Apfelbaum shares the magic of Mimouna, the Moroccan festival celebrating the end of Passover (with some help from Josh’s daughter Stella).

Jay Miah tells the story of how his father worked at the Streit’s Matzo Factory upon immigrating to America from Bangladesh, and humorist Adam Mansbach talks about comedic haggadot—he cowrote For This We Left Egypt with Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel—and the enduring power of the Passover story.

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us or leave a message at our new listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours here. 

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Proof that Jews don't control the weather? Our live show was cancelled due to snow in the New York area. But thanks to a pre-Passover miracle we were able to record an interview with our gentile of the week, Bart Campolo, in producer Josh Kross' living room. (With everyone's kids, since school was cancelled.)

Bart Campolo is evangelical Christian royalty—his father, Tony Campolo, is one of the most well-known leaders of the evangelical left—and became a believer himself as a teenager. He spent the next 30 years as an evangelical preacher, but his faith slowly unraveled until 2011, when he finally came out as secular. Bart now works as a humanist chaplain at the University of Cincinnati. He tells us about his dramatic journey, explains what a campus humanist chaplain does, and describes his coaching practice with people navigating their own faith transitions. Learn more about Bart and his podcast, Humanize Me, at bartcampolo.org.

Head over to www.tabletmag.com/unorthodoxhaggadah to get the official Unorthodox Haggadah.

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us or leave a message at our new listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and baby onesies. Get yours here: bit.ly/Unorthoshirt.

This episode is sponsored by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox

This episode is also sponsored by Hello Fresh. Visit hellofresh.com and use promo code UNORTHODOX for $30 off your first week of deliveries.

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Our Jewish guest this week is Leah Sarna, a student at Yeshivat Maharat, the first yeshiva to ordain women as Orthodox Jewish clergy. She explains the institutional conflict over female ordination in the Orthodox community and tells us what her role will be at an Orthodox congregation in Chicago after graduation —and what title she’ll go by. Our Gentile of the week is writer Lauren Oyler, who tells us why honest cultural criticism is more important than ever, and recommends some books for our listeners to check out. 

New York-area listeners, join us for a live Unorthodox taping with guests Senator Joe Lieberman and Bart Campolo, host of the podcast Humanize Me, on Wednesday, March 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan. Buy tickets here. 

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us or leave a message at our new listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, stickers, and, of course, baby onesies. Get yours here.

This episode is sponsored by the Jewish Activism Summer School in Berlin. To learn more about the program, visit www.jassberlin.org.

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Be part of our next Ask Unorthodox episode, airing during Passover. Send us your burning questions about Jewish ritual, culture, or traditions by March 9. Email them to [email protected] or leave us a message at 914-570-4869.

Our first guest is Israeli food writer and tv personality Gil Hovav, whose new memoir, Candies from Heaven, is about growing up in Jerusalem in a close-knit family (and not just any family: Hovav's great grandfather is Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who revived the modern Hebrew language). Our second guest is Alan Robert Ginsberg, author of The Salome Ensemble: Rose Pastor Stokes, Anzia Yezierska, Sonya Levien, and Jetta Goudal, about the four Jewish women behind the novel and subsequent 1925 film Salome of the Tenements.

Our next live show is Wednesday, March 21 at the JCC Manhattan. Tickets here. 

Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours here: bit.ly/Unorthoshirt.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more.

This episode is sponsored by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we're getting our grogger on for Purim. Returning to the show is film critic Jordan Hoffman, who preps us for the Oscars this weekend and offers his picks for the big winners. We're also joined by former FBI counterintelligence agent Asha Rangappa, now a CNN analyst an senior lecturer at Yale, who tells us how being an FBI agent is not what it looks like on TV.

Be part of our next Ask Unorthodox episode, airing during Passover. Send us your burning questions about the holiday, or really anything—Jewish traditions, baby names, etiquette—by March 9. Email them to [email protected] or leave us a message at 914-570-4869.

Our next live show is Wednesday, March 21 at the JCC Manhattan. Tickets here. 

We've got swag! Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours here.

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our Jewish guest is Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal, whose new Netflix series 'Somebody Feed Phil' chronicles his eating adventures around the word. He tells about the episode filmed in Tel Aviv—with cameos from chefs Michael Solomonov and Uri Buri—and why he thinks food is such a unifying force. Our gentile of the week is June Thomas, managing producer of Slate podcasts and one of the hosts of the Double X Gabfest. She explains why podcast hosts like talking to other podcast hosts, and presents the panel with a great question: Who’s the best Jewish character in U.S. television history?

Mark Oppenheimer will be speaking at the Greenwich Reform Synagogue Friday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m.  More info here. Our next live show is Wednesday, March 21 at the JCC Manhattan. Tickets here. 

Want more Unorthodox in your life? Join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more.

We've got swag! Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours here.

We love hearing from our listeners. Email us or leave a message at our new listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air.

This episode is sponsored by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at harrys.com/unorthodox.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices