Tablet Studios

Host Mark Oppenheimer and Tablet staffers Stephanie Butnick and Liel Leibovitz discuss this year’s European Maccabiah Games—a Jewish Olympics of sorts—which are being held this week in Berlin at the stadium Hitler built for the 1936 Olympics. They also sound off on Mike Huckabee’s ill-advised Holocaust analogy, and an investigation into academic rigor at New York City’s Orthodox yeshivas.  Celebrity ghostwriter Hilary Liftin discusses her new novel, Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper, a tell-all written by a fictional Hollywood starlet swept away by an older Hollywood heartthrob involved in a strange cult. She doesn’t name names. Unorthodox’s gentile of the week is Simon Doonan--Barneys’ creative ambassador, writer, and man-about-town. He describes his lifelong affinity for the Jewish people, his Jewish wedding to celebrity ceramicist Jonathan Adler, and schools the hosts with his Yiddishisms. For more about Simon Doonan, check out his website http://www.simondoonan.com/. Hilary Liftin’s novel Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper is available here http://hilaryliftin.com/. Learn more about Unorthodox at www.tabletmag.com/tag/unorthodox, and sign up for our weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bsZlGr. Let us know what you think of the podcast by emailing [email protected].

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Host Mark Oppenheimer and Tablet staffers Stephanie Butnick and Liel Leibovitz sound off about gay marriage in Israel, the suicide of a formerly Orthodox young woman, and Adam Sandler's latest movie. New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs discusses his latest project: hosting the world's largest family reunion and compiling a massive family tree that includes President Obama, Judge Judy, and yes, Adam Sandler. Writer and 'This American Life' contributor Elna Baker describes leaving the Mormon church and asks why non-practicing Jews get to call themselves Jewish, which isn't the case for Mormons. 

For more information about A.J. Jacobs, visit his website www.ajjacobs.com. You can find out more about his Global Family Reunion at http://globalfamilyreunion.com/. Elna Baker's memoir, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, is available at http://www.elnabaker.com/book.html. 

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Your first listen to the new podcast from the editors of Tablet Magazine.

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