Tablet Studios

With just a few days to go before the 2024 presidential elections, we hear a lot of chatter about American democracy, usually from partisan hacks who are more interested in touting self-serving lies than honing up to inconvenient truths. But the actual hurdles we face as we try to heal our ailing system are much more complicated, and overcoming them is going to take much more than lofty slogans. Liel is joined by writer Will Tanner, who delivers a cautionary tale from the late Roman Republic contemporary Americans should heed, and explains why the policies too many of our lawmakers are pursuing have led another nation grappling with racial justice, South Africa, to the brink of collapse. 

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On this episode of Tablet Radio Hour, our Minyans are casting their vote. Tablet executive editor Wayne Hoffman, Jamie Betesh Carter and author and journalist Abigail Pogrebin assembled not one, but TWO minyans, one of which was made up of of Harris/Walls supporters and a second made up of of Trump/Vance supporters. They discuss their methods and what they learned from each group and why each group of has chosen their candidate for the upcoming election.

You can find the stories from both on Tabletmag.com. The Harris/Walz voters are here, and the Trump/Vance voters are here.  

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These days, a lot of people are feeling anxious about America, Israel, and the precarious state of the world. But Jews have always had a superpower—hope, not the facile and silly sort but the kind that motivates people to change the world. Liel is joined by singer, songwriter and author Peter Himmelman, who explains why giving up is never an option, why he chose a life of Jewish observance and reflection over greater fame and fortune, and why he decided to write a deeply moving song dedicated to the Bibas boys, Kfir and Ariel, still held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, a song he shares on the show. They also discuss Himmelman's new book, Suspended by No String.  

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On this episode of Re-Form: Examining the Challenges and Choices of America’s Largest Jewish Movement, we use our final episode to look at the current state of Zionism in the Reform movement. We’re joined by Rabbi Ammi Hirsch, whose recent, viral Yom Kippur sermon emphasized his stance that Zionism is an imperative for Jews today. 

You can watch or listen to the sermon here.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates’s latest book, The Message, details his travels from Dakar, to South Carolina, to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Liel is joined by NY Post and Fox News contributor Karol Markowicz to discuss Coates’s problematic approach to “research,” in which he chose not to speak to Israelis directly.  

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On this episode of Re-Form: Examining the Challenges and Choices of America’s Largest Jewish Movement, we look at the Reform movement’s approaches to dealing with members who are increasingly marrying people of other faiths.We are joined by Rabbi Beau Shapiro from the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and Rabbi Dr. Lisa D. Grant, who serves as Director of the Rabbinical Program at HUC-JIR/New York

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This is an October 7th story, but one that begins not in 2023, but in October of 1894 with the arrest of French military officer Alfred Dreyfus, who also happened to be a Jew. The implications of his framing, arrest, incarceration and the fallout of his eventual exoneration reverberate today. Over this five-episode series, we examine how these events unfolded, and how they connect to the antisemitism that exists today.

In this first episode, we begin with the fraught political climate in France, a secretly gay general, and an illiterate cleaning lady-turned-spy had to do with it all.

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An ambitious soldier with a fraudulent smoking gun sets off a chain of events that leads to the embarrassment and punishment of an innocent Jew.

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As Dreyfus wastes away on Devil’s Island, his wife and brother back in France fight for his freedom and exoneration. Dreyfus struggles to survive. We speak to Dreyfus's great-great granddaughter about his legacy. 

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France's most influential writer of its time, Emile Zola , becomes the champion of the victim, even at his own, perhaps fatal expense. We’re joined by his great granddaughter, who speaks of the cost Zola paid in fighting for freedom.

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