The rabbi’s out this week, so we’re are doing what any self-respecting book nerds would do: geeking out about reading.

In this episode, we get into:

• Jay breaks down his “30 pages a day” habit (spoiler: it adds up to 10,000 pages a year)

• ChayaLeah confesses her Shakespeare regrets

• Jay’s system for building a daily reading habit (and why you should keep three books going at once)

• The “Chan-book-ah” book haul: Arab nationalism, Elie Wiesel, Holocaust memoirs, and Jewish prayer

• ChayaLeah’s pitch for Cultural Amnesia by Clive James and why Remains of the Day is still on her mind

• Why understanding Jewish prayer word by word is a total game changer

• Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, a book they both call the best they’ve ever read

Hopefully you’ll get some ideas for your next book from this episode.

Quote of the episode:

All the books we mention:

• Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century by Adeed Dawisha

• God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel

• Souls on Fire by Elie Wiesel

• Sages and Dreamers by Elie Wiesel

• Night by Elie Wiesel

• The Last Consolation Vanished by Zalmen Gradowski

• Hostage by Eli Sharabi

• On Killing by Dave Grossman

• Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha’am and the Origins of Zionism by Steven Zipperstein

• As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg

• Anonymous Soldiers by Bruce Hoffman

• To Pray as a Jew by Hayim Halevy Donin

• The Hour of Our Death by Philippe Ariès

• Arrows of the Dark (two volumes) by Tuvia Friling

• Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

• The Road by Vasily Grossman

• Cultural Amnesia by Clive James

• Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

• The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris

• My Prayer (two volumes, Chabad teachings on prayer) — could not confirm Amazon listing, may need manual search

• Rebel and Statesman-The Early Years: The Life and Times of Vladimir Jabotinsky: Volume One by Joesph Schechtman

• Fighter and Prophet; The Jabotinsky Story; The Last Years by Joesph Schechtman

• The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons - this is ChayaLeah’s book. Jay dissavows

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What does it actually take to be a prophet? Spoiler: it’s not just hearing voices and shouting in the marketplace (though there’s some of that).

In this kickoff to our new series on the Trei Asar, the Twelve Prophets of the Tanakh, we set the stage before diving into the individual books. Think of this as Prophecy 101 with a side of cult talk, because honestly, the line between “biblical prophet” and “guy with millions of YouTube followers” is thinner than we’d like to admit.

Quote of the Episode:

In this episode, we get into:

• 📜 What prophecy actually is in Judaism, according to Maimonides, and why Moses was working on a totally different frequency from everyone else

• 👑 The three pillars of Jewish leadership (king, high priest, Sanhedrin), and where the prophet fit

• 🎤 Who got tapped to be a prophet, why some were reluctant

• 🚫 Why prophecy ended after Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, and what replaced it

• 🤔 What we’d actually do if a prophet rolled up today (hint: probably an institution)

• 😬 False prophets and cults like, Sabbatai Zvi, Jim Jones, the Moonies

Get ready to learn everything you ever wanted to know about prophecy but were afraid to ask.

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One small change we are making to the newsletter. From now on, along with our news articles, we are going to include a section on both Zionism and Ancient Jewish History to add a little more educational flavor to the posts.

⭐ Featured

Bubbe Detectives, Assemble: The Center for Jewish History Just Opened a Cold Case Unit Genealogy meets True Crime, except the stakes are entire vanished families.

The Center for Jewish History’s new “Histories and Mysteries” project pairs trained researchers with descendants trying to piece together what happened to relatives lost in the Holocaust, using the institution’s vast archives as a forensic toolkit. Each case is a tiny, painstaking restoration of memory: names, dates, photographs, last known whereabouts. A refusal to let the gaps win, and a model of what an institutional archive can actually do for living people. (The Forward, April 14, 2026)

🏛️ Ancient Jewish History

Before the Bonfires, There Was a Revolt Lag B’Omer is Tuesday. Here’s the failed war that gave us bonfires, bows, and a cautionary tale about declaring people the messiah.

With Lag B’Omer arriving Tuesday, the JVL entry on the Bar Kokhba revolt is the historical anchor most Lag B’Omer celebrators have never read. Rabbi Akiva declared Simon bar Kokhba the messiah, the rebels actually held Jerusalem for a hot minute, and then Hadrian came back with six legions and a grudge. The plague that tradition says killed 24,000 of Akiva’s students broke on the 33rd day of the Omer, which is exactly why we light fires Tuesday night. (Jewish Virtual Library)

📜 History & Heritage

Indiana Jones Gets a Software Update Tel Aviv University figured out how to look beneath Jerusalem without lifting a shovel.

Israeli scientists are using muon detectors, cosmic-ray particles that pass through dense rock, to map underground voids beneath the City of David without disturbing a single stone. The technique, borrowed from physics labs and previously used to peer inside Egyptian pyramids, gives archaeologists a way to study Jerusalem’s layered subterranean history without the politically and physically explosive process of excavation. Less crater, more clarity. (Times of Israel, April 23, 2026)

✡️ Weekly Zionist History

*The Visionary Who Manifested a Country Yom Ha’atzmaut just passed. The man who started it all turns 166 this Saturday.

Sandwiched between Yom Ha’atzmaut and Yom Yerushalayim, and one day before what would have been his 166th birthday, the father of political Zionism gets a re-read. Herzl’s resume reads like a particularly intense LinkedIn profile: Vienna lawyer, Paris journalist, witness to the Dreyfus Affair, author of Der Judenstaat, founder of the World Zionist Organization, and visionary of a state he wouldn’t live to see. He died at 44, leaving us with one of the most-quoted lines in modern Jewish history, which doubles as the world’s loudest manifestation mantra: if you will it, it is no dream. (Jewish Virtual Library)

🕎 Religion & Jewish Life

The Rambam, Translated and Triumphant Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz spent his last years on Maimonides. Volume one is now in English.

The first English volume of Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz’s commentary on the Mishneh Torah has just been released, completing the inaugural installment of what was the Talmudic giant’s final scholarly mission before his passing in 2020. Steinsaltz already democratized the Talmud for a generation. This project does the same for Maimonides’ towering legal code, opening the Rambam to readers who never had a yeshiva chavruta. (Chabad.org, April 2026)

🎭 Culture & Identity

Welcome to the Tribe, Doc Northern Exposure was the most Jewish show on television, and almost nobody noticed.

David Samuels makes the case that Joshua Brand’s Northern Exposure, the early-90s dramedy about a Jewish New Yorker exiled to small-town Alaska, was the most quietly profound Jewish show in television history. Cicely, Alaska turns out to be a stand-in for the diaspora itself: a place where outsiders build something tender out of difference. If you’ve been meaning to revisit the moose-in-the-credits show, consider this your nudge. (Tablet Magazine, March 2026)

The Knife Whisperer A Bessarabian shtetl shochet’s memoir finally gets the English translation it deserves.

Pinye-Ber Goldenshteyn was an itinerant Jewish ritual slaughterer who roamed late-19th-century Bessarabia, and his memoir, recently translated by scholar Lane Igoudin, is one of the rare firsthand accounts of shtetl life written by someone who was neither a rabbi nor a rebellious son. It’s daily, granular, occasionally bawdy, and full of the texture that “shtetl” usually gets reduced to in the popular imagination. A primary source you can actually enjoy reading. (Tablet Magazine, April 7, 2026)

On His Honor, and His Mother’s Orders Six decades after his Brooklyn bar mitzvah, Ricky Mason is running the Scouts.

Ricky Mason, who joined the Boy Scouts as a Brooklyn kid in the 1960s and credits his Jewish mother for the entire trajectory, has just become the first Jewish board chair of Scouting America in roughly 50 years. Mason talks openly about how Jewish values shaped his leadership philosophy and why he sees Scouting as a natural fit for Jewish American kids. A nice quiet-civic-Jewishness story for the week. (JNS, April 10, 2026)

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King Solomon had a thousand wives, wrote a book of proverbs, and still felt the need to write a whole passionate love poem about a shepherd boy and a maiden. Coincidence? We think not. In this follow-up to our Valentine’s Day episode, we go deeper into what Judaism actually teaches about love, including what Song of Songs reveals about God’s relationship with the Jewish people, and we bring it all the way down to earth with real talk about marriages stuck in a rut, whether people can truly change, and why “I can’t” usually means “I don’t want to.”

In this episode, we get into:

• Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs): literal love poem or divine allegory?

• Why love is the only personality trait with its own dedicated book in the entire Hebrew Bible

• What Adam and Eve tell us about whether opposites actually attract

• Why real love has nothing to do with infatuation, Hollywood, or Taylor Swift (though we do have opinions about her and Travis)

• Practical advice for married couples who have drifted apart and want to find their way back

• Trust vs. love: which one is actually the foundation of a lasting relationship

• The Baal Shem Tov’s classic “you can, you just don’t want to” and why it applies to your marriage right now

• Why the Rebbe and Rebbetzin’s relationship might be the greatest love story you’ve never heard

  Quote of the Episode:

  "Love goes deeper than what you can do for me. You love the person for who they are and what they are, not what they do for you." - Rabbi Perelmuter

Whether you're happily married, newly in love, or just trying to remember what you liked about the person across the breakfast table, this episode has something real for you. Come learn, laugh, and maybe text your spouse something nice when it's over. 🕯️❤️

Referenced Material-

• Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs)

• Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) by King Solomon

• Mishlei (Proverbs) by King Solomon

We’re kicking off a brand new segment called “Dear Rabbi,” where we bring real-life issues to the Rabbi and actually get into it with honest, often hilarious, sometimes painful conversations about the stuff people are quietly struggling with.

First up: how to care for elderly parents without losing your mind, your marriage, or your lunch break.

In this episode, we get into:

• Setting boundaries with elderly parents (and why that’s easier said than done)

• The difference between being a caregiver and being a nurse

• Why your parents just want to feel significant — and no, a text does NOT count

• The generational divide around phones, Uber apps, and why nobody remembers their Kaiser password

• What to do when your relationship with your parents is, well, complicated

• The Rabbi’s reflection on his Holocaust-survivor father and putting yourself in your parents’ shoes

• Jay on caring for his mom while raising a young daughter and feeling guilty about feeling guilty

• ChayaLeah admitting which of her four sons she’d trust with her medications (spoiler: it’s not all of them)

Plus a hot take on Matzo manufacturers who dare to sell non-Kosher-for-Passover matzo. The audacity.

Whether you’re navigating aging parents yourself, trying to figure out how much you’re really capable of giving, or just looking for permission to laugh about the hard stuff, this one’s for you. Grab a coffee, settle in, and remember: your parents just want you to call.

Quotes of the Week

• A tweet does not help. A text does not help. Call me. Even if it's for two minutes. Call me. - The Rabbi

• When you're young, you always think there's gonna be time. Then you get older and realize there's actually not a lot of time - Jay

Got a question for Dear Rabbi? Email us at edjewcationpod@gmail.com or message us on Substack.

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We kicked off this month's Zoom talking about the Rebbe's birthday and why his legacy still hits so hard, from growing Chabad's global mission to his no-nonsense philosophy on turning obstacles into opportunities.

Then we got into full Passover mode: ChayaLeah is prepping a community Seder for 120 people and her game plan is SPEED. We broke down the Ten Plagues (why those plagues, why that order, and how long they actually lasted), talked about why you don't need a minimum number of people for a Seder (but the more the merrier), and heard from Moshe Perelmuter live in Israel about what Passover looks like during wartime, with packed grocery stores but empty Jerusalem streets.

We also explored studying the Tanya, which the Rabbi describes as essentially a self-help book for the Jewish soul. And Goldie dropped some hilarious childhood stories about sharing a bedroom with ChayaLeah. It's Passover prep meets life advice meets family chaos.

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Peacock on the Menu: Inside the Wildest Kosher Dinner You’ve Never Been Invited To When “is it kosher?” becomes the most interesting question at the table.

At the Biblical Museum of Natural History in Beit Shemesh, over 100 guests sat down to a multi-course feast featuring water buffalo, peacock, and goose eggs, all prepared under strict halachic supervision. A bespectacled rabbi introduced each exotic dish alongside a taxidermized baby giraffe. This is food writing, Jewish law, and sheer chutzpah rolled into one unforgettable evening. (Tablet Magazine, April 2026)

📜 History & Heritage

500 Years Young: The Prague Haggadah That Shaped Every Seder Table Since The OG illustrated Haggadah is still influencing your family’s copy half a millennium later.

The 1526 Prague Haggadah, printed by Gershom Cohen, was the first complete illustrated Haggadah produced by Jews. Its woodcut illustrations established the visual template that Haggadot have followed ever since. One copy, brought to Charleston, SC by an immigrant family in the late 1800s, now sits at the Museum of the Bible with three generations of family milestones handwritten into its margins. A perfect Passover-week read about how one book became an eternal blueprint. (JNS, March 20, 2026)

AI Meets Alef-Bet: New Tool Unlocks Centuries of Handwritten Yiddish and Hebrew Texts Your bubbe’s letters just became searchable.

Vilnius University in Lithuania has launched VILNISH, an AI-powered service that converts handwritten and printed Yiddish and Hebrew manuscripts into searchable digital text. The tool can process diaries, synagogue records, and family letters, then translate the material into English, opening doors for genealogy researchers, historians, and anyone whose family’s story is locked inside old documents. Think of it as OCR with a Yiddish accent. Could be a game-changer for anyone chasing their roots. (JNS, March 23, 2026)

🎭 Culture & Identity

Is This America’s Largest Seder? 1,500 Gators Just Took Over a Basketball Arena to Find Out When your campus Seder outgrows every room on campus, you book the arena.

At the University of Florida, Chabad moved the annual Passover Seder into the 12,000-seat O’Connell Center, drawing roughly 1,500 Jewish students, faculty, alumni, and community members. With Passover falling during the school year rather than spring break this time around, students who don’t usually attend Chabad events showed up in droves. It’s a vivid snapshot of the post-October 7 surge in Jewish campus engagement that shows no signs of slowing down. (Chabad.org, April 2, 2026)

All Aboard the Seder Express: 60 Jews, One Subway Car, Zero Afikoman Grape juice sloshing with every bump. Peak New York Judaism.

For the third year running, rapper Kosha Dillz organized a full Passover Seder on a New York City subway ride from Union Square to the Bronx, complete with a rabbi, Seder plate, the Four Questions, and spirited rounds of “Dayenu” while a Yiddish singer played guitar. The only thing missing was the afikoman hunt, which, given the competition from Pizza Rat, was probably for the best. Public, proud, joyful Judaism in motion. (The Forward, April 1, 2026)

🕎 Religion & Jewish Life

Challah at a Passover Ad? Georgia Politician Learns the Hard Way That Hametz Has Consequences “It’s the thought that counts, I guess.”

A Georgia state Senate candidate placed a Passover greeting in the Atlanta Jewish Times featuring a fluffy challah draped in an Israeli flag. The internet did what the internet does. Conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg compared it to serving a BLT on Yom Kippur, while Georgia’s only Jewish legislator, Esther Panitch, offered herself up for future “holiday consults.” The candidate apologized with grace, and the whole episode became an unexpected lesson in why knowing your audience matters. Also: hire a Jewish consultant for Jewish content. (JNS, April 5, 2026)

For Some Seniors, It’s Their First Seder in Decades. Chabad Is Making Sure They’re Not Alone. A 95-year-old woman in Phoenix broke down in tears when she learned she was still welcome.

Across three continents, Chabad emissaries are bringing Passover to elderly Jews in care facilities, many of whom haven’t participated in a Seder in years. From distributing shmurah matzah and abbreviated Haggadahs to coordinating full Seders inside nursing homes, the effort is rooted in the Rebbe’s decades-old initiative to ensure no Jew is left behind on the holiday of freedom. Sometimes the most powerful Jewish outreach is simply showing up. (Chabad.org, March 2026)

Chag Sameach everyone!

On this chag episode, we tackle a section of the Haggadah that almost everyone breezes past: Jacob's fateful decision to "temporarily" settle in Egypt, only to buy land, put down roots, and stay for 17 years.

From that ancient real estate deal, the conversation spirals into the big questions Jewish families are wrestling with right now:

• What does Israel really mean to diaspora Jews?

• Is "dual loyalty" just an antisemitic trope, or something worth actually thinking about?

• Why did 80% of Jews choose to stay in Egypt even after centuries of slavery?

We don't talk about rising antisemitism, the war with Iran, and what it means to say "Next year in Jerusalem" from your living room in Long Beach. ChayaLeah shares her family's Passover prep rituals (poster boards, car detailing, kids moving the fridge), and we a passionate case that any level of observance counts.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. 🍷

Resources Mentioned

• Genesis 46:27 - Jacob’s family settling in Egypt

• Exodus 13:18 - Circuitous route out of Egypt

• The Four Questions explained - Chabad.org

• The Rebbe’s seder table - Chabad.org

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As a reminder, we will be hosting our pre-Pesach Zoom call exclusively for our edJEWcation family this Sunday, March 29th at 1PM EST / 10AM PST.

Find the link below and we hope you all can make it!

Gut Shabbos!

Zoom Link

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86050937135?pwd=uRWbDqTsgpbAggNAm4xtrdeQW9UqQy.1

Meeting ID: 860 5093 7135

Passcode: 712881

The Great Jewish Manuscript Sell-Off

When the institutions entrusted with Jewish memory quietly sell the originals, who’s minding the store?

📜 So here’s a fun thing that happened: the Jewish Theological Seminary sold its entire collection of personal letters by the Ramchal (that’s Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto for the uninitiated, only one of the most influential Jewish thinkers of the last 300 years, no big deal). They did this in 2016. Nobody found out until a single letter popped up at auction in February 2026 and sold for $392,700. Nearly four hundred grand. For one letter. From a collection they let go of wholesale. We’re talking about a mystic-poet-ethicist whose fingerprints are on everything from the Baal Shem Tov to the Mussar movement, and his personal correspondence is now scattered to the winds of the rare Judaica market like confetti at a bar mitzvah nobody was invited to. Sclar’s point is devastating and simple: once the originals vanish into private ownership, scholarly possibilities vanish with them. Think of it this way: JTS was basically the Library of Alexandria for Ashkenazi intellectual history, and they held a quiet garage sale. 🔥

Read the full article (Tablet, February 19, 2026)

History & Heritage

You Can Now Walk to the Temple Mount on a 2,000-Year-Old Road. Yes, Really.

After 20 years of digging, Jerusalem’s ancient Pilgrimage Road is open for the first time since the Romans buried it.

🏛️ For two decades, archaeologists have been tunneling under modern Jerusalem to uncover the stone-paved road that millions of Jewish pilgrims once walked on their way up to the Temple for Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. On January 20, 2026, the first public tours finally began. The road runs about 600 meters from the ancient Siloam Pool to the Western Wall area, still bearing the original Herodian paving stones that were sealed under rubble after the Roman destruction in 70 CE. “This is one of the most magnificent archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem in the last decades,” says IAA chief archaeologist Amit Re’em. “For the first time, you can see this direct link between the Siloam Pool and the Temple Mount.” Let that sink in: you can literally retrace the footsteps of your ancestors ascending to the Beit HaMikdash.

Read the full article (Times of Israel, February 2, 2026)

The Torah Ark That Took the Scenic Route to the Museum

From “Little Jerusalem” to the Boston MFA, via Texas and a rabbi with a moving truck.

🚚 This story has the narrative arc (pun fully intended) of a biblical journey: impending destruction, a last-minute rescue, a long wilderness wandering, and eventual redemption. A nearly 12-foot wooden Torah ark sat at the heart of Chelsea, Massachusetts’ Orange Street Synagogue until the shul closed in 1999. Chelsea was once so Jewish they called it “Little Jerusalem,” with 15 to 20 synagogues in two square miles. Rabbi David Whiman grabbed a crew of friends and salvaged the ark, then basically schlepped it across the country like a sacred carry-on for years before it landed at the Boston MFA. The kicker? With synagogues closing at a record pace, there’s now more supply of orphaned arks than there are homes for them.

Read the full article (The Forward, October 30, 2025)

Culture & Identity

Was Gatsby Jewish? Hemingway Seemed to Think So.

David Samuels reopens the Jewish question hiding in plain sight in American literature’s most famous novel.

📖 OK, this one is a banger for the literary nerds in the room (you know who you are). David Samuels, Tablet’s literary editor, looks at The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises, published just 16 months apart, the two novels that arguably defined American fiction more than any other pair, and argues they’re essentially in a dialogue with each other about... Jewishness. The self-invention. The outsider striving to belong. The name change (hello, Jay Gatz). Hemingway, who was not exactly subtle about his feelings on Jewish identity (see: Robert Cohn), may have written Sun Also Rises partly as an answer to what Fitzgerald was doing with Gatsby. It’s the kind of essay that makes you want to reread both novels immediately and then argue about them over too much wine. Which, honestly, is the highest compliment you can pay a piece of literary criticism. 🍷

Read the full article (Tablet, March 19, 2026)

Lore Segal Is Gone, But Her Characters Won’t Stop Talking

The Kindertransport survivor’s posthumous story collection is a masterclass in aging with wit intact.

✍️ Lore Segal died in 2024 at age 96 and left behind Still Talking, a posthumous collection starring her beloved “Ladies’ Lunch” crew: a group of fiercely intelligent Upper West Side women in their 80s and 90s who refuse to go gently into anything, thank you very much. These characters agree, without discussion, that they are “not going to pass, pass away, and under no circumstances on. They were going to die.” That’s the energy of the whole book. Segal escaped Nazi Austria on the Kindertransport at age 10, grew up in English foster homes, and became one of the sharpest short story writers in the American canon. Her life and work are also the subject of an exhibit at the Leo Baeck Institute running through April 15. If you’ve never read Segal, start here. If you have, you already know you’re going to read this immediately. 💀❤️

Read the full article (The Forward, March 18, 2026)

Education

Teddy Bears, Barbie, and the Jews Who Invented American Childhood

From Lionel trains to Curious George, first-generation Jewish immigrants didn’t just assimilate into American culture. They built it.

🧸 Here’s a sentence you didn’t expect to read today: the modern American concept of childhood was, to a remarkable degree, engineered by Jewish immigrants. Jeffrey Salkin reviews Michael Kimmel’s Playmakers, which traces how the children of refugees from pogroms, who grew up in poverty, imagined something different for the next generation: a childhood they themselves had never had. Teddy bears. Lionel trains. Baseball cards. Curious George. Barbie. All created by Jews. But Kimmel goes further than a “who’s who” list. He argues that these entrepreneurs didn’t just make toys; they helped construct the entire cultural infrastructure of American childhood, from developmental psychology to parenting advice columns. It’s basically the ultimate “wait, that was Jewish too?!” book, and Salkin’s review makes a compelling case that it belongs on your shelf. Right next to the dreidel collection and that Mel Robbins book you haven’t finished. 😏

Read the full article (Tablet, February 26, 2026)

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In this edJEWcation Book Club episode, Jay brings the crew one of his all-time favorite books: Up From Slavery, the autobiography of Booker T. Washington.

Born into slavery in 1856 and emancipated at nine, Washington went on to found the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and reshape what education could mean for a freed people. Jay, ChayaLeah, and the Rabbi explore the surprising parallels between Washington's vision of education as moral training and the Yeshiva model, debate the Torah's relationship with labor and productivity, and push back hard on today's victim mentality culture.

The Rabbi even draws a line from Booker T. Washington to the Rebbe and the Maggid of Mezritch. It's a wide-ranging, warm, and surprisingly moving conversation about resilience, legacy, and what it really means to build something from nothing.

Books mentioned in this episode:

• Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington

• Open by Andre Agassi

Hello edJEWcation fam!

We figured it would be good to fit in our next zoom with everyone before Pesach, so everyone can ask the rabbi their last minute seder questions.

We wanted to make this Zoom at a time when our listeners from Europe and Israel could join, so we’ll be meeting this Sunday, March 29th at 1PM EST/10AM PST.

Link to come soon.

We hope to see everyone there!

FEATURE STORY

Everybody Wants to Run This Play: Zionism as Template for National Renewal What if Zionism is less a Jewish grievance and more a technology the whole Western world desperately needs?

Alana Newhouse’s January cover essay for Tablet is one of those rare pieces that reframes a supposedly settled argument from the ground up. Rather than defending Zionism as a Jewish right, she asks why Zionism has become the thing everyone is fighting about and concludes the answer has far more to do with the West’s identity crisis than with Israel. She argues that Zionism, having fulfilled its promise for the Jews, now functions as a technology for national renewal that others could, conceivably, use themselves.

A must-read for anyone trying to make sense of the cultural moment.

(Tablet Magazine, January 2026)

RELIGION

Your Seder Is in Two Weeks. Here Is How to Actually Make It Meaningful. Passover begins April 1 this year, which means the clock is ticking.

With Passover two weeks out, My Jewish Learning’s comprehensive seder planning guide is the right thing to put in front of your listeners right now. Hosting a Passover seder is a deeply meaningful opportunity to participate in one of Judaism’s most ancient and significant traditions, and the guide covers everything from choosing the right Haggadah to setting the table to thinking through how to tell the story of the Exodus in a way that resonates with every guest around the table. It also includes a reminder that the Haggadah itself does not actually tell the Exodus story for you, leaving the table to do that work. Worth a read before you start cleaning out the chametz.

(My Jewish Learning, ongoing / updated for 2026)

CULTURE & IDENTITY

Closer Than You Think (and Farther Than We’d Like) Peoplehood is not a WhatsApp group.

Mijal Bitton reflects on three recent moments that crystallized the growing distance between American and Israeli Jewish life, from coalition proposals about egalitarian prayer at the Kotel to the unmediated reality of following Israelis on social media, and argues that presence, not posts, is what actually sustains the bonds of peoplehood. Her prescription is not guilt but genuine, sustained connection. Characteristically wise, and a useful corrective for anyone who thinks “solidarity” mostly happens online.

Committed by Mijal Bitton

Our Heart Is in the East. We Are Far Away.

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2 months ago · 31 likes · 13 comments · Mijal Bitton

Dues-Free, Tri-Mechitza, Orthodox: How a South Philly Shul Is Defying Every Expectation The fastest-growing shul in American Jewish life is in a neighborhood that had no synagogues for decades.

The South Philadelphia Shtiebel, founded in 2019, packs around 175 people into its sanctuary every Shabbat without charging mandatory dues, uses a three-section mechitza that includes a space for nonbinary congregants, and is intentionally apolitical, drawing congregants across the ideological spectrum. The Forward’s deep-dive is a genuinely surprising story about what Jewish community building can look like when someone throws out the rulebook. If you care about the future of Jewish belonging, this is the experiment to watch.

(The Forward, January 30, 2026)

EDUCATION

We Are the People of the Book. Let’s Not Become the People of the Screen. A visit to a Tunisian Jewish community offers a bracing reminder of what Jewish learning was actually built for.

Adam Eilath visited the 2,000-person Jewish community of Djerba, Tunisia, and watched students spend hours in rhythmic repetition, memorizing Torah texts in the ancient tradition of mishneh. He came away with a provocation for modern Jewish educators: digital tools that promise efficiency and access may be quietly hollowing out the discipline that made Jewish literacy durable across millennia. A short, lucid, and important piece for anyone involved in Jewish education at any level.

(Mosaic Magazine, February 5, 2026)

ART

Culture & Sacred Art “49 Ways to Be Jewish: A New Exhibit Paints the Sacred” The Forward, March 13, 2026

A new exhibit at the Derfner Museum of Judaica, “Envisioning the Sacred,” brings together paintings, prints, drawings and linoleum cuts by Jewish artists across generations, tracing a lineage from Chagall and Soutine through the New York abstract painters to contemporary voices, all grappling with how to render Torah, Moses, and Jewish spiritual life in visual form. A wonderful culture piece with real depth for listeners interested in Jewish art and identity.

(The Forward, March 13, 2026)

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When the British Museum quietly updated some of its ancient Near East exhibit labels from "Palestine" to "Canaan," the internet exploded. But what does the history actually say?

Israel tour guide, Jewish educator, and Substack writer Alex Stein joins Jay and ChayaLeah to break it all down, from the Bronze Age Canaanites and the Hyksos to Herodotus, to Hadrian officially naming the Roman province "Palestina" in the second century CE. Along the way, we get into Jewish indigeneity, the archaeology of the Israelite conquest (spoiler: it's complicated), dual-narrative tourism, and how you'd even begin to explain any of this to a sixth grader. This is the episode for anyone who wants to actually understand the history beneath the headlines, without the yelling.

Make sure to check out Alex’s upcoming Love of the Land Tour in October!

Love of the Land

From Palestine to Canaan

A Twitter storm is brewing at the news that the British Museum has removed the name “Palestine” from some of its Middle East gallery panels and labels following complaints that the use of the term was historically inaccurate and anachronistic. “For the Middle East galleries for maps showing ancient cultural regions, the term ‘Canaan’ is relevant for the…

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3 months ago · 28 likes · 13 comments · Alex Stein

Article mentioned in the episode:

British Museum removes term Palestine from some exhibits | The Jerusalem Post

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What happens when a wealthy man buys up all the synagogue seats and blocks the aisles? Or when a rabbi tries to convince the Lubavitcher Rebbe, a trained engineer, that an ocean liner basically "runs itself" on Shabbos?

In part 2 of their Responsa deep dive, the edJEWcation crew explores how Jewish law evolves to meet the real world, from Talmudic property rights to Shabbos doorbells in modern Brooklyn. The Rabbi, ChayaLeah, and Jay cover it all: the Cypriot chicken saga, the kosher cheeseburger question raised by lab-grown milk, getting a "hetter" (permission slip) for nail polish at the mikvah, and a last-minute Shabbos wedding in medieval Krakow that required some seriously creative legal reasoning. It's Jewish law as it's meant to be…living, breathing, and endlessly fascinating.

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We assume you’ve all be following the events in the Middle East this week, so rather than giving you more of that, we figured we’d give you some content that is a bit more lighthearted.

Let’s start-off with some Purim insights you probably hadn’t heard about…

Haman Gave Us the Best Compliment in History Why being called “a certain people” is actually something to celebrate.

In a new Purim essay, Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin argues that Haman’s complaint to King Ahasuerus, that the Jews are “a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the nations” whose “laws are different from those of every other people,” was actually the first outside acknowledgment of Jewish peoplehood as a unified social type. It’s a punchy read for the holiday: what Haman intended as an accusation, Jews have quietly worn as a badge.

(Tablet, February 27, 2026) Read it here

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Culture & Identity

“We Are All Jews Here” (and Here’s the Story That Proves It) The tale of an American POW who stared down a Nazi gun and taught us what solidarity actually looks like.

Andrew Fox revisits the extraordinary story of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, who at Stalag IX-A refused to hand over Jewish prisoners to a Nazi commandant and ordered every American soldier to stand together: “We are all Jews here.” Edmonds faced a pistol pointed at his head and didn’t flinch, later becoming the first U.S. soldier recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. On Purim of all days, the resonance is unmistakable.

(Future of Jewish, February 2026) Read it here

History & Archaeology

The Scroll Has Left the Building (and It’s Magnificent) 2,100 years of waiting, 25 visitors at a time, one climate-controlled room.

The Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest nearly complete book from the Hebrew Bible ever found, went on display in its full seven-meter length at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for the first time since 1968. Experts believe the scroll dates to around 125 BCE, and its text has influenced the spiritual lives of millions across Judaism and Christianity. For anyone who teaches or learns Torah, this is about as close to touching the source code as it gets.

(Times of Israel, February 24, 2026) Read it here

Forget the Granny Flat: Iron Age Israelites Had a Better Idea New archaeology reveals that the family patriarch didn’t get shuffled to the corner room.

A new study of a nearly 3,000-year-old building at Tel ‘Eton in the Judean lowlands suggests that the elderly patriarch and matriarch of a prominent Israelite household occupied the largest and most strategically placed room in the multi-generational home. Far from being sidelined in old age, it appears the elders held real authority to the very end. A beautiful data point for anyone wrestling with how Jewish tradition approaches honoring one’s parents.

(Times of Israel, February 19, 2026) Read it here

Culture & Identity

Shawarma, Sephardic Music, and Surprisingly Good Conversations On campus, where Jewish-Muslim tensions run high, a different story is quietly unfolding.

Sephardic American Mizrahi Initiative (SAMi) hosts cultural programming on 16 college campuses, and roughly 10% of the 6,000 students it has engaged are Muslim, drawn by shared food, music, and language rather than formal interfaith dialogue. Students from both backgrounds say these cultural touchpoints are opening unexpected space for connection at a moment of intense campus tension. This is the kind of Jewish campus story we rarely hear, and it deserves airtime.

(The Forward, February 2026) Read it here

Education

The Archive as Antidote: YIVO Doubles Down When Others Pull Back In New York, one Jewish institution is betting that education is the best long game against hate.

YIVO, which houses more than 24 million original documents and objects about Eastern European Jewish life, has seen over 350 visitors come through its learning and media center since it officially opened in June 2025, with groups from Columbia, NYU, and Hunter College among those exploring its trove of Yiddish theater programs, matchbooks from kosher restaurants, and pre-Holocaust photography. YIVO’s CEO Jonathan Brent argues that introducing complexity to the Jewish story will rein in prejudice among non-Jews. At a time when Jewish education often gets reactive, YIVO’s patient, curiosity-first approach is a model worth studying.

(Times of Israel, March 1, 2026) Read it here

History (Bonus Round)

1.9 Million Years Ago, Someone Was Already Here New dating upends what we thought we knew about humanity’s earliest road trip out of Africa.

A new study suggests that ancient humans were present in what is now Israel at least 1.9 million years ago, dramatically pushing back the timeline of human migration out of Africa to hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously believed. The site, ‘Ubeidiya in the Jordan Valley, now sits alongside a site in Georgia as among the oldest known human settlements outside Africa. The Land of Israel, it turns out, has been a crossroads for far longer than anyone imagined.

(Times of Israel, February 22, 2026) Read it here

In this special birthday episode, ChayaLeah and Jay sit down with the man of the hour, the Rabbi, as he turns 70.

Born in Montreal on March 4th, 1956 (the 22nd of Adar on the Jewish calendar), the Rabbi reflects on a life he never could have predicted: from growing up in a non-Chabad home and boarding a bus to a New Jersey yeshiva on a whim, to serving as a Schlaich in Seattle, building a Chabad presence in Boston's Kenmore Square, and eventually putting down roots in California where, through decades of challenge, a global pandemic, and more than a few permit headaches, his community finally found a permanent home.

Grounded in the wisdom of Pirkei Avot (which calls 70 "ripe old age," a fullness and satisfaction), the Rabbi shares what it really feels like to look back on a life of purpose, sacrifice, and gratitude. Funny, honest, and genuinely moving, this episode is a masterclass in what it means to "keep breathing" until the sail comes in.

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What if the holiday that looks the most like a carnival is actually hiding the most profound questions in Judaism? Professor Tanya White, Bar-Ilan University professor, host of the Books and Beyond podcast, and one of the most engaging Jewish educators alive, joins Jay and ChayaLeah to unpack the Book of Esther like you've never heard before.

We explore why God's name doesn't appear once in the Megillah (and what that means for us today), the concept of "radical seeing" and the stunning parallel between Purim and our post-October 7th world.

ChayaLeah opens up about Esther's loneliness and sacrifice, Jay brings a story about a Cold War spy finding God in his daughter's ear, and Tanya shares an "invisible string" that will genuinely move you. This is the Purim episode you didn't know you needed.

Where to find Tanya-

Torah Chat on WhatsApp

TanyaWhite.org

Books and Beyond Podcast

Tanya’s Instagram

For our past episode on Purim, check this out-

Books & articles we discussed-

• The Invisible String by Patrice Karst: the children’s book Tanya shares the beautiful “invisible string” story from

• Why Grow Up? by Susan Neiman: philosopher’s book on the problem of evil that Tanya references in discussing adversity and resilience

• Rav Soloveitchik’s concept of “fate to destiny”: consider linking to Kol Dodi Dofek or a summary essay

• God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel: Heschel’s concept of “radical amazement”

• Witness by Whitaker Chambers: his memoir is where the famous “daughter’s ear” moment comes from

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🏒 Sports & Culture

From Bris to Bar Mitzvah to Olympic Gold: Jack Hughes Makes History in Milan The first Jewish No. 1 draft pick just became the first hockey player to have a bar mitzvah AND a golden goal.

Jack Hughes, the New Jersey Devils star and proud Jewish kid who grew up celebrating Passover with his family, scored the overtime game-winner against Canada to give Team USA its first men’s hockey gold since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.” Hughes and his brother Quinn (also Jewish on their mother Ellen Weinberg-Hughes’ side) become the most decorated siblings in Jewish sports history, while social media dubbed the moment “the greatest Jewish sports moment of all time.” Mazel tov doesn’t quite cover it.

(Times of Israel, February 22, 2026)

Sticks, Stars, and Six-Pointed Chai: The Golden Age of Jewish Hockey In a sport not exactly known for its Jewish fan base, we somehow ended up with an All-Star team.

This Tablet deep-dive from Armin Rosen is essential reading now that Jack Hughes has punched his golden ticket to the pantheon. Zach Hyman, the Hughes brothers, Adam Fox, Jeremy Swayman: a remarkable cluster of elite bar-mitzvahed talent has converged at the top of the NHL all at once, and Rosen captures just how improbable and delightful this moment really is. The kind of piece you forward to your father-in-law who claims hockey is “not a Jewish sport.”

(Tablet Magazine)

⚔️ History

The American Soldier Who Told the Nazis, “We Are All Jews Here,” Is Finally Getting His Medal More than 80 years after he stared down a Nazi pistol to protect his Jewish comrades, the U.S. is making it official.

Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds, a Tennessee Baptist who in January 1945 ordered all 1,275 American POWs to stand together and declared “we are all Jews here” when German camp commanders demanded Jews be singled out, will receive the Medal of Honor in a ceremony on March 2. He was already recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, but this long-overdue honor caps a story of moral clarity so powerful it almost defies imagination. One man’s courage, one sentence, 200 Jewish lives saved.

(Times of Israel, February 22, 2026)

We Are All Jews Here Roddie Edmonds didn’t need a philosophy degree. He just needed a spine.

British writer Andrew Fox published this urgent, beautifully crafted essay on the Future of Jewish platform, connecting Edmonds’ story to the aliyah of antisemitism we’re witnessing today. Fox makes the case that Edmonds’ five-word declaration is a call to action for non-Jews right now, not just a chapter in a history book. With the Medal of Honor ceremony on the horizon, this piece gives us the moral and emotional framing to understand why that moment mattered then, and why it still does.

(Future of Jewish, February 19, 2026)

🏺 History & Archaeology

Walk Where the Pilgrims Walked: Jerusalem’s Ancient Pilgrimage Road Is Now Open to the Public The street that carried your ancestors to the Temple Mount every Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot is finally open again. Pack comfortable shoes and a lot of feelings.

After years of excavation beneath the streets of East Jerusalem, the 2,000-year-old Pilgrimage Road connecting the Siloam Pool to the Western Wall has reopened for public tours. The stepped stone road, sealed underground for millennia after Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, is remarkably preserved. The inaugural group included an American family visiting to celebrate their daughter’s bat mitzvah, which is a reminder that these stones were never just history.

(Times of Israel, February 2, 2026)

Chasing Looters, Archaeologists Stumble on a 2,000-Year-Old Stone Vessel Workshop Sometimes the bad guys accidentally point you to the good stuff.

An Israel Antiquities Authority sting operation targeting antiquities looters on Mount Scopus unexpectedly uncovered a Second Temple-era stone vessel factory producing more than 100 ritual vessels. What makes it significant: under Jewish law, these stone vessels couldn’t become ritually impure, making them essential for observant Jews living near the Temple. The discovery paints a vivid picture of daily religious life in Jerusalem just decades before its destruction. Archaeology by way of a heist movie.

(Times of Israel, February 16, 2026)

🍽️ Food & Culture

America’s Only Ethiopian Jewish Restaurant Has Closed Its Doors Due to Antisemitic Harassment Tsion Cafe fed Harlem injera, gursha, and a lesson in Jewish diversity. It deserved better.

Beejhy Barhany, a Harlem chef who grew up in an Ethiopian refugee camp and later served in the IDF, has been forced to shutter the dining room of Tsion Cafe, the only Ethiopian Jewish restaurant in America, citing security threats and antisemitic harassment. For over a decade the restaurant served as the primary public face of Beta Israel culture in the U.S., introducing curious New Yorkers to shakshuka spiked with berbere and the ancient traditions of a Jewish community that maintained its identity in isolation for centuries. Barhany isn’t done, but this loss stings.

(The Forward, February 22, 2026)

The Jewish Architect Who Made South Beach Look Like a Fever Dream (In the Best Way) Henry Hohauser built Art Deco Miami on creativity, boldness, and a shoestring budget.

Also from Tablet’s Miami-themed February issue, Samuel D. Gruber profiles Henry Hohauser, the Jewish architect whose playful, exuberant designs shaped one of the most recognizable skylines in America. From the Breakwater Hotel to Collins Avenue landmarks, Hohauser’s fingerprints are all over the neighborhood that tourists flock to today. A reminder that Jewish creativity has shaped American cities in ways most people never realize.

Tablet Magazine: “The Visionary Who Shaped Art Deco Miami”

History & Culture

PBS Asks: What Happened Between Black and Jewish Americans? A new four-part docuseries from Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the alliance, the fractures, and the road ahead.

PBS premiered “Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History,” a sprawling series that covers everything from Jews co-founding the NAACP to the tensions that followed the civil rights era. The Forward covered both the series’ strengths and its notable blind spots, particularly how it sidelines Black Jews and the Hebrew Israelite community. Worth watching and worth the conversation that follows.

The Forward: “In ‘Black and Jewish America,’ Henry Louis Gates Jr. Explores the History of Black-Jewish Partnership and Conflict” (February 2, 2026)

Five Decades of Jewish Life, One Shutter Click at a Time Photographer Bill Aron’s retrospective captures a changing Jewish world, from Lower East Side scribes to Southern shrimp sellers.

The Forward profiles “The World In Front of Me,” a career retrospective at the American Jewish Historical Society from photographer Bill Aron, who spent decades documenting Jewish communities across the U.S., Cuba, and the former Soviet Union. His images are joyous and warm, a welcome alternative to the “doom and gloom” school of Jewish documentation. Aron credits his camera with deepening his own Judaism, proving that sometimes the best way to find yourself is to look outward.

The Forward: “Bill Aron’s Jewish Photography Charts Decades of Communities” (February 5, 2026)

Religion & Jewish Life

Why Animal Sacrifice Isn’t as Weird as You Think Dovid Bashevkin makes the case that Tractate Zevachim has something urgent to teach modern Jews about humility and devotion.

In Tablet’s “Burnt Offerings,” NCSY’s Director of Education takes readers deep into the Talmud’s treatment of animal sacrifice, and instead of treating it like an ancient relic, he argues the logic is haunting, humbling, and surprisingly relevant. If you’ve ever wondered why the Torah devotes so much real estate to burnt offerings, Bashevkin’s accessible, thoughtful writing will make you rethink what you thought you knew about the Temple service.

Tablet Magazine: “Burnt Offerings”

Hummus Diplomacy: Muslim and Sephardic Jewish Students Are Finding Common Ground on Campus Persian karaoke nights and hamsa painting are doing what formal interfaith panels can’t.

The Sephardic American Mizrahi Initiative (SAMi) is running cultural programming on 16 campuses, and roughly 10% of the 6,000 students engaging are Muslim. The secret? No one’s showing up for “dialogue.” They’re showing up for the music, the food, and the shared cultural memory. At a time when campus tensions dominate headlines, this is a quietly hopeful story about what happens when identity is a bridge, not a barrier.

Muslim and Sephardic Jewish college students are connecting over shared heritage (The Forward, February 15, 2026)

Jewish Life Today

This Jewish Olympian’s Pre-Race Ritual Starts with a Text to Mom Speedskater Kamryn Lute recited the Shehecheyanu at the Milan opening ceremony, and it only gets more heartwarming from there.

The Forward profiles Kamryn Lute, the 21-year-old Team USA speedskater making her Olympic debut in Milan. Before every race, she texts her mom a prayer. At the opening ceremony, she recited the Shehecheyanu, the blessing for new experiences. Between scrolling synagogue newsletters in the athletes’ village and channeling her bat mitzvah-level discipline on the ice, Lute is a refreshing reminder that Jewish identity shows up in all kinds of places, including at 30+ mph on frozen straightaways.

The Forward: “Jewish Speedskater Kamryn Lute Brings Prayer and Precision to Olympics” (February 11, 2026)