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We’re taking this week off, but we wanted to bring you an unedited look into a conversation Mark was desperate to set up between two of his friends, Liel Leibovitz and Jay Michaelson. These are two Jews who are very in sync in some ways, but extremely different in others. Come explore with them as they talk about some of the most important issues we’re all facing.

This week on Unorthodox, comedian Nick Kroll returns to the show to talk about 'Big Mouth,' his raunchy Netflix animated show about puberty, now in its third season. He tells us about hosting Purim talent shows with 'Big Mouth' co-creator Andrew Goldberg at their Jewish day school in Westchester, NY, explains how his own adolescent experiences influenced the show, and shares his bar mitzvah horror story. Our Gentile of the Week is Sarah Blake, author of the novel The Guest Book, which tells the story of the uber-WASPy Milton family over three generations, centered around the island in Maine that the family bought during the Depression. She tells us how the story was modeled on elements of her own upbringing, describes how the few Jewish characters who appear throughout the book ultimately change the course of the Milton dynasty, and speaks candidly about what it's like to be a WASP in 2019 America. Come see us on tour! Copies of The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia will be sold and signed at each event: November 2 – Detroit, MI: Unorthodox live show November 3 – Detroit, MI: Panel event November 4 – Denver, CO: Book talk and Unorthodox live show November 6 – Houston, Texas: Jewish Book Fair signing and teen event November 14 – Margate, NJ: Book talk November 17 – Cincinnati, OH: Unorthodox live show November 20 – Dresher, PA: Book talk November 21 – New York, NY: Book talk November 22 – New York, NY: Shabbat book talk December 5 – Port Washington, NY: Book talk December 7-8 – Encinitas, CA: An Unorthodox Shabbat and Unorthodox live show December 9 – Phoenix, AZ: Unorthodox live show December 19 – St. Louis, MO: Book event Like the book? Leave us a review! (Amazon or Goodreads). Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is also sponsored by J. Press. Get 15 percent off your first order when you use discount code Unorthodox15 at jpressonline.com or in one of their retail stores in New Haven, New York, or Washington, D.C. Offer good through December 24, 2019. Get ready for Thanksgiving with KOL Foods. Go to kolfoods.com and use the code UNORTHODOX to receive a 10 percent discount on your next order. Order before November 3, 2019 and you can get $1 off per pound on all whole turkeys with the KOL Foods Thanksgiving Early bird sale.

This week on Unorthodox, we're marking the one-year anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, which occurred on October 27, 2019. Two days after the shooting, we aired a special episode recorded from Pittsburgh, featuring voices from the community. This year we're revisiting the horror of the massacre and checking in with local Pittsburgh Jews about their reflections one year later. We talk to Pittsburgh-based writer Beth Kissileff, who explains Jewish notions of vengeance and offers her thoughts on the appropriate punishment for the murderer. Mark, who has been reporting a book about the shooting for the past year, shares audio from his interviews with Andrea Wedner, daughter of Rose Malinger, one of the victims, Andrea's husband Ron Wedner, and Joe Charny.Sending our love to the Pittsburgh Jewish community, today and always. Get your copy of The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia, our brand new guide to all things Jewish (and Jew-ish), here [https://workman.com/products/the-newish-jewish-encyclopedia]. Leave us a review! (Amazon or Goodreads). Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. See us on tour! Liel Leibovitz will be at Arts Matter Shabbat in Boston, MA on October 25 at 6 p.m. (details here), and Stephanie Butnick will be at the Jewish Book Festival in Tampa, FL, on October 29 at 7 p.m. (details here). Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by the fine haberdashery, J. Press. Head to jpressonline.com and use code Unorthodox15 for 15% of your first order through November. You can even use the code in one of their three retail stores in New Haven, New York, or Washington, D.C.

This week on Unorthodox, we're celebrating all the Jewish holidays, including reaching our 200th episode! We talk to a gematria expert to find out just what the number 200 symbolizes in Jewish numerology, and hear some words of wisdom from our boss, Alana Newhouse. Our first guest is Jodi Kantor, co-author of the new book 'She Said,' which details the allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein first reported on by Jodi and Megan Twohey in the New York Times in 2017. She talks to Stephanie about the process of reporting such a complex story, first for the New York Times and then for this book, and the roles that people like Jill Kargman and Gwyneth Paltrow played throughout the process. She also explains why the Weinstein story is fundamentally not a Jewish story, despite the fact that several of the main characters, including Weinstein, are Jewish. Then Liel sits down with Peter Pomerantsev, author of 'This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality,' to discuss how the Internet is enabling autocratic rulers from Russia to the Phillipines to create disinformation on a massive scale, and how too much access to information can be as hazardous to democracy as not enough. Get your copy of The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia, our brand new guide to all things Jewish (and Jew-ish), here [https://workman.com/products/the-newish-jewish-encyclopedia]. Leave us a review! (Amazon or Goodreads). Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. See us on tour! Liel Leibovitz will be at Arts Matter Shabbat in Boston, MA on October 25 at 6 p.m. (details here), and Stephanie Butnick will be at the Jewish Book Festival in Tampa, FL, on October 29 at 7 p.m. (details here). Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by the fine haberdashery, J. Press. Head to jpressonline.com and use code Unorthodox15 for 15% of your first order through November. You can even use the code in one of their three retail stores in New Haven, New York, or Washington, D.C.

This week on Unorthodox, a special live show recorded at the San Francisco JCC. We’re joined by guest host Bari Weiss, New York Times opinion editor and writer and the author of How to Fight Anti-Semitism [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/616727/how-to-fight-anti-semitism-by-bari-weiss/]. We also talk to New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz, author of the new book Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/562022/antisocial-by-andrew-marantz/9780525522263]. Get your copy of The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia, our brand new guide to all things Jewish (and Jew-ish), here [https://workman.com/products/the-newish-jewish-encyclopedia]. Leave us a review! (Amazon or Goodreads). Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. See us on tour! Liel Leibovitz will be at Arts Matter Shabbat in Boston, MA on October 25 at 6 p.m. (details here), and Stephanie Butnick will be at the Jewish Book Festival in Tampa, FL, on October 29 at 7 p.m. (details here). Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt.

The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia, our guide to all things Jewish (and Jew-ish), is here! To celebrate, we put together a very special episode featuring some familiar voices. Get a taste of the book from its contributors and hear about famous Jews, favorite holidays, and beloved Jewish foods from Mario Cantone, Corey Feldman, Tovah Feldshuh, Bethenny Frankel, Gilbert Gottfried, Steve Guttenberg, Tone Loc, Jon Lovitz, Pauly Shore, The Sugarhill Gang, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, and even Margaret Thatcher. Thanks to Gary Greengrass, Jordan Hoffman, Wayne Hoffman, Lisa Ann Sandell, Marc Tracy, and Alana Newhouse. Special thanks to our producer, Josh Kross, for putting together this wild episode. Like the book? Leave us a review! (Amazon or Goodreads). Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. See us on tour! Liel Leibovitz will be at Arts Matter Shabbat in Boston, MA on October 25 at 6 p.m. (details here), and Stephanie Butnick will be at the Jewish Book Festival in Tampa, FL, on October 29 at 7 p.m. (details here). Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox.

We're closing the book on 5779 with our fifth-annual apology episode (listen to previous year's episodes here [https://www.tabletmag.com/tag/unorthodox-apology]). Join us for stories of apologies, discussions about friendship, and an exploration of one of the most controversial figures in recent Jewish history. First we talk to our Tablet colleague Marjorie Ingall, who co-edits the site SorryWatch.com. She reminds us how to offer a proper apology, and shares the best (and worst) public apologies of the past year. Stephanie sits down with Lauren Mechling, author of the new novel How Could She, and Did Jew Know author Emily Stone to discuss the female friendships that animate Lauren's novel, and reflect on the challenges of maintaining our relationships, particularly as we approach the New Year. In a special reported segment, we talk to Neshama Carlebach and Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl about the complicated legacy of rabbi and composer Shlomo Carlebach. Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. Thanks to the Jewish Book Council for their help with this episode.

This week we're going to party like it's 5779, while we still can. First we sit down with Samantha Frank and Rena Singer, the rabbi and rabbinical student behind Modern Ritual, which models passionate, feminist Jewish life and content on Instagram. They tell us why they're they're thinking beyond congregational posts, and why they believe social media is the way to connect with young Jews today. We also talk to Saul Austerlitz, whose new book is Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show the Defined a Television Era. He gives us some Friends casting what-ifs and offers his theory on why the show remains incredibly popular on streaming platforms 25 years after it premiered. Liel talks to Wesleyan University president Michael Roth about his new book on free speech and political correctness on campus. Join us in San Francisco Monday, Sept. 23. Get your tickets here and use code TABLET50 for 50% off the ticket price. Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by KOL Foods, delivering great tasting, healthy, sustainable, and ethically raised kosher meat. Get a 10 percent discount on your next order using the code UNORTHODOX at kolfoods.com. This episode is also brought to you by the Tikvah Fund’s free online course, Tevye the Dairyman. Professor Ruth Wisse guides you story by story as Sholem Aleichem's famous character confronts the challenges of revolution, materialism, assimilation, and anti-Semitism. Visit tevye.tikvahfund.org/unorthodox to sign up today. (edited)

Join us for 'The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia' launch party next Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC Manhattan! There will be wine from our friends at Unorthodox Wines, and you'll be able to buy the book two weeks before its official publication date! Can't make it? Preorder the book and you could win a Zabar's gift basket! To enter, forward a copy of your receipt or confirmation to [email protected]. Our Jewish guest this week is Israeli writer Etgar Keret, winner of the Sapir Prize, one of Israel's most prestigious literary awards. His new story collection, newly published in English, is called Fly Already, and he joins Stephanie and Liel to discuss his characteristically quirky short stories, the influence of of the Holocaust on his work, and the starkly different reception he—and his work—receives in Israel vs. the United States. Our Gentile of the Week is Henry G. Brinton, senior pastor at Fairfax Presbytarian Church in Fairfax, VA and a contributor to the Huffington Post. He and Stephanie talk about their shared connection with two religion professors at Duke University, Brinton's career-long focus on building interfaith community, and his new novel, City of Peace. Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by KOL Foods, delivering great tasting, healthy, sustainable, and ethically raised kosher meat. Get a 10 percent discount on your next order using the code UNORTHODOX at kolfoods.com. This episode is also brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox.

'The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia,' our guide to all things Jewish (and Jew-ish), is out next month! Pre-order your copy today and you could win a Zabar's gift basket—to enter, forward a copy of your receipt or confirmation to [email protected]. This week, two more Jewish guests! We sit down with food writer Adeena Sussman, whose new cookbook is Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors From My Israeli Kitchen. She tells us why we should be eating more tahini (which is the same thing as tahina), how she puts her own spin on Israeli food as a California native transplanted to Tel Aviv, and how we can easily incorporate Middle Eastern herbs and spices into our dishes. Next, we hear an interview Stephanie did with author Dani Shapiro, whose memoir Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love begins with the surprising results of an online DNA kit she submitted on a whim. Dani discusses what it was like to grow up always being told she didn't "look Jewish," how the discovery of her paternity affected her sense of identity—Jewish and otherwise, and whether we can realistically expect family secrets to stay hidden in today's modern era. Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by KOL Foods, delivering great tasting, healthy, sustainable, and ethically raised kosher meat. Get a 10 percent discount on your next order using the code UNORTHODOX at kolfoods.com.

If you enjoy this podcast, there's something you can do to help keep us going: Donate to the Unorthodox fundraiser and make us stronger in 5780 and beyond. This week, we're pledging our loyalty to Unorthodox with two amazing Jewish guests. Our first guest is actress Michaela Watkins, who you've seen in Casual, Transparent, and The New Adventures of Old Christine. She's in the new film Brittany Runs a Marathon and the new CBS comedy The Unicorn. Michaela talked to Stephanie about playing Jewish (and non-Jewish) characters, how she reconnected with her Judaism through the organization Reboot, and the ways her Jewish identity impacts her political activism. Our next guest is historian Pamela Nadell, whose latest book is America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today. She tells us about unearthing forgotten stories of Jewish women, like Grace Nathan, a wife and mother who witnessed this country's founding, and contextualizing the lives of well-known Jewish women, like Nathan's great-granddaughter Emma Lazarus, whose poem, "The New Colossus," has long been synonymous with America's welcoming attitude toward immigrants. She also warns against the recent revision of that poem by the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and explains how Jewish women in America have long been ahead of their time. Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by KOL Foods, delivering great tasting, healthy, sustainable, and ethically raised kosher meat. Get a 10 percent discount on your next order using the code UNORTHODOX at kolfoods.com.

This week: a special update from Stephanie’s apartment and a reminder to donate to the Unorthodox fundraiser! Gifts of $180 and above get you a hot-off-the-press copy of our forthcoming book, The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia; gifts of any size get you our eternal love and appreciation. Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox.

Don't forget to donate to the Unorthodox fundraiser! Help us keep going strong in 5780 and beyond. This week on Unorthodox: A whole lot of Jewish guests! First we sit down with Cindy Chupack, an Emmy-winning TV writer and producer who's worked on shows like Sex and the City, Modern Family, and Everybody Loves Raymond. Her latest film, which she co-wrote and directed, is Otherhood, now streaming on Netflix. It's about three mothers whose grown sons seem to have forgotten them, and so together they descend on New York City to push their way back into their son's lives. Stephanie chats with Erin Davis, host of the dating show Bubbies Know Best, and S.J. Mendelson, one of the bubbies. The premise of the show? Three grandmothers meet each contestant, ask him or her some probing questions, then select a date for them from a group of prospective suitors. Kibbitzing ensues. Let us know what you think of the show! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt.

Donate to the Unorthodox fundraising drive and help us keep going strong! Our Jewish guest is Taffy Brodesser-Akner, New York Times Magazine writer and author of Fleischman is in Trouble. She tells us about the moment she learned her debut novel was a New York Times bestseller, why she writes from such a specific—and jewish—place, and why people are always asking her about Philip Roth. Our Gentile of the Week is Umber Ahmad, the banker-turned baker behind Mah-Ze-Dahr bakery in Manhattan's West Village. She brings us their delicious old-fashioned donuts, which are made with buttermilk, lemon zest, and vanilla bean and are fried and then glazed. She tells us about growing up in Northern Michigan to Pakistani immigrant parents, and learning from a young age to use food to tell stories and create community. Her question for the hosts is about how food became such an integral part of the Jewish holiday calendar. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt.

It’s that time of the year: The Unorthodox fundraising drive! Help us keep going strong in 5780 and beyond—donate here. Our Jewish guest this week is Liz Feldman, writer and creator of Dead to Me, the new Netflix series starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini. She tells us about the Jewish elements of the hit traumedy which was just renewed for a second season. Our Gentile of the Week is Dennis Schleicher, who shares his conversion story. After coming out as gay as a teenager and leaving his family and their evangelical church, he ends up converting to Mormonism as an adult. (His book is called ‘Is He Nuts: Why a Gay Man Would Become a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ.’) It’s the last week to fill out our listener survey for a chance to win an autographed copy of our forthcoming book, The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia.. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox

We're off this week, recharging in various locations, but we didn't want to leave your feed completely empty. Instead, Mark has a story he's been trying to find a place to tell for years. As our fourth birthday approaches, we wanted to expand our own creation myth, back to when Mark was 15 years old. Here's a few links for when you're done: First, take our survey here or at http://bit.ly/uosurvey19 Second, our 2019 Fundraiser is here, at http://tabletmag.com/donate

This week in 'News of the Jews,' Israel's new Education Minister endorsed gay conversion therapy, a controversial and widely discredited practice. We're bringing you an interview (recorded before those comments were made) with Mathew Shurka founder of Born Perfect, an organization that lobbies against conversion therapy. Mathew tells us about his own experience—he spent five years in conversion therapy as a teen—and how he found his calling in activism after an 'It Gets Better' video he recorded in 2012 went viral. Our Gentile of the Week, recorded at our Chicago live show last month, is Greta Johnsen, who hosts the Nerdette podcast and anchors Weekend Edition Saturday on WBEZ Chicago. She tells the audience at the Logan Square Auditorium what it means to be a nerdette, shares her favorite moments of the podcast, and asks the hosts a question about Jewish food. Tell us what you really think! Fill out our listener survey for a chance to win an autographed copy of our forthcoming book, The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. This week's outro music is 'Adon Olam' sung to the tune of the 'Golden Girls' theme song by Kol Zimra. The song is featured in Latter Day Jew, Aliza Rosen's new film about former Unorthodox guest H. Alan Scott. Contact [email protected] for engaging harmony music at your next simcha. This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox.

This episode was recorded live at the Hollis Hills Bayside Jewish Center in Queens. Our Jewish guest is Leon Neyfakh, who hosts the new podcast Fiasco, which tells the story of the 2000 election. He previously hosted two seasons of the hit podcast Slow Burn—the first focused on Watergate, and the second on the Clinton impeachment. He tells us why he focuses on what it was like to live through these explosive moments in American history as they slowly unfolded, and what he's learned about today's political dramas by digging into recent history Our gentile of the week is Clare Malone, a senior political writer at FiveThirtyEight, where she covers the 2020 presidential election and appears on the weekly FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast. She accepts our challenge to name all 24 Democrats running for president, and gives us her predictions of what's to come in the 2020 campaign. Following in the footsteps of her sister Noreen, who in 2017 inquired about the phrase 'Jewish American Princess' and inspired an entire special episode on the topic, Clare asks what the deal is with the word 'shiksa.' Tell us what you really think! Fill out our listener survey for a chance to win an autographed copy of our forthcoming book, The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group.

In honor of the 4th of July, we present our second-annual Jews Across America episode, celebrating the diversity of Jewish life throughout this great nation. (You can listen to last year's episode here) We have a bunch of star-studded guests! Blair Braverman, the second Jewish woman to complete the Iditarod, joined us at our Chicago live show with her dog, Flame, to tell us about how a Jewish girl from California becomes a dog sledding phenom. (Check out her memoir, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, too) Stanford M. Adelstein, a former State Senator from South Dakota and the subject of the new book The Question Is "Why?": A Jewish Life in South Dakota, tells us how Jews got to South Dakota, and how Jewish life there has changed in his 87 years. Melissa Untereker, an lawyer with Frontera Immigration Law in El Paso, Texas, explains how Judaism informs her work, and how local religious groups are stepping up to help refugees. (If you'd like to help, she recommends starting here. Rabbi Neil Amswych of Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Fe tells us about how an English rabbi came to helm a New Mexico synagogue, and what makes his adopted community so special. Josh Furman, a historian at Rice University who runs the university's Houston Jewish History Archive, talks to us about preserving Jewish items in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, and his favorite item in the collection. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set when you sign up at Harrys.com/Unorthodox. This episode is also brought to you by The Franciska Show, a podcast about Jewish women in the arts. Neshama Carlebach will be a guest on the July 9th episode. Subscribe today.

Unorthodox is off this week, but we have something special for you instead. Mark Oppenheimer was a recent guest on Slate’s Trumpcast, where he explained everything you could ever want to know about Trump and the Jews. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group.

Our first Jewish guest this week is Matthew Futterman, deputy sports editor at the New York Times and author of the new book, Running to the Edge. A 23-time marathoner, Matt breaks down the major transformations in both professional and recreational running over the past few decades, and describes the more meditative aspects of the sport, explaining how running is, for him, a form of prayer. Our second Jewish guest is Tony and Academy Award-winning actor Joel Grey, whose credits include Cabaret, Wicked, and Chicago. His latest role is directing the Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof at Stage 42. He tells us about growing up around Yiddish (his father was musician and comedian Mickey Katz, who wrote Yiddish parodies of popular songs), having a daughter in the business (Jennifer Grey starred as Baby in Dirty Dancing), and about his love of photography (he just published his fifth book of photography, "The Flower Whisperer"). We'd love to hear what you thought of this week's show. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. We’re heading to Chicago! See us live Wednesday, June 26 at 7 p.m. at the Logan Square Auditorium with Iditarod finisher Blair Braverman and Nerdette podcast host Greta Johnsen. Presented with Hadassah Chicago-North Shore. Get your tickets here. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group.

This week, we're celebrating the papas (the PAPAS!) Our Jewish guest is Violet Ramis Stiel, whose memoir Ghostbuster's Daughter is about growing up as the eldest child of comedy legend Harold Ramis. She tells us about life with an unconventional yet loving father, how her upbringing influenced her own parenting style, and finally grasping the impact her father had on American culture after his 2014 death. Our gentile of the week is Matt Schneider, who created the City Dads Group and hosts The Modern Dads Podcast. The primary care giver for his children, he tells us about how being rejected from the local mom's group inspired him to start a group for fathers, which now offers programming in more than 30 cities, including a New Dad Bootcamp. We'd love to hear what you thought of this week's show. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. We’re heading to Chicago! See us live Wednesday, June 26 at 7 p.m. at the Logan Square Auditorium with Iditarod finisher Blair Braverman and Nerdette podcast host Greta Johnsen. Presented with Hadassah Chicago-North Shore. Get your tickets here. This episode is sponsored by Unpacked, a new series of Jewish educational videos from Jerusalem U that offers a complete history of modern day Israel, 10 minutes at a time. Check it out at unpacked.media/unorthodox.

Last May, in honor of Shavuot, the holiday that celebrates the most famous convert to Judaism, Ruth, we put together a special episode all about conversion. We were so moved by the overwhelming response, both from converts and not, that we made another episode. This year we're back with a whole new range of stories. We hear from Ashley Wallace, who grew up in a Christian family in Alabama and who found support throughout her conversion from her friend Will Docimo. We talk to Rabbi Dr. Stuart W. Halpern, author of the new book, Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth, about why Shavuot is the perfect time to celebrate conversion stories. Listener Rebecca Cynamon-Murphy lets us listen in on her conversion audio diary, all the way to the mikveh. Pittsburgh record store owner Eric Ackland shares his journey from secular Judaism to Orthodoxy (not technically a conversion, but still a great story). Plus we hear from listeners who called in to share their own conversion stories. We'd love to hear what you thought of this week's show. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. We’re heading to Chicago! See us live Wednesday, June 26 at 7 p.m. at the Logan Square Auditorium with special guest Blair Braverman, who recently became the second Jewish woman to complete the Iditarod. Presented by Hadassah Chicago-North Shore. Get your tickets here. This episode is sponsored by Harry's. Get your free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX.

Tradition, tradition! We sit down with legendary actress Jackie Hoffman, who plays Yenta in the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene's production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ in Yiddish, and Motl Didner, the Folksbiene's associate artistic director. Hoffman tells us about learning her lines in Yiddish and her favorite role of all time. Didner teaches us a few key phrases in Yiddish We also chat with Australian punk rocker-turned-novelist Bram Presser, who wrote The Book of Dirt which won the National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction. He tells us about discovering the real story of his Holocaust survivor grandfather's wartime years, which shapes the book, as well as his Yiddish punk background with the band Yidcore. We’re heading to Chicago! We'll be at the Logan Square Auditorium Wednesday, June 26 at 7 p.m. with special guest Blair Braverman, who recently became the second Jewish woman to complete the Iditarod. Presented with Hadassah Chicago-North Shore. Get your tickets here. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group.

Our Jewish guest is Judith Viorst, who has written many books for children, including the classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. She tells us about her new poetry collection, Nearing Ninety: And Other Comedies of Late Life, which candidly and humorously captures the realities of growing older. Our gentile of the week is Edward Lee, the chef/owner of several restaurants in Louisville, Kentucky. His book Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef's Journey to Discover America's New Melting-Pot Cuisine, is a memoir of his culinary roadtrip across the United States. He tells us why the best deli in the country is found in Indiana, and what happens when you visit Dearborn, MI looking to eat during Ramadan. Join us Wednesday, May 29 at 8 p.m. at the Hollis Hills Bayside Jewish Center in Queens, NY, for a live taping with Leon Neyfakh, host of the podcasts Slow Burn and the forthcoming FIASCO, and FiveThirtyEight writer and podcaster Clare Malone. Get your tickets here. We’re heading to Chicago! We'll be at the Logan Square Auditorium Wednesday, June 26 at 7 p.m. with special guest Blair Braverman, who recently became the second Jewish woman to complete the Iditarod. Presented with Hadassah Chicago-North Shore. Get your tickets here. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. We're also sponsored by FindYourSummer.org, with nearly 400 summer programs for Jewish teens to choose from, ranging from domestic and international travel to internships and more. New York-area teens are eligible for scholarships to select programs. Find your program at FindYourSummer.org.

Spies, sex, and comedy! Our Jewish guest is journalist Matti Friedman, whose newest book, 'Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel', explores the little-known story of four Mizrahi Jews who went undercover as Arabs during the time of the country's founding. He tells us how the story of these young Jewish men from Arab countries, who risked their lives as part of a ragtag intelligence unit, adds texture to the overwhelmingly Ashkenazi narrative of Israel's founding. Our gentile of the week is Pete Holmes, who talks to us about his new book, 'Comedy Sex God', his HBO show Crashing, and his journey from being raised Evangelical Christian to becoming a follower of spiritual teacher Ram Dass. Join us Wednesday, May 29 at 8 p.m. at the Hollis Hills Bayside Jewish Center for a live taping with Leon Neyfakh, host of the podcasts Slow Burn and the forthcoming FIASCO, and FiveThirtyEight writer and podcaster Clare Malone. Get your tickets here. We’re heading to Chicago! See us live Wednesday, June 26 at 7 p.m. at the Logan Square Auditorium with special guest Blair Braverman, who recently became the second Jewish woman to complete the Iditarod. Presented with Hadassah Chicago-North Shore. Get your tickets here. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. This episode is sponsored by Unpacked, a new series of Jewish educational videos from Jerusalem U that offer a complete history of modern day Israel, 10 minutes at a time. Check it out at unpacked.media/unorthodox. We're also sponsored by FindYourSummer.org, with nearly 400 summer programs for Jewish teens to choose from, ranging from domestic and international travel to internships and more. New York-area teens are eligible for scholarships to select programs. Find your program at FindYourSummer.org. Additional support comes from Harry's. Get your free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX.

We're talking about the mamas (the mamas) in honor of Mother's Day. Our Jewish guest is Catherine Reitman, creator and star of the Netflix show Workin Moms. She tells us how spending Mother's Day after her first child was born on a film set far from her family inspired her to create the show, which follows four mothers as they navigate their personal and professional lives after having children. We also talk to Judith Rosenbaum, executive director of the Jewish Women’s Archive, about their new initiative to honor all the inspirational woman in our lives. Our gentile of the week is Karen Malone Wright, founder of The Not Mom, an online space for women who do not have children, either by choice or by chance. She tells us what not to say to a woman who doesn't have children, on Mother's Day or any day, and what she's learned from childless and childfree women around the world who have attended her Not Mom summits. Plus, producer Josh Kross brings us an unexpected story of an escape from Russia. Join us Wednesday, May 29 at 8 p.m. at the Hollis Hills Bayside Jewish Center for a live taping with special guests Leon Neyfakh, host of the podcasts Slow Burn and the forthcoming FIASCO, and FiveThirtyEight writer and podcaster Clare Malone. Get your tickets here. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group.

It's a star-studded, carb-filled post-Passover episode! Our first Jewish guest is designer Rebecca Minkoff, who tells us about sewing her own bat mitzvah dress, starting a handbag and clothing company with her brother, Uri, and her early involvement with—and break from—the Women's March (plus how she continues to support women today). Our second Jewish guest is Moriel Rothman-Zecher, author of Sadness is a White Bird, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Debut Fiction. He tells us about moving from America to Israel as a teen--a journey mirrored by the book's protagonist--and how, after years of excitement about the idea of serving in the Israel Defense Forces, he ultimately become a conscientious objector, serving two weeks in military jail after refusing to join the IDF. Our gentile of the week is Gretchen Rubin, whose latest book is Outer Order, Inner Calm. She explains how getting control of our stuff helps us get control of our lives, and describes the four personality tendencies (upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels) that animated her last book. Plus, we call Blair Braverman, the Jewish dog sledder who recently completed the Iditarod! Join us Wednesday, May 29 at 8 p.m. at the Hollis Hills Bayside Jewish Center for a live taping with special guests Leon Neyfakh, host of the podcasts Slow Burn and the forthcoming FIASCO, and FiveThirtyEight writer and podcaster Clare Malone. Get your tickets here. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group. This episode is sponsored by Harry's. Get your free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX.

Since we're off this week, we're bringing you a special Kosher for Passover treat in our feed, a taste of our sister podcast, Israel Story. We've got a Ruth-themed episode from them called Whither Thou Goest. If you like what you hear, you should subscribe to their show wherever you listen to ours, AND check out israelstory.org to see their upcoming U.S. tour schedule—they’ll be here from May 7 to may 21st, and might just be heading to your city for a live show. With that, I’ll leave you to listen. Chag Sameach and see you next week!

We're getting in the mood for matzo with a jam packed Passover episode. We speak with New York Times food writer Melissa Clark about her Passover menu, which includes a new brisket recipe, and, later on in the week, matzo lasagna. Paul Germain, the TV writer responsible for the Rugrats Passover episode, which aired in 1995 and offered a remarkable animated retelling of the story of Exodus, tells us about how that episode got made. PLUS Cat Goldberg on 4/20 seders, Gabriel Stulman on the Moroccan celebration of Mimouna, And thanks to The Marshall Project's Simone Weichselbaum, disgraced former charity head William Rapfogel tells us about the time he threw a Seder behind bars. Episode sponsors: The UJA-Federation Matzah Challenge is back! Here’s how it works: Take a picture of your matzah creation between April 19 and April 27 and post it to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with the hashtag #matzahchallenge. Tag a friend: for every matzah photo that’s posted, $18 will be donated to someone in need. One Day University brings together the best professors to give their most engaging lectures to audiences of all ages. On April 28, Mark Oppenheimer will be teaching a class called 'American Jews: Where are they now?' Register at www.OneDayu.com. or by calling 800 300 3438. The kosher meal kit service JChef delivers all the ingredients you need to make delicious kosher recipes without schlepping to the market. If you order between now and Passover, you'll get 30 percent off your first order—and if you refer a friend who places an order, you'll also get a free classic meal box. Go to JChef.com/Unorthodox to get yours today. Unorthodox Wines is a unique take on kosher wine that's perfect for your Seder. Get free shipping on your order at www.bitly.com/unorthowine.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Jewish last names, with name change stories from our hosts and listeners. Plus, Noah Levinson investigates the story behind immigrant name changes at Ellis Island. Want to share your family's story? Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by Unorthodox Wine, offering beautiful kosher wines from South Africa. Get free shipping on any order when you visit bitly.com/unorthowine. This episode is also brought to you by KOL Foods, delivering great tasting, healthy, sustainable, and ethically raised meat. This Passover, go to KOLFoods.com and use the code UNORTHODOX to receive a 10-percent discount on your next order. Additional support comes from JChef, the new kosher meal kit and the perfect solution for Passover. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. Plus, refer a friend who places an order before Passover and you’ll get a free classic meal box. (edited)

This week on Unorthodox, it's Adar Madness! Make your picks for Liel's middle name here. We've got two Jewish guests this week. The first is psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb, who writes the “Dear Therapist” column for The Atlantic. Her latest book, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, is about her life as a therapist, and about starting to see a therapist herself after an unexpected and traumatic breakup. Our second guest is Clevelander Harley Cohen, who was assigned the seat next to Mark on the flight to Cleveland for our November live show at the Mandel JCC. Harley is a Jewish Deadhead (a Grateful Dead megafan), and he told Mark about his embrace of Jewish practice later in life and his love of the iconic jam band, and the ways in which the two are intertwined. We love to hear from you! Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by Hebrew College. The Jewish community needs rabbis who are creatively engaging with Jewish tradition, and Hebrew College’s rabbinical school is currently accepting applications. Visit Hebrewcollege.edu/unorthodox to find out more. This episode is also brought to you KOL Foods, delivering the best tasting, healthiest, most sustainable, and most ethically raised meat anywhere! Go to KOLFoods.com and use the code UNORTHODOX to receive a 10 percent discount on your next order. Additional support comes from Unorthodox Wine, offering beautiful kosher wines from South Africa. Get free shipping on any order when you visit bitly.com/unorthowine.

This week on Unorthodox, you'll never look at an Einstein Bros. bagel the same way again. Our Jewish guests are David Rossmer and Steve Rosen, co-writers and co-stars in the Off-Broadway play The Other Josh Cohen. They tell us about meeting at the performing arts summer camp French Woods and working together ever since, most recently collaborating on this rollicking musical tale of mistaken identity (apparently there are a lot of Josh Cohens out there!). Our gentile of the week is Drew Magary, a columnist for GQ and Deadspin, and the author of the memoir Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood. He tells us about his highly controversial recent columns about bagels, and asks us if he's in for a year of shlepping his now 12-year-old daughter to bar mitzvahs in the Maryland area. We love to hear from you! Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is also sponsored by JChef, the new kosher meal kit and the perfect solution for Passover. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. This episode is also sponsored by Harry's, offering a great shave at a great price. Get a free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX. Additional support comes from Unorthodox Wine, offering beautiful kosher wines from South Africa. Get free shipping on any order when you visit bitly.com/unorthowine.

This week on Unorthodox, we're celebrating the publication of The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List with an episode dedicated to Jewish food. Throughout the episode you’ll hear from contributors to the book—including Jill Kargman, Gil Hovav, Gail Simmons, Shalom Auslander, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs of Food52, and many more—who will be reading their entries. We talk to Tablet editor-in-chief Alana Newhouse, who edited the collection, as well as Gabriella Gershenson, who edited the recipes in the book. We also sit down with Dr. Beth Ricanati, the author of Braided: A Journey of a Thousand Challahs, who tells us about the healing power of baking bread. Naama Shefi and Amanda Dell tell us about their work at the Jewish Food Society and their Schmaltzy storytelling events. Plus, Brette Warshaw explains the difference between corned beef and pastrami, listener Sonia Marie Leikam tell us about brewing kosher beer in Portland, and the story of a special pie delivery to Pittsburgh's Jewish community. Get your copy of The 100 Most Jewish Foods at Tabletmag.com/100JewishFoods. Tell us your Jewish food memories! Email us at [email protected] or leave a message at 914-570-4869. 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. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. The music on today's episode is by the klezmer duo Farnakht. This episode is sponsored by Hebrew College. The Jewish community needs rabbis who are creatively engaging with Jewish tradition, and Hebrew College’s rabbinical school is currently accepting applications. Visit Hebrewcollege.edu/unorthodox to find out more. This episode is brought to you by Unorthodox Wine, offering beautiful kosher wines from South Africa. Get free shipping on any order when you visit bitly.com/unorthowine. This episode is brought to you KOL Foods, delivering the best tasting, healthiest, most sustainable, and most ethically raised meat anywhere! Go to KOLFoods.com and use the code UNORTHODOX to receive a 10 percent discount on your next order. Unorthodox is supported by the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, which is presenting Diaspora Songs: Yiddish Meets Ladino, Thursday, March 28, at 7:30 pm. The event is a part of Carnegie Hall’s “Migrations, The Making of America Festival” and co-sponsored by The Yiddish Book Center. Visit jccmanhattan.org/music for tickets.

This week on Unorthodox, an update from Belgium, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's bar mitzvah-dancing past. This week's interviews were recorded live at the Marlene Meyerson Manhattan JCC during our Valentine's Day show. Our Jewish guest is dating app ghostwriter Meredith Golden, whose job is to make your dating profile better and to get you dates! She tells us about the mistakes most men and women are making on their profiles, and polls the audience about with dating apps they prefer. Our next guests are Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini, married comedians from Canada. Jess is Jewish and Eman is Palestinian, and they tell us about how they met, what their parents think, and the comedy they've found in the tensions of their particular union. This episode is brought to you by Unorthodox Wine, offering beautiful kosher wines from South Africa. Get free shipping on any order when you visit bitly.com/unorthowine. This episode is brought to you KOL Foods, delivering the best tasting, healthiest, most sustainable, and most ethically raised meat anywhere! Go to KOLFoods.com and use the code UNORTHODOX to receive a 10 percent discount on your next order. The Jewish Education Project is doing incredible work empowering Jewish educators across the country. On April 11, the Jewish Education Project is throwing a party honoring its retiring CEO Bob Sherman, and recognizing the impact of the UJA-Federation New York’s John Ruskay and Alisa Rubin Kurshan .Visit JewishEdProject.org/Benefit and use the promo code UNORTHODOX for a special discount for Unorthodox listeners.

This week on Unorthodox: two Jews, many opinions! Returning to the show is writer and illustrator Christopher Noxon. He tells us about his new book, “Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook,” an illustrated history of the civil rights movement. Our second guest is French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, the author of more than 30 books, including The Genius of Judaism. He joins us to discuss his most recent book, The Empire and the Five Kings: America's Abdication and the Fate of the World. We love to hear from you! Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is also sponsored by Harry's, offering a great shave at a great price. Get a free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX. This episode is brought to you by Unorthodox Wine, offering beautiful kosher wines from South Africa. Get free shipping on any order when you visit bitly.com/unorthowine. This episode is sponsored by Hebrew College. The Jewish community needs rabbis who are creatively engaging with Jewish tradition, and Hebrew College’s rabbinical school is currently accepting applications. Visit Hebrewcollege.edu/unorthodox to find out more.

This week on Unorthodox, we've got a special episode dedicated to circumcision and the Jewish mitzvah known as the brit, or bris, that signifies entry into the tribe for eight-day-old Jewish males. We talk to Dr. Emily Blake, the mohel who performed Mark's son's bris, about why this biblical practice has remained so central to the Jewish experience, even among the non-observant. The folks at BimBam explain Lech Lecha, the parsha in which Abraham and God enter into the covenant that defines the Jewish people. Hayim Leiter, a rabbi and mohel in Jerusalem, tells us about Safer Habrit, his organization that provides circumcision education and advocates against the controversial practice known as metzitzah b'peh. Sara Fredman Aeder tells us about approaching Jewish circumcision from a scholarly perspective and, later, a personal one, and Lizzie Skurnick shares her experience weighing circumcision as a single mother by choice. Producer Noah Levinson talks with Australian medical historian Dr. Robert Darby, (www.historyofcircumcision.net) about the speculation surrounding the British royal family's possible circumcisions, including the role of the "royal mohel.". And finally, Cristian Uriostegui tells the story of getting circumcised his junior year in college, The BimBam explainer was read by Emily Shapiro Katz, a Jewish educator in Beer Sheva, Israel; watch the animated version at bimbam.com. We'd love to know what you think about this episode! Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. This episode is brought to you by Unorthodox Wine, offering beautiful kosher wines from South Africa. Get free shipping on any order when you visit bitly.com/unorthowine. 'The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List' comes out March 19! Featuring the biggest names in food—Jewish and not—and recipes for some of the most beloved, polarizing, and enduring Jewish foods, it’s the perfect gift to bring to this year’s Passover seder. Pre-order your copy today and you could win a $150 gift card to Russ & Daughters: to enter, forward a copy of your receipt or confirmation to [email protected].

This week on Unorthodox, we'd like to thank the Academy... and our three Jewish guests! First we get glammed up with shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, who tells us about getting his big break when Aretha Franklin wore his shoes to the 1983 American Music Awards, and how he made red carpet history when he designed $1 million shoes for Mulholland Drive actress Laura Harring to wear to the 2002 Oscars. Since then, the 'shoe cam' has become a standard feature of award shoe red carpets. Then film critic Jordan Hoffman returns to the show to tell us what to expect at Sunday's Academy Awards, at which only a few Jews are nominated and some non-Jews are up for Jewish roles. Finally, a special Oscars treat: Liel calls up actor Kurt Fuller, who talks about being 'that guy' in hundreds of films, including Ghostbusters II, Wayne's World, Anger Management, and just about every movie you've ever seen. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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. Get your Unorthodox T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies at bit.ly/unorthoshirt. This episode is sponsored by Hebrew College. The Jewish community needs rabbis who are creatively engaging with Jewish tradition, and Hebrew College’s rabbinical school is currently accepting applications. Visit Hebrewcollege.edu/unorthodox to find out more. This episode is also sponsored by Harry's, offering a great shave at a great price. Get a free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX. Unorthodox is hiring! We're looking for a part-time associate producer to handle guest booking, episode scheduling, live show planning, and more. Click here for more information. To apply for the position, email [email protected] with the subject line ‘associate producer.’

This week, we're live and wide awake from Seattle. Our Jewish guest is Rabbi Will Berkovitz, CEO of Jewish Family Service Seattle. He tells us why helping resettle refugees is about more than simply "Jewish values," describes the surprising pushback he's received from some Jews over his social activism, and explains how he was inspired to become a rabbi after attending a Catholic college. Our gentile of the week is Dan Savage, the Seattle-based sex-advice columnist and host of Savage Lovecast. He returns to the show to answer love and relationship questions from Unorthodox listeners just in time for Valentine's Day (or as we call it, secular Tu B'Av). (For the uninitiated, Dan is very open and uncensored in his discussion of sex and relationships, so we really mean the obscenity warning this week.) We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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 Hebrew College. The Jewish community needs rabbis who are creatively engaging with Jewish tradition, and Hebrew College’s rabbinical school is currently accepting applications. Visit Hebrewcollege.edu/unorthodox to find out more. 'The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List' comes out March 19! Featuring the biggest names in food—Jewish and not—and recipes for some of the most beloved, polarizing, and enduring Jewish foods, it’s the perfect gift to bring to this year’s Passover seder. Pre-order your copy today and you could win a $150 gift card to Russ & Daughters: to enter, forward a copy of your receipt or confirmation to [email protected]. Unorthodox is hiring! We're looking for a part-time associate producer to handle guest booking, episode scheduling, live show planning, and more. Check out bit.ly/unorthodoxproducer for more information. To apply for the position, email [email protected] with the subject line ‘associate producer.’ (edited) Message Input Message #episodecopy

This week's episode was recorded live at Adat Shalom in Los Angeles. Our first Jewish guest is Rachel Sumekh, who founded Swipe Out Hunger, the leading nonprofit in addressing hunger on college campuses. She tells us why Swipe Out Hunger is a fundamentally Jewish project, inspired in part by her family's dependence on food assistance after her parents immigrated to the U.S. from Iran, and how, as a Persian Jewish woman in the technology and social entrepreneurship world, she's hoping to be more of a norm than an exception. Our second Jewish guest is actor, screenwriter, and director Lauren Miller Rogen, whose most recent film, Like Father, stars Kristen Bell and Kelsey Grammer and is streaming on Netflix. After her mother was diagnosed, at age 55, with early onset Alzheimer's, Lauren created Hilarity for Charity, which has raised more than $10 million for Alzheimer's awareness and research through star-studded variety shows fundraisers. Lauren tells us about moving from Long Island to Lakeland, Fl and becoming one of very few Jewish students, explaining Hanukkah to her dentist, and what it’s like directing her husband Seth in her films. Our gentile of the week is Jonathan Groff, executive producer and co-showrunner on ABC's Blackish. He also worked on How I Met Your Mother and Scrubs, and spent five seasons as head writer on Late Night with Conen O'Brien. He tells us about sharing a name with that other Jonathan Groff (this Jonathan Groff's Twitter handle is @NotThatGroff), and growing up in a rectory as the son of an Episcopal priest Join us Wednesday, February 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan for a special Valentine's Day live show featuring dating app ghostwriter Meredith Golden and married female comedians Jess Salomon, who is Jewish, and Eman El-Husseini, who is Palestinian. Get your tickets here. This episode is sponsored by Hebrew College. The Jewish community needs rabbis who are creatively engaging with Jewish tradition, and Hebrew College’s rabbinical school is currently accepting applications. Visit Hebrewcollege.edu/unorthodox to find out more. This episode is also sponsored by JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to JChef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. Tablet’s new book, 'The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List' comes out March 19! Featuring the biggest names in food—Jewish and not—and recipes for some of the most beloved, polarizing, and enduring Jewish foods, it’s the perfect gift to bring to this year’s Passover seder. Pre-order your copy today and you could win a $150 gift card to Russ & Daughters: to enter, forward a copy of your receipt or confirmation to [email protected].

This week on Unorthodox, one young man's journey out of white nationalism. Our Jewish guest is Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow, whose latest book is Rising out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist, which tells the story of Derek Black, the son of Stormfront founder Don Black and heir apparent to the White Nationalist movement. After enrolling in a diverse college and befriending a wide range of people—including Jewish students who invited him to weekly Shabbat dinners after he was outed as a white supremacist—Derek began to challenge his ingrained assumptions, ultimately denouncing the movement he was raised to lead and his family's involvement in it. We also talk to Derek himself, who tells producer Shira Telushkin about life after white nationalism, explains the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories at the root of the movement (plus the whole thing about lizard people), and shares the remorse and guilt he feels that the ideas he once publicly espoused and proliferated inspired the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. We're heading to the West Coast! We'll be at Adat Shalom in Los Angeles Friday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. for a special Shabbat show with actor and director Lauren Miller Rogen, 'Black-ish' producer Jonathan Groff, and Iranian-Jewish philanthropist Rachel Sumekh; get your tickets here. Then we'll be at the Stroum JCC in the Seattle area Saturday, Feb. 2 for a special live show with Dan Savage of the Savage Lovecast. Get your tickets here. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. This episode is sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center’s Great Jewish Books Summer Program for high school juniors and seniors. To learn more and apply, visit: www.yiddishbookcenter.org/greatjewishbooks. This episode is also sponsored by JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. Additional support for this episode comes from Harry's. Get a free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX.

This episode was recorded at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Association of Reform Jewish Educators. Thanks to our friends at ARJE for making this show happen. Our Jewish guest is food historian Michael Twitty, author of the James Beard Award-winning book The Cooking Gene, who returns to the show to tell us about his years as a Hebrew School teacher, when he was often the first black person his students interacted with, and his next book project, Kosher Soul, which focuses on his Jewish identity. He also explains what ptcha is, and why it's one of Tablet's 100 Most Jewish Foods. Our gentile of the week is Congresswoman Katie Porter, the newly-elected Representative of California’s 45th District and the first Democrat to hold the seat since it was created in 1953. She tells us about dining at Yale's kosher kitchen with our own Mark Oppenheimer back in college, how she's trying to help furloughed government workers during the shutdown, and her life as a single mother now shlepping between California and Washington, D.C. all the time. Her question for the panel is why Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish Arbor Day, falls in the dead of winter. We're heading to the West Coast! We'll be at Adat Shalom in Los Angeles Friday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. for a special Shabbat show with actor and director Lauren Miller Rogen, 'Black-ish' producer Jonathan Groff, and Iranian-Jewish philanthropist Rachel Sumekh; get your tickets here. Then we'll be at the Stroum JCC in the Seattle area Saturday, Feb. 2 for a special live show with Dan Savage of the Savage Lovecast. Get your tickets here. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. This episode is sponsored by JChef, the kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. This episode is also sponsored by Harry's. Get a free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX. This episode is also sponsored by Hebrew College. The Jewish community needs rabbis who are creatively engaging with Jewish tradition, and Hebrew College's rabbinical school is currently accepting applications. Visit Hebrewcollege.edu/unorthodox to find out more.

This week on Unorthodox, we're setting it up. Our Jewish guest this week is longtime matchmaker Tova Weinberg, who founded the Jewish dating website Saw You at Sinai. In an interview recorded at our Hanukkah live show in Pittsburgh, she tells the hosts about ditching dentistry to become a matchmaker (she estimates she's made 350 matches over the past 40 years), and her opinion on what it is that men and women really want. She also helps out a listener with some first date tips. Our Gentile of the Week is producer Scott Ellis, whose long list of theater and television credits includes The Good Wife, Weeds, She Loves Me, and more. He sits down with Stephanie to talk about getting his start on TV with the sitcom Frasier, putting himself up for an Emmy nomination, (and actually getting the nomination!) for an episode of 30 Rock, and being entrusted by The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino to direct a few episodes of the award-winning Amazon series. (Scott even got Stephanie and producer Josh Kross into Season 2, Ep. 3 as extras—check out the very last scene). We're heading to the West Coast! We'll be at Adat Shalom in Los Angeles Friday, Feb. 1 at 7 p.m. for a special Shabbat live show; Guests will include writer, director, actor, and producer Lauren Miller Rogen and Iranian-Jewish philanthropist Rachel Sumekh, Get your tickets here. Then we'll be at the Stroum JCC in the Seattle area Saturday, Feb. 2 for a special live show with Dan Savage of the Savage Lovecast, and . Get your tickets here. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. This episode is sponsored by JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. Additional support comes from The Branch, a new podcast from Hadassah that explores how positive relationships between Israeli Jews and Arabs can bring new hope for a truly shared society. Check it out at Hadassah.org/thebranch.

This week on Unorthodox: early elections in Israeli, bat mitzvah recaps, and a taste of Liel's listener meetup in Tel Aviv. We have three Jewish guests: Jesse Eisenberg, who in addition to playing everyone from Lex Luthor to Mark Zuckerberg on screen, executive produced the new documentary 'The World Before Your Feet,' which follows Matt Green as he walks every block of of New York City, and was directed by Jeremy Workman. The three of them sat down with Stephanie Butnick to discuss Matt's unusual journey, the 'churchagogues' he discovered along the way, and what you learn when you slow down and look around. Our Gentile of the week is journalist Rukmini Callimachi, who covers terrorism and the Islamic State for the New York Times. She’s the host of Caliphate, a serialized podcast that follows a former ISIS member and tracks the international rise of the terrorist group. She tells us about digging through ISIS trash in Syria, and the strangest (and scariest) things that have happened to her along the way. Her question for the panel is about the appropriate greeting for Jewish friends on Yom Kippur. We're hitting the road in 2019! Come see us January 15 at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. It's free—register here. February 1, we'll be doing a special Shabbat show at Adat Shalom in Los Angeles. Tickets here. We'll be at the Stroum JCC in the Seattle area February 2 for a special live show with Dan Savage of the Savage Lovecast. Get your tickets here. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. This episode is sponsored by One Day University. Get 25% off your tickets to any session when you register using the coupon code UNORTHODOX at http://www.onedayu.com This episode is also sponsored by Harry's. Get a free trial shave set at Harrys.com/UNOROTHODOX. Additional support comes from JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order.

Back in 2013, Tablet contributor Daniel Estrin spoke to Amos Oz for Tablet's Vox Tablet podcast. Oz died today, December 28, 2018, and we wanted to bring you this episode from the back catalog.

We're closing out 2018 with two interviews with people who stand up—quite literally—for what they believe in. First, we sit down with formerly Hasidic comedian Leah Forster, who has traveled the world performing for religious Jewish audiences, but whose recent gigs were cancelled after religious authorities found out she was gay and threatened to pull the kosher certifications of venues who hosted her. You can follow along with Leah on Instagram. Then, Mark talks to Presbyterian minister Jeff Hutchinson, who shares the harrowing tale of what happened when he dared to confront white supremacists at a nearby church in Black Mountain, North Carolina—a story that doesn't end until Hutchinson finds a new church 1,000 miles away. We're hitting the road in 2019! Come see us January 15 at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. It's free—register here. We'll be at the Stroum JCC in the Seattle area February 2 for a special live show with Dan Savage of the Savage Lovecast. Tickets here. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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 JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order.

Tis the season—for Chinese food and a movie! Our first Jewish guest is Bill Adler, the Def Jam alum who helped Run DMC create their iconic 1987 song "Christmas in Hollis". He tells us how he went from being a music journalist to the second full-time employee at Def Jam in the 1980s; how "Christmas in Hollis," ended up on the soundtrack of films like Die Hard, and how his distaste for cliche holiday music led him to make an annual Christmas playlist for friends and family, and now, you! Listen to Adler's 2018 Christmas Jollies mix here. We also talk to Steven de Souza, the Hollywood screenwriter responsible for films like Commando, Judge Dredd, and, of course, Die Hard. He tells us how Bruce Willis's character was actually originated by Frank Sinatra, the origin of the movie's epic "yippee ki yay" catchphrase, and why Die Hard is even more of a Christmas movie than White Christmas. We're hitting the road in 2019! Come see us January 15 at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C. It's free—register here. We'll be at the Stroum JCC in the Seattle area February 2 for a special live show with Dan Savage, of the Savage Lovecast. Get your tickets here. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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 Harry's. Get $5 off any shave set–including the limited-edition holiday sets–when you go to Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX. This episode is sponsored by JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order.

This week on Unorthodox, we're getting over our latke hangovers. Our first Jewish guest is New York Times writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who has written profiles of celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Bradley Cooper, and Melissa McCarthy. She joined us at our recent live show at the Manhattan JCC to talk about how she tries to be a journalist and a mensch, which biblical figure she'd love to profile, and why she enjoys being on Twitter. We also sit down with Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. He tells us about getting to know the royal family (and giving the Queen a menorah), speaking out against British anti-Semitism, and the time he had to meet with Prince Harry after the 20-year-old wore a Nazi uniform on Halloween. But before all that, Liel talks to his friend Scott Harris about the amazing Be A Jewish Star music competition for Jewish youth! shabbat shalom and thanks again. scott S C O T T H A R R I S We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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 JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. Hear from fascinating people doing interesting work in Israel and Israelis making their mark across the globe–like spice master Lior Sercarz of La Boite NYC, Ambassador Ido Aharoni, and former Miss Israel and Ethiopian Jew Titi Aynaw–on Jewish National Fund’s podcast IsraelCast. Find IsraelCast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, or learn more at JNF.org/israelcastpodcast.

From warding off the evil eye to rules about whistling, Jews are serious about their superstitions. This week on Unorthodox, we hear from listeners about their family customs, talk to Tablet's editor-in-chief Alana Newhouse about the enduring nature of shtetl superstitions, and take a visit to a very lucky spot in Northern Israel. Ptui ptui! We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. This episode is sponsored by: Belvedere Vodka, certified kosher by the Orthodox Union, and produced in accordance with the legal requirements of Polish Vodka. Learn more here. Jewish National Fund, making an impact on Israel with a vision that encompasses planting trees, building water reservoirs, helping those with special needs, preserving heritage sites, and transforming the North and South with new housing, job creation, and infrastructure development. As you plan your year-end giving, go to JNF.org/tablet to take part in fulfilling that vision. JChef, the new kosher meal kit. Go to Jchef.com/unorthodox and use coupon code Unorthodox30 to get 30 percent off your first order. Harry's Razors, for a great shave at a great price. Get $5 dollars off a shave set, including the limited-edition holiday sets, when you go to Harrys.com/UNORTHODOX.

Today's episode comes out a day early, so you can gobble it up before Thanksgiving. First, comedian Travon Free, a producer on Lena Dunham's HBO show Camping, speaks with producer Josh Kross about anti-Semitic old tweets of his that resurfaced last week. Liel sits down with Jewish guest Frederick Wiseman, the legendary filmmaker, to discuss his latest documentary, Monrovia, Indiana. Our gentile of the week, live from Cleveland, is former Rock and Roll Hall of Fame president and CEO Terry Stewart. to talk about what he calls the greatest job in the world, the much-speculated upon Hall of Fame nomination process, and how 'rock and roll' the Hall of Fame's CEO can actually be. We love to hear from you: Send comments and questions for Unorthodox to [email protected] or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. 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: Little Passports, the perfect holiday gift for the curious kid in your life. Each month they’ll get a fun-filled package with hands-on activities and interactive projects designed to spark their curiosity about geography, world cultures or science. Order today at Littlepassports.com/unorthodox. Hear from fascinating people doing interesting work in Israel, as well as Israelis making their mark across the globe, on Jewish National Fund’s podcast IsraelCast. From spice-master Lior Sercarz of La Boite NYC to Ambassador Ido Aharoni; from “Queen of Kosher” Jamie Geller to former Miss Israel and Ethiopian Jew Titi Aynaw, there’s something for everyone. Find IsraelCast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, or learn more at JNF.org/israelcastpodcast. Belvedere Vodka. certified Kosher by the Orthodox Union and produced in accordance with the legal requirements of Polish Vodka. For more, visit Belvedere Vodka. Check out the Unorthodox Demos, from our favorite Jewbadour Jim Knable.