The most widely spoken Jewish language on the eve of the Holocaust, Yiddish continues to play a significant role in Jewish life today, from Hasidim for whom it is a language of daily life to avant-garde performers, political activists, and LGBTQ writers turning to Yiddish for inspiration. In Yiddish: Biography of a Language (Oxford University Press, 2020), J ... Show More
Jul 10
Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja, "Foundations for Metasemantics" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Metasemantics studies the foundations of meaning, asking what makes it the case that certain words have the meanings that they do. But what makes metasemantic theories true? This question has been all but ignored in philosophy of language. In this book, Cohnitz and Haukioja addre ... Show More
1h 9m
Jul 8
Psychoanalysis and Jewish Languages
There is an academic interest in the "Jewish Freud," aiming to detect Jewish influences on Freud, his own feelings about being Jewish, and suppressed traces of Jewishness in his thought. This book takes a different approach, turning its gaze not on Freud but rather on those who s ... Show More
58m 26s
Jan 2020
Yiddish: A story of survival
At its height, Yiddish, the language of the European Jews, was spoken by more than ten million people, from Russia in the east to the Netherlands in the West. But by the mid -20th century, these numbers were severely depleted following the Holocaust, and then the creation of the ... Show More
40m 12s
Apr 2019
Vivi Lachs, "Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London, 1884-1914" (Wayne State UP, 2018)
In Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London, 1884-1914 (Wayne State University Press, 2018), Vivi Lachs, social and cultural historian, Yiddishist, performer, and associate research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, looks at London's Yidd ... Show More
38m 53s
Jul 2024
Jonathan Branfman, "Millennial Jewish Stars: Navigating Racial Antisemitism, Masculinity, and White Supremacy" (NYU Press, 2024)
Jewish stars have longed faced pressure to downplay Jewish identity for fear of alienating wider audiences. But unexpectedly, since the 2000s, many millennial Jewish stars have won stellar success while spotlighting (rather than muting) Jewish identity. In Millennial Jewish Stars ... Show More
56m 47s
Jan 2023
Bringing dead languages back to life
Australia used to be one of the most linguistically diverse places, with over 200 languages. Today, many of Australia’s indigenous languages are considered “highly endangered”. Inspired by his native language, Hebrew, Ghil’ad Zuckermann is a linguistics professor who is on a miss ... Show More
26m 13s
Jul 2024
Jonathan Branfman, "Millennial Jewish Stars: Navigating Racial Antisemitism, Masculinity, and White Supremacy" (NYU Press, 2024)
Jewish stars have longed faced pressure to downplay Jewish identity for fear of alienating wider audiences. But unexpectedly, since the 2000s, many millennial Jewish stars have won stellar success while spotlighting (rather than muting) Jewish identity. In Millennial Jewish Stars ... Show More
56m 47s
Jun 2023
Orit Avishai, "Queer Judaism: LGBT Activism and the Remaking of Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel" (NYU Press, 2023)
Until fairly recently, Orthodox people in Israel could not imagine embracing their LGBT sexual or gender identity and staying within the Orthodox fold. But within the span of about a decade and a half, Orthodox LGBT people have forged social circles and communities and become muc ... Show More
50m 14s
Mar 2019
Joyce Antler, "Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement" (NYU Press, 2018)
Joyce Antler is the Samuel J. Lane Professor Emerita of American Jewish history and culture at Brandeis University. Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement (New York University Press, 2018) provides richly detailed biographies of known and unknown Jew ... Show More
51m 54s