The Jewish Lives Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) was one of America’s most provocative writers of the 20th century. Her best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have influenced three generations of Americans.

Join us with Alexandra Popoff, author of the new Jewish Lives biography Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success, as we explore Rand’s defense of

American capitalism, individualism, and creativity.

Music in this episode: 

George Gershwin - "Rhapsody in Blue"

The “German Socrates,” Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) was the most influential Jewish thinker of the 18th and 19th centuries. A Berlin celebrity and a major figure in the Enlightenment, Mendelssohn suffered the indignities common to Jews of his time while formulating the philosophical foundations of a modern Judaism suited for a new age.

Join us with Bar Ilan scholar Shmuel Feiner, author of Moses Mendelssohn: Sage of Modernity, as we explore Mendelssohn’s tireless advocacy for his people and the importance of intellectual independence.

Born Julius Marx in 1890, the brilliant comic actor who would later be known as Groucho, was celebrated for his slapstick portrayals, ingenious wordplay, and double entendre.

Join us with Lee Siegel, author of Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence, as we explore the life of the beloved American iconoclast through the lens of his work on stage, screen, and television.

The feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan (1921–2006), pathbreaking author of The Feminine Mystique, was powerful and polarizing.

Join us with Rachel Shteir, author of the new Jewish Lives biography Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter, as we explore the life of the author and activist acclaimed as the mother of second-wave feminism.

Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) was one of the most influential figures in the field of Jewish Studies.

Join us with historian David Biale, author of the Jewish Lives biography Gershom Scholem: Master of the Kabbalah, as we examine the life of the thinker who pioneered the study of Jewish mysticism and profoundly influenced the Zionist movement.

Both thoroughly German and unabashedly Jewish, Walther Rathenau (1867–1922) served in the exalted position of foreign minister in the early days of the Weimar Republic.

His achievement was unprecedented—no Jew in Germany had ever attained such high political rank. But Rathenau’s success was marked by tragedy: within months he was assassinated by right-wing extremists seeking to destroy the newly formed Republic.

Join us with esteemed historian Shulamit Volkov as we illuminate the complex social and psychological milieu of German Jewry in the period before Hitler’s rise to power.

Tradition has it that King Solomon knew everything there was to know—the mysteries of nature, of love, of God himself—but what do we know about him?

Join us with esteemed biblical scholar Steven Weitzman as we reexamine Solomon's story and its surprising influence in shaping Western culture in Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom. We also explore what Solomon's life, wisdom, and writings have come to mean for Jews, Christians, and Muslims over the past two thousand years.

Elie Wiesel is the author of the seminal Holocaust memoir Night and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Join us with Joseph Berger, author of the new Jewish Lives biography Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence, as we explore how a teenage survivor from a Hasidic family became the eloquent embodiment of Holocaust remembrance and of forceful opposition to indifference.

Mel Brooks, born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn in 1926, is one of the great comic voices of the twentieth century

Join us with Jeremy Dauber, author of the new Jewish Lives biography Mel Brooks: Disobedient Jew, as we explore how Brooks’s American Jewish humor went from being solely for niche audiences to an essential part of the American mainstream, paving the way for generations of Jewish (and other) comedians to come.

Born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz, Jerome Robbins (1918–1998) was a master choreographer, dancer, and stage director, most famous for his stage productions of West Side Story, Peter Pan, and Fiddler on the Roof.

Join us with Wendy Lesser, author of the Jewish Lives biography Jerome Robbins: A Life in Dance, as we explore Robbins’s life through his major dances in ballet, Broadway, and film.

Music in this episode: 

Claude Debussy - Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun