Evolve
Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations
We found 8 episodes of Evolve with the tag “jewish”.
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Episode 44: High Holidays: Making Your Soul a Vessel for Change
August 31st, 2023 | Season 1 | 1 hr 7 mins
high holidays, jew, jewish, judaism, reconstructionist, rosh hashanah, yom kippur
In this pre-High Holidays episode, Bryan Schwartzman asks Rabbi Nathan Kamesar how he prepares to lead Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services. They discuss ways people can the most out of the holidays, whether they go to synagogue or not.
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Episode 43: Reconstructionist Jews and the Struggle Over Israel’s Future
July 20th, 2023 | Season 1 | 1 hr 5 mins
israel, jewish, judiasm, politics, protests, zion, zionism
Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., Reconstructing Judaism's president & CEO, and Rabbi Maurice Harris, Reconstructing Judaism’s Israel affairs specialist, have each just spent extended stays in Israel, immersed in conversations about its future as well as its relationship with Diaspora Jewry. They make an impassioned, moral defense of sustained engagement with Israel, even as they take a principled opposition to the government's attempts to strip away the country’s democratic character.
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Episode 39: Passover (and Judaism) Disrupted
March 29th, 2023 | Season 1 | 1 hr 3 mins
four questions, jewish, judaism, passover, ritual, spirituality
Rabbi Michael Strassfeld's new book, “Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century” argues that, some 2,000 years after the birth of rabbinic Judaism, it’s time to fashion Judaism into something new. A few weeks before Passover, he talks with us about how his ideas might apply to the Passover seder, and presents four new, alternate questions.
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Episode 34: The Need for Affinity Spaces for Jews of Color
October 26th, 2022 | Season 1 | 57 mins 16 secs
ammud, interview, jewish, jews of color, judaism, reconstructing judaism, reconstructionist, torah, yeshiva
Imagine if there were a digital yeshiva where Jews of Color could gather to learn Torah and Jewish practices in a safe, supportive atmosphere in which no one’s Jewishness is questioned. Good news, Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy already exists! In this episode, we speak with Ammud's executive director, Alexandra Corwin, and delve into why Jews of Color need affinity spaces and how such spaces can benefit all Jewish communities.
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Episode 31: Rethinking the Circumcision Part 1, with Gary Shteyngart and Max Buckler
July 27th, 2022 | Season 1 | 1 hr 9 mins
circumcision, evolve, jewish, shteyngart
In the first of a two-part series examining circumcision, we talk with two critics of the practice: best-selling novelist and memoirist Gary Shteyngart and Max Buckler, author of the Evolve essay, “Be Honest About the Bris.” We discuss circumcision from the perspective of morality, Jewish tradition, medicine gender norms and the rights of parents and children.
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Episode 25: 'Adoption Isn’t a Bad Thing, It’s a Tricky Thing'
November 29th, 2021 | Season 1 | 40 mins 58 secs
adoption, evolve, jewish
The process of adoption is often thought of as children in need of a loving home being matched with couples who get to fulfill deferred dreams of becoming parents. It’s a win-win, right? Minna Scherlinder Morse, a writer and editor as well as an adoptive parent, says the reality and the history is far more nuanced.
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Episode 23: Hidden Jews in the 21st Century
August 17th, 2021 | Season 1 | 1 hr 2 mins
conversation, conversion, interview, jewish, judiasm
In the past few decades, descendants of Jews who had been forced to flee, convert, or hide Jewish practices during the Inquisition have been seeking to reconnect with Jewish communities. At times, they have been embraced, other times shunned, and, too often, encountered Jewish experiences that didn’t authentically reflect their Sephardic roots.
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Episode 22: Hope as an Ethical Imperative
July 22nd, 2021 | Season 1 | 52 mins 48 secs
breitman, evolve, hope, jewish, judaism, spiritual direction, staub, therapy
In Barbara Breitman’s telling, hope isn't "some fluffy thing." It's an essential Jewish practice. Hope enables leaders to imagine a different world and work to bring it out about no matter what obstacles stand in the way. Breitman, a spiritual director, therapist and scholar of religion, cites Moses, Noah and Mordechai as Biblical characters who embody this kind of hope. How can ordinary people emulate these examples?