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Dune: Part 2, now streaming on Max, continues the sprawling epic adapted from Frank Herbert’s legendary sci-fi series. Featuring an all-powerful psychotropic mineral, a race of space witches, personal force fields, giant sandworms, Dune explores themes such as power, greed, the nature of heroism, and intersectional liberation — topics about which Judaism also has a […]

Marvel Animation’s X-Men ’97, now streaming on Disney+, is a reboot/sequel to the X-Men animated series that was beloved by older Millennials who grew up in the ‘90s. The sequel is smoother and shinier, but still possesses the same spirit that made the original series so popular: mutant melodrama and pulse-pounding action set-pieces, combined with thinly-veiled political commentary […]

The third installment in PopTorah’s ongoing conversation about Taylor Swift, our resident rabbinic Swifties discuss her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” Spoiler alert: the reviews were decidedly mixed, and prompted some spirited conversation. We suspect many of you have strong feelings as well. Was it poetry? Or was it torture? (Don’t say we didn’t, […]

The new film, ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,’ a sequel to the ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ is a thing that exists. But should it? Rabbis Knopf and Olitzky have feelings. Is there something strange in the neighborhood? Are we ‘ready to believe’? Or is it just a matter of “If there’s a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe anything […]

The new AppleTV+ series ‘Manhunt’, adapted from James L. Swanson’s eponymous book, follows the 12 day search for Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. As the hunt for Booth unfolds, it exposes a deeper conspiracy — one aimed at restoring white men to political dominance, despite the South losing the war. In this episode, Rabbis […]

The 96th Academy Awards are behind us, and Rabbis Knopf and Olitzky are here to talk about the Torah of this year’s nominees. In this special episode, we discuss Oppenheimer, Barbie, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest, and more! Who won, who lost, who was snubbed, who stirred controversy, and who got the coveted “PopTorah Bump”? […]