Jewish Questions: Anti-Semitism

UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies

Jewish Questions is the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies' podcast on issues that matter now in Jewish life, politics, history and culture — from a scholarly perspective. This season, hosts Laurie Marhoefer and Noam Pianko look at anti-Semitism: what it is, its long history, and how we can push back against it today. The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies is a part of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Episodes

  1. 03/16/2025

    Today's Campus Conflicts and the Future of Jewish Studies

    Media and political attention are focused on college campuses, and Jews figure prominently in these debates. Jewish Studies programs now find themselves at ground zero of public debates around academic freedom, antisemitism, and the role of higher education. On March 11, 2025, philosopher Dr. Gilah Kletenik and historian Dr. Devin E. Naar engaged in a conversation moderated by Dr. Daniel Heller to reflect on key questions provoked by our current moment. The event took place on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington.

    1h 7m

  2. 08/15/2022

    Spanish & Portuguese Citizenship Oral Histories: Colette Capriles

    Spanish & Portuguese Citizenship Oral Histories: Colette Capriles by UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies

    6 min
  3. Episode 5: Before Zionism

    02/03/2021

    Episode 5: Before Zionism

    Present-day discussions of anti-Semitism often involve Israel and the Zionist movement... but before the 20th century, Jews' and Jewish scholars' understandings of anti-Semitism were completely connected with Europe and Christianity. In the final episode of the season, guest Liora R. Halperin looks at how 19th-century Jewish settlers to Palestine were influenced by the anti-Semitism they had experienced in the Russian Empire: how it shaped their perceptions of their new home (or didn't), and what we can learn from their story today.

    31 min
  4. Episode 4: Jewish Anti-Semitism?

    01/27/2021

    Episode 4: Jewish Anti-Semitism?

    Can Jews be anti-Semitic against other Jews? In this episode, guest Devin E. Naar looks at the history of Jewish prejudice against other Jews in the United States, from the very first American Jewish settlers in the 1600s to twentieth-century efforts to exclude Jews from the Muslim world from Jewish institutions — as the American Jewish community struggled to hold on to its "precarious whiteness."

    32 min
  5. Episode 3: Being Jewish in Medieval Spain

    01/20/2021

    Episode 3: Being Jewish in Medieval Spain

    Has anti-Semitism always been the same, or have ideas about Jewishness, and suspicion towards Jews, changed over time? In this episode, guest Ana Gómez-Bravo explores these questions by looking at the lives of Jews and "conversos" (Jewish converts to Christianity) in medieval Spain, explaining how Catholic authorities tried to define and restrict their Jewish and converso residents, in a conversation that spans medieval medicine, forbidden breastfeeding, decoy hams, official guides to Jewishness, and the expulsion of Jews in 1492.

    28 min
  6. Episode 2: The Rise of Nazi Germany

    01/13/2021

    Episode 2: The Rise of Nazi Germany

    We generally connect Germany with anti-Semitism, but in the early twentieth century, Germany was actually considered one of the best places in the world to be Jewish. How and why did the progressive Weimar Republic give way to the genocidal Nazi regime... and could it happen here? In this episode, guest Laurie Marhoefer explains the rise of the Nazi party in one of the one progressive places in the world, detailing the swift and dramatic shift in government, efforts to resist, and troubling echoes of these events in the present day.

    30 min
  7. Episode 1: Anti-Semitism in the United States

    01/06/2021

    Episode 1: Anti-Semitism in the United States

    The United States was the country where Jews came to finally be free from anti-Semitism... or was it? Historians of the modern era tend to think of the U.S. as an exceptional place for Jews — a place where Jewish people have been able to exist in relative freedom from violence and prejudice. But is this common understanding of the United States as "the exception" accurate? In this episode, guest Susan A. Glenn discusses the history of anti-Semitism in the U.S., touching on the Second Ku Klux Klan, anti-Semitic industrialist Henry Ford, the "mother of all conspiracy theories," the secret rehabilitation of Nazi war criminals, and the resurgence of anti-Semitism in the U.S. in the present day. In this five-part inaugural season of "Jewish Questions," the Stroum Center's podcast series, hosts Laurie Marhoefer and Noam Pianko delve into the causes and consequences of anti-Semitism across history with faculty experts from the University of Washington.

    31 min
  • 7 Episodes

4.9
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Jewish Questions is the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies' podcast on issues that matter now in Jewish life, politics, history and culture — from a scholarly perspective. This season, hosts Laurie Marhoefer and Noam Pianko look at anti-Semitism: what it is, its long history, and how we can push back against it today. The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies is a part of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Information

  • Creator
    UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2025
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Jewish Questions: Anti-Semitism