The College Commons Podcast

HUC-JIR
  • 4.8 (25)
  • Judaism
  • Updated Biweekly

The College Commons Podcast, passionate perspectives from Judaism's leading thinkers, is produced by Hebrew Union College, America's first Jewish institution of higher learning.

  1. Michael Meyer: Hebrew Union College at 100 Years – 50 years ago!

    4d ago

    Michael Meyer: Hebrew Union College at 100 Years – 50 years ago!

    Description: The historian behind the history of HUC: Michael Meyer takes us on a sesquicentennial journey of American Judaism. Biography: Michael A. Meyer received his B.A. from UCLA and his doctorate from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. From 1964 to 1967, he taught at the Los Angeles campus of HUC. Since 1967 he has been on the faculty of HUC’s Cincinnati campus, where he is currently the Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History Emeritus. Professor Meyer also taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem campus of HUC, and the University of Haifa and Ben Gurion University. Professor Meyer’s books have won three Jewish Book Awards, including The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749-1824 (1967); Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (1988); Jewish Identity in the Modern World (1990); and a collection of essays entitled Judaism Within Modernity (2001). He has published more than two hundred articles and longer reviews. Professor Meyer was president of the Association for Jewish Studies, chaired the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History in New York, and served as international president of the Leo Baeck Institute. His two most recent books are Rabbi Leo Baeck: Living a Religious Imperative in Troubled Times (2021) and Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler (2025).

    49 min
  2. David Mendelsson: Looking at 56 Years of HUC in Israel

    May 28

    David Mendelsson: Looking at 56 Years of HUC in Israel

    Description: Professor Emeritus David Mendelsson looks back at a half-century of momentous change for HUC in Israel. Biography: David Mendelsson recently stepped down as Director of the Year-in-Israel program at Hebrew Union College/Jerusalem where he fulfilled this role for eight years. Aside from lecturing at Hebrew Union College in the field of Israel Studies and Modern Jewish History, David also lectures at the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University. He has been scholar-in-residence at the University of Southern California, Brandeis University, and Michigan State University. He has lectured widely in the United States to various Jewish agencies and in Israel to multiple groups of visitors to the country. David completed his doctorate and M.A. in the Department of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University and received his undergraduate degree at Manchester University, England. The subject of his doctorate was the History of Jewish Education in England between 1944-88 which was published by Peter Lang. David lives in Mevaseret Zion with his partner, Dalia. They have three children, Galit, Yael, and Itai.

    29 min
  3. Judah Cohen: Soundscape of the Soul

    May 14

    Judah Cohen: Soundscape of the Soul

    Soundscape of the Soul Jewish Music transplanted from Europe to American, via Hebrew Union College. Judah M. Cohen, Ph.D. is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College. Cohen previously served as the Lou & Sybil Professor of Jewish Culture in the Indiana University Borns Jewish Studies Program and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, Research and Creative Activity at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Over the course of four books and over 50 articles, Cohen has explored the idea of Jewish cultural expression as a dynamic and ever-changing process. His research interests include music in Jewish life, American music, musical theater, popular culture, Caribbean Jewish history, diaspora, and medical ethnomusicology. His training as a musicologist and an anthropologist, and his professional activity within Jewish studies, has allowed him to explore many aspects of Jewish culture and history. Cohen holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from Harvard, and for his doctoral work he explored the meaning of becoming a Reform Jewish cantor at the turn of the twenty-first century, based on three years of ethnographic study with cantorial students. In his first book, Through the Sands of Time: A History of the Jewish Community of St. Thomas, U.S.V.I., he offered both a historical narrative and a meditation on writing the history of a small community. Subsequent projects have led him to investigate the history of Jewish music scholarship in the United States, musical theater works that address Holocaust memory, contemporary forms of Jewish musical expression and musical representations of such cultural figures as Anne Frank and Shylock. His other books include The Making of a Reform Jewish Cantor (2009); Sounding Jewish Tradition: The Music of Central Synagogue (2011), which received the Greater Hudson Heritage Network Award for Excellence; and Jewish Religious Music in Nineteenth Century America: Restoring the Synagogue Soundtrack (2019). Throughout his research, he has focused on the idea of Jewish cultural expression as a dynamic and ever-changing process, created and recreated over time by artists, religious leaders, philosophers and activists. He has aimed to understand this idea largely through the prism of sound and its relationship to ideas of Jewish identity.

    26 min
  4. Jessica Roda: Sacred Drugs - Jews, Psychedelics, and Healing (An HUC Connect Crossover Episode)

    Apr 30

    Jessica Roda: Sacred Drugs - Jews, Psychedelics, and Healing (An HUC Connect Crossover Episode)

    Jessica Roda: Sacred Drugs - Jews, Psychedelics, and Healing (An HUC Connect Crossover Episode) 2026 Fritz A. Bamberger Lecture As interest in psychedelics grows once again, people from many backgrounds—biomedical researchers, religious leaders, spiritual practitioners, and healing communities—are exploring their potential in new ways. Unlike the early psychedelic movements that emerged before the War on Drugs, today’s revival is strongly focused on legitimizing these practices through the lens of mental health and well‑being. Within this broader movement, ultra‑Orthodox Jewish communities have begun engaging with psychedelics in surprising and innovative ways. For many participants, these psychedelic practices reveal a desire to detach from the suffering produced by highly controlled societies and an attempt to find better alignment with one’s inner self. Biography: Jessica Roda is Associate Professor of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. An anthropologist and ethnomusicologist trained in Europe and North America, her research explores the intersections of music, religion, cultural heritage, gender, health, and media. Her latest monograph, For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy through the Arts in the Digital Age (NYU Press, 2024), analyzes how ultra-Orthodox Jewish women, and women who have left religious life, mobilize artistic practices, performance, and digital media to negotiate, challenge, and transform religious authority and gendered norms. The work has received multiple distinctions, including the Cashmere Award from the AJS Women’s Caucus (2021), the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Award (2021), the 2024 Society for Ethnomusicology Jewish Music Special Interest Group Prize, and it was shortlisted for the 2025 Religion and the Arts Book Award from the American Academy of Religion. Her current research examines altered states of consciousness, breathwork, and psychedelics, focusing on how global wellness cultures and plant-based healing practices are translated and reframed within Jewish theological and communal contexts.

    35 min
  5. Charlie Scheidt - Hidden in the Armoire: Living History of the Shoah

    Apr 15

    Charlie Scheidt - Hidden in the Armoire: Living History of the Shoah

    Charlie Scheidt follows the forgotten trail of his family from Europe to the United States. Charlie Scheidt is the chairman emeritus of Roland Foods, the company founded by his parents in 1939. Among his leadership roles, he is active with the Leo Baeck Institute and sits on the board of the Auschwitz Institute for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities. On her deathbed, Charlie’s mother, the last survivor of the generation of the Holocaust, directed him to files from the armoire. 20 years later, Together with Austrian filmmaker, Kat Rohrer, Charlie began to investigate those files. Together, the two began a journey of discovery, retracing his family’s steps through Germany, France, Holland, and ultimately to the US. The result is the book Inheritance: Love, Loss and the Legacy of the Holocaust which came out in March 2026 from Rutgers University Press.

    21 min
  6. David B. Oppenheimer: Great Minds, It Turns Out, Think Differently

    Mar 30

    David B. Oppenheimer: Great Minds, It Turns Out, Think Differently

    David Oppenheimer traces the diversity principle back two centuries. Biography: David B. Oppenheimer is a Clinical Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Pro Bono Program, and the Director of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-discrimination Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at a number of universities, including the Sorbonne and University of Bologna, and published widely, including, among others, his most recent book, The Diversity Principle.

    24 min
  7. Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein: The rabbinate is changing faster than it’s shrinking (but it’s also shrinking)

    Mar 17

    Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein: The rabbinate is changing faster than it’s shrinking (but it’s also shrinking)

    Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein: The rabbinate is changing faster than it’s shrinking (but it’s also shrinking) Description: Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein breaks down a landmark study of road to the rabbinate. Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein is the Executive Director of Atra: Center for Rabbinic Innovation. Previously, Rabbi Epstein served as Executive Director of the 14th Street Y in Manhattan, and as a member of the faculty of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. Rabbi Epstein publishes and teaches widely in the Jewish community, and has served at various congregations, Jewish youth groups and summer camps as an educator. In her current role at Atra: Center for Rabbinic Innovation, she oversaw the publication of a landmark study that came out in November of 2025, titled “From Calling to Career: Mapping the Current State and Future of Rabbinic Leadership.”

    26 min
  8. Rabbi Michael Zedek: Sit by the Fire and Tell a Story

    Mar 3

    Rabbi Michael Zedek: Sit by the Fire and Tell a Story

    Sit by the Fire and Tell a Story Description: Rabbi Michael Zedek shares his stories and the values the drive them. Biography: Michael Zedek is rabbi emeritus of two wonderful synagogues: Emanuel Congregation in Chicago and Temple B’nai Yehudah in Kansas City, Missouri. After his retirement from Emanuel, he served as senior advisor to the CCAR and now serves as rabbi-in-residence at the St. Paul School of Theology. A dedicated community activist, scholar, and teacher, Rabbi Zedek received a Fulbright-Hays Grant, and he was honored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In 2025, Rabbi Zedek published the book titled “People Are Like…” with the subtitle “Stories for young readers and readers who wish to stay young.”

    18 min
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4.8
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25 Ratings

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The College Commons Podcast, passionate perspectives from Judaism's leading thinkers, is produced by Hebrew Union College, America's first Jewish institution of higher learning.

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