Judaism Unbound Institute for the Next Jewish Future

Elijah the prophet is a popular guy! To our knowledge, he is the only person invited to every Passover Seder in the world -- and even encouraged to drink wine at each one of those Seders (drink responsibly, Elijah). But uhhh....who exactly is he? If you've opened the door for this fella every year, but never known exactly what his story is, this is the conversation for you! Daniel Matt, scholar of Jewish mysticism and author of the book Becoming Elijah: Prophet of Transformation, joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg to dive into the nearly-3000-year (and still-evolving!) biography of Elijah the Prophet.

Register for our 3-week mini-courses in the UnYeshiva -- a digital center for Jewish learning and unlearing -- by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes! The next block of mini-courses begins in mid-April.

Catherine Horowitz, the 2022-23 New Voices Magazine/Judaism Unbound fellow, joins Lex Rofeberg for a conversation on how TV, and the way we watch it, creates ritual. They also discuss how we can use TV to further shape our religious practices and communities. Access full shownotes for this episode via this link.

Register for our 3-week mini-courses in the UnYeshiva -- a digital center for Jewish learning and unlearing -- by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes! The next block of mini-courses begins in mid-April.

This bonus episode of Judaism Unbound is presented in partnership with Theatre Dybbuk. We are proud to feature their third season's fourth episode as a bonus episode here on Judaism Unbound's feed. In each episode, they bring poems, plays, and other creative texts from throughout history to life, all while revealing their relationships to issues still present today. Subscribe to The Dybbukast on Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else that podcasts are found.

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In this second of The Dybbukast's five-episode series with the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University (NEJS), they explore "The Imagined Childhood,” a short story originally published in Hebrew in 1979. Written by the prolific 20th-century Iraqi-born Israeli author Shimon Ballas, the story served as an epilogue to a collection of short stories whose narratives intersect with the author's early life in Baghdad.

Yuval Evri, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi, and Sephardic Jewish Studies, takes us through the author's immigrant history and his multilingual engagement in Arabic, Hebrew, and French throughout his body of work.

The Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) is a Gen Z-led movement dedicated to combating climate change and environmental injustice from a Jewish lens. Two of its activists, Isaac Ostrow and Sophie Raskin, join Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about JYCM's recent trip to COP-27 (the United Nations' Climate Change Conference).

Register for our 3-week mini-courses in the UnYeshiva -- a digital center for Jewish learning and unlearing -- by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/classes! The next block of mini-courses begins in mid-April.

Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg offer their perspectives on spirituality, in the final episode of a 12-episode mini-series focused on Jewish spirituality, featuring a wide variety of thinkers, practitioners, writers, performers, and more. They also announce some exciting news, for Judaism Unbound and for the Jewish collective as a whole!

Learn more about Judaism Unbound's UnYeshiva -- a digital center for Jewish learning and unlearing -- by heading to www.judaismunbound.com/unyeshiva. And if you're enjoying Judaism Unbound, please help us keep things going with a one-time, or monthly, tax-deductible donation -- via JudaismUnbound.com/donate.

Ariel Mayse serves as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, and is the co-author of the two-volume A New Hasidism: Roots and A New Hasidism: Branches, with Arthur Green. Mayse joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation exploring the history of Jewish mysticism, from the Hebrew Bible through today. This episode is the 11th episode in an ongoing mini-series focused on Jewish spirituality.