Vox Tablet

More than a decade ago, an Italian-born Jerusalem-based singer named Shulamit learned of a collection of songs composed in concentration camps during WWII. Written by a handful of women most of whom perished in the war, the songs nearly possessed her. Shulamit began performing them, and in 2013 started working with trumpet player Frank London, of the Klezmatics, and the Israeli pianist Shai Bachar, to make arrangements and adaptations for an album. That album, called For You the Sun Will Shine: Songs of Women in the Shoa, is now out. From her apartment in Jerusalem, Shulamit tells Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry about the individual women who wrote these lyrics, about how she protects herself from being overwhelmed by the songs’ tragic content, and about how she turned, at age 40, from psychotherapy to music.

These days it’d be pretty hard to walk without a ticket onto a boarding airplane bound for an international locale. Between the TSA and sniffer dogs, any would-be stowaway would likely see the inside of a jail cell pretty fast. But before September 11, in fact, before 1970, it wasn’t quite as challenging. When Victor Rodack, now a psychiatrist in his 60s, was a young teenager he had but one dream: to get to Israel. He tells Vox Tablet producer Julie Subrin exactly how he made that dream come true. Bonus track: Listen to Victor’s press conference at JFK Airport, just after he landed back in the United States. (Thanks to Victor Rodack and Paul Ruest for making this archival interview available.) A page from Victor’s album of news clippings: Victor and his parents at JFK upon his return from Israel. (Photo courtesy Victor Rodack)

The 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was known for many things, among them his humble origins, his commitment to ending slavery, his assassination exactly 150 years ago at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Less well-parsed were his relationships with Jews. And there were many such ties. Lincoln and the Jews, by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, examines scores of documents and archival materials to show that Lincoln befriended many Jews and also worked to include them in various strata of government. Sarna, a historian at Brandeis University, joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss the origins of this particular project, how the foot doctor, Issachar Zacharie, came to be so important to Lincoln, and where president’s openness to contemporary Jews came from.

What do we talk about at Passover? Slavery, plagues, food, and of course all the unforgettable stories from Seders past. In this Passover special, produced by Vox Tablet for public radio stations (and you), we’ve got all that and more—hosted by Sara Ivry and Jonathan Goldstein, with stories from Etgar Keret, Sally Herships, Debbie Nathan, Michael Twitty, and Jonathan Groubert. We’ll Be Here All Night, Part 1: Plagues Co-host Jonathan Goldstein speaks with writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret about the narrative strengths and weaknesses of the Passover story, ending with an animated discussion of the 10 plagues. Next, reporter Sally Herships takes us into the home of Abigail Rosenfeld, one of Brooklyn’s “lice ladies,” the women (usually Orthodox Jews) who make a living helping desperate parents rid their schoolchildren of this “plague.” Extra: Read Etgar Keret’s story “Plague of the First Born” Extra: Extended conversation—Jonathan Goldstein & Etgar Keret We’ll Be Here All Night, Part 2: Slavery Reporter Debbie Nathan shares a story about learning that her Southern Jewish great-great-grandparents owned slaves in Mississippi. We’ll Be Here All Night, Part 3: The Seder Michael Twitty, a Washington, D.C.-based food historian and Jewish educator, talks about how he’s adapted one of Passover’s symbolic rituals to reflect his ancestors’ slave history. Then radio journalist Jonathan Groubert recounts the old-school joke his dad used to tell at the Seder year after year. Extra: Michael Twitty’s recipe for Berbere Brisket Have some feedback? Email us at podcast@tabletmag.com.

Marcus Rothkowitz was born in 1903 in Dvinsk, a town in the Pale of Settlement. As a child, he moved with his family to the United States. It was a journey that changed his life—and that of the world of modern art. Rothkowitz grew up to become the painter Mark Rothko. He’s the focus of Mark Rothko: Toward the Light in the Chapel, a new biography by Annie Cohen-Solal. She joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss Rothko’s revolutionary approach to painting, his ideas about the role of the artist in society, and what made him a Jewish artist. Plus, get ready for a Vox Tablet Passover extravaganza. We’ve got a sneak preview.

The Book of Esther is among the Bible’s shortest stories. It tells the tale of a young Jewish woman who saves her people from a genocidal plot conceived of by Haman, an adviser to King Ahasuerus. It’s a story Jews around the world celebrate on Purim with costumes and revelry. Robert Alter, a professor of comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley, has been working for years on new translations of all the books of the Bible. Included in the most recent edition of project, Strong as Death Is Love, is Alter’s take on the Book of Esther. In living so closely with the Esther text, Alter has come to see the story as a great farce or satire. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to offer his theories as to why the Book of Esther, one of the few to omit God’s name, was made part of the Bible, to share insights on the racy euphemisms that appear in Esther’s story, and to explain what Mardi Gras has to do with it all. Plus, if Purim’s here, Passover isn’t far behind. To get ready, Deena Robertson shares an unforgettable tale about matzo balls. And Vox Tablet listeners are invited to send in their own anecdotes of Seders past.

Tablet Magazine’s Matthew Fishbane likes to find Jews far from home. He’s reported from Venezuela, the Solomon Islands, and Uganda. His latest assignment took him to Manipur, India, where people from disparate hill tribes who identify themselves as Jewish—and who are known as the Bnei Menashe—prepared to make aliyah. Fishbane was there shadowing Michael Freund, an Orthodox Jew who is something of a savior to these people and who has spent 17 years working to bring hidden Jews and descendants of Lost Tribes back into the fold. Fishbane joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss what drives Freund, how members of previous migrations of Bnei Menashe have fared in their new home, and the geopolitical implications of Freund’s activity. Plus, Victoria Hanna’s new music video has exploded online. It mashes up the Hebrew alphabet with hip-hop beats and dance movements that seem like letters in a secret alphabet. She tells Daniel Estrin what it’s all about.

Valentine’s Day is not native to Israel, but the country does not lack for tales of love and romance (or pursuit thereof). In this, our sixth and final episode of Israel Story’s first season, we bring you some of those. Writer, director, and actor Ghazi Albuliwi looks back at the twists and turns of his arranged marriage in Tulkarm. A husband and wife in their sixties look back at their 37 years together. Mishy Harman eavesdrops on the matchmaking quest of his downstairs neighbor. And an Israeli and a Palestinian confront the barriers to love. Listen to the full episode here, or download from iTunes. (You can find all episodes of Sipur Israeli, the Hebrew version of Israel Story, here, and all our English-language episodes here.) Prologue: What Does Love Sound Like? Act 1: The Queen Rania Tree (by Shoshi Shmuluvitz, with production help from Tarek Fouda and music by Podington Bear) Act 2: Michael and Leah (by Benny Becker, with original music by Collin Oldham) Act 3: It’s Been Six Dates (production help from Jonathan Groubert, with music by Latché Swing, John Zorn, OK Ikumi, and Zee Avi) Act 4: Checkpoints and Secrets (by Daniel Estrin)

“Pack peddlers,” known in other parts of the world as smous, ambulantes, kloppers, weekly men, and a host of other names, are a staple of Jewish family lore everyplace that Jews headed when they left Europe starting in the 19th century. But the specifics of that job, and the impact it had on Jews’ success or failure in their new homelands, have not been much considered until now. In Roads Taken: The Great Jewish Migrations to the New World and the Peddlers Who Forged the Way, New York University historian Hasia Diner examines what the lives of Jewish peddlers were really like day to day. Where did they sleep every night? What did they sell and to whom? What became of their wives, if they had them, when they went away? What kinds of barriers—in terms of race, religion, and gender—did they cross when they walked into a new home? Diner joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss both the nitty-gritty and the larger issues of how workers in the peddling trade helped Jews integrate in new societies. Plus, Zak Rosen shadows two boys in suburban Detroit at the beginning of their bar mitzvah preparations—specifically, that bewildering stage when they embark on 12 weeks of dance classes at Joe Cornell Entertainment so they can learn to ask a girl onto the dance floor and not embarrass themselves once they’re there.

When journalist Roger Cohen was just 3 years old, in 1958, his mother underwent electroshock treatment. Raised in South Africa, June Cohen, who was later diagnosed with manic depression, had moved with Roger’s father to England just a couple of years earlier. Immigrants in England, they’d chosen to uproot themselves from Johannesburg and the warm embrace they’d known there. Their own families were themselves immigrants to South Africa—they’d skirted the Holocaust, leaving Lithuania before the Nazi reign of terror but in a period when Europe was increasingly hostile to Jews. Along with a genetic predisposition, Cohen believes all this dislocation may have contributed to his mother’s condition. What exactly was the connection between moving and mental illness? What part did the dark shadow of violence in Europe and South Africa play in June Cohen’s unraveling—and in that of relatives who similarly suffered? These are some of the questions Roger Cohen examines in The Girl From Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family. He joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to talk about the role his family—and Jews in general—played in helping found Johannesburg, the self-effacement he saw among the Jews in England where he grew up, and the stash of letters in his father’s attic in Wales that propelled him finally to turn his reportorial gaze inward. Plus, Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry checks in with Daniel Estrin from Jerusalem. Estrin, a frequent Vox Tablet contributor, is just back from Paris, where he reported on Jews and Muslims there in the days following the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher. He shares a few impressions from his trip.

The fate of Israel has long been seen by religious people of various stripes as intimately tied to cows. In the beginning, there was Moses’ battle over the Golden Calf, in which he struggled to bring his people around to monotheism. Then came the folks who believe, based on a passage in the Book of Numbers, that an essential step for hastening the coming of the Messiah is the sacrifice of a red heifer. In this episode of Israel Story, we bring together stories of these and other instances of bovine worship. Yochai Maital traces the origins of 269, a radical vegan movement spawned by Sasha Bojoor and named after a sweet-looking slaughterhouse-bound calf that Bojoor and two fellow activists designated as their mascot. “Free 269” became their rallying cry. Mishy Harman introduces us to Dubi Ayalon, a retired IDF lieutenant-colonel now living in remote Wisconsin and raising water buffalo for milk. Finally, writer and radio host Jonathan Goldstein offers us a sly and bittersweet interpretation of Moses’ battle against idol worship, told from the disaffected perspective of the youngest employee of Gomer and Sons, whose golden calf business faces its fiercest competition yet: God. Listen to the full episode here, or download from iTunes. (You can find all episodes of Sipur Israeli, the Hebrew version of Israel Story, here, and all our English-language episodes here.) Prologue: Do We Have a Red Heifer Today? (music by Podington Bear and Unthunk) Act 1: 269 Act 2: Hello, Buffalo (production help from Anny Celsi, and music by Rich McCulley, Nathan Bowles and Angelo Badalamenti) Act 3: Gomer & Sons (production help from Jonathan Groubert, and music by the Underscore Orkestra, Latche Swing, OK Ikumi, and Alexandre Klinke)

[Podcast audio below.] Roz Chast is best known for her New Yorker comics—colorful and witty depictions of everyday humiliations and grievances. Often those come at the hands of the people closest to her: family members. In Chast’s recent book, a graphic memoir called Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? that has rightfully earned a place on many annual lists of the year’s best new non-fiction, she tells the story of her parents. In particular, she looks back at how, as an only child, she dealt with their steep decline at the end of their lives—with love and sadness, but also with frustration and guilt. It’s a poignant and often unexpectedly hilarious account and one that confronts head-on a dilemma most of us will face at some point if we haven’t already: figuring out what to do with an elderly relative who can no longer look after him- or herself. Vox Tablet’s Julie Subrin visited with Chast in her Connecticut home last spring to talk about Chast’s reasons for delving into this depressing terrain and how the daughter of two extremely high-strung and rather humorless Depression-scarred parents stuck in the backwaters of Jewish Brooklyn became a successful and very funny cartoon artist. This story was originally published on May 6, 2014.

It all started back in 2001, when Sarajevo-born folk singer Flory Jagoda invited roughly a dozen other Sephardim in the Washington area to join her for conversation over burekas and bumuelos (fritters, or doughnuts). More specifically, she invited them for conversation in Judeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino, the language spoken by Jews in medieval Spain and later in the far-flung lands to which they fled after the expulsion in 1492. Today, the language is all but forgotten, except by those like Jagoda who spoke it growing up. The group has grown to include more than 20 participants. At their monthly meetings—which members call vijitas de al’had, or “Sunday visits,” after a centuries-old tradition from the Old Country—the men and women eat Sephardic treats, sing songs, and study a Judeo-Spanish reading exercise, complete with vocabulary lists. Vox Tablet’s Julie Subrin visited their annual Hanukkah gathering in 2008 for this audio postcard from our archives. This story was originally published on Dec. 14, 2009.

When some of the Tablet staff started talking about Hanukkah, it became apparent how little we could assert about the holiday’s particulars. Some knew it involved violence. Others that there was eight days’ worth of oil to light a menorah. Still others that the word “Hanukkah” means dedication. But how did those elements fit together in an origin story? To find out, we asked Tablet readers and friends to send in their take of the Hanukkah story. Many people obliged us—you can find a terrific mash-up of their answers here: And we had winners! Joanna Brichetto sent us the best response, though Henry Alford gets a shout-out for humor; David Tuchman for poetic invention; and Miriam Newman for being so knowledgeable at the tender age of 8. (These four winning entries are available for listening below.) Then, we sought out an expert, Alfred Ivry, a professor of Jewish philosophy and father of Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry, to help clear up collective confusion.

David Ben-Gurion looms so large in Israel’s mythology, it’s like he’s George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln all rolled into one—the country’s Founding Father and the architect of many of its earliest and most crucial achievements. But maybe the comparison with America’s greatest presidents is flawed, for while we love nothing more than to discover the humanity of our historical leaders—Washington chopping down that cherry tree, Jefferson and his indiscretions, Lincoln’s melancholia—Ben-Gurion does not lend himself to such intimacy. He appears to be as inscrutable as he is inevitable, there in every major juncture in Israeli history yet never really familiar. That is, until now: In her new biography, Ben-Gurion, Anita Shapira, one of Israel’s most accomplished historians, offers an elegant summary of Ben-Gurion’s life and achievements, as well as uncommon insight into the man he was, exploring the lifelong friendships he made, and the passions—some political, some fiercely personal—that propelled him forward. Shapira is the recipient of the Israel Prize, the nation’s highest scholarly honor, a professor of the study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University, and the author of numerous best-selling books, including, most recently, Israel: A History. She speaks with Tablet writer Liel Leibovitz about Ben-Gurion’s unpromising beginnings, his faith in the power of a leader to save a country, and an unforgettable visit she paid to him back when she was a young, unknown scholar and he was very much in retirement.