Unorthodox

This week’s episode was recorded live at Hebrew College in Newton, Mass. We’re joined by three great guests to talk about the never evening presidential election. Our first Jewish guest is Jeremy Hobson, co-host of NPR’s "Here and Now," who has traveled the country to talk to voters about why they support Donald Trump. Our second Jewish guest is Boston Globe op-ed columnist Jeff Jacoby, the lone conservative voice at the newspaper. Our Gentile of the Week is General Tom Hill, a highly decorated combat infantryman and diplomat who retired from the U.S. Army after 36 years of active service to the nation, who explains why he thinks high-ranking military officers shouldn’t involve themselves in elections.We’re also treated to some new songs, performed live by our in-house Jewbadour, Jim Knable. Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints, and we may share your letter on air!Today’s episode is brought to you by Harry’s. For a great shave at an affordable price, go to Harrys.com and use promo code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get their free trial set and post-shave balm.Today’s episode is also brought to you by Primary, offering stylish basics for babies and kids in fun colors and soft fabrics, all under $25. Go to Primary.com/unorthodox and use the promo code UNORTHODOX to save 25% off your first purchase, AND free shipping!

Boston-area listeners, join us for our live show tonight at Hebrew College in Newton, Mass, at 7:30 p.m.—tickets available here. This week on Unorthodox, Bar Refaeli gets pixelated. Our Gentile of the Week is Sohrab Ahmari, a London-based editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal and the author of The New Philistines: How Identity Politics Disfigure the Arts. He tells us about watching the presidential election from abroad and his ongoing conversion to Catholicism. Our Jewish guest is filmmaker and anthropologist Noam Osband, who profiled Baruch Marzel, one of the leaders of Israel's far-right—and a distant relative of Osband’s—for his latest documentary, The Radical Jew. He tells us what surprised him most about the political firebrand, and plays us a song about puppies on his ukelele. Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints, and we may share your letter on air!This week's show is brought to you by Harry’s. For a great shave at an affordable price, go to Harrys.com and use promo code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get their free trial set and post-shave balm. Today's episode is also brought to you by HelloFresh, the leading meal-delivery kit service. For $35 off your first week of deliveries, visit hellofresh.com and enter the promo code UNORTHODOX when you subscribe! 

This week on Unorthodox, Robert Zimmerman gets a Nobel Prize. Our Jewish guest is David Kaufman, editor in chief of Alexa, the luxury magazine of the New York Post. He tells us about visiting Amar’e Stoudemire and his family in Jerusalem, and why moving to Israel was a relief for the former New York Knick. Our Gentile of the Week is Nelson Eddy, the official historian for the Jack Daniels distillery. He tells us about the brand getting kosher certification, and offers to make Liel a Tennessee Squire. We’ve got another live show coming up! Join us at Hebrew College in Newton, Mass, Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m.—tickets available here.Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on airToday’s episode is brought to you by Harry’s. For a great shave at an affordable price, go to Harrys.com and use promo code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get their free trial set and post-shave balm.This episode is brought to you by the new film Denial. From the screenwriter of The Hours and The Reader comes the true story of one woman’s court battle for historical truth against a Holocaust denier. Starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson.

This week on Unorthodox, we’re partying like it’s 5777. Our Jewish guest is Gitl Schaechter Viswanath, co-author of the new Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary, an 850-page volume that adapts the Eastern European language for the modern world—and includes a new Yiddish term for 'sexting.' Our Gentile of the Week is actress Tessa Kim, whose one-woman show, The Bad German, tells the story of reconciling her German identity after moving to New York. Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on airToday’s episode is brought to you by Harry’s. For a great shave at an affordable price, go to Harrys.com and use promo code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get their free trial set and post-shave balm.This episode is brought to you by the new film Denial. From the screenwriter of The Hours and The Reader comes the true story of one woman’s court battle for historical truth against a Holocaust denier. Starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson.

This week on Unorthodox, we’re gearing up for Yom Kippur with our second annual Apology episode. Marjorie Ingall, Unorthodox regular and co-founder of the website SorryWatch.com, tells us about the best and worst public apologies of the last year. We talk to Richard Cellini, the founder of the Georgetown Memory Project, and the force behind the university’s recent decision to grant preferential admissions to the descendants of the 272 slaves it sold in 1838 to save the school from financial default. We also speak with Dvorah Telushkin, mother of our co-producer Shira Telushkin and the Upper West Side's most obsessive apologizer. We hear a story about the tough conversations in which we ask for forgiveness from others—or ask others to ask for forgiveness from us—from ImmerseNYC founder Rabbi Sara Luria.This episode is brought to you by the new film Denial. From the screenwriter of The Hours and The Reader comes the true story of one woman’s court battle for historical truth against a Holocaust denier. Starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Wilkinson.Today’s episode is brought to you by Harry’s. For a great shave at an affordable price, go to Harrys.com and use promo code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get their free trial set and post-shave balm.Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.To fill out the Panoply survey go to www.panoply.fm/survey.

Rosh Hashanah has us feeling reflective, so we decided to put together a special mini-episode for the Jewish New Year, featuring stories of new beginnings from our hosts. Mark Oppenheimer discusses how a failure his freshman year in college forced him to rethink his priorities and get a new life, Stephanie Butnick describes the freedom of a semester abroad, and Liel Leibovitz tells an old Hasidic tale of how to talk to God in the Days of Awe.We'll be back next Thursday with a full-length episode—a special Yom Kippur show dedicated to apologies. You can listen to last year's apology show here.  Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.

This episode was recorded live from the JCC of Greater New Haven. Our Jewish guest is Connecticut Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, who explains what exactly a Lieutenant Governor does. She also tells us how she made her way from Brooklyn to New England, whether she’d run for governor, and what she thinks of Donald Trump. Our Gentile of the Week is humorist and WNPR host Colin McEnroe, who returns for his second visit to the show. He tells us how the 2016 election has driven him back to church, plus how reality TV impulses have invaded the political realm. Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. We love hearing from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.Today’s episode is brought to you by Harry’s. For a great shave at an affordable price, go to Harrys.com and use promo code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get their free trial set and post-shave balm.

This week on Unorthodox, who said it: Harry Potter star Emma Watson or Hillel the Elder? Our Jewish guest is professional football player Geoff Schwartz, one half of the first set of Jewish brothers to play in the NFL since Ralph and Arnold Horween in 1923. He and his brother, Mitchell Schwartz, are the authors of a new book called Eat MySchwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith. Our Gentile of the Week is Patricia Napier-Fitzpatrick, founder and president of The Etiquette School of New York, which offers lessons on everything from dining etiquette and table manners to social media protocol and workplace small talk. She tells us the most frustrating etiquette faux pas she sees young people committing today, and asks us about proper etiquette for a non-Jewish person attending a synagogue.Join us Monday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m., at our live taping at the JCC of Greater New Haven. Tickets are available here. Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. We love hearing from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.

This week on Unorthodox, the hottest meal in Scottish prisons is… kosher.Our Jewish guest is Willard Spiegelman, longtime English professor at Southern Methodist University and author of the new book of essays, Senior Moments: Looking Back, Looking Ahead. He tells us the worst fashion trend among college students today and why retiring to Manhattan is the secret to a long life. Our Gentile of the Week is R.J. Hernández, whose new novel, An Innocent Fashion, which tells the story of a Cuban-American Ivy League grad who lands an internship at an elite fashion magazine and assumes a genteel-sounding name and pedigree, is based on his own experiences (R.J. interned at Vogue under the name Seymour Glass.) He tells us why he felt he had to hide his heritage to make it in the high fashion world, and schools us on Fashion Week, currently underway in New York City.Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. We love hearing from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.

This week on Unorthodox, singer Sia gets sued for a sub-par Tel Aviv concert.Our Jewish guest is Justin Sakofs, creator of MagneticShul, a toy designed to engage kids in ritual Jewish life (yes, we try it out). Our Gentile of the Week is Paris-based writer Thomas Chatterton Williams, who tells us about his perspective on American politics as an ex-pat and his next book, a reckoning with how we define race in America, based on his 2015 essay about being a black man with a blonde daughter. His question for us: Are Jews white?Like listening to Unorthodox? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes and more. We love hearing from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.

This week on Unorthodox, we’re obsessed with the Olympics. Our Jewish guests are 20-year-old twins Jack and David Cahn, co-authors of a new book called When Millennials Rule: The Reshaping of America. They tell us what they think of the 2016 election, which twin is better at chess, and how to prepare for the Millennial takeover. Our Gentile ofthe Week is Gaura Vani, a lifelong Hare Krishna and performer of Mantra Music, which is based on the ancient call-and-response devotional tradition known as Kirtan. He leads us in a chant and even tells us we have good voices. Like listening to us each week? Consider making a contribution to support the show.We love hearing from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.

We’ve got a special show for you this week, Unorthodoxers. We’re excited to have Tablet columnist Marjorie Ingall back on to discuss her new book, Mamaleh Knows Best: What Jewish Mothers Do to Raise Successful, Creative, Empathetic, Independent Children, which comes out August 30. In it, she challenges the stereotype of the overbearing, coddling Jewish mother, arguing that Jewish mothers actually instill in their children confidence, independence, and a healthy skepticism of authority. She’s joined on-air by Rav Danya Ruttenberg, author of Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting, which came out this spring.Our fundraising drive is coming to an end. Thank you to everyone who contributed, we geniunely appreciate the support (and funny notes!). And if you’re catching up on episodes, it’s never too late to give some shekels to your favorite Jewish podcast.We love hearing from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.

This week on Unorthodox, Amar’e Stoudemire ditches the NBA for the Holy Land. Our Jewish guest is BuzzFeed reporter Rosie Gray, who has spent the past six months following the Republican presidential candidates on the campaign trail, producing behind-the-scenes dispatches from everything from white supremacist rallies to contentious Republican meetings, and reporting on Donald Trump’s nomination at the RNC in Cleveland. Our Gentile of the Week is actor, director, and screenwriter Adam Linn, author of the 2012 novel American Sexy. He tells us how he came to direct movies despite losing his eyesight at a young age, and the most annoying thing to hear as a blind person.This episode marks one year of Unorthodox. If you’ve enjoyed listening to the show as much as we’ve enjoyed making it, please consider making a contribution. We love hearing from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com with comments, questions, and complaints. We may share your letter on air.

This week, Vilnius's hottest wedding destination is a former concentration camp. Our Jewish guest is Deena Gottlieb, who just finished her first year of reform rabbinical school. She tells us what that first year in Israel was like (less Real World, more studying), why she wants to become a reform rabbi, and how she gets through to distracted bar mitzvah students. Our Gentile of the week is Arsalan Iftikhar, aka @TheMuslimGuy, human rights lawyer, media commentator, and author of the recent book Scapegoats: How Islamophobia Helps Our Enemies & Threatens Our Freedoms. He has an interesting question for the panel: As members of a community that has been historically scapegoated, what advice can you give to seven million American Muslims who are witnessing the rise of Islamophobia here in the United States today?Like listening to us each week? Consider making a contribution at tabletmag.com/donate.We love to hear from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com. Sign up for our weekly newsletter at http://bit.ly/UnorthodoxPodcast.

This week, we can't stop talking about the Republican National Convention. Our Jewish guest is the very funny Catie Lazarus, writer and host of "Employee of the Month," a monthly live talk show at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, for which she’s interviewed Bette Midler,Jon Stewart, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. She tells us how she found her calling as a live interviewer and about the time she went to Park Slope, Brooklyn to hawk truly local milk—breast milk. Our Gentile of the Week is Scott Jones, lead pastor at Ascencion Church, and the host of Mockingcast, the podcast of the online magazine Mockingbird (we're calling it the Christian version of our show). Over pizza-flavored Goldfish and whiskey, he tells us how a fundamentalist Christian friend from childhood with a really good curve ball led him to Jesus, and asks about the most Jewish cocktail (Manischewitz fizz). Like listening to us each week? Consider making a contribution at tabletmag.com/donate.We love to hear from you! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com. Sign up for our weekly newsletter at http://bit.ly/UnorthodoxPodcast.