The Podcast of Jewish Ideas

J.J. and Dr. Jacqueline Vayntrub on what is gained and lost when the written Torah replaced its oral performance. 

Jacqueline Vayntrub is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School. Her research spans biblical studies, philology, literary theory, and intellectual history, focusing on how ancient texts conceptualize literature and transmit culture. She is the author of Body Language: Voice, Embodiment, and Textuality in the Hebrew Bible (Yale University Press, 2026) and Beyond Orality: Biblical Poetry on its Own Terms (Routledge, 2019). Alongside her research, she serves as editor of the Library of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Studies (LHBOTS) series and the International Critical Commentary (ICC).

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J.J. and Dr. Persico study the origin and impact of the idea that humans were created in the Divine image. 

Dr. Tomer Persico is a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a Senior Research Scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Persico was the Koret Visiting Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies for three years and has taught for eight years in Tel Aviv University. His fields of expertise include cultural history, the liberal order, Jewish modern identity, Contemporary Spirituality and Jewish fundamentalism. His books include The Jewish Meditative Tradition (Hebrew, Tel Aviv University Press, 2016), Liberalism: its Roots, Values and Crises (Hebrew, Dvir, 2024 and German, NZZ Libro, 2025) and In God's Image: How Western Civilization Was Shaped by a Revolutionary Idea (Hebrew, Yedioth,2021, English, NYU Press,2025). Persico is a liberal activist in Israel and has written hundreds of articles on current events for the legacy media, including Haaretz and the Washington Post. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and two sons.

If you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  podcasts@torahinmotion.org 

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Does this one really need a description? You know the man. Now learn some more about his ideas and impact. 

This series is generously sponsored by Larry and Sarah Krauss in honour and gratitude to Larry's mother, Kato Krauss, and in loving memory of his father, Nathan "Noteh" Krauss. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Sarah’s father, Joe Casse. Yosef ben Zvi v’Koyna.

Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum is Dean of the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS) where he holds the Rabbi Sacks Chair in Modern Jewish Thought, established by the Zandan family. He is also the Scholar in Residence at the Central Square Minyan in Hampstead. His recent book, Questioning Belief: Torah and Tradition in an Age of Doubt, was a Yeshiva University Prize finalist. Rabbi Zarum hosts the Big Questions of Jewish Belief podcast and travels the globe lecturing in Jewish communities and diverse institutions.

If you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  podcasts@torahinmotion.org 

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J.J. and Dr. Miri Freud-Kandel on the twentieth century's most influential, interesting, and controversial Mancunian Jew. 

This series is generously sponsored by Larry and Sarah Krauss in honour and gratitude to Larry's mother, Kato Krauss, and in loving memory of his father, Nathan "Noteh" Krauss. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Sarah’s father, Joe Casse. Yosef ben Zvi v’Koyna.

Dr. Miri Freud-Kandel is Fellow and Lecturer in Modern Judaism in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. She is also affiliated with the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and is co-convenor of the annual Oxford Summer Institute on Modern and Contemporary Judaism. Her research interests include the development of Orthodox Jewish theologies, particularly concepts of a Modern Orthodox Judaism; the distinctive features of Judaism in Britain; and gender issues in modern Judaism. Aside from her varied contributions to journals and edited collections, she is author of Louis Jacobs & the Quest for a Contemporary Jewish Theology (Liverpool: Littman Library, 2023); Orthodox Judaism in Britain Since 1913: An Ideology Forsaken (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006) and co-editor of Yitz Greenberg: Modern Orthodoxy and the Path not Taken (Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2019), and Modern Judaism, An Oxford Guide (Oxford: OUP, 2005).

If you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  podcasts@torahinmotion.org 

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J.J. and Dr. Benjamin Elton comment on one of Britain's most influential chief rabbis. 

This series is generously sponsored by Larry and Sarah Krauss in honour and gratitude to Larry's mother, Kato Krauss, and in loving memory of his father, Nathan "Noteh" Krauss. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Sarah’s father, Joe Casse. Yosef ben Zvi v’Koyna.

Benjamin Elton read history at Queens’ College Cambridge and has a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London in Anglo-Jewish religious history. He has written and lectured on Anglo-Jewish and Australian Jewish history and theology, on Jewish philosophy and architecture, and on contemporary challenges facing the Jewish world. He has Semicha from rabbis in the UK, the USA and Israel and is Rabbi of The Great Synagogue in Sydney. He holds honorary positions at the University of Sydney and the University of Notre Dame, Australia and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society of London.

If you or your business are interested in sponsoring an episode or mini-series, please reach out at  podcasts@torahinmotion.org 

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We welcome all complaints and compliments at podcasts@torahinmotion.org 

For more information visit torahinmotion.org/podcasts