Rabbi Shira and Hanna welcome former White House speechwriter and author Sarah Hurwitz for a conversation about her latest book As a Jew, an urgent exploration of how antisemitism has shaped Jewish identity,  the complexities of modern Jewish life, and what lessons Sarah learned from being a hospital chaplain.

Shana Tova Chutzsquad! Welcome 5786 with Rabbi Shira’s annual high holiday message. 

We're back with new episodes for the new year!

A self-professed “nice Jewish boy from New York City,” Jake Cohen is the New York Times bestselling author of Jew-ish and I Could Nosh, star of A&E’s Jake Makes It Easy. He talks about his new book Dinner Party Animal, why Jews are so obsessed with food and helps us all with our food and entertaining questions. 

Listen to a special live event held at Aspen Jewish Congregation on August 13, 2025. 

In a time of deep division, what does it really mean to belong to the Jewish people? And how do we stay in community when our beliefs, priorities, and red lines conflict? This session draws on the idea of the “big tent” as both a moral aspiration and a real-world challenge, exploring how we navigate differences while maintaining a sense of Jewish peoplehood.

This conversation features Hebrew College President Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, Shalom Hartman Institute President Yehuda Kurtzer, and the Executive Director of the Harvard Hillel Jason Rubenstein. 

Listen to a special live event held at Aspen Jewish Congregation on August 13, 2025. 

The Jewish experience has always been bigger than survival. Yet too often, the public stories we tell center on trauma and loss. This session explores how we might reclaim stories of resilience, creativity, and contribution, and how new narratives could help us build a future rooted in strength.

This conversation features Dasi Fruchter, Founder & Spiritual Leader of the South Philadelphia Shtiebel, Mark Oppenheimer, Creator & Host of Unorthodox podcast and Dara Horn, Author and Founder & President of Mosaic Persuasion.

Listen to a special live event held at Aspen Jewish Congregation on August 6, 2025. 

For decades, American Jews enjoyed unprecedented safety, success, and cultural influence. But beneath that prosperity, many became disconnected from Jewish tradition and meaning. Was that truly a golden age, or just the foundation for what could come next? This session reckons with the story of Jewish life in America and asks what a deeper, more meaningful era might look like.

This conversation features The Atlantic's Franklin Foer, spiritual leader and scholar Mijal Bitton, and Senior Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.

Back by popular demand, Rabbi Shira and Hanna cap off this season with a Shavuot celebration and Torah study Back by popular demand, Rabbi Shira and Hanna cap off this season with a Shavuot celebration and Torah study. They help a young listeners preparing for his Bar Mitzvah and lead us us through Sh’lach L’cha, which Rabbi Shira loves because it’s one of the stories that has the most to teach us about our lived experience today.

Back by popular demand, Rabbi Shira and Hanna cap off this season with a Shavuot celebration and Torah study Back by popular demand, Rabbi Shira and Hanna cap off this season with a Shavuot celebration and Torah study. They help a young listeners preparing for his Bar Mitzvah and lead us us through Sh’lach L’cha, which Rabbi Shira loves because it’s one of the stories that has the most to teach us about our lived experience today.

Beyond face masks and candles is there such a thing as “Jewish Self-Care”? Rabbi Shira and Hanna admit they are allergic to the lavender-scented concept and respond to a listener who wants to know more about Judaism’s notion of taking care of oneself. 

A listener tells us she loves the show – it’s funny, it’s wise (aww shucks), but oy such language! She says feh to the vulgar cursing and prompts Rabbi Shira and Hanna to wonder what Judaism says about “working blue.”

A listener’s friend committed a heinous crime and is now in prison. She wonders if remaining friends and visiting him dishonors his victim’s memory. Tune in to hear Rabbi Shira and Hanna’s advice.

Rabbi Shira shares her live conversation with New York Times' Opinion columnist David Brooks. And on Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) she talks about the importance of voting in the World Zionist Congress.

On the eve of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Rabbi Shira asks a surprising question: Do we actually have to teach our kids about the Holocaust? (Spoiler Alert: She didn’t.)

She looks back at her own choices about Holocaust education and finds a way forward.

As we celebrate Passover during the current climate, Rabbi Shira talks to Hanna about what Judaism says about violence, resistance and freedom. And they speak to a Jewish gun owner about his choice to protect himself. 

More on preventing harm and stumbling blocks in the Torah

Hanna asks the questions this week as we prepare for Passover. How do we tell and interpret the Passover story when it feels like we’re firmly stuck at the beginning of our own contemporary plight? Do we have the opportunity to have perhaps the most authentic seder any of us have had in our lived experience? Rabbi Shira has tips and wisdom for you as you prepare your own seders.

Are you Jewish enough? Too Jewish? Why are we Jews so judgy of one another? Rabbi Shira and Hanna receive a letter from a listener whose embrace of Judaism as an adult is making her less religious mother bristle.  

Ever wondered what an actual rabbi thinks about the temple board? What makes some temple communities work and others fail? Rabbi Shira and Hanna help a listener figure out whether or not to join her temple board.

Hanna talks to Rabbi Shira about her new book The Jewish Way to a Good Life. She distills thousands of years of Jewish wisdom into practical, time-tested strategies for living a more meaningful life and reminds us: You don’t have to be Jewish to do Jewish. And she tells us how.

Rabbi Shira makes a passionate plea to reclaim the holiday of Purim away from just the kids. But what does Jewish debauchery even look like? And why does it give Hanna the ick? 

Rabbi Shira and Hanna talk to “Sabbath Queen” Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, co-founder of LabShul,  about his family story, drag and finding Jewish joy in dark times…even for us adults.

Rabbi Shira and Hanna read a letter from a listener who has been nagging her husband to go to the doctor for over a decade. What does Judaism say about being responsible for your partner? And are we commanded to be good patients?