Unorthodox

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If you love listening to Unorthodox, please make a donation before our fundraising drive ends next week!This week: Everything you ever wanted to know about Jewish weddings.Author Anita Diamant tells us about The Jewish Wedding Now, her newly updated guide to planning a meaningful Jewish celebration. Roberta Grossman, director of the documentary Hava Nagila (The Movie) explains how the catchy Hebrew folk song became a staple at Jewish weddings. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie of New York’s Lab/Shul explains his recent decision to leave the rabbinic arm of the Conservative movement over its prohibition on performing interfaith weddings. Bat Sheva Marcus, clinical director of Maze Women’s Health and co-host of the Joy of Text podcast, tells us about the importance of communication for maintaining a healthy sex life, as newlyweds and beyond. And finally, Bridesmaid for Hire Jen Glantz explains why she decided to turn a much-maligned obligation into a profession.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, and @stuffism.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set, valued at $13, when you sign up at harrys.com/unorthodox.

If you love listening to Unorthodox every week, please consider donating to keep us going for another hundred episodes. We put together a bunch of fun gifts, from tote bags to studio visits to an exclusive Sept. 6 cocktail party in New York City with Mark, Liel, and Stephanie.Our Jewish guest is linguist Sarah Bunin Benor, an expert in Jewish languages and the author of Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism, an in-depth study of American Jewish language. She breaks down the linguistic 'tells' of Orthodox Jews, explains how religious Jews often code switch depending on their audience, and describes her experience as a non-Orthodox Jew immersing herself in Orthodox homes and communities for research.Our gentile of the week is architect and card-carrying WASP Duo Dickinson, who returns to the show to tell us about his forthcoming book, A Home Called New England. He also tells us what it's like being a white Christian male in America today, especially one who loves football, and poses an interesting question: Are week-long summer trips to Vermont essentially Birthright for WASPS? Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel and @stuffism.This episode is brought to you by Jewish Lives, biographies that illuminate the Jewish experience. Visit JewishLives.org to get 25 percent off all books and curated collections with the code JLBOOKS.Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"C.R.E.A.M." by Wu-Tang Clan"A Duo" by James Horner, from the film An American Tail"F Minor Klezmer" by The Underscore Orkestra

If you love listening to Unorthodox every week, please consider making a donation to keep us going for another hundred episodes. We put together a bunch of fun gifts for donors, from tote bags to studio visits to a cocktail party with Mark, Liel, and Stephanie.We’re #blessed with three Jewish guests this week: Leah Gottfried, Jessica Schechter, and Danny Hoffman, the team behind the popular web series 'Soon By You,' which depicts the dating drama of young, modern Orthodox Manhattanites. They tell us about their worst dates, how they differ from their on-screen personas, and the relationship roadblocks specific to the observant community, like disagreement about making aliyah.Our gentile of the week is Rod Dreher, senior editor at The American Conservative and the author of The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. He tells us why we would all be better off living in cloistered communities given the fragmentation and atomization of religious life in America today, and poses an interesting question for us: whether we believe Jewish culture can endure without religion.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, and @stuffism.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set, valued at $13, when you sign up at harrys.com/unorthodox.Music: "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"If You Could See Her" by John Kander and Fred Ebb, from the Cabaret Original Soundtrack"Money (Instrumental)" by Pink Floyd"Thoroughly Modern Millie" by Jeanine Tesori and Dick Scanlan, from the film Thoroughly Modern Millie"Wishin' and Hopin'" by Nancy Sinatra

We’re celebrating two years—and 100 episodes!—of Unorthodox with a very unorthodox fundraising drive. We've put together a bunch of fun gifts, from tote bags to studio visits to a cocktail party with Mark, Liel, and Stephanie. If you love listening to Unorthodox every week, please consider making a donation to keep us going for another two years.This week, we turn the show over to Tablet contributor Periel Aschenbrand, who interviews hosts Mark, Stephanie, and Liel about the past two years of Unorthodox. They discuss how the show got started, how it’s changed over the past 100 episodes, and how it’s changed them. It gets real.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, and @stuffism.This episode is brought to you by Jewish Lives, biographies that illuminate the Jewish experience. Visit JewishLives.org to get 25 percent off all books and curated collections with the code JLBOOKS.This episode is also brought to you by Harry’s. Get a free trial shave set, valued at $13, when you sign up at harrys.com/unorthodox.Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Money Trees" by Kendrick Lamar ft. Jay Rock"Liam Rides a Pony" by The Polyrhythmics

Episode description: This week, we’re coming at you live from JCC Manhattan, with some very special guests and other fun surprises.But first: If you're a fan of Unorthodox—and if you're reading this, you must be!—please consider making a donation to our fundraising drive so we can keep producing the podcast you love for another 99 episodes. We've put together a whole range of fun gifts to sweeten the deal, from tote bags to studio visits to a cocktail party with Mark, Liel, and Stephanie.Our Jew of the week is Harry Enten, senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight and a regular on the site’s Politics Podcast. He tells us about the Catskills resort his grandparents owned—where Neil Sedaka met Enten’s aunt, whom he later married—plus why he loves Twitter, where he has nearly 95,000 followers, and what dating was like as a poll analyst after the election.Our Gentile of the Week is Haroon Moghul, author of How to Be a Muslim: An American Story and a fellow in Jewish-Muslim Relations at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He tells us the dumbest things he’s been asked while promoting his book, plus how a 2015 trip to Israel with Muslim and Jewish leaders changed the course of his career, and what he wants the rest of us to know about American Muslims.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, and @stuffism.Today's podcast is sponsored by Jewish Lives, biographies that illuminate the Jewish experience. Visit JewishLives.org to get 25% off all books and curated collections with the code JLBOOKS.Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Ruthless" by the Statler Brothers"Harry Enten is Looking for a Girlfriend" by Jonathan Mann"Love Will Keep Us Together" by Neil Sedaka"Mounsell Forts/Accent on the 'A'" by Roger Plexico, prod. Squish Turner, ft. Haroon Mogul

First things first: Don't forget to get tickets for our live show Tuesday, July 25 at 7:30 p.m. at JCC Manhattan!This week, we find out Mark isn't the only Oppenheimer who sneaks into movies without paying. And we've got two Jewish guests joining us: First, our favorite film critic Jordan Hoffman returns to tell us all about the summer's best movies, including the new film War For the Planet of the Apes, which he explains is actually a story about Jews. Then we talk to Stacy Berman about her journey from running fitness boot camps in Central Park to apprenticing as a shaman and incorporating natural medicine into her training program, The System by Stacy.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, and @stuffism.Today's episode is sponsored by Jewish Lives, biographies that illuminate the Jewish experience. Visit JewishLives.org to get 25% off all books and curated collections with the code JLBOOKS.

Hey J-Crew: Before you do literally anything else today, buy a ticket to our next live show in NYC on July 25!This week we talk Birthright, Hobby Lobby, and Jay-Z—oh my. Our Jewish guest is historian Jenna Weissman Joselit, whose latest book is Set in Stone: America's Embrace of the Ten Commandments. She tells us how the Ten Commandments, which have become so politicized, were actually once a unifying force in America, and dishes on the 19th century drama over a Lower East Side synagogue’s stained glass depiction of the decalogue. Plus she tests us to see if we can list all ten commandments from memory.Our gentile of the week is cat therapist Carole Wilbourn, who co-founded the first veterinary hospital exclusively for cats, and who has treated behavioral problems in more than 13,000 felines. She brings motorized cats that coo at us while she explains the Wilbourn Way, which incorporates feline Reiki, and is designed to treat both the animals and their guardians. She also helps Stephanie with her problem cat, Cat Stevens.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, @stuffism.This week’s sponsors are:Harry’s: Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.Hello Fresh: For $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, visit hellofresh.com and enter code UNORTHODOX30.

Break out the bug juice—it’s summer camp week on Unorthodox! We’re talking campfires, Color War, and Mark’s traumatic summer at a nudist camp. Our first guest is Sandy Fox, a doctoral candidate studying language and everyday life in Zionist, Yiddishist, and denominational summer camps. She’s also the founder of Vaybertaytsh, a feminist podcast entirely in Yiddish. She explains how different Jewish ideologies shaped each kind of camp, tells us about a post-war summer camp for children of Holocaust survivors, and breaks the news that while summer camp is distinctly Jewish in many ways, Jews didn’t actually invent it (we totally reshaped color war, though).Micah Hart, co-host of the podcast Campfires and Color Wars, talks to us about what summers were like as the camp director’s son, the difference between a Jewish camp and a camp where most of the campers happen to be Jewish, and what it means to be ‘camp hot.’We also talk to writer Jordana Horn, who hated camp but whose kids love it—all six of them are attending some form of Jewish camp this summer. She tells us how Jewish camps give her children a space to develop their own Jewish identity and community, how social media has changed the camp experience for campers and their parents, and what really goes down when the kids ship out for the summer.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag  @markopp1 @liel @stuffismThis episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.This episode is also brought to you by AT&T. Enjoy unlimited entertainment with unlimited data from AT&T. Learn more at att.com/unlimited.Music: "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" by Allan Sherman"Suburban Kids with Biblical Names" by Shitty Weekend"Gucci Gucci" by Kreayshawn"Rose's Turn" by Stephen Sondheim, performed by Bette Middler"Hatikvah" performed by Francki Perez et Broadway"That Power" by Childish Gambino

Back in May, we interviewed L.A.-based comedian and writer H Alan Scott about converting to Judaism, surviving cancer, and his deep love of The Golden Girls.We recently caught up with H Alan by phone to discuss his first trip to Israel (for Tel Aviv Pride!) and his subsequent Newsweek article about "pinkwashing" and the BDS movement. We discussed LGBT politics, Zionism, and anti-Semitism—and of course, hummus. Though we talked before the Chicago Dyke March controversy, this conversation should still help contextualize the debates currently taking place in the LGBT community vis-à-vis Israel.We hope you enjoy this bonus midweek dose of Unorthodox! We'll be back in your feed on June 29 with our next full episode. As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com.

Description: This week on Unorthodox, don’t even think about cutting Israel out of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.Our Jewish guest is journalist and Tablet columnist Jamie Kirchick, who returns to the show to discuss his new book, The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues and the Coming Dark Age. He tells us about the emboldening of extremes on both sides of the political spectrum, the dangers of countries like Hungary rewriting their World War II history, and what it all means for the United States.Our Gentile of the Week is comedian and writer Negin Farsad, author of How to Make White People Laugh and the host of the political comedy roundtable podcast Fake the Nation. She tells us why comedy has gotten harder in the era of Trump, plus the anti-racism ads she wants to put up on the president’s golf courses, and asks whether Jews consider themselves the veterans of oppressed religious groups.Next week is Camp Week

This week, we recorded a special crossover episode with Lexicon Valley, the podcast hosted by linguist John McWhorter. John was a guest on our show in December 2016, and when we weren’t interrupting him, we were discussing things like the word ‘like’ and his latest book, Talking Back, Talking Black. We sat down with him again for an in-depth conversation about whether there’s such a thing as Jewish English, the beauty of yeshivish, and, of course, the dinner scene from 'Annie Hall.'Check out Lexicon Valley here.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us on Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, and @stuffism.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.This episode is also brought to you by AT&T. Enjoy unlimited entertainment with unlimited data from AT&T. Learn more at att.com/unlimited.

Our Jewish guest this week is Fred Kuhr, who hosts The Point, a Toronto-based talk show that brings gay and straight men together “to see what happens.” He explains the stereotypes gay men have about straight men, the difference between American and Canadian homophobia, and adjusting to Montreal bagels as a Brooklyn-born expat.Our Gentile of the Week is Jonathan Frakes, best known for his portrayal of Commander William T. Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He tells us about navigating obsessive Star Trek fans at conventions and his thoughts on the state of sci-fi today. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we may read your note on air.Follow us Twitter: @tabletmag, @markopp1, @liel, @stuffism. We're also on Facebook and Instagram.Music:  "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"People" by Barbara Streisand"Too Much (ft. Sampha)" by Drake"Star Trek: The Next Generation Theme" by Alexander Courage and Jerry Goldsmith"Tell Me Something Good" by Rufus and Chaka Khan

This week on Unorthodox, we’re still full from all that Shavuot cheesecake. Our Jewish guest is actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who plays Jack Barker on HBO’s Silicon Valley, and whose latest book is My Adventures with God. He tells us about getting recognized in shul (he started going to synagogue twice a day to say kaddish after his mother died), what it’s like to tackle something as intimate as faith while working in Hollywood, and the time he had to shoot a movie on Yom Kippur, even though five of the actors in the film were Jewish. Our Gentile of the week is Esquire columnist Stephen Marche, author of The Unmade Bed: The Messy Truth About Men and Women in the 21st Century. He tells us about quitting his job and leaving New York when his wife landed her dream job in Toronto, adjusting to life as the primary caregiver for their children, and why he hates the term ‘bro.’Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by Harry’s. Go to Harrys.com and enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post shave balm.This episode is also brought to you by AT&T. Enjoy unlimited entertainment with unlimited data from AT&T. Learn more at att.com/unlimited. Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Good  News" by Randy Newman"I Got You, Babe" by Sonny & Cher"HUA!" by Brazzmatazz"Toxic"  by Britney Spears, cover by Yael Naim

This week, we break down Donald Trump’s Holy Land adventure.Our Jewish guest is Yascha Mounk, a lecturer at Harvard whose area of research—how to preserve liberal democracy in the face of populism—has made him extremely popular lately. He tells us how worried we should be about rising populist tides in Europe and the U.S., explains some of the difficulties currently facing multiethnic societies, and tells us how it felt when he became a U.S. citizen in March. Our Gentile of the week is Irish novelist Ruth Gilligan, whose latest book, Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan, was inspired by the largely unknown story of the Jewish community in Ireland. She tells us about the similarities between the Jews and the Irish and explains her research for the novel, which started over tea in the homes of the remaining Jews of Cork and took her to Israel, where she met Irish emigrants.Sign up for for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, behind-the-scenes photos, and more! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com—we'll share our favorite notes on air.This episode is brought to you by AT&T. Enjoy unlimited entertainment with unlimited data from AT&T. Learn more at att.com/unlimited.This episode is also brought to you by PJ Library, a free book program for families raising Jewish children. Sign up at pjlibrary.org/unorthodox, and they’ll send you a free picture book each month until your child turns nine.Music: "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash"Walk this Way" by Aerosmith"The Boys of the County Cork" written by Tom Murphy"Sunday Lights" by Blue Dot Sessions