Unorthodox

Unorthodox host Mark Oppenheimer recently published an op-ed in The New York Times about our aversion to using the word 'Jew,' as opposed to 'Jewish.' Is 'Jew' still considered a slur? By many, yes. Should we reclaim it? Definitely, says Mark.He discussed his op-ed with On the Media's Brooke Gladstone a couple of weeks ago, and we're pleased to share their conversation with you here in full. (Don't worry, the next full episode of Unorthodox will go live as scheduled on May 25!)As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com.

When Maya Jankelowitz and her husband Dean opened Jack’s Wife Freda in New York City in 2012, they mined their respective Israeli and South African upbringings for family recipes and traditional spices. The result was trendy downtown dining with a home-cooked vibe and a dash of nostalgia (the restaurant is named after Dean's grandparents). The pair now run two restaurants, identically named, and just published the Jack's Wife Freda cookbook, which features recipes like peri peri chicken, malva pudding, and Maya’s mother’s chicken schnitzel. Maya joins us to talk about offering a Sephardic take on Jewish comfort food in a city dominated by bagels and lox, serving green shakshuka to Israeli tourists in Manhattan, and the first meal she eats when she goes back to Israel.We also talk to scholar Barry Holtz, whose latest book is Rabbi Akiva: The Sage of the Talmud. He shares some of his favorite stories about the preeminent teacher, whom he describes the model of Jewish intellectual creativity, and explains why we should approach the Talmud as a “multivolume, postmodern experimental novel.”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 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.

This week's guest is comedian and writer H. Alan Scott, who was raised Mormon in St. Louis and converted to Judaism when he was 31. He’s preparing for his bar mitzvah by immersing himself in Jewish life and culture, and it’s all being chronicled in Latter Day Jew, a documentary by Aliza Rosen. H. Alan tells us about coming out to his Mormon family, how cancer jumpstarted his conversion to Judaism, and his deep love of The Golden Girls.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 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"I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts"Baby ft. Ludacris" by Justin Bieber"Love Me Too" by The Losers"Some People" by Jule Styne and Steven Sondheim, performed by Bette Midler, from the 1993 TV Movie of Gypsy"Let's Get it On" by Marvin Gaye

This week on Unorthodox: chocolate sausage! Our Jewish guest is Tablet’s food columnist Joan Nathan. Her latest cookbook is King Solomon’s Table: a Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World, which features recipes like schokoladenwurst, a dessert that made its way from Berlin to El Salvador in the 1920s (and doesn’t actually have any meat in it). She tells us about drawing inspiration from the flavors and spices of the ancient Jewish world and why so many Jewish chefs today are winning top honors in the food world.Our Gentile of the week is Rolling Stone columnist Rob Sheffield, whose new book is Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World. He tells us why the Beatles have remained so rabidly popular half a century after the band broke up, what British pop sensation One Direction owes to the Fab Four, and what his favorite new music acts are.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.Music:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Oops I Did it Again" by Max Martin and Rami, cover by Max Raabe"School Spirit" by Kanye West"Buddy Guy" by Action Bronson"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by The Beatles

This week on Unorthodox, we speak to the author of Donald Trump’s favorite book.Our Jewish guest is Danya Shults, the founder of Arq, a website and community inspired by Jewish culture. She tells us how her own interfaith marriage inspired her to help people “connect with Jewish life and culture in a relevant, inclusive, and convenient way,” and explains where—if anywhere—actual religion fits into the Arq universe. Our Gentile of the Week is Michael Knowles, managing editor of the Daily Wire and the mind behind the Amazon bestseller Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide, which is a completely blank book. He tells us about the book’s unexpected success—he self-published it to get a rise out of his liberal friends—culminating in a Twitter endorsement from the president, and describes the stereotypes that dog a young conservative today.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 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 "I Need a Dollar" by Aloe Blacc"We Did It" by Dora the Explorer "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" by James Brown"The Ballad of Eva Braun" by Noam Osband"Ricky Bobby" by Kenny Floreat"Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield 

This week on Unorthodox, we’re still trying to find those Holocaust centers Sean Spicer was talking about. Our Jewish guest is filmmaker Ferne Pearlstein, whose latest documentary, The Last Laugh, asks comedians like Mel Brooks and Sarah Silverman whether or not we can joke about the Holocaust. She tells us why she decided to tackle such a taboo topic, how gallows humor can be a survival mechanism, and whether it matters if the joke-teller is Jewish or not. The Last Laugh premieres Monday, April 24 on Independent Lens on PBS.Our Gentile of the Week is Ashley McKinless, associate editor at America magazine, the Jesuit Review of Faith and Culture. She co-hosts the new podcast Jesuitical, which we lovingly call the Catholic version of Unorthodox. She explains who the Jesuits are, tells us about life as a 20-something practicing Catholic in New York City, and confirms that Liel is the only Leibovitz currently subscribed to America magazine.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 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"Anti Anti" by Bonaparte"Frolic" by Luciano Michelini"Make 'Em Laugh" Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, from the 2012 London Cast Recording of Singin' in the Rain"Hitler the Vegetarian" by Noam Osband"Camino Rojo ft. Lulacruza" by The Polish Ambassador"We Were the People Our Parents Warned Us About" by Jimmy Buffett 

This week on Unorthodox, we’re filling up on chametz before Passover starts. We talk to bagel makers from Montreal to Australia (and Cleveland!), get the scoop on the bagel scene in Israel, and find out how bagels became the unofficial food of the Jews.Our guests span the globe, but have one thing in common: they love bagels. We talk to Ben Pigette, a lieutenant in the Royal Australian Navy who taught himself how to make bagels to impress his Jewish girlfriend. Geoff Hardman, co-founder of the Cleveland Bagel Company, tells us how he and his neighbor Dan Herbst decided to start making bagels despite having zero baking experience—and how their chewy-on-the-inside, crisp-on-the-outside creations are putting Cleveland on the bagel tourism map. Tel Aviv-based Tablet contributor Dana Kessler fills us in on the beigale scene in Israel: American bagels, Romanian bagels, Jerusalem bagels, and more. Vince Morena calls in from the famed St. Viateur Bagel in Montreal to describe (and defend) Montreal-style bagels. He also tells us how his Italian father was hired as a teenager by Myer Lewkowicz, the Holocaust survivor who founded the shop in 1957, and ended up learning Yiddish and taking over the business when Lewkowicz died. Shannon Sarna, editor of The Nosher and author of the forthcoming cookbook Modern Jewish Baker: Challah, Babka, Bagels & More, tells us how bagels came to be such strong cultural markers of Judaism, and the newfangled bagel trend she can’t get on board with.And a special low-carb treat: Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg, who just published The (Unofficial) Hogwarts Haggadah, explains why Harry Potter is such a good language for teaching his students about Judaism.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.Sponsors: HelloFresh: For $35 off your first week of deliveries, enter code UNORTHODOX35 when you subscribe. Harry’s: Enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post-shave balm.Music Credits:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Tradition" written Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, from the original Broadway cast recording of Fiddler on the Roof"Hot Salsa Trip" by Arsonist"Dear Future Husband" by Meghan Trainor"Toledo Surprise" by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, from the original Broadway cast recording of The Drowsy Chaperone"It's Magic" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, performed by Keely Smith"Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread" by Bob Dylan and The Band"Finagle the Bagel" by Troy Ave"Dayenu" by The Maccabeats

This week on Unorthodox: a Jewish writer and an Episcopal priest walk into a podcast. Our Jewish guest is writer and essayist Daphne Merkin, whose latest book is This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression. She tells us what it was like to write such a personal book—Tablet literary critic Adam Kirsch called it “a hybrid of memoir, case study, and confession”—and discusses the stigma that continues to surround depression in the Jewish community and beyond. Our Gentile of the Week is Father Ed Bacon, a retired Episcopal priest legendary for his work with All Saints Church in Pasadena, California, which he turned into an activist, multi-ethnic congregation in a mostly white and wealthy town. He is also an Oprah regular and author of the book 8 Habits of Love.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.Music Credits:"Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Don't Hang Up" by The Orlons"where the sunshine goes" by Yshwa"No Rain" by Blind Melon"A Perceptible Shift" by Andy G. Cohen"Once Upon a Time... Storybook Love" by Mark Knopfler, from the film A Princess Bride

This week on Unorthodox, Mel Gibson gives tzedakah. Our Jewish guest is Ukrainian-born writer Sana Krasikov, whose latest novel, The Patriots, explores the effects of the Cold War on three generations of a Jewish-American family, from the 1930s to the present. Our Gentile of the Week is Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini, who tells us what the future of data and technology looks like for political campaigns, and the value of data under a president who is openly dismissive of unfavorable polls.Sign up 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 sponsored by Harry’s. Enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post-shave balm.Music Credits: “Mikveh Bath” by Golem“Dancing Tiger” by Damscray“A Spoonful Of Sugar” by Richard and Roger Sherman, from the film Mary Poppins"Outro Dia" by Diogo Cadaval“The One on the Right is on the Left” by Johnny Cash“Birds of Prey” by Dark Sunn“Stranger in Moscow” by Michael Jackson

This week on Unorthodox, Mark ditches us for the Holy Land. It was snowing in New York, but we trudged to the studio and were graciously joined by Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan, whose latest film is The Settlers, a documentary about the controversial settler movement in Israel (you can read Tablet film critic J. Hoberman's review here). He tells us why he decided to take on such a contentious topic, how he created a nuanced cinematic portrait of a group of people with whom he fundamentally disagrees, and how it felt to encounter protests from BDS activists who hadn’t seen the film.Sign up 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.Music Credits: "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"That's What I Call Love" by Crowded House"Kolomeika" by Tres Tristes Tangos"The Pinch Paid Off, Pt. 1" by Albert King"Full Stop" by Ketsa

This week on Unorthodox, Jewish baseball is having a moment. Our Jewish guest is Adam Irving, whose documentary Off the Rails tells the story of Darius McCollum, an obsessive transit buff with Aspberger’s syndrome who has been arrested 32 times for impersonating New York City subway conductors and bus drivers. Adam tells us how his life has changed since releasing the film (his first) to critical acclaim, getting his start in reality TV, and how he feels about Darrius’s story getting the Hollywood treatment in a forthcoming film starring Julia Roberts as his lawyer.Our Gentile of the Week is writer and reviewer Macy Halford, whose first book, My Utmost: A Devotional Memoir, tells the story of Macy’s life through the lens of the bestselling Evangelical daily devotional My Utmost for His Highest. She read the book nightly, from her childhood in an Evangelical Christian family in Dallas to her years attending Barnard and then working for the New Yorker, and finally goes in search of its mysterious author, Oswald Chambers. She tells us about being called “an Esther”—hiding among non-believers at the New Yorker—by her mother, and what it was like to visit her family’s conservative Dallas community in the wake of the 2016 election.Sponsors: HelloFresh: For $35 off your first week of deliveries, enter code UNORTHODOX35 when you subscribe.Harry’s: Enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post-shave balm.Music Credits: "Mikveh Bath" by Golem"Balkan Español" by Golem"Sinnerman," written by Les Baxter and Will Holt, performed by Nina Simone"What's New, Pussycat?" written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, performed by Franck Pourcel et Son Grand Orchestre"Belief" by John Mayer

This week on Unorthodox, we check in with Jake Turx, the now-famous Orthodox White House reporter who asked Trump about anti-Semitism. Our guests this week are Leah Green and Freddy McConnell, co-hosts of The Guardian’s “Token” podcast. Leah is mixed-race—her mother is Jewish and her father Nigerian—and Freddy is transgender and gay, and on their show they discuss topics like sex, gender, and race with frankness and humor (and British accents). We talk about whether Jews are white, find out the worst thing you can say to someone when you find out they’re transgender, and debate anti-Semitism on the British left. Sign up 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.Music Credits:"Unorthodox Theme Song" by Golem"Yakety Sax" by Spider Rich and Boots Randolph"D'Bronx Tanz" by Tres Tristes Tango"Hello City" by Barenaked Ladies"Thorn in Your Side" by Namoli Brennet

This week on Unorthodox, we’ve got two Jewish guests. First up is Scott Feinberg, the awards columnist for The Hollywood Reporter and host of the Awards Chatter podcast, and one of the “most informed Oscarologists,” according to the New York Times. He tells us how he makes his Oscar predictions and where he'll be Sunday night as the winners are announced.Our next guest knows the way to our hearts: homemade hamantaschen filled with sprinkles. Molly Yeh is the author of Molly on the Range, one of the New York Times’ top fall cookbook releases of 2016, and the creator of my name is yeh, named Saveur’s 2015 Blog of the Year. She tells us about fielding questions from strangers about her ethnicity (her father is Chinese and her mother is Jewish), leaving Brooklyn for a sugar beet farm on the North Dakota-Minnesota border, and how far she has to go for a good bagel with lox these days.Sign up 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 sponsored by Harry’s. Enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post-shave balm.Music Credits"Unorthodox Theme Song" by Golem"Come Get Me" by Nas"Klezmer Happy Birthday" by Gypsy Jive Band"Hooray for Hollywood" by Richard A. Whiting and Johnny Mercer"Hi, Stephanie" by 임형복, ft. David Duchovny & iOS7, prod. by Squish Turner"Home on the Range" written by Daniel E. Kelley and Brewster M. Higley, performed by Roy Rogers

This episode was recorded live at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach, Florida. Our Jewish guest is Igor Shteyrenberg, director of the Miami Jewish Film Festival, which in five years he grew from an annual event with 4,000 attendees to the third largest Jewish film festival in the U.S. He tells us his favorite new Jewish films, the most controversial film the festival has screened (hint: there were zombies), and the Jewish movie he’d make if he were given carte blanche to choose from all the actors and directors in the world. Our Gentile of the Week is Rocco Mangel, the restaurateur behind Rocco’s Tacos and Tequila Bar, which has six locations in Florida and one in Brooklyn. He tells us about getting his start in the business working in his family’s New York restaurants as a teenager, studying tequila in Mexico before opening his first location, and which South Florida location is the rowdiest (sorry, Boca).Sign up 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.Music Credits:  "Unorthodox Theme Song" by Golem"We'll Meet Again" by Johnny Cash"Odessa" by Golem"Prince Igor, Act II: Polovtsian Dance" by Alexander Borodin, performed by Bolshoi Theater Choir"Amor Verdadero" by The Afro-Cuban All Stars"Volver, Volver" by Vincente Fernandez

This week on Unorthodox, we’re getting into the Valentine’s Day spirit. Or as we call it around here, Secular Tu B’Av.Our Jewish guest is Israeli-American novelist and essayist Ayelet Waldman, whose latest book, A Really Good Day chronicles her experience taking microdoses of LSD to treat her mood disorder. She explains what microdosing is and how it helped her and her marriage, and tells us what it’s like to be married to another writer.Our second guest is a self-described “pizza bagel”—half Jewish, half Italian. Andrea Silenzi is the host and producer of “Why Oh Why,” a podcast about dating and relationships. She tells us how people use emojis to signal their Jewishness on dating apps like Tinder, whether it’s hard to date while hosting a podcast about dating, and the challenges educated women in New York City face when seeking a partner.Our Gentile of the Week would call us gentiles, too. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is a history professor at Harvard and a practicing Mormon. Her latest book is A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism. She tells us the unexpected ways in which plural marriage empowered the women involved in it, and why the practice was ultimately abolished.We're also joined by Noam Osband, who performs some original love-themed songs on the ukulele. Sign up 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.Sponsors:HelloFresh: For $35 off your first week of deliveries, enter code UNORTHODOX35 when you subscribe.Harry’s: Enter code UNORTHODOX at checkout to get a free post-shave balm.Music Credits:“Mack the Knife” by Louis Armstrong“Chervona Ruta” by Golem“Lysergic Bliss” by Of Montreal“Why, Oh Why” by Woodie Guthrie“Tomorrow is a Latter Day” from The Book of Mormon“The Luna Moth Song” by Noam Osband