Modern History

Embark on a journey of Jewish learning and discovery, exploring the depth of our Modern History resources, where tagged items including audio, programs, and podcast episodes await your exploration.

15 | Rabbinic Letters

Dr. Marc Shapiro

Welcome to a Jewish History Uncensored with Dr. Marc Shapiro. This season we are covering the story of Dr. Shapiro’s most recent book.–a collection of letters from some of the great Rabbinic figures of our day. The correspondences between Dr.…
Podcast

57. Frank and Francis | Dr. Pawel Maciejko (Shabbetai Tzevi #4)

J.J. Kimche

J.J. and Dr. Pawel Maciejko conspire to bring you an episode about a small but mighty sub-sect of Sabbateanism.
Podcast

e-TiM: Orthodox Conversion to Judaism in American Responsa Literature (Part 5)

Rabbi Adam Mintz

Class

Adventures in American Judaism (Part 10)

Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff

This week's topic: Mitzvah Merchants and the Creation of a Jewish Children's Culture From Brachos Bees, to Gedolim Cards, the Yeshiva World has borrowed from a uniquely American-style of education to support its own children's religious growth and…
Class

Adventures in American Judaism (Part 9)

Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff

This week's topic: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik and the Unorthodox Optics of Women's Talmud Study In 1977, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik delivered the inaugural Talmud shiur at Stern College for Women. His work before and after to spearhead a…
Class

Adventures in American Judaism (Part 8)

Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff

This week's topic: Agunot and American Jewish Policy Making The "chained wife" and "recalcitrant husband" is perhaps the most discussed and thorniest matter of Halakah in the American Jewish public square. The decades-long work to "solve" the issue…
Class

Adventures in American Judaism (Part 7)

Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff

This week's topic: Basketball Politics, Yarmulke Wars, and the Dynamics of Halakhic Change  In the early-1980s, two Jewish day schools in Chicago took a high school basketball league to court for the right to play basketball while adorning…
Class

Adventures in American Judaism II (Part 6)

Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff

This week's topic: Behind the Laughter: American Judaism and its Purim Shpiels How did the Purim Shpiel migrate to the United States? And how did it become a fitting annual activity for otherwise-straight-laced yeshiva students? The story is a good…
Class

Adventures in American Judaism (Part 5)

Rabbi Dr. Zev Eleff

This week's topic: The Great Nineteenth Century Purim Ball Revival In the 1860s, a group of young Jews helped bring about a Jewish religious revival, first in New York, and then across North America, through a little known and little appreciated…
Class

Orthodox Conversion to Judaism in American Responsa Literature (Part 1)

Rabbi Adam Mintz

This week's topic: Orthodox Conversion in New Orleans, 1864
Class