Jewish Outreach

This month, we are exploring those who traverse worlds. We’re speaking with people who cross communal boundaries, and we’re learning from them about the many ways to think about Jewish community. The Jewish world has changed significantly in the past two years, with many of the traditional stories that keep us apart changing every day. We’re exploring this changing story, as part of our new topic on Jewish outreach.

Central Questions:

Beyond Boundaries: How do the lines around communities impact an individual?
Inner and Outer Identities: How does moving across communal lines impact one’s personal sense of their religious identity?
Conversation Beyond Community: How does moving between religious communities impact the conversations occurring within each community?

EPISODES

Yitzchok Adlerstein: Zionism, the American Yeshiva World, and Reaching Beyond Our Community

February 4, 2025
83 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we launch our new topic, Outreach, by talking to Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a senior staff member at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, about changing people’s minds, the value of individuality, and the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.

Frieda Vizel: How the World Misunderstands Hasidic Jewry

February 11, 2025
77 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Frieda Vizel—a formerly Satmar Jew who makes educational content about Hasidic life—about her work presenting Hasidic Williamsburg to the outside world, and vice-versa.

Ari Lamm: Teaching Non-Jews To Love the Bible

February 18, 2025
67 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm, co-founder and president of SoulShop Studios, about doing Jewish “outreach” to non-Jews.

Lizzy Savetsky: Becoming a Jewish Influencer and Israel Advocate

February 25, 2025
76 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Lizzy Savetsky, who went from a career in singing and fashion to being a Jewish activist and influencer, about her work advocating for Israel online.

Ken Brodkin: A Shul Becomes Orthodox

March 4, 2025
115 min listening

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Rabbi Ken Brodkin, rabbi of New Jersey’s Congregation B’nai Israel, about how he helped turn it into “the Orthodox synagogue for all Jews.”

ARTICLES

LISTEN ON APPLE

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margins of Error

Kathryn Schulz

In Being Wrong, Schulz explores what it means to be wrong, and why humans are so insistent on being right about everything. Schulz, a writer with the lucidity of a long-time journalist, argues that we learn to celebrate errors, and that we stop fearing being wrong in life.

Nine and a Half Mystics

Herbert Weiner

In this cult classic of American Jewish writing, a Reform rabbi visits 9 (and a half) mystics, and learns about their way of life. Guided by curiosity, Weiner offers a rare look at storied legends of Jewish mysticism, asking them the questions that only an outsider to a community can ask, and demonstrating the value in the process of crossing the lines that sometimes keep communities apart.

The Promise

Chaim Potok

The follow-up to Potok’s more famous The Chosen, in The Promise he explores the lines between communities with more depth. This novel offers a singular view of what happens when one leaves one religious community, whether it is Modern Orthodoxy, Conservative Judaism, or Hasidic Judaism, and how religious identity and communal identity are interwoven through and through.

EXPLORE MORE TOPICS

Intergenerational Divergence