When a student asked about the nature of Judaism - about why it’s called Judaism - the stakes, for her, had suddenly grown very high. The Washington Post had recently published an article with the provocative headline: “Is Judaism an ethnicity? A race? A nationality? Trump signs an order and provokes an identity crisis,” and people began asking: “if other people who aren’t even Jewish are going to tell us about the very nature of Judaism, we should probably know ourselves.”

To answer the questions: "Is Judaism an ethnicity?" and "Is Judaism a nationality?" we uncover the roots of why Judaism is called that, and what it means for our understanding of the very nature of Jewishness.

We also learn about what Life of Pi can teach us about how to think about truth, history, and facts, and why memory is what makes Jewish stories good.

Read a transcript of this episode. 

Credits

Shoot! is written, hosted, and produced by Jesse Paikin. You can always say hi, share your thoughts, or ask your own questions at hello@shootpodcast.com 

All audio credits for this episode can be found on our website.

Shoot! is supported in part by a grant from the Hadar Institute.

Discussing the events at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, where an armed attacker took four hostages, including the rabbi. We ask: "What's a Jewish response in a moment of crisis," and look at the idea of "Spiritual Pre-hab."

Show Notes and transcript will be available soon. Check back for more details or visit shootpodcast.com

Credits

Shoot! is written, hosted, and produced by Jesse Paikin. You can always say hi, share your thoughts, or ask your own question at hello@shootpodcast.com 

Shoot! is supported in part by a grant from the Hadar Institute.

What happens when a revolutionary Jewish thinker - fed up with his lower status as a Jew in 1700s Prussia - wants people to start thinking about the very essence of Judaism in a new way?

And what happens when a Prussian Christian theologian has a very different idea of what Judaism should look like?

In Part II of this episode, we reach the conclusion of figuring out: can we even call Judaism a religion?

In This Episode, we learn about…

• What on earth is meant by “Judeo-Christian”?
• How being “spiritual” is not only an inner experience in Judaism
• The problem with “kids these days,” not wanting religion (in the 1700s)
• The radical ideas of Jewish individualism that Moses Mendelssohn proposed
• How a German theologian invented “religion”
• How “religion” can be (or was) anti-Jewish
• What Jews Have to Give Up in Exchange for Citizenship
• A Brief Tale of Historical Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations
• How Eastern Europe, North Africa & Central Asia are playing a completely different ball-game
• Today’s Jewish Identities & Geo-Politics
• My own answer to the question - “Is Judaism a Religion?”
• And why does all this matter for how we understand what it means to talk about or be Jewish today?

Lots more details and extras can be found in the show notes, including translations of the Hebrew terms we used in this episode.

Read a transcript of this episode. 

Credits

Shoot! is written, hosted, and produced by Jesse Paikin. You can always say hi, share your thoughts, or ask your own question at hello@shootpodcast.com 

All audio credits for this episode can be found on our website.

Shoot! is supported in part by a grant from the Hadar Institute.