Vivian Silver has been missing since October 7, the day Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,400 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages to Gaza. Since then, more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel's air strikes in Gaza. Vivian is 74 years old, from Kibbutz Be’eri, on the Gaza border. In this episode, we speak with her friend Ariella Giniger, who was in touch with Vivian as Hamas terrorists entered her house on the morning of October 7. We’ll also hear parts of...
Oct 19, 2023•20 min
It's been a terrifying week of violence in Israel. Instead of our planned episode of Can We Talk?, this week we offer a poem called “Mishalot”—requests, or wishes—by Esther Raab , one of modern Hebrew’s first female poets, born in Israel in 1894. She wrote “Mishalot” in 1967, around the time of the Six-Day War. The poem is a reminder that even in dark days, hope can be part of our legacy.
Oct 10, 2023•5 min
What did JOIN for Justice, the Jewish Organizing Institute and Network, do when the pandemic made its in-person community organizing fellowship impossible? It turned the obstacle into an opportunity, shifting to a virtual fellowship specifically for people with disabilities. Over seven months in 2021, a cohort of Jewish young adults with a wide range of disabilities, race and gender identities, and social justice interests met online for JOIN’s Access to Power Fellowship. In this episode of Can ...
Sep 26, 2023•22 min
Golda Meir is known as Israel's "Iron Lady": gruff, chain-smoking, and fiercely ambitious. In the eyes of many, she was also responsible for the Yom Kippur War, which cost thousands of lives. But Golda's story is far more complex. In this episode of Can We Talk?, as we approach 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, we go beyond the caricatures and talk about aspects of Golda's career that are often overlooked: the ways she helped build the fledgling state of Israel, her relationship with Israel’s M...
Sep 12, 2023•23 min
While we’re hard at work on our fall season, which launches Sept 12, enjoy this bonus episode from Joia Putnoi. Joia recorded this conversation with her grandmother Fran Putnoi, or “Granfran,” for a college class. It's about passing recipes and stories from one generation of Jewish women to the next. We think you’ll love it.
Aug 14, 2023•14 min
That's a wrap! In this episode of Can We Talk? , Nahanni Rous, Jen Richler, and Judith Rosenbaum recap the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 seasons—from a celebration at a queer Jewish chicken farm to the fight for Israel's "chained women" to reproductive rights after Roe, and much more.
Jun 27, 2023•17 min
From Portnoy’s Complaint to Seinfeld , the word shiksa is firmly embedded in popular culture. Where does the word come from, and how has its meaning changed over time? In this episode, we’re bringing you another installment of our “Word of the Week” series, where we dig into one word and explore how it relates to Jewish women. Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, Keren McGinity, and Kylie Ora Lobell give us their takes. This episode features music by Alicia Jo Rabins ( www.aliciajo.com )....
Jun 20, 2023•15 min
What did talented, dedicated Jewish women do before they could become rabbis? Some became rebbetzins . In this episode of Can We Talk? , we’re looking at the changing role of the rebbetzin —the rabbi’s wife. Women have been rabbis in America for just over half a century, but for as long as there have been rabbis, there have been rabbis' wives—and they've often served as leaders, too. We'll hear from Shuly Rubin Schwartz, author of The Rabbi’s Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life, and from...
Jun 05, 2023•28 min
Alice Shalvi has been an Israeli feminist pioneer for decades. Born in Germany and raised in England, she moved to Israel in 1949, a young woman excited to help build a new state. She’s spent her life there, working for gender equality and a more just society. In this episode of Can We Talk? , Judith Rosenbaum joins us to tell Alice’s story, and to talk about the ways she’s fought to make Israel a better country. You'll also hear excerpts from conversations between Judith and Alice....
May 22, 2023•20 min
Hebrew is a very gendered language; every noun in Hebrew is either feminine or masculine. So are pronouns, including “I” and “you.” This makes it nearly impossible to utter a sentence in Hebrew without using gender. So as a Hebrew speaker, how do you refer to a mixed-gender group? What about nonbinary people? In this episode of Can We Talk?, we speak with Michal Shomer, Dafna Eisenreich, and Tal Janner-Klausner, three activists who are taking Hebrew beyond the gender binary and promoting a Hebre...
May 09, 2023•28 min
Israel turns 75 this week. This milestone comes at a moment of unprecedented upheaval in Israeli society and escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Over the past few months, around 1.5 million Israelis have poured into the streets to protest the judicial reforms proposed by Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government, which would weaken the power of the Supreme Court. In this episode of Can We Talk? , we'll hear four Jewish Israeli women from diverse backgrounds reflect on how the...
Apr 21, 2023•28 min
When the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade, it eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion. As of April 2023, it is now essentially illegal to have an abortion in 15 states. That means limited to no access to terminating a pregnancy. But many people don't realize these bans also affect people who want to get pregnant. Jessica Kalb, Lisa Sobel, and Sarah Baron are among those people. They're suing their home state of Kentucky for its abortion ban, claiming it v...
Apr 10, 2023•21 min
Samira Mehta is the daughter of a white American mother and a South Asian immigrant father. She’s also a Jew by choice and a scholar of American religious history and women’s and gender studies. Her new book, The Racism of People Who Love You examines the subtle, everyday racism of intimate interactions. In this episode of Can We Talk? , Judith Rosenbaum speaks with Samira about her identity, the differences between racial and cultural privilege, and the conversations about racism and belonging ...
Mar 27, 2023•25 min
Here at Can We Talk?, we’re podcast fanatics. And we especially like shows that feature Jewish women’s voices. So we decided to bring together some of our favorite Jewish women podcasters to talk shop. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Judith Rosenbaum takes us behind the scenes with Stephanie Butnick from Unorthodox, Judy Gold from Kill Me Now, and Emily Bazelon from Slate's Political Gabfest, to talk about what makes their shows Jewish, sharing the mic with men, and answering to their listeners...
Mar 14, 2023•23 min
In 2017, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the New York Times story about producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse of women. Their reporting lit a fire under the #MeToo movement, led to Weinstein’s conviction, and prompted a national reckoning with sexual abuse. They chronicled the experience in their book She Said, which was made into a film by the same title in 2022. In this episode of Can We Talk? , Nahanni Rous talks with Jodi Kantor about how Weinstein tried to play the “Jew-to-Jew” card w...
Feb 28, 2023•26 min
It all started at a preschool Hanukkah party a few years ago. That's when an offhand remark led Rabbi Minna Bromberg to start Fat Torah, a project to end fat stigma in Jewish communal life. In this episode of Can We Talk, Judith Rosenbaum speaks with Minna in her home in Jerusalem about how fatphobia plays out in Israel versus the US, the ways it intersects with gender, and how Jewish tradition can teach us to be more body positive.
Dec 20, 2022•24 min
Teens were already struggling before COVID. When the pandemic hit, things just got worse. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we speak with Vanessa Kroll Bennett, co-host of The Puberty Podcast, parenting writer, and mother of four, about teens and mental health—before, during, and after the pandemic—gender differences, and what caregivers and Jewish communities can do to help. We also hear directly from teens about how the pandemic affected them and how they're doing now. This episode includes Nov...
Dec 05, 2022•21 min
For a long time, Rebecca Soffer, co-founder of the website Modern Loss , had been planning to write a guide to coping with grief. Then the pandemic hit, and the need felt especially urgent. So she wrote The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Resilience. The book came out earlier this year. In this episode of Can We Talk? , we speak with Rebecca about all things grief-related: trigger days, bespoke holidays, Jewish grief rituals, and what to say—and no...
Nov 22, 2022•22 min
In Israel, marriage and divorce are governed by Jewish law and controlled by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical courts. If a Jewish woman wants a divorce, she has to get permission from her husband, in the form of a document called a get —and he can refuse. That's exactly what happens to about 1 in 5 Jewish women in Israel who want a divorce, according to a recent survey. That figure doesn't even include women who agree to things that are against their best interests because of the threat of get refu...
Nov 08, 2022•23 min
In this season of ghosts and haunted houses, we’re taking you back to a time when communicating with the dead was a popular way to spend an evening. Séances were the main practice of the spiritualist movement, which is based on the belief that when people die, they survive as spirits, and that we can talk to these spirits with the help of a medium. The movement had its heyday in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Jews all over the world, from London to Brooklyn to Cairo, were...
Oct 24, 2022•22 min
On a hot, humid day in late August, Nahanni Rous joined a gathering at Linke Fligl, a queer Jewish chicken farm and cultural organizing project in New York's Hudson Valley. ( Linke Fligl is a pun—Yiddish for "left wing.") For the past seven years, queer Jews have celebrated holidays, farmed, and built community on this ten-acre, off-the-grid piece of land—but the project is coming to a close. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we walk the land at Linke Fligl, talk to people at the final gathering,...
Oct 11, 2022•23 min
While we're hard at work preparing for Can We Talk 's fall season, enjoy this episode of A Bintel Brief, an advice show with a Jewish twist, from our friends at The Forward. In this episode, For Richer or Poorer, hosts Ginna Green and Lynn Harris give their advice to a 30-something woman looking to settle down with a long-term partner. She might've found the perfect match—but if they got married, he definitely wouldn't be the breadwinner.
Aug 23, 2022•30 min
That's a wrap! In this episode of Can We Talk? , Nahanni Rous, Jen Richler, and Judith Rosenbaum recap the Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 seasons—from the story of an underground abortion collective in the years before Roe to the 100-year history of the American bat mitzvah to our "Word of the Week" mini-series, and much more.
Jun 28, 2022•20 min
Jewish summer camps and youth movements are a time-honored tradition—tens of thousands of Jewish teens participate. But a group of young Jews is calling out what they say is a “toxic hookup culture” in many of these institutions. In this episode of Can We Talk? , Jen Richler talks with Dahlia Soussan, Ellanora Lerner and Madeline Canfield, three of the founders of Jewish Teens for Empowered Consent, about how they hope to change the culture. Please note, there are sexual references in this episo...
Jun 21, 2022•24 min
"A woman of valor, who can find? Her worth is far beyond rubies..." So begins a 22-verse acrostic poem from the Book of Proverbs. The poem showers praise on an unnamed woman of valor— eshet chayil, in Hebrew—and is sung in some Jewish families on Friday night before the Shabbat meal. In the final installment of our Word of the Week series, we talk with Rena Nickerson, Miriam Anzovin and Rachel Stomel about the meaning of Eshet Chayil today and their memories of singing it growing up. This episod...
Jun 14, 2022•15 min
From MSNBC to Fox News, the word "gaslighting" is everywhere these days. But where does it come from and what does it mean? This time in our Word of the Week series, we dig into the ubiquitous term: its roots in a 1944 Hollywood thriller, how it has come to be used today, and whether it's still a useful word. We speak with linguist Rachel Steindel Burdin and psychotherapist Robin Stern. We'll also hear from comedian Judy Gold and TikTok star Miriam Anzovin. This episode includes music by Alicia ...
May 31, 2022•14 min
How did a popular Yiddish woman's name come to mean gossip and busybody? In the first of our new Word of the Week mini-series, we trace the evolution of the word yenta . Producer Jen Richler talks with Fiddler on the Roof scholar Jan Lisa Huttner, comedian Judy Gold, author Lizzie Skurnick, and TikTok star and Torah commentator Miriam Anzovin. And in a special cameo...Yente the Matchmaker herself! This episode includes music by Alicia Jo Rabins ( www.aliciajo.com )....
May 24, 2022•13 min
Vlada Nedak lives in Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, only an hour's drive from the front lines of the war. She's a wife and mother and the owner of a menagerie of household pets. She's also the Executive Director of Project Kesher Ukraine, a network of Jewish women building community and leadership. When Russia invaded Ukraine, like many Ukrainians, Vlada was faced with the difficult choice of whether to stay or try to leave the country. In this episode of Can We Talk? , Nahanni speaks with Vlada...
May 10, 2022•26 min
After a career spent telling other people's stories, Eleanor Reissa has finally uncovered her own. It started with 56 letters she found in a drawer while cleaning out her late mother's apartment. They were letters from her father to her mother, just a few years after they had both survived World War II. The letters sent Eleanor on a search to retrace her family history in Europe, which she chronicles in her new memoir, The Letters Project: A Daughter's Journey . In this episode of Can We Talk? ,...
Apr 26, 2022•21 min
Fifty years ago, Rabbi Sally Priesand made history by becoming the first woman rabbi in America. In this episode of Can We Talk? , women rabbis from three Jewish denominations reflect on the milestone. We speak with Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses, Rabba Sara Hurwitz, and Rabbi Sandra Lawson about the challenges they’ve faced, and about how their presence in the rabbinate is shaping the Jewish community. This is the final episode in our three-part anniversary series. This episode included Color Countr...
Apr 12, 2022•35 min
