Episode description

This bonus episode of Judaism Unbound is presented in partnership with Theatre Dybbuk. Once a month, their podcast -- called The Dybbukast -- releases a new episode, and we are proud to feature episode four of their podcast as a bonus episode here on Judaism Unbound's channel. In each episode, they bring poems, plays, and other creative texts from throughout history to life, all while revealing their relationships to issues still present today. Subscribe to The Dybbukast in Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else that podcasts are found.

Episode four, presented in collaboration with The Contemporary Jewish Museum, explores two murder pamphlets, "The Murdered Jewess Sara Alexander: Life, Trial and Conviction of Rubenstein the Polish Jew" and "Rubenstein, or The Murdered Jewess: Being a Full and Reliable History of This Terrible Mystery of Blood.” Published in 1876, both pamphlets tell the tale of Pesach Rubenstein, a Jewish immigrant who was convicted of killing his cousin Sara Alexander and disposing of her body in a cornfield. The case was a sensation in the press and took hold of the popular imagination.

Dr. Eddy Portnoy, Academic Advisor and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and author of Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press (Stanford University Press 2017), discusses the story behind the pamphlets as the first significant intersection of Jews, the local and national press, and the American judicial system.