In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Dr. Malka Simkovich—Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies and director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago—about Second Temple Judaism and how it can help us understand what it means to be a Jew in our own time.

Malka explores the significance of belief and observance over the history of the Jewish people.

•What is the role of mystery in how we understand covenant and chosenness?
•What is the relationship between religious life in the ancient world and the Jewish practice we know today?
•How does belief facilitate the continuity of the Jewish tradition throughout time?

Tune in to hear a conversation about the history and mystery of the Jewish nation.

Interview begins at 27:40

Dr. Malka Simkovich is the Crown-Ryan Chair of Jewish Studies and director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. She earned a doctoral degree in Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism from Brandeis University and a Masters degree in Hebrew Bible from Harvard University. She is the author of The Making of Jewish Universalism: From Exile to Alexandria (2016), and Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism (2018).

References:

The Formation of the Talmud: Scholarship and Politics in Yitzhak Isaac Halevy's Dorot Harishonim by Ari Bergmann

Introduction to the Mishnah by Maimonides

How Do We Know This?: Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism by Jay M. Harris

From Text to Tradition, A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism by Lawrence H. Schiffman

Strauss, Spinoza & Sinai: Orthodox Judaism and Modern Questions of Faith edited by Jeffrey Bloom, Alec Goldstein, and Gil Student

Response to Michael Wyschogrod by David Novak

The Making of Jewish Universalism: From Exile to Alexandria by Malka Z. Simkovich

Discovering Second Temple Literature: The Scriptures and Stories That Shaped Early Judaism by Malka Z. Simkovich

Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition by Erich S. Gruen

Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans by Erich S. Gruen