This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org.

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Tuvia Tenenbom, a formerly Haredi and now secular Jew and the author of Careful, Beauties Ahead!, about how he developed a new love for Haredi religious life.

When Tuvia Tenenbom wrote a book about Haredim in Mea Shearim, he found that all Jews—no matter how different their communities—are interconnected in more ways than we might think. In this episode we discuss:

• How did the Haredi community respond to October 7?
• What do outsiders misunderstand about Haredi Jews?
• Is humor the universal Jewish language? 

Tune in to hear a conversation about what it means to truly love the entirety of the Jewish family. 

Interview begins at 28:37.

Tuvia Tenenbom is an Israeli-American theater director, playwright, and author who is the founding artistic director of the Jewish Theater of New York. He authored several books that deal with themes of Jewish life, Jewish culture, antisemitism, and the Holocaust, including his well-known Catch The Jew!. He joins us to discuss the year he, a secular Jew, spent with the Haredi Jews of Mea Shearim. 

References:

18Forty Podcast: “Joshua Leifer and Shaindy Ort: How Progressive Activists Rediscovered Traditional Jewish Life”

Tosafot on Pesachim

Careful, Beauties Ahead! by Tuvia Tenenbo

Catch The Jew! by Tuvia Tenenbom

Works of Tuvia Tenenbom