← Identity/Crisis
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- [00:06]
A
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Identity Crisis, a show from the Shloim Hartman Institute, creating better conversations about the essential issues facing Jewish life. I'm Yehuda Kurtzer. We're recording on June 4, 2026, at the Sholem Hartman Institute. So Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes was dramatically but in some ways unceremoniously fired by CBS this week. It wasn't altogether surprising if you were following the story. Peli had become an outspoken critic of Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, in ways that seemed like he was baiting management to force their hand. It was still hard to watch. This is not because I have any particular loyalty to Pelly or CBS News. I haven't really watched 60 Minutes since it came on after football, when I was watching football as a kid. But it was unsettling because of the substance of the allegations that he claimed he was forced to include unverified in his stories, that other stories that dissented from Weiss's biases were quashed, the ways that CBS had allowed some of its controversial interviewees to choose their own sympathetic interviewers, and a lot more. And I assume ultimately that the full story lives somewhere between the story management is telling and its aggrieved employees. But I feel I've seen enough of the corporatization of media and the ongoing assault on the work of trying to tell the truth in media to believe enough of Peli's account to be alarmed by all of this. And I'm less and less sure about what being a journalist really means anymore. This micro crisis lives within a larger climate of confusion about ideas. We're living simultaneously in a moment in history where there is greater possibility for the relevance of ideas than ever before, but an increasingly risky public space for the advancement of those ideas. On the plus side, we have distribution systems we never had before for the business of persuasion. Breakdown of gatekeepers like editors is creating a far more open, actual marketplace of ideas than could happen in closed systems. And we also see immense curiosity these days. The crude way of expressing it is that people seem to want a lot of content. More generous way is to say that there's a search for wisdom and understanding among the general public that's different than I've ever seen in my lifetime. I felt this acutely during the pandemic. It was a moment of immense uncertainty, but listeners and viewers flocked to online and digital content. We saw it here at Hartman in search of community. It was an antidote to loneliness. But I think there were also open minds and hearts in ways I hadn't seen before. At the same time, the breakdown of all of those gatekept systems, editors and publications and editorial standards and tenure, the breakdown of all those systems and the rise of the algorithms instead makes all knowledge production and distribution today highly suspect. We see flattening between expertise and voice. The most effective communicators today, certainly the most popular, are rarely scholars with nuanced views. They're populist podcasters, influencers, the people who can manipulate the algorithms towards the advancement of their ideas and. And narrowing the space for ideas that challenge them. We're seeing both an unprecedented diversity of knowledge in the public space and a democratization of public voice like never before. But I would say a recession in expertise and a commitment to truth. It's confusing and it's risky. You know, only a few decades into the era of, quote, thought leadership, a term that was invented in the corporate world, it's migrated into all of our lives and. Which tells us more about how many people want to be thought leaders, then it tells us about their competence to be them. It's kind of a yucky word, like a lot of corporate imports. I know what a historian is. I know what a philosopher is. I know what a thinker is, a scholar and a rabbi. I understand what their sources of knowledge are and their methodologies. And I know that all of us in this business seek for our knowledge to have impact on people. I like it that people with wisdom see it as their responsibility not just to sit on. On the sidelines or in the ivory tower, but to take responsibility to lead people. But is thought leadership itself an actual industry? And are all of the thought leaders around us really helping? In my work here at Hartman, where this is our core business, I've tried to create a culture that can both produce serious content in response to big issues in real time, but also a culture that respects ideas enough to know that they need time to be developed. Our research center is designed to be collaborative, to force really smart people across different disciplines to share an agenda and find ways to push each other. And the time frame of doing that work doesn't always align with the time frame of responding to things in real time. A lot of our stakeholders want us to move faster, to be sharper, to have sharper elbows, to have a kind of style that could make our content more viral. And I am so ambivalent about it. I want to win, but I fear the costs of winning. As a person, though I work really hard to be a better discerner. I am a broken record in My house, with my kids. Whenever they tell me something really inflammatory that they read online, can you believe this happened? I always give them the same first response. Where did you read it? Did you verify it from a second source? Was it a real news site? Was it just a social media account? This obviously irritates my children to no end. I see no way, though, out of our truth mess if we as individuals commit collectively to the kind of behaviors that make us the structure of accountability for this marketplace. And for this all to work, we also need better guides, trusted guides, journalists and curators of conversation who can parse between the fact that they hold strong convictions, but their responsibilities to the public discourse. The kind of people who can create order for us, who make ideas better by coaxing them along with structures of real accountability, that they be honest and sincere and not just that they sound good when they're spoken aloud by competent speakers. Today I'm talking to one of those people, one of our trusted guides. Abby Pogrman, who I'm really happy to call a friend, is an accomplished author of several different books on different topics in different genres, including several that reflect her own deepening engagement with Jewish ideas, with Jewish identity, and with learning. She is a journalist who was a producer on public television and then at CBS News, including a period of time working as a producer on the aforementioned 60 Minutes, for which she was Emmy nominated and, to the point of this interview, a person I now come to think of as the Jewish community's interviewer of record. I've been the subject of Abby's interviewing prowess many times, including actually this morning at the American Jewish Press Association's conference downtown. I'm excited to flip the script today and have her as my guest on the show today. Abby, thanks for being here. I know you're like longtime listener, first time caller, so thanks for being on the show.
- [06:56]
B
I am so glad to be here. And I am an obsessive listener, Amazing, a proud fan.
- [07:01]
A
So I guess I want to start with you and how you got here. What it is that you see is your work. Now, it's been only a few years, but it feels like every time I see an event like, oh, there's going to be a debate between Bret Stephens and Jeremiah Ben Ami at the Yellow. And it's gonna be moderated by. And I can always finish the sentence
- [07:19]
B
that was at Stryker, by the way. After a while, you gotta be careful.
- [07:22]
A
They all kind of blend together. I understand. I understand that they're competitors. That's on top of your own business. As a producer of your own show and an editor on jbs. I'd love for you to talk about how you kind of got to that place, but also what's the why for you of that kind of work in the Jewish community right now?
- [07:38]
B
Well, first of all, thank you for the kudos and I have so much humility about where I am and I won't bore you with my self doubt, but I really got here. I think very naturally. I'm sort of weary of the word journey, but it was a very organic one. And it really was led by genuine curiosity at first, wanting to understand what I didn't and being really energized by the conversations where I was able to ask the questions. One of the things about being a producer and a writer, a reporter is that you are essentially, you know, finding the kernel of what's going to be riveting but really kicking the tires on the truth of it. And I was raised in, it sounds like in the old days, but the rigor and the discipline of journalism when I was coming up in it was almost terrifyingly high stakes. Like you just had to get it right.
- [08:33]
A
Yeah.
- [08:34]
B
And so it wasn't just taking the truth seriously, it was taking trust so seriously. And that was on us individually. And so I would say inculcated by Fred Friendly, who sadly many people don't remember, but he was played by George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck. He was one of the really the inventors or the creators of broadcast journalism with Edward R. Murrow. He was really my first mentor. And it was like a drumbeat. And it was a threatening one of how, just to your point of the kids, where did you get that? How have you done your homework? How have you cross checked that? And that was before we had ChatGPT. So that kind of legwork and that kind of discipline was in my DNA. And it also led me to be the one who wanted to ask the questions. I was always preparing for other people, whether it was Ed Bradley or Mike Wallace or someone else. And there was great satisfaction in that. But I often wanted to be like, I wanna follow up on that. And that's really what got me to, I think, asking questions. And it really was. I have to actually credit Joy Levitt who at the JCC said you should have your own series. And that was a series I had actually for 12 years at the Manhattan JCC. It was called what Everyone's Talking About. But that really led me to sort of be able to have my dream guests and fill the theater with people who it wasn't. They were coming for me, but they were coming for thoughtful conversation.
- [09:55]
A
So I wanna come back to curiosity in a moment, but let me tangent onto that rigor piece. Right, because what you're describing as working with Ed Bradley or Mike Wallace and the responsibility to get it right. So first of all, like, what is the measure of getting it right? I mean, embarrassment is oftentimes the fear. Do you think that kind of rigor is possible right now? Because the speed of the response and the desire to get more clicks does not lend itself to, for instance, really rigorous fact checking. And I think there's a kind of prevailing sense of like, okay, well, I got it wrong, but my idea was right, so my followers will care about it anyway and they won't worry about that. Can you talk a little bit about what you've seen in the field around that rigor question?
- [10:38]
B
Well, first, I think you're absolutely right that the filters are diminished to the point of being absent in so many places. And anybody can write anything. And also for free. There used to be also the filter of, like, if I am paying someone $3 a word, which sounds unheard of now, but it used to be, you know, or a dollar a word, you know, there was some quid pro quo there. Now anybody can. And I'm not denigrating that all the time. Some people are doing that very responsibly. But I just think, you know, someone used to call it garbage in, garbage out. Who are the gatekeepers of that? In terms of just editorial rigor, I think that's highly diminished. The other piece of it is when you check something, it's against what, like, what you're raising. And what I've realized, which is to me, bone chilling, is that there's just this sense of, like, who's to say what the fact is, who's to say what the actual quote, unquote, truth is or origin is or justification is. And so if you're in the sandbox of questioning what is fact, I think all bets are off. And that's kind of where we are to me. And I don't want to, like, take it to the post October 7th moment, but it was shocking to me, no matter who was where, politically, that anyone would be questioning the veracity of the fact that it happened and particularly the sexual attacks where there was so much documentation. And I was one of the people who interviewed the Zaka representative who had pictures on his phone and was there personally. And I raise a shocking example very intentionally it was because to me, that's one of those times where it was like, are you kidding me? Can you actually be doing. And if people can be doing that, I don't know where we are.
- [12:21]
A
So it's an interesting case because I also wonder, and I'm not endorsing the skepticism that occurred in the west, the willingness to not believe the Jewish story, but I am wondering, what's the timeframe that you actually need in order to be able to say this happened? And I need people to hear it. Right. Cause some of what sometimes happens in the Jewish community, and it's certainly around Israel, is I've said this. And now anyone who claims or raises an eyebrow or asks with some skepticism is already like a denier of my legitimacy. And you would kind of think, like, the first time you hear a story, what you should say is, great. I'm waiting for more information to come out. I'm waiting for the investigative reporting to happen. And this happens, by the way, on both ends. It's the same thing that happened with the genocide allegations. It was a prefabricated accusation. And then people needed to believe it right away. So what would be the right pace by which truth should be allowed to be spelled out by responsible journalism?
- [13:21]
B
Yeah, I think you're raising a good point. And I assume when you meant great, you didn't mean, like, great. This was this horrible thing. It's more of like, okay, we have this. I certainly think I come from not a Luddite phase of journalism, but it's certainly one where you had to constantly slow down before declaring something or affirming something. I think now that we do live, where there's so much more documentation in real time, I think there has to be a response sooner. Then there have to be layers of, as I said, kind of kicking the tires. And I don't want to stick with the sex attacks, the rape attacks, because for me, it's both upsetting, volatile, and irresponsible of those who I felt like, questioned it because it was being driven by a political position. And maybe that's not fair of me, but to me, that was more unimpeachable sooner, I guess, is what I would say. That's maybe my own compass, but generally I am a very cautious reporter. I just am. And it's not like I'm praising myself for it. It's just, again, when you were raised a certain way, you don't feel like you can just say, and that's even when I'm writing about Judaism. Like, I literally fact check anything. I'm writing about the Holidays, our texts, our traditions. Whether it's with Yehuda Kurtzer or Dov Linzer or even Sharon Kleinbaum. It's not always someone who thinks exactly alike. But even when I was writing about the Hanukkah story, I talked to someone who teaches about the Maccabean revolts at Columbia and many others. It's like, again, I don't want to sound self aggrandizing. I am not going to posit something because I read it in a book or I heard it from one person. I'm going to cross check it on many and often that creates doubt in me that will change the way I approach a story or an interview.
- [15:08]
A
Yeah, I feel similarly. I realized recently that for a while in a number of lectures, I had been misquoting something and it has been unsettling to me for weeks. Because if you believe that this work works, if it's actually successful, if teaching and writing and journalism shapes hearts and minds, then even if you make an inadvertent mistake, you may have informed the way somebody sees the world. And it's like a heavy and awful responsibility to have to deal with that. I don't think that many people care right now in the industry about that fear because I think if you're motivated by the desire to get people to think a certain way and that's what you're trying to get them to do, then it's like, fine, take shortcuts, right? It doesn't really matter if you got it right or wrong. But did they come to the right conclusion?
- [15:55]
B
Right. But I wouldn't gloss over the fact that you are. This is not just to compliment you. There are certain people in the Jewish world, and again, particularly post October 7, who have been our kind of islands of sanity and clarity. And so when you say something, I think this has happened a couple times on this podcast. Someone thinks that's a departure for him. Is that a departure for him? I actually was listening to something and went back twice to make sure that I'd heard you write in a recent podcast. I don't wanna get into the details, but I realized you were actually conveying someone else's perspective, not your own. And that's how much I'm sort of relying on the voices that have been kind of my buoys in the storm. And that is a different kind of responsibility. And those who know that their industry is about rage and about feeling aggrieved or feeling like, yeah, let's go. Our team, I think no matter how much they oversimplify, they don't have that same burden that you overcome, or I have, or I hope more people have on their shoulder. Is what I'm saying going to somehow give someone an arsenal that is not necessarily the right one? Because in some ways, people are looking for tools and weapons right now.
- [17:08]
A
We can talk about this more, but I like it and can manage it. When people come at me critical of things that I say that I agree that I've said and that I believe in. What's aggravating is when people come up with narratives about what they think I believe in. Or, well, you sat with this person, therefore you endorse them. And then I have a whole narrative about you that's intolerable. But let me stay on that a little bit, because so far we talked about risk as it relates to getting it right. Right. And I do think, like anyone in this business who's not both sweating the details and really precise. Right. About how they use words misses the weight of the responsibility of this.
- [17:50]
B
And not to mention, I think it's a better story. I mean, that's what's also. It's a better story if you've done that Rigor.
- [17:56]
A
By the way, I struggled with this in graduate school because I was really excited about the ideas that I was working on about Jews in the ancient Mediterranean. And my professors kept saying, like, the text should be very short and the footnotes should be very. Should be very long. And I found that very aggravating. I ultimately kind of negotiated my way out and got the doctorate. But it was hard, and I don't think it was less rigorous. But they were basically saying, in order to say something serious about history, you have to get it right. And that's actually gonna make it more interesting on the other end. So I think they were probably right.
- [18:27]
B
I would just say that there was a senior producer at 60 Minutes named Phil Scheffler. He was a famous or infamous curmudgeon. I loved him. But he was also just intolerant of the things you left out. And, I mean, you were always leaving things out in 60 minutes. Cause you would research something forever, and it would end up in 12 minutes. You know, after all of the interviews and the edits, I remember him saying to me. Cause I said, you know, if I put this in, put this in, suddenly becomes complicated. He said, the more true it is, the more interesting it's gonna be. And, yes, you'd have to have a point of view. You're not throwing in the kitchen sink, everything. But I've never forgotten the idea that it doesn't hurt the story to have the whole story.
- [19:07]
A
Yeah. By the way, even if you know the whole story and it doesn't go into the story. Right. Like, totally. Right. I decided that this is what happened, but this actually isn't relevant to what I'm doing. But I can defend that. I actually am commanding all the information, which, by the way, is also a management strategy in our organization. And it's aggravating. But the way that I manage my people and my programs is much more through. Did you consider it doing like this? And what about this possibility? And the best possible response is actually, here's all the things we considered. And they can preempt that and be like, but we made these choices. And then I'm like, great. How can I even argue with it? Right. You did exactly the discernment process around the work that we're all supposed to do together. But let's talk about the other risk, which is not just about getting it right, but the fear of association, the fear of cancellation. This feels far more acute today. We've talked about it quite a bit. You are constantly making choices that I know afflict you sometimes. If I do this, if I moderate this conversation, are people gonna associate me with this camp? And who do I choose not to interview? I wonder if you could talk both analytically about how you see this happening in the field and maybe even personally about your own choices in your own internal logic of how you come out those decisions yourself.
- [20:26]
B
First of all, I could not agree more, and I don't want to overstate it, but I think one can't right now.
- [20:32]
A
One can't avoid it.
- [20:33]
B
Yeah. It is truly just a radioactive environment. And I understand it. I understand that people's emotions are high. My emotions are high. I try to keep my journalist hat on, but, you know, constantly I think I am flagging how I'm feeling or what I'm struggling with. I think often, to your point, people assume too much about where I am. Not a lot, but when they do, I feel like it's lazy and it's often wrong. But there's no question I'm a different person Post 10-7-and a different journalist than I was before. That said, the policing that's going on within our community is ashanda. And I think it's, in some senses, causing all of us to kind of pull up in a way that is not constructive. And I will own the fact that I'm thinking and overthinking kind of every interview unless it's so parv that I know no one can object, but even within an interview, when I've agreed or said yes or invited someone, I'm often channeling the person who. Criticizing the questions I'm asking, because that's really where we are. It hasn't paralyzed me. I hope people would feel like I'm still doing my work. But there's no question that I also know which team I'm on. And I don't want to elevate voices that are going to add to a narrative that I find problematic right now in terms of who Jews are. That's really what it comes down to. It's not like pro Israel, anti Israel, as more as if I have a red line. It is more of someone who's going to do real damage, I think, to a narrative of who a Jew is today. That's kind of, if I have some compass, it's there. And that's a pretty like, high bar, because most people should get over that if they're invested in the Jewish people. And I'm mostly interviewing Jews, I will say, although occasionally I get to interview someone like Lynch Chaney, who might be a Jew by now. But that's a long way of saying that, because I have, in a sense, watchers, and they're both metaphoric and literal. It just takes a kind of energy that I didn't have to expend before. Again, I would hopefully say I haven't lacked courage.
- [22:58]
A
But sometimes, sometimes is that resistance to kind of go there with people who you think are doing damage to the Jewish people? Is that about truth or is it about something else? I'm leaving open the possibility it's about truth. I've shared with you the story that when we interviewed Jeff Goldberg from the Atlantic here on the podcast, this goes back maybe five years ago. It was early in identity crisis, so it was a good get for us. And I asked him about the criticism that he was getting from the right, which was that the Atlantic was imbalanced. And it was a source of tremendous frustration for them because their argument was, we are pro the American story, we are pro American democracy, and. And we see Trump as assaulting the norms of American democracy. And he would get all this criticism of, why do you not tell sympathetic stories about the Trump administration? And he answered in a way that I think is both true and evasive. He said, because the stories that people want us to tell can't pass a fact check. In other words, I'm not engaging with those dangerous ideas, not because I'm threatened by them, but because I think it betrays my responsibility as a journalist. So the same might go for Are the people who you don't want to talk to because you perceive them as being threats to the fundamental nature of the Jewish people. Is it because you think that's a lie or because we have to create other defense mechanisms around our community which might suggest that we think that they may have some truth to tell that we don't want to hear? Do you see what I'm saying?
- [24:20]
B
It's a very good question. First of all, I think our community is sometimes underselling our own resilience when it comes to hearing hard ideas. And that exasperates me. You raised the Bret Stephens Jeremy Ben Amee conversation, you know, because that happened at Stryker because Bret Stephens said, yes, there was a heckcher on doing it at all. But Jeremy Ben Ami said on that stage, and for those who don't know, he's head of J Street, he said on that stage. So I'm repeating something he said publicly that he hasn't been able to be invited to his own childhood synagogue, which is wrote of Shalom in New York City. Now, I love Rabbi Ben Spratt. I don't know what the truth is about the decision making there or even if he's right, but the fact that he said it publicly makes me reckon with something I think is kind of like, wow, are we really here where it's Jeremy Ben Ami? You could disagree with him all day long, but we have to hear what his perspective is because it's representing a huge swath of the Jewish community. And are we being responsible not to be able to listen and even just decide? We reject everything he says. And the number of people who told me this sounds self aggrandizing. I just wish that that conversation had been. It was recorded, but there was not permission to share it. But so many people in the room said, what a relief to finally hear two people who feel very strongly in opposite directions having a civil discourse about really hard things. And it's just happening too rarely. But I will raise that because again, it's also public. We need to investigate, interrogate whether there's truth in it. You know that I'm invested in the Hartman Institute because I think it's what you all do so well. But I never feel that like, wait a second, I'm uncomfortable here with what this might mean for the Jewish future if I'm helping your ideas have this much amplification. It's just that you're suddenly becoming a part of something. You have to reckon with. Even if you think we should have the strength to hear it. So just to give a very tacless example of something recently that happened that I was watching but not involved in. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, whom I think we both admire enormously, who's the senior rabbi at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, chose to be on a panel with Peter Beinart, who many have excommunicated, I would say, in the Jewish community because of what he's written about Israel. And whatever the future that he envisions, many think it writes Israel out entirely. And Peter is someone I've known. I interviewed him more than a decade ago, before he was who he is right now with the radioactivity around him. And I would just say that watching the incredible heat that Rabbi Cosgrove took was something that I sympathized. But I also understood why people's emotions are so high about this particular voice. And I don't wanna say here because it hasn't at this point been proffered to me whether I would or would not interview Peter. But it would be hard for me to do that right now because people showing up for that. I feel like can't even hear a conversation now. Because I think he is one of those examples of someone who. Who so many people have written out of the tent. And we can talk about excommunication in our community right now, but I wanna be in conversation where people can hear the conversation. And sometimes there are people who show up already so entrenched in rejecting something that it's not gonna be fruitful as a dialogue. And one of the things I asked at the Stryker center before we even began the event, and it was set up also by Gotti Levy, who asked this as well. But I used the analogy of team uniforms, of jerseys. And I said, I know people are here. Cause they're wearing the Brett jersey and some are wearing the Jeremy jersey. I'd love you to put them aside. Because it would be so unfortunate if you just went home believing exactly what you showed up believing. Like, maybe there'll be something that just pushes you a little bit. It's not that I'm saying. And you're gonna come away reformed and radicalized. I'm in a place where I'm struggling. I assume some of you are too. That doesn't mean that I don't have my beliefs. But let's see what we learn. And that used to be what I think Jewish conversation gave us. And right now, it's just perilous.
- [28:42]
A
Yeah, but it sounds a Little bit like what you're saying is, it's not just that with particular speakers, and Peter might be one of those examples and others, it's not just that the audience won't be able to hear it or that they'll come down on it. It's that you also feel like your integrity will be compromised because you have such deep disagreement that you don't want to be in a position to help somebody make a better version of an argument that you consider dangerous. So we are all players in this story as well. Now, I come at this a little bit differently than you because I'm not trained as a journalist. I do a weekly interview show, but I'm not a journalist. And I run an institution which is pretty clear about its ideological commitments. And therefore, like, I don't feel like I'm a neutral player in the public conversation. I feel like this show and our work is trying to advance a set of worldviews that sometimes get explicitly articulated and sometimes get modeled. So pluralism, sometimes you talk about and sometimes you just do. Right. But I also have lines, and some of those are created because of institutional considerations. I'd be lying if I said that wasn't the case. And some of them are also my own biases. I many times have had taken positions, and people will write to me and say, you know, I know you're criticizing that position, but what you should do now is invite that person on your show to argue with you. And I'm like, no, I think that person is so wrong that I don't really want to give them an airing. And I also think we over mythologize the idea that there's things you can't talk about in the Jewish community. Everybody and their mother has a substack. These things are out there all the time. Like, it actually is pretty wide open. It just doesn't necessarily require each of us with our own platforms to be constantly platforming each other. I think that's the tension here is like, you want to be a moderator, creating better conversations for the Jewish people as well. But you also are sensitive to who you are elevating in that space and in that process.
- [30:38]
B
But I will say about that and brings me back to the why I do this. I feel like my role is not as an advocate, but in some ways I advocate. I don't feel like I'm shy, but I've chosen the journalistic route to amplify voices that I think raise up what I feel so strongly about, which is a robust, rigorous, real conversation that makes you think and hopefully gets you to the right values and the things that I value, it's not like. And therefore I want everyone who listens to come to my way of thinking. But to me, that's both what's exciting and it's what's responsible. And that's what I'm trying to do in my conversations. I don't want to overstate it, like it's some huge contribution to the Jewish world or the world at all. But I feel like if I have any tiny role to play, it's that I'm going to do my homework. I'm going to take that very seriously. I want to share voices that are going to make you think that doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with the voices that I'm interviewing. Absolutely not. And often not. I want to be able to say this is how we should be in the public square, and I hope I can play some small role in keeping that journalistic, if that makes sense.
- [31:49]
A
I want to go back to the first question I asked you, which is about the how and the what of this role and to zoom in on the Jewish story here, because I know that like, for instance, after you wrote Stars of David, which was investigating the Jewish identity of essentially celebrities, right? Of like, prominent celebrities, there were Supreme
- [32:06]
B
Court justices and business leaders.
- [32:08]
A
They're celebrities too, in a world of celebrity, important prominent Jews about their Jews recognizable. And then you shifted a little bit in your writing towards investigating less about Jews and more about Judaism and going deeply into the holidays with the book about your year of marking Jewish holidays. And then even deeper into the book you co wrote with Rabbi Linser of like, basically a reformed Jew and Orthodox rabbi, studied the weekly Torah portion together. So something else has been happening in your professional trajectory, which is a different kind of shift inward in Jewish life, which also then raises a whole bunch of things about, like, you have particularistic Jewish commitments. You're a devoted member of a particular congregation, you're a board member of our institution. Like, you have other commitments. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that journey towards the Jewish in your work and then to use the case of your own particular commitments to come back to that question of what does it look like to both foster a greater openness in Jewish conversation, but to still be a Jew who chooses to dive into one particular place.
- [33:12]
B
Yeah. So just very quickly, it's really because of Stars of David preparation that I went into Jewish learning because I thought I was gonna need to be more prepared for these high achieving, I thought more Jewishly grounded people than I was because a lot of them were really raised with serious education and ritual and observance, as it turned out. And it's a separate conversation. Many had abandoned it, but I wanted to understand it and be ready. And I didn't like what I didn't know. I had home based Judaism. I certainly was not illiterate, but I didn't know Hebrew. And I wasn't a regular shul goer other than the high holidays and two seders with over salted matzo ball soup. And so like many people, I started to study. And like many people, I absolutely was kind of galvanized by it to just go deeper and deeper. And so I took that pretty seriously because I realized how much I didn't know. And it wasn't just the ignorance piece that frustrated me, it was the actual learning that excited me. Like I just suddenly saw Torah everywhere and I saw Talmudic argument everywhere. And it was a search. And that was really again, organic because it was feeding something. So I started to study and I had a study group with Bert Vasotsky from JTS and another one with the Hadar guys, Ellie Kaumpfer and Shai Held. And I was lucky enough to have access to these folks, but also to have great humility about how bottomless this is, but how exciting it can be to kind of keep going journalistically. I kind of wanted other people to have what I was having a little bit. Like there were all of these Jews who are my friends who are in my synagogue or in my workplace who have kind of decided that they know what they know and they're kind of like, you know, doesn't do much for them or it's too late. And I kind of was like, do you want to take a second look at that? Because this is pretty rich over here. So part of it was a little bit evangelical of trying to share, and part of the way I was sharing it was not like what Abby thinks, but journalistically. My book on the Jewish holidays, I interview over 60 rabbis and scholars, including Yehuda Kurtzer and Yossi Klein Halevi and Ilana Steinhane and many others. And I am kind of creating the laboratory I didn't have, where yes, I'm kind of a snob about who is, I think, electric in their teaching. But I've seen what it does to a Jew to have an electric teacher and to have conversations that make you see your own life and your own parenting and your own friendships and your own partnering and say, my gosh, this is not antiquated stuff. This is alive in this moment. And so for my Jewish year, wherever I was observing a holiday, I picked a guide, sometimes two, sometimes three. And I was reading all kinds of sermons and preparations for that. But it is a snapshot of the pluralism you're talking about. It's a long way of saying I mentioned Sharon Kleinbaum, who was one of the earliest rabbis at cbst, what's known as the gay synagogue. And I admire her thinking enormously. But there are plenty of Orthodox Jews who don't think her Judaism is Judaism. And then I interviewed Avi Shaffrin, and he is as far right, as many people as at Aguda Israel. And that was part of what I was doing, wasn't just to be diverse, but I do believe our teachers are everywhere, and it kind of is a mirror of what we're talking about in this moment. I want to be able to go to that diversity of thinkers and say, you may not daven like them, and you may not even agree with the mejitsa. You may not like their politics, but can Sharon Kleinbaum talk about Shabbat and Avi Shaffrin talk about Shabbat? And you get an enormous amount from it. Yes. That's not, to me, utopian. It's the truth. And that's really what has led me on this journey. It's where I remain, and obviously sitting with Dov Linzer, who's kind of as pluralistic as you get when we couldn't be more different Jews. But approaching the parsha with someone who is so different from you just shows how not just resilient this document is, but how magical.
- [37:11]
A
Yeah. I can't help but think, though, as you go through that journey, what Jewish learning does to anybody is it both opens them up to the breadth and depth and the complexity of a tradition that they would have thought originally was, like, small and trivial and dumb. Right. And suddenly you realize, like, the way the rabbis see the world is so much more complicated than it appears. And the Talmudic method is not just like Jews being annoying Jews. It's like there's something really rich and thick there. And then the holidays open up all of these possibilities. But ideally, two things happen when you do that kind of learning. One is you become aware of the richness, but the other is you become more opinionated. Right. Like, you should ultimately come out of a process of Jewish learning having your own thick commitments. I think this is good. And this I don't like as much. I push on this a lot. In pluralistic environments. There was One time I was consulting with a pluralistic school and they said something to the effect of like, we want our kids to graduate feeling equally comfortable sitting behind a mechitza, a gender separating barrier, as sitting in a reformed service. And I said to them, well, all you want then is for your children to be anthropologists of their own religion. Right. You want them to know what it's like, but to have a choice that they're committed to and to find ways to still show up at their friend's bar and bat mitzvahs in a different shul where they could sit uncomfortably for that time. So that, I assume, happened with you as well, like your own Jewish commitments probably became challenged but ultimately reinforced. And that has an implication then on how you interview different kinds of Jews. Have you seen that happen in your own story?
- [38:48]
B
I mean, I absolutely came home to Central Synagogue after that journey of going to a lot of places and experiencing not every kind of observance, but trying to do as much as possible. But I would say what it did is it deepened my own approach to my own lane, if that makes sense. You know, I sometimes worry that it sounds almost like there's this smorgasbord and you can pick that fast. You know, there's six fast. Do you want to do two? Do you want to do three? You know, like, pick your adventure. For me, it's more of, like, I want to understand it. Then let's see what happens once I do. And I feel not to throw it back at you. Like, I remember you talking about how you are in this minion where you don't translate anything. Everybody just goes. And I wouldn't be comfortable there. You know, I would feel embarrassed there, But I'd love to experience it. And I think I'd get something from it. And it doesn't mean that I'd go back.
- [39:43]
A
Right, right.
- [39:44]
B
And maybe that's where I. I do feel like the fact that I wear a reporter's hat as a Jew, which is. Maybe some people might have a problem with that. I sometimes approach. I feel very emotional and spiritual about my tradition, but approaching it also journalistically in a funny way, has allowed me to walk into places where I otherwise wouldn't dare. And I actually wouldn't recommend that someone else do it. I went to Lee Mood, New York, which used to be these three days in the cast skills.
- [40:10]
A
It was great.
- [40:10]
B
It was amazing. But I didn't really know any my people there, even though they were all Jews there. And that was one of those examples. If I wasn't sort of a sojourner showing up with my pad, my proverbial pad. Although you can't write sometimes on Shabbat, obviously, I don't know that I would feel comfortable being there. And we sometimes have to be honest about that, too.
- [40:32]
A
We tried that a bunch of times at Hartman over the years where we would create community programs. We did this in LA to great success, actually. We did a community lecture series that rotated around synagogues. Anyone who was a member of any of the participating synagogues got first access to the tickets. And it was a very, very popular series. But in many cases, it was the first time that people who go to synagogues two blocks from each other had ever stepped in the building. And it was safer because it was like a Wednesday night. It wasn't a Shabbat service, you know, and everybody knew kind of what to do. Like, I sit in the sanctuary and I hear a lecture. It's not the threatening part of living someone else's Judaism. So people are allowed to be a little bit more in a journalistic space themselves. But it's pretty shocking how little kind of curiosity there is. I would say, though, your story, I've seen more currency of it post October 7th with many more Jews who are curious. Like, once they're forced to reckon with their Jewish identity, for lack of a better word, they then are becoming curious. Have you seen that spike?
- [41:32]
B
Huge.
- [41:33]
A
I'm looking at people even like a Jonah Platt.
- [41:35]
B
Yeah.
- [41:35]
A
What are you observing about the desire for more content consumption about Jewishness? Is it in any way altering your read of your guests and the field and how you do your work?
- [41:46]
B
100%? I mean, I know the surge sounds like a cliche now, but what I saw in the surge was people suddenly saying, oh, my goodness, I'm a Jew today. What does it mean for me? You know, I had that kind of eureka moment at my son's breast. So I have had more time. But it was similar. It was that I have a Jewish family now. What does that mean? What am I transmitting? And how would I explain it? And here it's not the same, obviously. And it was brought about by, you know, the worst kind of seismic upheaval. But it made people reckon with what is the substance of what I am. And I think a lot of people had my reaction also. It was like, I don't really love how much I don't know. And that's not something you can relate to, Yehuda, because you were in the womb getting all of this. But for those of us where it was more scattershot is a way I would put it. There was a sense of like, I'd like to shore this up. And that thrills me because I feel like maybe you haven't used the word Jewish confidence. But for me, the people who are less buffeted by the antisemitism, by the spasm of kind of casual hate and accusations kind of know what Jews believe. And it doesn't mean like, oh, these are the five things Jews believe. But they have a sense of what it is to take a page of Talmud and discuss it. They have a sense of who the rabbis were. You know, some of these basic things that have not been basic for so many Jews. I think when you dip your toe and you begin to investigate, it isn't like we are now giving you the Kool Aid. That is one way of thinking. It's actually the opposite. It's that you just see the depth and the richness and you're in a conversation that frankly, is ancient and you're joining it in a way that you haven't before and you feel less vulnerable to the oversimplifications. And it's not just about feeling stronger, it's about staying in it. Because so many people I know, and I'm looking at my kids generation now, are opting out. And I understand why.
- [43:57]
A
Yeah, my kids are being raised in a bubble in thick Jewish day school environments. And the one thing I think they have a leg up on is they are not curious about their Jewishness because they're being forced to. Their Jewishness is just who they are. It's their lives, it's their choices, it's their family. And they are worried about the same things that other Jews are worried about on anti Semitism in Israel and college campus and all of these kinds of issues. But it's not like they don't feel like they're performing their Jewishness in response to any of that. It just lives as, like, who they are. And I'm happy for them. Right. I think that was true for me also. And sometimes I have to figure out how to, like, code switch with learners between people who assume they're inside the discourse, and therefore their questions mean one thing versus folks who are testing whether or not they want to be inside the discourse. So that's one last question, which is, what should we be watching for in this work that you're doing for yourself? What's on the horizon for this business of making Jewish conversation for you? And if you could snap your fingers and have the Jewish community prioritize that line of work. What do you think it would look like? What should we as a community be investing in to make the kind of work you're doing more possible?
- [45:16]
B
That's a good question. I mean, I think right now, and again, understandably, there still is a bit of a defense mode and that's where a lot of the dollars are going. And I get it. And we're talking about literal security in addition to kind of like our people and what's coming at us now that many of us thought we'd never see. I will go back to the hard conversations I am missing. I will say very frankly, from our big legacy Jewish institutions, a path and a language to have the untouchable conversations. And the fact that they're not leading on that is not helping the rest of us, I think, try to again, take a few baby steps to having it. Because as long as we're not having those conversations, we are actually not addressing where a lot of Jews, let alone a lot of America, is sitting. And if we're just going to double down on our certainties and say that anybody who has any questions is out of the tent for even asking them, I actually think we're not helping the next generation of Jews. We haven't given them language. I think that's in a way beyond my pay grade. And it's part of where I would like to ask the questions of the person who's going to help me ask those questions. I don't see those conversations happening in synagogues, certainly not successfully, not easily. I don't see them happening at federations, JCCs, even somewhat. I'm not going to make blanket statements because some people have done it. It's not easy. Believe me, I have seen just how high stakes this is, but I'm missing the strategy for that because I think as long as we say we don't have to do that, here's your talking points for any of the hard stuff. I really think we could lose a
- [47:11]
A
generation and it won't be particularly Jewish. Abby, thanks so much for coming on the show today. It's a delight to talk to.
- [47:27]
C
Here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman Institute at the American Jewish Press Association's 45th Annual Simon Rock Hour Awards Banquet. The Hartman Institute was honored with awards for pieces in our journal sources, articles by our scholars, and our podcast series Thoughts and Prayers. Congratulations. Congratulations to Yehuda Kurtzer, Claire Soufrin, Shogal Kilner and the Thoughts and Prayers production team Mazaltov, the Fellows of the Kogod Research center gathered in our New York office for their closing seminar. They shared new frameworks for thinking about some of the key issues facing North American Jews today. We look forward to the fall for another year of research. Staff and friends of the Institute gathered in our New York office to thank Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield, outgoing CEO of the Hartman Institute of North America, for 11 years of bold vision and inspirational leadership. Rachel's work has amplified the impact of Hartman, growing us from 8 to 65 staff and from 200 to over 1000 programs per year. Rachel, we thank you.
- [48:25]
D
Thanks for listening to our show and special thanks to our guest, Abby Pogrebin. Identity Crisis is produced by me, Tessa Zitter and our executive producer is Maital Friedman. This episode was researched by Gabrielle Feinstone and edited by Josh Allen with music provided by so called transcripts of our show are now available on our website. Typically a week after an episode airs, we're always looking for ideas for what we should cover in future episodes. So if you have a topic you'd like to hear about or if you have comments about this episode, please write to us@identitycrisisalomhartman.org for more ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute about what's unfolding holding right now. Sign up for our newsletter in the show Notes and subscribe to this podcast everywhere. Podcasts are available. See you next time and thanks for listening.