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Adam S. Ferziger. "Agents of Change: American Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism" (NYU Press, 2025)
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Welcome.
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Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Hello and welcome to the New Books Network Jewish Studies Channel. I am your host, Rora Arousi, Executive Director of Unity through Diversity Institute, where we explore the future of our heritage. Today, we're really delighted to speak with Professor Adam Furziger about his book Agents of American Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism, published by New York University Press in 2025. Welcome, Professor Fersiger, and thank you so much for joining us here today.
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Thank you. It's my pleasure. Drora, good to see you.
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C
You too. We usually start asking our authors to tell us a little bit about themselves. Rather than me picking out what to say about you, tell us a little bit about your personal background.
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Okay, so I grew up in the United States through high school, spent a few years studying in Israeli Torah institutions, and then went back to finish my degree at Yeshiva University. And at the age of 22, my wife and I moved to Israel and I continued both to work and study. Already in America, I had the privilege of working with a very distinguished professor from Israel who visited America for a semester, Jacob Katz. He had a profound effect on me. When I got to Israel, I wrote my master's thesis under his supervision, and then I wrote my PhD at Bar Ilan University. It's kind of funny when you ask people what to talk about in terms of themselves. I suppose this is an academic context, so I'll say that. I've been privileged to publish a number of books. My first book, Exclusion Hierarchy, was published by University of Pennsylvania Press. My second book, Beyond Sectarianism, was published by Wayne State University. It won a National Jewish Book Award. I wrot a very large curriculum book, Jewish Denominations for the Melton Centers, which I'm very proud is being taught in scores of centers around the world, including once I was on a visit to South Africa and turns out they're teaching it there. And now my new book, Beyond Sectarian, Excuse me, Agents of Change, and edited a lot of books and had the privilege with my wife Naomi, to bring up our family in Israel. We live in Jerusalem now. We previously lived in a place called Kfar Saba, and also to have the privilege, while based in Israel, to travel quite a bit, to lecture, and even to teach. I've taught in universities in Australia, in China, in South Africa, in the UK and throughout the United States. The last time was last year when I was a fellow at the Kat center at the University of Pennsylvan. So that's in a nutshell, I hope that sounds.
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Yeah. And you didn't mention that you've been at Bar Ilan for a very long time.
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Yes, yes. And in fact, while I was doing my PhD, I was already in an administrative position. It was actually when the millions, or if not millions of it, over a million Jews from the former Soviet Union were arriving during the 90s. And I was in charge of the Mikhina, the pre academic program there. It was really a historic moment. And we've been in Israel for nearly 40 years, so we're talking about a lot of historic moments, some very challenging, but all very meaningful. And, and yes, Bar Ilana has been my home. And I feel very, very lucky to have. Have that as a home. And, and I'll just say in that, in that context, I love teaching and I've had a lot of great students. And, and that's, that's just part of the, the attraction of being in the university environment. Yeah. So Barilan's done a lot for me, and I'm very.
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And your specialty is really on American Jewry and their interactions with Israel, one of their specialties. Sorry, I shouldn't say. Well, I would.
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I would. You know, maybe I'll be a little bit, you know.
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Yes, please do.
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Broadcast. So I was trained as a historian, and actually I would say I'm a historian of modern Judaism, religion. And actually my first work was on 19th century Central European Jewry, Germany, Hungary, for the most part. And. And then I moved to work more on American Jewry. And this book is actually about Israeli Jewry. So I moved around a little bit. Maybe started with things that were a little less close to home, so to speak. And as I matured and as I felt more comfortable with my ability to maintain a certain amount of academic distance, I've moved to topics where I can be, I guess, a participant observer to some degree, or an insider, outsider.
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C
Right. And I definitely want to get into that in a minute, but before we get into it, I just want to give a little bit of an introduction to. Or I want you to give a little bit of an introduction to the book. You bring up some concepts here or some terms here that I want to make sure that before we go into it, you tell us, like, mo, Modern Orthodox or Ismo. I'm not sure if you say it Ismo or I've been saying it and religious Zionists. So I know this is very superficial and you have to read the book to understand it, but I think before we get into it, we need to at least have a superficial understanding of that.
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Okay. So I'll try to do this quickly and please feel free to interject and ask me if I'm not being clear enough. And I did grow up in America, but Hebrew is the language I teach in. So if I throw out a phrase in Hebrew, please remind me to translate it. Do my best, make it as accessible as possible. So this book is about the religious ambience and the social, cultural ambience of Israel. It's not about politics, and we'll get back to that soon enough. But it focuses on a group which are known generally as a religious Zionists or sometimes it's national religious. And basically these are people or groups or were frameworks that are synthesis combiners. When Zionism sec. When Zionism appeared on the horizon in the late 19th century, most of the religious leaders, rabbis, were antagonistic toward it. They saw it as going against the Jewish belief in waiting for the Messiah. Some did, or others just saw it as a secularization of Judaism and as a deviation from the focus on God and God's commandments as the rabbis dictated them. And there was a small group that actually thought that Zionism was something very positive. Positive because it was about returning to the land of Israel, something which is in Jewish prayers from the time the Jewish prayer book came together and even beforehand in the Talmud. And because by the time Zionism arised, the majority of Jews, certainly in Central and Western Europe were no longer observant. And in a way, Zionism was a bridge back to tradition or certainly aspects of traditional. And then there are different subgroups. Some of them focused more on just the idea of creating a modern Jewish state in cooperation with a broad spectrum of Jews. And others, like a very famous person by the name of Rabbi Abram Isaac Cook, saw the Zionist turn actually as a stage towards bringing the Messiah towards the redemption and really focused on how in a paradoxical way, a secular nation state could be the vehicle for moving towards being the Messiah. In any case, over the course of Zionist and Israeli history, the religious Zionists have always been a minority, but they've had a lot of impact on political areas, on the kibbutz movement, the socialist collective movement, on education, on all sorts of areas are particularly since the 1967 war, the Six Day War, when Israelis, at a time when they thought they were on the Verge 19 years into their history of being destroyed actually in the eyes of many, had a miraculous victory which included returning to biblical lands that had previously not been part of the state. The Rabbi Cook redemptive approach became very, very pop. It inspired the settlement movement. It inspired many of the new academies Yeshivod, where people studied on a very high level. It inspired the Hezdir academies where students combine army service with dedication to Torah learning in many areas. Initially, people saw the religious Zionists in many ways as heroes because they were really making that combination. They were trying to support Zion and live it in a way which was. Which was building on historical and religious ideas. Not really, however, but in parallel, that particular strain of religious Zionism, which was became very dominant from the 1970s, 80s, 90s and is still, I would say, a very, very influential element over time, tended towards greater strictness in religious observance, more narrow conceptions of culture, society, much a thinner sense of what it means to be in cooperation with the non observant elements of Zionism. And my book is about how all of a sudden in the 20th century, 21st century, I observed that there Was this emergence of more diversity in religious Zionism, that this stream, which was increasingly influential on Israeli society in so many ways, was actually more cacophonious, you monolithic, than it had been in the previous decades. And I was, I was curious about that. And maybe that's a good moment to stop. And if you ask me the right question, I'll tell you what my answer was.
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Okay, well, we're going to get to that too. But I want to also talk about the fact that you mentioned a few minutes ago, and you mentioned in the opening to the book as well, that you're kind of this inside, outside person. So you're looking at it and you're right, writing what you know from your own life, and yet you're writing as a scholar as well. So can you tell us a little bit about what kind of challenges came up while doing that? And then we'll get back into the.
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Yeah, okay. So I think, like I said, I think there's a reason why I started by writing about things that also clearly interested me and I was passionate about, but were a little bit distant in terms of language, in terms of geography, in terms of the personalities, people I didn't have any personal encounter with, certainly people from the 18th and 19th centuries, even though I knew about them before I researched them. But actually I would say that I came of age as a scholar at a moment in which engaging with things that you have a personal interest in, maybe beyond purely analytical, so called scientific reasons, was actually much easier. And that is because if we'll call it the postmodern turn in historical writing, basically, after people like Hayden White and others who sort of critiqued the so called scientific objectivity with which historical writing was, was presented in the past, it became very clear that you cannot detach the person from anything they write. And the question, as far as I'm concerned, this is how I teach. I have many doctoral students, many graduate students, is not detach. Can you detach? But is, do you own it? Do you acknowledge it? Are you aware that you are a player in this? And here Professor Katz, who I wouldn't call a postmodernist, actually was a good model for me because he really owned his work and he never was in sort of denial. And I guess I'm a little bit critical of contemporary historians or people who seem to maintain this veneer of objectivity. When we're talking about humanities, we're talking about human relations, we're talking about deciding what goes in and what goes out. There is no absolute story here that said and this is how I teach my students and this is what I try to do myself. And what I try to do in this book and in my other works is one, being absolutely self conscious of who you are vis a vis the materials that you're working on. But secondly, playing by the rules. Playing by the rules means backing up what you have to say and presenting it, whether it be in footnotes or whether it be on the page in a way that you can be checked. So anything that I write, my readers have to be able to check me out and if they read it differently, great. But, but I have to be transparent in that way. If I'm, if I'm not transparent, then then yeah, then I'm not a professional and then I'm, I'm not doing my job. But you know, so far I, I think it's working and I think that in that, on that level, and this is important for me to say, Drora, I think the fact that I do have some connections to these worlds has helped me. Of course somebody who doesn't would write a different history and I'm sure their history would be insightful and contribute and important, but it would be different. So that's where I am. I don't want to say there are never challenges because sometimes even just writing about people that you might have encountered socially or educationally, just on the level of being a mensch, just being a proper person, you have to be careful. So far I'm actually really proud of this. It really means a lot to me because, you know, I was taught at what we call DERA Heres. Being a mensch, being a good person comes before any intellectual pursuit. That's how my father and mother taught me and schools I went to. I've had many people tell me they don't agree with my interpretation. I have yet to have anyone tell me that I treated them with lack of respect. And to me that's, that's critical. This is pro linebacker TJ Watt and I'm back with YPB by Abercrombie for another activewear drop. My second co design collection has new shorts and tanks that keep up with all my in season workouts. And their new Restore collection is a game changer off the field too, because even pro athletes like me need rest days. Shop YPB by Abercrombie in the app, online and in stores because your personal best is great than anything. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again.
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50% off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms. Yeah, and I think that it is. I'm reading the book and I see a lot of people I know and I, you know, I just met that guy last week or something. So it's a. Interesting, I'm not, I'm not used to that, I have to say, but it, it's amazing the way that you analyze it and bring it in. And so I want to bring in now the two worlds that I think or I see that you trying to understand their intersections, for lack of a better word, the modern Orthodox and the religious Zionist between. And you kind of, of I think you frame it as Yeshiva University and Bar Ilan also. There is something in with the starting, not now, but when they started. If you want to, you could tell me I'm totally wrong. I saw it as an evolution there, but the, the connections between the two because you talked about the religious Zionism, but your book is really about American Jews and the transformation of Israeli Judaism. So modern Orthodox, religious Zionism, intersections. Why you Bar Ilan go.
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Okay, so getting back to that research question, what happened in the 21st century that the monolithic quality of the religious Zionist sector in Israel seemed to be transforming into something much more diverse and hearing new voices regarding women, role of women in Judaism, regarding attitudes towards the state, regarding relations between observant and secular Jews, regarding spirituality, regarding different Jewish denominations and their roles within Israeli society, and many more issues relating to critical scholarship, biblical scholarship and many more things. So how did that happen? Again, there are a number of issues that can be raised, but the one that I zeroed in on, that I haven't seen anybody really take note of, was that between the years 1965 and 1983, eight figures who were nurtured, grew up in North America, United States or Canada, came to Israel as immigrants, as aliyah, as it's called in Hebrew. And they played a very, very big role in this. And I'll get to their role in one second. But just to say about modern Orthodoxy in terms of definition. So in America, where the national and Zionistic issue is there, but it's much more minor. The key issue for Orthodox Jews, for Jews who chose to remain observant in a modern world where there was no longer any religious coercion, where every option of how to self define as a Jew is available. That group in America became known broadly as modern Orthodox Jews, who were remain committed, at least in principle, to observance of traditional Jewish law and core beliefs, but were very much involved with modern society and in its sort of most robust formulation actually saw modern society as being positive, contributing and actually enhancing their engagement with. With the Torah, with Jewish tradition, with their religious observance. And sort of the most central and influential institution in that modern Orthodox world. There were certainly many synagogues and day schools and camps and all sorts of institutions that spread particularly from the 1930s onwards. But they. But the key institution is Yeshiva University. Yeshiva University, which trained most of the modern Orthodox rabbis who then went to serve in synagogues and schools. And also was an intellectual bastion of people who were great Torah scholars and were very much versed and integrated their secular knowledge. The most famous of them being Rabbi Dr. Joseph Soloveitchik, who lived from 1903 to 1993, a sign of a very famous Lithuanian rabbinical family. Anti Zionist actually. And he immigrated in the 1930s to America, based himself in Boston to travel to New York each week to teach at Eastern University. And Soloveitchik had a PhD from the University of Berlin in the Neil county and philosophy of Hermann Cohen. And all of the people that I focus on in my agents, my eight agents of change were directly or indirectly students of Soloveitchik. And they integrate, they internalized.
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I just want to put. That's the first part of the book. I just want to. We didn't talk about the structure of the book. So that's the first part of the book.
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Yes. And they internalized his integrationist synthetic approach. They also internalized the Zionism, which was very much a part of the ambience of Yeshua University at the time. And actually have a really, I think to be a really interesting chapter there about David Ben Gurion's visit to Yeshiva University in 1960. And I had transcripts and actually recordings of his speeches in Yeshiva University, Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. And you see David Ben Gurion, that's very different than the one he presents towards the American Jewish establishment and to the political establishment. But you also see a lot about his audience and how his audience reacts to him and some of those agents of change who later moved to Israel were actually at these events. And actually one of them, Rabbi Dr. Stephen Shlomo Riskin was actually the editor of the Yeshiva University newspaper, commentator, and he wrote this fabulous description of the events. And actually the Yidiot or Ahronot writer, the writer for the Israeli newspaper who covered all the events was a person who became quite famous afterwards. His name in the articles is Eliyahu Wiesel, better known as Elie Wiesel, the great writer, Nobel Prize winner, Holocaust survivor, and who wrote about the Holocaust extensively. But Ruskin ended up being a critical figure in Israel and he was clearly inspired by Ben Gurion and many other things that he did during that period. So getting back to the. Now that we have those lines clear, in the course of close to 20 years, eight of these products of Yeshiva University and it's milieu came to Israel. And here are the criteria which they have in common. Beyond their origins in modern Orthodoxy and that synthetic Soloveitchikian view that they imbued, that they internalized, they all established and led or led institutions for higher Torah learning, meaning post high school, collegiate age institutions where students, usually elite ones who are interested in getting to a higher level of understanding of in religious knowledge, you could call them seminaries, but they're a little bit more broader than that. They're not just training grounds. They led those institutions for long periods of time. And those institutions. And this is the critical piece taught over time. Well, I would say it this way. When these people arrived in Israel, the religious Zionist world, that cookie in world that I described for the most part saw these people as Martians, as aliens. How could it be that rabbis Dr. Aaron Lichtenstein wore tweed jackets, was clean shaven, had a PhD from Harvard University, focused on Christian humanism in the 17th century, and like to quote from C.S. lewis and Cardinal Newman, what kind of, what kind of Torah scholar was that? And Riskin was clean shaven and also had a PhD from NYU. And we could go on and on each of these figures, women, men, but over time they attracted Israelis, small groups originally, but over time more and more Israelis to their institutions and they taught them. And these Israelis were attracted to their American Modern Orthodox ideas, products, so to speak. But the book is about how these Israelis internalized those ideas and then recalibrated them for themselves as Israelis and for their Israeli constituencies. Because. Because all of these institutions trained hundreds, hundreds of teachers, public figures. And actually one of the things I'm very proud about in the book is I wanted to show the impact. So then in the book I have an appendix where I go institution by institution, and I list the hundreds of people who are the products. So it's not just theoretical. You really see it in the names. So the answer to that big question, big research questions, why did they arrive in 65? Or why did this all happen in the 21st century? Because these people came and they brought their ideas, and over time, they gestated. But most of all, when their students started to take the reins, when they started to lead institutions, when they started to be impactful players in Israeli society and particularly religious society, that's when religious Zionism is transformed. It's transformed into something which is more diverse. It's transformed into something which has room for ideas, which previously didn't have a place in the more monolithic model that prevailed. And I want to say one more thing, and then I'd love to hear how you react, which is the book is about American religion, about Israeli religion. It's about transnationalism, because that's really the theoretical backdrop to all this. And we could talk about that. I'd be happy to, if you'd like. But ultimately, on a sort of existential level, it's really about education. It's really about how education entails one, the educator realizing they're going to teach ideas. And once their students own those ideas, they're going to make them their own, they're going to transform them, they're not going to duplicate them. They'll take them, they will impact them, and they will move them to another place. And that's why many of the Israeli formulations are more radical, actually, from a religious perspective than the ones that originated in America. If we're talking about feminism, if we're talking about intellectual pursuits, if we're talking about interactions with broad ranges of people and society, in all those areas, these students ran with it. And maybe that's particularly to Israel and the way that Israel allows for that kind of running. But. But again, the point is that education is about belief in those students, and it's also about process and time. Education is not immediate. And so often, especially in contemporary society, where social media, the news cycle is so fast in the sense of things have to go very quickly, actually, this is an alternative, and maybe it's almost counter. You know, I don't know. I don't want to, you know, overstate it, but there's a little bit of a counter cyto movement here where you're saying, no, there's a space that really does influence society that just takes a long time, that has to simmer and has to gestate. But in the long term, actually the impact is huge. So I don't know if that is so profound or original, but it, but it bears stating because I think that this book really celebrates that to a certain degree.
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C
Yeah, definitely celebrates it. And I think it's beyond that. One of the things that I felt you talk a lot about the incorporation of people with PhDs and things like that, and you focus on the education. So I wonder if there isn't a second book here to see beyond that, how it influenced society at large and the different people within the different businesses in Israel or America and the influence of the religious Zionism and modern Orthodoxy and those spheres coming out of these institutions that you mentioned here. But that's my little.
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A
That's a great question. I've been interviewed by a bunch of places and wonderful. You're a wonderful interviewer. And similarly others. And each time somebody has a different take, which I love and it makes me think about it. So I would say like this, it's interesting. It's not my bandwidth, I think, to do that kind of examination of, let's say we talk about, you know, the impact of modern Orthodoxy on the startup nation or so to speak, or on other aspects of society. I did write a chapter on the impact of religious women on the Israeli army, which is fantastic, which is fascinating because once upon a time religious observant women didn't go to the army. And now last 15, 20 years, particularly last 10 years, they are going in droves. And so initially their schools wouldn't allow them to admit that they were drafting. And now they supervise them, they sustain them, they support them. So there's certainly hopefully derivatives and different ways in which what I'm doing will be helpful because again, it's really predicated on transnational theory and how products that emerge from one place, particularly in a globalized society, are processed and then move forward. But maybe we'll get to that afterwards.
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C
But I want to talk about one of those products. So finish.
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A
Okay, so just. Okay, so just before that, so I do actually, you know, maybe when we talk about, we'll talk a little bit about the Starbucks McDonald's distinction, which might be useful in that way. But there is another book which I really hope will be written and I wish I had a PhD student who could write it. There's in parallel to this modern Orthodox aliyah immigration which has grown and today is certainly the majority of American Jews who come to live in Israel come from observant backgrounds. There's a marked increase in Haridi in, I guess we'd call them right wing Orthodox, Hasidic and particularly non Hasidic families who are moving to Israel. And we see these huge concentrations placed like Beit Shemesh outside of Jerusalem in the Jerusalem corridor, but also in parts next to Modi', in, but also in a place called Ramaneshkol, a suburb of Jerusalem or neighborhood of Jerusalem, once on the outskirts. And I think that in the future one of the, I would say portals for Haredi society in Israel to become more integrated within society, to become, to take more ownership as its population grows within Israeli society. It's through these people come from America who have a little bit more exposure, at least in many cases. But it's something I haven't tested and it's something that I don't. I'm not as connected to. I would love to do some of the work, but I'd certainly love to have someone and Drora, if you know anyone who's interested in this, here's a.
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C
Shout out to our audience.
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A
I definitely think that, you know, in the Sephardic world, Shas is a little bit more diverse, but also Shah. Shah is really funded by American Syrian Jews to a great extent. Certainly wasn't there initially and to this day, but in terms of impact on the Shah's outlook of that political party, that would be great to look at. And so I think there's more to be written about the role of Americans. It's an elite immigration. It doesn't have the numbers certainly of the former Soviet Union or even France, but nonetheless it's a very, very impactful group in particular areas.
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C
So I have to say you jumped ahead to our last question, but I'm going back because our last question is always on New Books Network. What are you working on next? So I don't know if that's not.
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A
What I'm working on.
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C
Okay, so we'll get back to that in a minute because I have to, I always have to ask, you bring up women quite a bit and I always have to make sure to touch upon it. So let's talk feminism for a moment. And you know the difference between American and Israeli Orthodox feminism. Can you just touch upon that a little bit? Especially one of my heroes, Robinita Michelle Farber and how that all plays into it.
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A
Okay, great. So there's at least two chapters that are really dedicated to that now I'll just go back to the book for a second. So there's really three sections. The first section is the background of These pioneers, these agents of change, their bios and the different ways that they manifested their. Their roles. And the theory of course behind all this. And then the core of the book after that is dividing the story into different subjects and showing the different ways this impact takes place. In gender issues, in educational issues, in academic issues and social issues, cultural issues. There's a chapter also about the role of Reform Judais in Israel and how it has certain parallels. And then the final section is primarily about what I call the boomerang effect. How you have a product that starts out in America and gestates in a new context. But actually because of globalization, because of communication, because of social media, because of all sorts of tools we have today, it's sort of of very quick and transportation. It goes back. And if you look at American religious, Jewish, Jewish religious society, and if you look at American institutions, the impact of Israelis, and many of them Israelis were products of those pioneers of change is, is. Is remarkable. That's just a general piece. But in terms of feminism specifically the, the, the initial, I would call them the founders. It's what's known as the Orthodox feminist move. Who were intent. People like Blue Greenberg who were intent on maintaining their observance and yet no less committed to expanding the role and really pushing the envelope on the role for women in traditional Jewish spheres were Americans. And there were people who were exposed to the 1960s egalitarian feminist movement. People who were also very much exposed to the non Orthodox denominations, to Sally Preand and the. Her ordination, I believe, 1972 and the debates within the Conservative movement.
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C
The first woman ordained in America. Just want to make sure.
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A
What was that?
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C
I just wanted to clarify who she was. Right.
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A
The first American ordinated rabbi. Right now her name escaped me, but there is actually a very important rabbi who was. Who received ordina in Germany before the war. I'm embarrassed right now. Her name is escaping me. But that's important. But you know, Jews were Orthodox Jews were in America integrated with fellow feminists and they talked. And Orthodoxy always kind of trails behind because it's a conservative small C movement. But the, the, the. The rise of that movement, which many people sort of attribute to the book written by Greenberg published 1981 on women and Judaism. It really has its roots in American modern Orthodoxy.
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C
I just want to say. Is it Regina Jones? Jonas.
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A
Regina Jonas. Regina Jonas. Regina Jonas. Very important figure. JWA has a nice article in her Jewish woman's archive. But there's a lot that's been written about her recently and I'm happy to acknowledge her pioneering role. So these ideas come to Israel and today there's no question that the breeding ground, the source for much of the expansion of women's roles within traditional Judaism is Israel. There are multiple institutions where hundreds if not thousands of, of adult, young adult and adult Jewish women are studying the Talmud, which once upon a time women didn't, never studied on a very high level. Some of them really equalizing the levels of the highest, I would say accomplished male scholars. It's a process because they don't have the same sort of. They're not women are, are still not directed in that, towards that, in the way that men are. But slowly but surely it's becoming a reality and that's happening in Israel. It there are examples in America, but most of the people who have become women Torah scholars in America, they spent critical periods of development in Israel, but also in terms of the synagogue and egalitarian Orthodox prayer and women rabbis and all sorts of manifestations take place in Israel. Having said that, there are major differences and this relates to feminism, but it relates to Israel and America more more generally. And I think it's an important point. Tamar Ross is maybe the most important theologian of Orthodox feminism, I would say not maybe is absolutely. She really made this distinction and I sort of adopted it and then sort of applied it, which is that America is a place where there's separation of religion and state. And moreover, religion is a private experience. Private not on the sense of just at home, but in the sense of private meaning, voluntary meaning. Within the synagogue, within the school, there are public activities. Chabad certainly does public displays, but for the most part it's something that is distinct from one's citizenship as an American. And I'm not talking now about anti Semitism, I'm not talking about comedy, Jewish culture, film and stuff like that, but in terms of like the existential experience of doing Judaism in a positive way, particularly from a religious perspective. That is something which is separate from one's American day to day professional and external life in Israel. It's just not the way it is. Israel is a Jewish state. There is no separation between state and religion. And people do Judaism in synagogues and in schools, but they also do it on the street. I'm not saying the synagogues aren't streets. They do things, they talk, they speak Hebrew. That's a very Jewish thing. They are involved in all sorts of activities that have a Purim Day parade. They have Purim Day parade, sure. But the one that I focused on is actually serving in the Israeli army. And, and, and this is certainly something that many American Jews are uncomfortable with. And I'm not trying to whitewash anything. I'm, I'm trying to just explain it or. For many observant Jews in Israel, serving in the army is an act of, is a reflection on their religious commitment. And this the, we definitely see in the move of women towards serving the Israeli army that they see this as they're incumbent upon them. And if they're going to demand or expect or want to be full partners in the synagogue, in the schools, in the Talmud study, in the rabbinical leadership or religious leadership, then serving in the army is part of the package. And that kind of holistic total experience is foreign to the American religious menu. And so there is influence, but again, it's Israelified. That's the recalibration and I think that's a good example of it. And just to get to someone who I, who's a dear friend and someone who I respect very much. Michelle Farber is a fascinating woman who grew up in America, was studying Talmud when very few women were in yeshiva flabash, made aliyah, came to Israel, met her partner in life, her rabbi, Shaul Seth Barber, who I grew up with, who actually has a PhD and wrote a very interesting book about Ravi Slavechik. And he runs a fasting institution called E Team, which facilitates greater engagement in, or I would say knowledge and engagement with the religious establishment in a way which is more palpable to secular Jews. And he also is an advocate for religious change within the Israeli courts and in other means. But Michelle taught Talmud for many years on a very private level. In fact, I lived Naomi and I brought up our children in a place called Kvarsaba. And adjacent to that is a town called Ranana, which is a very strong English speaking population. And for years Michelle had a, a a she had a, like a, a a study group of, of high school girls. And my daughter Avital studied with Michelle years ago. She's 29 now. She studied there when she was probably about 13, 14, 15 years ago. And, and then Michelle started to study what's called the Dafyomi, to study the daily the folio of Talmud. And she, a small group of women gathered around her and in her living room. That's just when she completed that group. After seven years, they completed the whole Talmud, which is something which is done by mostly men all over the world. She created this organization called Hadran and they had a major event when they to celebrate completion of Talmud. And since then Hadran has become this international women's study organization. And just to describe it best, because of COVID they went from live to zoom. And the zoom that technology was such an agency for expanding her impact because she teaches her class in English every morning at 7:15 in the morning. She has a Hebrew class at 6:15, 7:15 is 12:15 is in east coast of New York, it's 9:15 on the west coast and it's the middle of the early evening in Australia. And if you look on that screen, and I know because my wife studies in that class, that you can see people from Melbourne and you can see people from LA and New York and many people from Jerusalem, Ranana, et cetera.
- [49:10]
C
So.
- [49:11]
A
So there's this transnational event that takes place on the screen that really was facilitated by the expansion of opportunities for women's study and women's roles that this ISMO is really moderate, orthodoxy facilitated.
- [49:30]
C
I think that's a great way to kind of close it out because there's so much more in the book. But we're running out of time and I want to make sure to ask you what you're working on next. I just want to comment that it kind of encapsulates because we were talking about the back and forth between the transnational, as you were saying. So I think it's important to look at the book and understand the different sections. And you already spoke about the appendix, which really helps understand how far reaching these agents of change have come. But on the New Books Network, it's our custom and culture to ask what are you working on next? And you said it was something else. So you have to take. Tell us.
- [50:09]
A
Okay, so I'll get that one. I just want to say that I always like to give this analogy. It's very simplistic between why did Starbucks completely fail in Israel and why is McDonald's such a huge success? And there's been analysis of this and a simple answer. Starbucks just tried to take their American product and convince Israelis they should drink Starbucks coffee whether you like it or not. And McDonald's did research and they asked, added Tehina and homos and all sorts of things that they found in their studies that Israelis liked and they Israelified, some people call it, they creolized their products. So I think that's just a good way to encapsulate the success of these American agents is where their students did the McDonald's version rather than the Starbucks version. And by doing that they made it palpable and culturally appropriate for their people. And Then when it comes back from Israel, I think the same thing's going on when Americans then re. Encounter those things. And those are things that I do look at and I am watching and maybe that will be a book, but we'll see. In the meantime, this is really going to be sort of from the outfield, to use a baseball analogy metaphor. In my training and my love, I've always been along with studying societies and cultures and trends and sort of social history. I love Jewish texts and I've studied them and I've written about the history of Jewish law and about the emergence of modern Jewish law, how that changed over the course of time in light of new encounters. And I don't want to be ghoulish, and I apologize for people who find this subject which sounds like just not their cup of tea, but I'm writing a book about Jewish burial practices, particularly Jewish responses to the rise of cremation. Cremation as a technology is a modern phenomenon. The first crematory were created in Italy in the 1870s, late 60s. 1870s. And by the 1880s, Germany ironically became one of the centers where cremation was a normative way, way before the horrific points. But there were debates among all the religions. But certainly there's lots of records that I discovered by chance, like all good history of debates between rabbis against. And also, once people do it, what do you do with the ashes? Can they be buried in the Jewish cemetery? What does that tell us about Jewish identity? What does that tell us about relations between different types of Jews? That always interest me. And then this whole story gets sort of completely turned upside down when the Ashes, which until 19, we'll say for argument's sake, 1938, were sort of symbolic of deviance of Jews who had abandoned tradition. The ashes of the victims of the. Of the. Of the Nazis become sort of symbolic of, Of. Of kadusha, of. Of holiness, of sanctity, of people who died as victims of. Of this horrible oppressor. And, and how does Jewish law and Jewish society navigate this? And what does it. What can this tell us about various evolutions in Jewish society? Um, so there's work on. On a lot of work on Christians and cremation. There's a great book called Purified by Fire about American religion and cremation. There's a book that I'm actually going through very carefully now called the Work of the Dead by Thomas Lacour. He's actually Jewish. His family has their origins in Poland. And he goes through the four generations from traditional burial to cremation among his parents. But he's a professor at Berkeley. Berkeley book published by Princeton. So it's actually an issue that is very much of interest to academics. But I think that it's not just some kind of ivory tower discussion. I think it is something that offers an angle for understanding very, very crucial issues within, within Jewish, modern, Jewish identity inside. So that's what I'm doing now. I'm excited about it.
- [54:59]
C
I did not think I could be interested in cremation. Sorry. But now you got me interested.
- [55:05]
A
I hope you're excited and I hope by the time I finish, you want to invite me back to talk about.
- [55:10]
C
Cremation because definitely now I'm interested.
- [55:14]
A
Thank you for asking.
- [55:16]
C
Thank you so much for coming. We have been speaking with Professor Adam S. Ferziger about his book Agents of Americans, Jews and the Transformation of Israeli Judaism, published by New York University Press in 2025. It has been a true pleasure. Thank you.
- [55:31]
A
Thank you very much and really appreciate the invitation and the time with you.
- [55:36]
C
Thank you. To continue exploring the diversity of the Jewish people, follow Jewish Unity through Diversity Institute on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and our new podcast, Voices of Our Jewish Grandmother. This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this, Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk free trial at Greenlight. Com Spotify. Greenlight Com Spotify.