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Sarah Hurwitz, "As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us" (HarperOne, 2025)
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I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form, and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
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C
Hello. Welcome to the New Books in Jewish Studies channel of the New Books Network podcast. I am your host, Ari Barbalat. Today it is my hallowed honor to engage in a dialogue with Sarah Horowitz. We will discuss her newly published book As a Jew Reclaiming Our Story from those who Shame, Blame, and Try to Erase Us, published in New York by Harper One, 2025. Sarah Horowitz was a White House speechwriter from 2009 to 2017. Starting out as a Senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, then serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. Prior to working for the White House, she was the chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Sarah, I'm delighted to be in dialogue with you today.
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B
Thank you so much, Ari. I'm really delighted to be here.
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C
To begin, can you kindly tell us about yourself? Where did you grow up? What formative events in your life catalyzed the author you would later become?
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B
Yeah, so, you know, I grew up like, like many American Jews, where, you know, Judaism for me was really three kind of boring holidays and then one fun one Hanukkah, and it was two texts. There was like, the prayer book I held in my hand during those services that I attended reluctantly, and the thing on the scrolls in the front of the synagogue, which was the Torah, and neither of which I really understood. And then there were a handful of universalist values, you know, like, don't lie, cheat and kill or steal. You know, love the poor and the Holocaust. And like, that was the Judaism. That was the entire universe of what I thought Judaism is. And so, you know, I kind of walked away as a young person. It just didn't seem particularly compelling. But when I was in my mid-30s, I broke up with a guy I was dating. And I was very anxious and lonely. And I happened to hear about an Intro to Judaism class at the local Jewish community center, and I signed up kind of on a whim, like, just to fill time. But what I discovered in that class was just profound. It was 4,000 years of wisdom from my ancestors about what it means to be human, how to be a good person and lead a really worthy, meaningful life. And so I went on this journey of learning and discovery, read hundreds of books and took classes and studied with rabbis. And I decided to write my first book, Hear All Alumni, just to share what I had found with other Jews like me and with. With non Jews who just wanted to learn about a different tradition. And, you know, it was funny. I really thought my book was for, like, for disengaged Jews. But I think what surprised and really delighted me was that a lot of very learned and. And traditionally quite engaged Jews said to me, like, actually, this book is for me. Like, you know, this book makes me look differently in our traditions. It made me refall in love with our traditions. And even if I don't always agree with what you write or how you practice, you might see that this book has 550 endnotes. Even though it's, like, conversational and fun to read, you clearly did your homework, and I respect and appreciate that. And that's been just incredibly moving to, you know, to get to be in conversation with Jews of so many different backgrounds and parts of the Jewish world. That has been just an incredible privilege.
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C
What inspired you to write this book? What message do you hope to convey to readers?
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B
Yeah, so this. Do you mean my second book or my first? My. My second book. Sorry, let me start that over again. So, you know, what inspired my second book is something very different. You know, my first book was inspired by falling in love and wanting to write this love letter to Jewish tradition. My second book was a little more complicated, and it was a few things that inspired it. One thing was, you know, I. I trained to be a volunteer hospital chaplain. And even the word chaplain, people are like, wait, but aren't you Jewish? Because it does have a kind of Christian resonance to it. But chaplaincy is actually open to people of all traditions, of all religious and spiritual backgrounds, and to secular humanists who are atheists. So very. Chaplaincy is quite diverse. But as I was doing the training, I was struck by how much of how many things that seemed that were thought to be universalist were actually more Christian. We were talking about our theology and our ministry. You know, I was told that prayer is like, out loud, me saying in front of someone else, God, please heal this person so and so who's right here and can hear me praying out loud. And I am generating this prayer spontaneously and extemporaneously in their presence. Which, you know, that's a beautiful way to pray. And Jews certainly can pray like that if they want. But I wouldn't say that's a common form of Jewish prayer. But I was told, no, no, no. Everyone prays that way. It's not Christian, as long as you don't say Jesus. I felt like it's a little strange. It doesn't feel quite like that to me. And then I also visited a college campus probably many months before October 7th, and I went to the Jewish Students center, the Hillel, and was talking to students there. And this girl raised her hand and said, how did you deal with anti Semitism when you were in college? And I actually didn't understand the question at first. I was like, I didn't ever, not a single time in the 1990s or the early 2000s when I was in college and law school, not once did I encounter antisemitism. And a lot of the kids, the kids Just looked stunned, like they didn't believe me. And they started sharing stories of how they felt uncomfortable as Jews on campus. I thought, like, that's interesting. I really began thinking about my childhood and early adult Jewish identity, which for most of my life had consisted of a series of like, caveats and apologies. Like, I would do this whole litany like, oh, I'm Jewish, but I'm not that Jewish. I'm just a cultural Jew. And by the way, being a cultural Jew is gorgeous, right? Like, there are many people who connect to Judaism through Jewish culture, through history and thought and, you know, literature and art. Like, that's such a powerful, beautiful way to be Jewish. But I knew about none of that. I more just meant like, I like bagels and Seinfeld. Or I'd say, well, I'm an ethnic Jew, which is utter nonsense. Jews are of just about every ethnicity. There's no an ethnic Jew. That, that's just a nonsensical statement. Or I'd say, you know, social justice is my Judaism, which again, there are Jews who are deeply versed in the Jewish social justice tradition and they, they live that out in their lives. And I think that is so beautiful and inspiring. I didn't know anything about what Judy Semp said about social justice, so I don't even know what I meant by that. Or I'd say, you know, I remember the Holocaust. Like, I want to fight antisemitism, which, like, talk about a depressing Jewish identity. And so my book was me beginning to answer questions about like, wait a second, why was my identity this way? And why hadn't I seen everything I discovered in that intro Judaism class and that I discovered since then? Why had I seen almost none of that growing up?
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C
What are the primary themes in your book? What story and stories does your book tell?
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B
Yeah, so I think what I discovered as I took a deep dive into the research is, you know, I began to understand that my Jewish identity had very much been infiltrated and warped by 2000 years of anti Judaism and antisemitism and by 250 years of Jews in a very understandable attempt to escape that persecution, to be accepted and safe, erasing some of our traditions, getting rid of things that didn't quite fit. And, you know, the result, I think, was my largely contentless Jewish identity for most of my life. And so the book really details that history. It details the history of anti Judaism in Europe, starting with the church going through to the Holocaust. It also details the process in Western Europe. And again, you know, most Jews in America have European ancestry, but not all Jews do. You know, this is a very Europe focused, just because I'm writing about American Jews. But clearly Jews in other parts of the world have very different histories. So I just want to be very clear about that and name that. But looking at my own history, you know, I looked at in the 1800s when, you know, we made the transition to modernity, when Jews could finally be citizens of their countries and they had to figure out how to be Jewish. In this new moment where you're not living in these insular Jewish communities, you're actually trying to be, you know, French and not just a Jew. So how do you do that? And I think that, you know, what they did was quite courageous. You know, they could have just said, forget it, we're just going to leave this behind. They could have become Christians, but instead they came up with a form of Judaism that would work in the modern world. But I think that in that process, some things were lost. You know, the real de. Emphasis of our post biblical texts, which I think in many ways are the beating heart of our tradition, you know, the kind of dismissing of those, the lack of real emphasis on those, I think that was a pretty big loss. And I will say I was telling a bunch of Israelis this idea and one of them said, well, that happened to us too. I sort of dismissed it. I was like, no, no, no. And they said, no, Sarah, that happened to us too. And he started talking about the early Zionists, some early Zionists who were very dismissive of the rabbis, Jewish religion. You know, it was this sort of nonsense that was getting us killed. We needed to leave this behind. And, you know, I thought, like, oh, boy, you know, right. They, they also, this also was lost to some, some number of people. And that, that was really sobering to think about that. So I detail this, this history and this kind of realization of what had happened to me as a Jew. And then I really switch into, like, okay, now what? Right? Like, what do we do now? And I think my answer is that we don't just become anti. Anti Semites. We dive more deeply into our traditions. We actually really engage profoundly with our texts. You know, I like to imagine. I like to imagine this counterfactual, which I admit is absurd and astorical and a little bit ridiculous, but I like to imagine if we could just travel back in time to the early 1800s and, you know, understand, okay, we're transitioning to modernity. We do need to actually reimagine this tradition in some ways, you know, if we could do that without being soaked in anti Judaism and anti Semitism, but could rather do so with total open heartedness, open mindedness, a real curiosity and love for our ancestors, you know, what would we create? Like, what kind of Judaism would we have created from there? And there are so many people doing that project today. And in recent decades you have so many organizations, institutions, thinkers, scholars, writers, artists. Like so many people are doing that exact project, which makes me very excited to be a Jew today because I am a, I'm a product of their work. Like I have benefited so much from their brilliance and thinking. And it's such an important project and I'm, I'm very excited about it actually. It makes me feel very hopeful about the future.
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C
How does this book advance our understanding of antisemitism?
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B
Yeah, you know, I think there is a lot of confusion around antisemitism and I really, I understand that because I, I used to share it. There's a couple things I think are helpful to understand, a couple of frameworks that have been useful for me. I think. First of all, we often think of anti Semitism as a social kind of prejudice. Like Jews are, fill in the blank, dirty, cheap, crass, disgusting. I don't want one in my club. I don't want my daughter to marry one. I wouldn't say that's a common form of antisemitism in the circles where I travel today. But I think you see now more of a political anti Semitism. And a scholar named Bernard Harrison or Bernard Harris, forget his book Blaming the Jews. He writes really well about this. You know, he says there is this kind of anti Semitism where it's like we the majority are engaged in a grand moral project to kind of redeem the world. And the only thing stopping us are the Jews. So we the Christians are engaged in a product, we the Christians are engaged in a project to Christianize the Roman Empire. The only thing stopping us, these Jews who won't convert, we the Communists, are engaged in a project to bring about the brotherhood of man and the great revolution. The only thing stopping us, these capitalist Jews, we the Germans, are engaged in a project to bring about the racially pure Aryan fatherland. The only thing stopping us, these race polluting Jews. You see this today in America on both sides of the political spectrum. Where on the right you have people saying, we white Christian Americans are bringing back white Christian civilization to America. And the only thing stopping us are these Jews who are importing black and brown immigrants to take the place of white people. This is the bonkers, hateful, racist, anti Semitic, great replacement theory, which you hear a lot on the right. It is an ugly, baseless lie and very hard to see how far it's spreading on the right and on the left, I think you have people saying, you know, we are engaging in this grand moral project of anti racism and anti colonialism and the only thing stopping us are these racist, colonialist Zionists really meaning Jews. And so, you know, you're kind of seeing this take shape very much today. I think another framework that's very helpful is Dara, the one that Dare Horne writes so beautifully about in People Love Dead Jews, where there is the eliminationist kind of anti Semitism we learn about in eighth grade, which is the Holocaust, right? Jews are bad, we're going to kill them, there is nothing you can do to be saved. But Dara argues there's a conversionist kind that says, yes, Jews are bad, but actually there is something they can do to be saved, which is that they can reject whatever element of Jewish civilization we the majority find disgusting. So back in the day it was reject Jewish religion, convert to Christianity and you'll be saved. Like maybe not so sure. You know, like I think in my parents and grandparents generation it was reject her name, reject her nose, stop being so Jewy and become more WASPy. And then you can be acceptable and saved. You can be in our club. And I think today the problem isn't the Jews religion and it's not the Jew's nose or name. Today, today really the problem is the Jews nation, right? Today it is reject your ancestral homeland, disavow it, become an anti Zionist, and then you're acceptable and saved. And I think, you know, I visited a lot of college campuses after October 7, and on many of them I did kind of see what almost took the shape of a conversion narrative of, you know, growing up my rabbi and my parents told me Israel was amazing and awesome and perfect and. And then I got to college and I heard that it's actually a racist, apartheid, genocidal state. And I had an epiphany. I saw the light and I took anti colonialism and anti racism into my heart and now I'm saved. Now I'm an anti Zionist, now I'm a good Jew. And their classmates respond, yeah, now you're a good Jew. And so I think understanding the eliminationist versus conversionist aspects of anti Semitism are key. And then the final thing I'll say is that, you know, anti Semitism gets upgrades. And when you're in an upgrade it's really hard to see clearly. So I think the medieval clergyman didn't think himself some kind of bigot. You know, he had centuries worth of very sophisticated theology explaining to him why the Jews were demonic and depraved and diabolical. And fast forward a few centuries later, antisemitism gets an upgrade. And the enlightened 19th century European gentleman, he doesn't think Jews killed Jesus. That just, that's nonsense, right? Superstitious nonsense. He now has, quote, science that tells him that Jews are racially impure, that Jews are race polluters. And the university affirms that. And so that's the upgrade. That's what the sophisticated, knowledgeable people think. Now fast forward another couple centuries. And the problem isn't the Jews, religion or the race. The problem is Israel, right? The problem is the nation. That's what is the, the sin of the world. That is what is causing all the problems of the world. And sort of when you're in that upgrade, it seems so reasonable, right? It's like, oh, but Israel is doing things I disapprove of. There is this problem. But I think, you know, I think it's going to become clearer and clearer in the coming years how this is kind of another upgrade of some very similar thing we've seen throughout history. When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. 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C
Fiverr.Com can you explain the word and term text line?
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B
Hmm. So, you know, this comes from a beautiful book called Jews and Words by Amos Oz and Thania Oz Salzberger. Just, it's like this gorgeous little book. And they said something that I thought was so profound where they said, you know, we are not a bloodline. We are a text line. And I just fell in love with the idea of what Jews are because, you know, Jews do not fall into the categories that the modern world uses to classify people. We predate them. So Jews are not just a religion, right? Are you and I, we can reject every single aspect of Jewish religion right now? Become atheists. We're still Jews. You know, if you were born to a Jewish parent, if you are, you know, if you converted to Judaism, like, you're a Jew. And if you. You know, that's just it. Whereas I think if you're a Christian, you say Christianity is nonsense. I disagree. I think Jesus didn't exist. There is no God. This whole thing is just absolute bunk. I mean, are you a Christian? Are you not? Probably not. You don't meet that many atheist Christians. So it's not just a religion. It's also certainly not just an ethnicity. Again, just for, like, countless ethnicities. Certainly not a race. We're countless races. And so the question is like, well, what are we? You know, and the answer is complicated. Peoplehood, family, nation, civilization. Come up with a term you want. But I think in many ways, we are whatever those terms are. Peoplehood, tribe, family, nation. That is based on a text line. And I think that that text line is. Is. Is our shared heritage. It is sort of our. Our DNA. It is the thing that we can return to, regardless of what kind of Jew we are, regardless of how we practice. I think that is really our shared heritage that kind of runs through our history.
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C
What role does Torah study play in your life today?
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B
Plays a really significant role in my life. You know, growing up, I had this belief that the only form of Jewish spiritual practice was scripted communal prayer in a synagogue. Because that's all I saw. And I thought, well, that's. That's it. That's. That's spiritual Judaism. But I think having now studied Jewish tradition, I've come to understand that studying our texts, trying to hear kind of the echoes of the divine voice down from Sinai throughout the ages to today, like that is a spiritual practice. And by the way, when I say that, I don't mean it literally. I. I don't think there was a God who came to people at a mountain, and I don't think that. But I also don't think there. There probably wasn't an actual boy who actually cried wolf, but the story is still possible. The story is still true and important. That's kind of how I think about our Jewish sacred texts and that work of studying our texts, of trying to understand the wisdom of our ancestors as they grappled with the challenges they were dealing and with what they thought they were obligated to the divine to do. I find that to be a really important spiritual practice. So it's a big part of my life today. I mean, certainly writing my two books involved a tremendous amount of study. And I define Torah broadly not as the Torah, but Torah without the. So I define that as the many centuries worth of Jewish texts up, continuing up to the present moment. And so, you know, reading those books, studying in kruta, talking to people, I think experience, you know, experiential Judaism can also be a kind of Torah study. You know, planning a Shabbat dinner, understanding the prayers, hosting your friends. I think in many ways, that is actually a form of Torah study. So to me, it's really central to how I engage as a Jew today.
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C
Which biblical mitrashik and Talmudic stories have inspired you most in difficult times?
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B
Oh, beautiful question. You know, I love. I love the moment where, you know, God appears to Moses in the burning bush and is like, okay, dude, you're gonna go rescue the Israelites, your people. This is the deal. And you would kind of think that Moses would be like, whoa, you're God. Of course, whatever you say. But Moses objects. It's like, who am I? I'm not the right one. On and on, objection after objection. God is just like, are you kidding me? Like, really? And at one point, Moses says, you know, I'm. I'm slow of speech and heavy of tongue, meaning, like, he had a speech impediment. He couldn't be a. You know, he couldn't really lead his people. And God essentially says something to the effect of like, hey, buddy, who do you think created that tongue of yours? Like, who do you think created you like this? I just find that to be very moving, you know, in moments of doubt. Do I literally believe I am literally created by a little. No, I. I hold these things much more metaphorically. And much more in a kind of sacred, emotional way. But I. I think there's something very moving and. And inspiring about that. I'll also say, you know, I'm. I'm really inspired by the fact that Moses's life was made possible by a series of very brave women. You know, from the Midwives who defied Pharaoh to, you know, deliver him to his mother who saves his life by putting him in the river, to Pharaoh's daughter who rescues what is clearly a Hebrew baby and raises him right under Pharaoh's nose. Pretty wild. You know, this series of really kind of civilly disobedient women are responsible for Moses's life. And I think that is pretty inspiring. And in terms of Midrash. Oh, my gosh. They're just. There are so many of them. You know, one that I more kind of. This is a pretty one that I think most people know. Many people know about who are listening to this podcast. But I. I'm very moved by, you know, the story of Rabbi Yohanan. And I'll just. I'll just say Rabbi's A, B, and C because it's quicker to explain in a podcast. But, you know, there's this story about ancient rabbis. It says that Rabbi A got sick, and Rabbi B, who is known to be a really great healer, shows up and says to Rab and, like, heals Rabbi A. He sort of takes his hand and he heals him. Okay. But then Rabbi B gets sick, and Rabbi C shows up and takes Rabbi B's hand and heals him. And the rabbis studying the story are like, wait a second. If Rabbi B was this healer, Rabbi, and he healed Rabbi A, why didn't he just heal himself? And the answer they give is that, no, he needed Rabbi C to come and heal him because a prisoner cannot free himself from prison. I think it's a really. It's a profound story about how we kind of can lock ourselves into the prisons of our own sadness, fear, illness, whatever it is. And we do sometimes need someone to come along and take our hand and pull us out. So I think that's a really quite a beautiful story. I mean, so many more where these come from, but our tradition has many. Our tradition just has so much wisdom. You can spend a thousand lifetimes studying it and still have plenty left to go.
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C
In what ways can this book help absolute beginners and pre beginners to become interested in Torah?
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B
Yeah, you know what I want? What I think it can be helpful is that I think it can show American Jews who've Kind of grown up without a lot of Jewish tradition. I think it can reveal to them why that is. I think it can make them begin to understand what has maybe been taught, taken away from them by persecution. And at the end of the book, I actually have a chapter showing people the exact examples of the exact kind of wisdom that Judaism offers that we desperately need today. I think Jewish tradition has so much radical countercultural wisdom that is such a polemic against the kind of narcissistic, individualistic you do. You. It's all about your emotional wellness and comfort vibe of modern secular life. And I'm hoping that, you know, beginners who. Who see this and who read these examples think like, oh, wait, there's really something here for me. There's something here for me to discover. And I'm hoping they'll then read my first book, which is all about that wisdom. In some ways, I worry that I've sort of wrote the second. I wrote the first book second. I almost wonder if my second book is kind of a prequel to my first one. But, you know, so it goes.
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C
What was your guiding principle in preparing this book?
- [26:40]
B
You know, something that I. One of the many things that I really admired about Michelle Obama when I worked for her is that she was always asking herself, like, what's true? You know, like, you get a lot of advice when you're a president or first lady, people telling you what you should or shouldn't say. I just always saw her asking herself, wait, what is really deeply true here? Like, what is the deepest, most important, most helpful truth I can tell at this particular moment? And I think, you know, I really. I hate writing. I find it so hard and stressful, and I write terrible drafts. And it just, you know, I often get way off and have to start over. It's very hard for me. But I think something that I kept coming back to was like, okay, what is really true here? What is actually true? I also tried to be guided by compassion. I think it's easy to critique. I think there are a lot of us sitting in the cheap seats, throwing popcorn at the people who are actually on the field trying to play the game. And so I tried to really have empathy for decisions that were made by our ancestors, for things that people are doing today. I tried to understand both sides just so that I could kind of write with some compassion. So those were my guiding principles.
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C
What were the most difficult aspects of your research and writing process? How did you overcome and circumvent such challenges?
- [27:59]
B
I mean, I think what was particularly difficult about this book is that there's a lot of history in this book. And I'm not a historian. I'm not an academic, I'm not a scholar. And I think I felt tremendously anxious to. About diving into that because, like, who am I to do that? And I'm very clear in this. I do not hold myself out as. I do not hold myself out as an expert. I'm very clear that I'm just a layperson without expert training who's trying to sort through this history on my own. But I think just the vast majority, the vast volume of material on Jewish history was very tough to sort through. There's so many competing claims. It's hard to kind of, you know, if you're not an expert. I think for me, it was hard to, like, know how to make sense of them. And so I remedied that by having 80 people read part or all of this book. You know, my acknowledgement section is wild. And this book is very, very long because I really. I rely heavily on experts to tell me, like, oh, no, no, no, you are missing this. Or like, you don't understand that, though. I spend a lot of time taking feedback and rewriting as a result of this expert scrub by many, many very, very distinguished historians, scholars. And I'm so grateful that I did that because it really. They caught a lot of mistakes. And. But I think that research piece that really trying to wrap my mind around the substance was tremendously, tremendously hard.
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C
Can you tell us about your chaplaincy training? If someone wants to become a chaplain, what path should such a person take?
- [29:23]
B
Yeah, so, you know, chaplaincy. What's kind of amazing about it is you don't actually have to be clergy. You can just be a layperson. And you can be a layperson of any tradition, or you can be a secular humanist. So it's. It's very much open to people of all backgrounds. And the reason that I decided I wanted to do it is that, you know, I actually. It's weird, but I actually love hospitals. When my grandmother was in the final days of her life many years ago at the age of 99, I had the privilege of spending some real time with her in the hospital. And I just, like, I loved being at her bedside. I loved talking with the nurses and doctors who were caring for her. You know, just the whole project of a hospital and caring so tenderly for these patients. Like, it. It really moved me. And I also. I like talking to people who are in crisis, really. I like being present for people in those moments. And so during COVID I was trying to write a book, Struggling, struggling, struggling. And I started reading about all these extraordinarily heroic medical providers and chaplains who are risking their lives to care for patients. And I just. I. I was blown away by how holy these people were. And when I learned about chaplaincy, I thought, like, oh, wait, I want to do this. Like, it's in a hospital. It's the kind of work I love, and I don't have to have a degree or a ordination. And so, you know, I just. I signed up and, you know, chaplaincy is really open. It's pretty accessible. You know, there are. It's called. The education. Is called clinical Pastoral Education, cpe. And many major hospitals have their own internal CPE department that accepts students and trains you there. And there are also online CPE programs where you do the classroom part online and you find your own clinical site. So it might be a senior citizen's home, it might be a university, it might be a hospital, it might be a prison. You know, anywhere that you can go in and provide spiritual care to people can be your clinical site. So this is a pretty. It's pretty accessible. You can find these programs online or in a hospital near you. And it's. It's such extraordinary work. I feel very, very grateful to be doing it. I also think, you know, it's so deeply Jewish, and it's an example of how. It's actually a very good example of our Jewish countercultural approach, which is that, you know, in modern secular culture, we look at things like grief, illness, dying, death, aging, and we're kind of disgusted by them. You know, the secular world tells us, like, oh, run like hell from that. You know, hospitals are creepy. Dead people are scary. We don't want to, like, just run away from that. You know, just send it a text, inject some Botox, move on. And Jewish tradition says exactly the opposite. It says, get your body right up close to this person who is in this liminal space, in this, you know, there. This is idea of thin spaces where the boundaries between life and death and heaven and earth really thin out. And people are in these very, you know, disorienting spaces as they are leaving the world, as they're bringing life into the world. And Judaism says, you get to that hospital bedside, you get to that shiva, you get to that funeral, and you'll be right up there with that person, because these are spaces that require accompaniment. And, you know, I just find that to be such a profound way of engaging. And I. I've really I've just been. It's been such a gift to be able to do chaplaincy.
- [32:30]
C
Would you like to express gratitude publicly to anyone who is helpful in your research, editing, writing or preparation process?
- [32:38]
B
Oh my gosh. There were so, there were so many people I like. I, there's not just one I can, I can pick out, but I just like so many people took so many hours of their busy lives to painstakingly read my terrible drafts, like embarrassingly bad drafts and to offer real serious, sometimes very sharp feedback that saved me so many times. I mean the number of mistakes, of stupidity, of ignorance, of just a poor tone, you know, a strident, polemical, uncompassionate tone that people pointed out and pushed back on me at. It just, it made my writing so much better. It made the book so much better. So I just, I mean this book would be a catastrophe without these people. And I am, I like, I love them all so much and I'm just incredibly grateful to them.
- [33:25]
C
Who is Michal Bitton? Who is she to you?
- [33:31]
B
Michal Baton is a brilliant, brilliant sociologist of Jews. And she is one of the most original, fascinating thinkers. She does a lot of work on, on peoplehood. And you know, it's. She is the one who helped me understand the category mistake that I think we kind of made 200 years, 250 years ago where we said, oh no, no, Judaism is a religion just like Christianity. Like we're, we're just like you, we just go to a different church. And that is, as she puts it, that's the ethic of ideology. Like we share an ideology. But actually what's really important about Jews is we actually have an ethic of family. And so you know, we are a family, we are a peoplehood and these are kind of different things. So you know, when you are in. Well, I'll stop there. So she's, she's really helped me understand that she just has so many smart, fresh, original ideas and articles. It is so worth googling her right now and just, just looking at her writing and her speaking because it is, she is just phenomenal.
- [34:29]
C
Can you say something about Dara Horn?
- [34:32]
B
So Dara has been one of my best friends for 30 years. We actually met during a pre orientation program back when we were freshmen in college. And Dara's book People Love Dead Jews was a transformative book for me. She is so insightful about anti Semitism. She is so utterly brilliant. And that book came after five award winning novels. She had written like brilliant, breathtaking novels that are exquisite and so worth reading. She is one of the smartest people I have ever met, and her thinking infuses pretty much every chapter of my book. I mean, I quote her so often, it's. It's almost embarrassing. And she, like. She, like Michal, is also just a wonderful human being.
- [35:15]
C
Can you tell us about David AR Clark? Why is he so.
- [35:19]
B
David is a very dear friend of mine. He is a minister, Presbyterian minister in Canada. And I met him serving on a committee at the U.S. holocaust Memorial Museum that's on ethics, religion, and the Holocaust. David is so extraordinary. He is someone who is devoting his life to, you know, eradicating any traces of anti Semitism and anti Judaism from the church. Like, this is his life's work. And he speaks Hebrew. He knows Hebrew much more than I do. And he knows Yiddish because he feels that it is disrespectful to read Holocaust literature in translation. He. He believes that it has to be read in the original so it can be heard and felt in the original. Like, that is the kind of person he is. He knows so much about Jewish history. He painstakingly read drafts of my book and gave me some of the very best feedback that I have gotten. He is just one of the most intellectually honest and deeply kind and just. He is an incredible ally to the Jews. Like, he's really just the best of the best. And I am. I am a huge fan of his.
- [36:19]
C
Can you say something about Yossi Klein Halevi?
- [36:22]
B
I can. Yossi Klein Halevi is an author and a journalist who grew up in America but moved to Israel. So he now lives in Israel. And he is one of just the great minds of our people. His writing on Israel and on Jews is so unbelievably breathtaking. I mean, he is such a lyrical writer. And his book, like Dreamers, that book is mind blowing. I still cannot. Every time I talk to him, I'm like, how did you do that? Just reading that book boggles my mind because he follows the story of a number of paratroopers from the 67 War and kind of details the varying paths they took through the rest of their lives. But it's really a book about Israel and Israeli society and Israeli history. You actually come to deeply understand Israel through the lives of these people. And it is so intricate and so beautifully constructed and crafted. I. I'm just blown away by him. He also has a great podcast with a rabbi named Daniel Hartman called For Heaven's Sake, where they go into pretty profound and very nuanced conversations each week about what's happening in Israel, and I learn so much from that podcast. And, you know, Yossi is this big name, right? He's this. This very well recognized guy, has a long resume, bunch of accomplishments. He could be the kind of guy who just says, like, yeah, I'm great. I'm going to pull the ladder up after me and move on. But I can't even tell you how many people are like, oh, Yosi's my mentor. I'm like, no, no, he's my mentor. It's like the number of people who see him as a mentor, as a big brother, as a cheerleader and supporter. You know, he has just been such a dear friend and encourager and supporter. And he also read my book and gave me so much important feedback. So I'm a very big fan of his as well. These are four individuals who I just. I adore and think the world of, and there are so many more people like that in my life. So I'm a very lucky person.
- [38:13]
C
Who did you write this book for? Who do you have in mind as your imagined audience or audiences? Who did you have in mind as your ideal reader or readers?
- [38:23]
B
So I answered this question with some humility because I was definitely wrong about my first book where I was like, this is just for disengaged Jews. And then it turned out to actually be for very engaged Jews. So who knew? I will say this book was, I think, the core audience that I've been thinking of, I had originally been thinking of. And now, just in the few months that I've been circulating galleys of it, I realized, once again, I'm wrong. But the current. The audience I was thinking of was American Jews like me, who kind of grew up with this kind of largely contentless. I'm just a cultural Jew, Jewish identity. And now, once again, I'm actually getting a lot of feedback from Jews who are. Who grew up nothing like mates who are quite engaged in learning, who are saying, like, oh, this book is for me, actually, you're tracing something that's helping me understand how Judaism has evolved, how the Jews around me are engaging with the world. I would love this book to be read by non Jews. I think this can be a book that can really help you understand the Jewish journey in history and also how antisemitism is manifested both historically and in modern times. You know, I have definitely read books about different communities and populations in the US to just say, like, okay, I want to be an ally. I need to do the work. Like, I need to read some books and really Hear from people about their history, their struggles, what they're going through. And I'm hoping that, you know, people who are not Jewish will maybe be similarly interested in a book like this.
- [39:47]
C
What misconceptions about Judaism did you have earlier in your life? How did you outgrow them? What was the process through which you outgrew them?
- [39:57]
B
So, so many. I mean, number one, I thought Judaism was a religion with a dogma and creed that I either had to accept or reject, and that if I didn't believe in God, then I wasn't, like, really Jewish. You know, like, I kind of, like, I just thought that's what Judaism was. So that was not true. You know, I really, I thought that prayer was really the only form of Jewish spiritual practice. Turns out, nope, study was. I thought that you engaged with text the way that I've seen a lot of my patients engage with text. You know, I, I, I recently, a while back, had a wonderful Christian patient who had forgotten her Bible. And I brought her one, and I came back later, and I just saw she was, like, so deeply absorbed in the pages. And I could tell she was really, like, comforted and moved. And she told me, like, reading my, the Bible is my comfort. Like, it really, it moves me, it soothes me, it connects me to my faith. But if you just sit down with the Torah and try to read it that way, it's probably not going to soothe you and comfort you. I mean, depending on where you, where you pick up. But it's not meant to be read that way. You know, we have 2,500 years of texts since then that are part of that textual tradition. And the Torah is not really meant to be read alone in a vacuum. So I think I misunderstood how we engage with our sacred texts. Know, I think those are a few of many, many misconceptions I had. And I, I, I overcon them through just doing a lot of work, you know, just doing a lot of learning and studying and talking to people. And that helped me better understand the tradition.
- [41:27]
C
In light of the insights you provide in this book, where do Jews go from here?
- [41:39]
B
That's a great question. You know, so I, I think very understandably, Jews are spending a lot of time today thinking about fighting antisemitism. And I really understand that because I'm also thinking a lot about that. But there is this line that I often hear which sort of worries me, which is like, oh, if we just had the right PR campaign, if we just had the right tweets, we could really fight anti semitism it's our, it's our fault. We're screwing it up. Like, we're not, we're. We don't. We're not fight. We're not fighting this well enough. And, you know, I just lovingly and respectfully, I just would gently point out that, like, there are 16 million Jews in the world. That's. With an M, that's the size of like, I don't know, the fifth largest city in China. Like, we're a Chinese city, okay. And then there are 8 billion other people. And, you know, the idea that this tiny portion of the world's people is going to fight a kind of, you know, thinking about Jews that has been really baked into the Western world's imagination for millennia. I just don't think that's quite true. You know, I think oftentimes anti Semitism comes and goes based on what is happening around us. You know, the plague comes, the economic downturn comes, and then people blame Jews. That's what they've been doing for a long time. So I, you know, the idea that we are going to control billion of people, billions of people is just. I just don't think that's true. I think that instead of trying to, like, bail out a tsunami with buckets, I think it's probably wise to invest a little more of our energy in building an arc. And by what I mean by building an ark is, you know, really becoming learned, engaged, proud, passionate Jews. You know, I. I will never make a prescription for how anyone should practice Judaism. It is none of my business. And there are so many different ways to practice and express and embody this tradition that are so powerful and. But one of those ways is not being a contentless Jew. One of those ways is not being totally ignorant of Jewish history and tradition. You know, I think that what Jews need to do is what I had to do 10 years ago. I had to grow up as a Jew. And it was really hard. You know, I think like many Jews, I was what Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman calls a pediatric Jew. And we have this cycle in the Jewish community where, you know, we go to Hebrew school until bar bat mitzvah age, we stop learning. So we have this very basic childhood understanding of Judaism. And then we have kids that are like, oh, someone's got to make this kid Jewish. It's not me. I better send them to Hebrew school. And, you know, this Hebrew school teacher can't make your kid Jewish in two hours a week. They can only give them, like this pediatric level of Judaism. And then the cycle starts again. When that kid grows up and we have to break this cycle. And that's what I had to do 10 years ago. And it involves reading some introductory to Judaism books. It involves taking an Intro to Judaism class or listening to lectures. It involves really beginning to learn about, like, okay, like, who are Jews, what is our history, what are our texts, what are we doing in our texts, and how do we live our lives? And that does take some effort. And so, but I, I really, I would advise doing that because, I don't know, I. I see something, I see that just kind of troubles me is, is many Jews. And this was like, me, I should. I'll own this. Like, 10 years ago, when I knew nothing about Judaism, I'd be very dismissive of things like, oh, chosenness, that's like, chauvinism. Oh, Judaism, sexist. You know, I tossed off these canards not really knowing anything. And I would never, ever do that to anyone else's tradition. I would never say, well, let me tell you about the indigenous peoples of America based on what I learned in sixth grade social studies, or let me tell you about Islam based on what I learned about it in ninth grade world cultures, right? To think that you know enough about a people, a tradition, a rich, complex, varied people, or tradition based on what you learned as a kid is the height of arrogance. And yet that's how I felt about my own tradition. And I think that we need to step back and realize that, like, we too, are a complex, rich, varied people in tradition. And I think if we just treated it with even a fraction of the respect that we treat other peoples and cultures and traditions and heritages and nations, I think that would go a long way for us. So I think my prescription is like, let's be Jews. And I think that to be a Jew in many ways is to be different is to think differently. You know, that was kind of the value proposition back in the day. We brought in monotheism. We brought in the idea that every human being is created in the divine image, which was a wild, bonkers idea compared to the thinking that was dominant back at that time. And I think that kind of countercultural thinking that time, that kind type of wisdom that really challenges the dominant culture, I think is so important. And, you know, I'll give an example of that, which is that, you know, so often we're told that Judaism is a religion of law, it's legalistic, it's nitpicky, it's weedy, while Christianity is a religion of love. And I really, that is so Wrong. And Rabbi Shy held has actually written in exquisite book totally debunking this, called Judaism Is All About Love, which I highly recommend. But the problem is that actually our specific weedy laws are how we set and set a high bar for love and teach ourselves to meet it. So I'll give you some examples. You know, we're told that if you go into a store and you have no intention of buying anything, you shouldn't ask the shopkeeper for the price of an item. We're also told that if you've loaned money for someone to someone and you happen to see them walking down the street a few weeks later, and you know they can't afford to pay you back, then you should actually try to avoid running into them because you'll embarrass them. Now you could say like, wait a second, I'm sorry, you can't just say like, help the poor and be kind to workers. Why do you need these hyper specific weedy legalistic scenarios? And the answer is that I think what Jewish law is trying to do with this hyper specificity is it's trying to cultivate, inculcate in you an exquisite sensitivity to the needs and dignity and humanity and vulnerability to every single individual who crosses your path. It's like going to the eye doctor where they're clicking the vision machine and making your vision crisper and crisper. Each what if scenario, each particular scenario our ancient rabbis contemplated is like another click in that vision machine. And I think that is so profoundly counter to a kind of thinking that we see a lot in modern America, which is like, no, no, we'll just divide people up into a couple of really crude, dehumanizing categories. Oppressor, oppressed, powerful, powerless. And we'll hate and love them accordingly. End of story. And I think that's like clicking the vision machine backwards to make things blurrier and blurrier until all you see are two big blobs and you can't even see them all that well. And so that is just an example of, I think, the kind of profound countercultural wisdom that we bring to the.
- [48:18]
C
World right now as we enter dialogue today. Can you tell us about where your time and attention have gone since completing this work?
- [48:24]
B
Yeah, so, you know, I completed it pretty recently and it's really gone to a lot of like, catching up on life stuff that I put aside while I was working on this book. And it's now really going to thinking about how to talk to people about this book and to beginning the process of a book tour where I'M getting to just talk to a lot of different Jewish communities in different ways about it, and I'm I'm really excited about that. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
- [48:50]
C
Amazing. I wish you the very best. Thank you for this extraordinary book and for your eloquent erudition throughout the course of this conversation.
- [48:59]
B
I can hardly thank you so much, Ari. And thank you for having me. Really such a pleasure to be in conversation with you.
- [49:06]
C
Thank you. I was deeply grateful. As we end today, I'm signing off as Ari Barbolette, your host on the New Books in Jewish Studies channel of the New Books Network podcast. Today I've been honored to engage in a dialogue with Sarah Horowitz. We have been discussing her newly published book as a Reclaiming Our Story from those who Blame Shame and Try to Erase Us, published in New York by Harper One, 2025. Sarah Horwitz was a White House speechwriter from 2009 to 2017, starting up as a senior speechwriter for Barack Obama and then serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. Prior to working in the White House, she was the chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton on her 2008 presidential campaign. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Thank you wholeheartedly.