Discover the 26 Paths of Jewish Heroism and what it means to be a hero in Rav Mike’s newest podcast series, The Jewish Heroism Project.

There are good things worth fighting for. But what is good? The first class of the Jewish Heroism Project introduces the Torah’s definition of heroism as mesirut nefesh l’man tov, going beyond limited self for the sake of good. It is a call to set out on the twenty-six paths of Jewish heroism, to uncover the heroic face of Torah and make it your own.

After the intro, tov is framed as the essential good of creation and as the gateway to the Torah’s heroic paths. Then we meet Moses, first hero and guide to the good, who brings down a portal for its light that can teach the world to make the goodness of creation shine. Last comes a call to action, to engage the practice of recognizing good and pursue it along our own heroic life journeys.

The Jewish Story Special: A 9 Days Conversation featuring Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz





The Israeli Judicial Reform protests come the same week 18 years after the Gush Katif protests and 2,000 years after the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. What can we learn from Tisha B'Av and the Nine Days about modern Jewish and Israeli unity? Sometimes the echoes of history are so loud that they seem to drown out the present. This conversation with Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz, former Jerusalem City Council member, was recorded in Jerusalem at a Jewish unity tent with the sounds protesters in the background.




Credits: Rav Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty











 

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 21 – The Final Episode of The Jewish Story

There is no way to give closure to six seasons of a story, but you have to try! Here is an interview with Rav Mike Feuer that looks back on the lessons of Jewish history and reflects on the challenges of today. It also announces tomorrow’s new project – so stay tuned for more amazing stories with the Jewish Heroism Project.

Credits: Rav Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 20 – The Temple Mount Part IV

Was Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in 2000 the trigger for what the Arab community calls the Al Aqsa Intifada? Or was this a pre-planned assault orchestrated by the likes of Marwan Barghouti, Raed Salah of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and even the Palestinian Authority?

In this final installment of the Temple Mount series, learn about the assassination attempt against Rabbi Yehudah Glick, the lynching of two Israelis in Ramallah, the rejection of Jewish history by PLO leader Yasir Arafat during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, the and the rioting that took the lives of thousands including that of Muhammad al-Durrah during the Second Intifada. Plus, Yehuda Etzion and the Hai Vekayam movement who sought to ensure Jewish people had the right to pray at the Har HaBayit, the site of the Beit HaMikdash.

Credits: Rav Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 19 – The Temple Mount Part III – The Narrative War

Why is the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism a lighting rod for terrorist attacks and central to Israeli-Arab peace negotiations? Learn about how the Har HaBayit shifted from being acknowledged by Muslim leaders in the 1920s as a Jewish site to a complete denial by Yasir Arafat by the 1990s. The Oslo Accords, the Camp David Summit and reactions of President Bill Clinton. Plus, the history of the destruction of Jewish antiquities by the Muslim Waqf and the creation of the Temple Mount Sifting Project.

Credits: Rav Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6

Interlude - Future of American Zionism

Rav Mike Feuer speaks at Valley Beit Midrash in an event co-sponsored by Temple Chai entitled “Is There a Future for American Zionism? American Zionism in the Era of the Ethnic State.”

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer – Pardes Faculty

 

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Interlude - Interview with Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Rav Mike Feuer interviews educator and activist Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz and discuss what it means to be both progressive and orthodox in the Jewish world, as well as his vision of the Jewish story, Israel and Zionism past present and future.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 18 – The Temple Mount Part II – The Status Quo

Should Jews be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount? Or will it inflame Muslim sensitivities? Learn the history of this debate from the Six Day War in 1967 when General Moshe Dayan argued with Rabbi Shlomo Goren on the issue, to the fire started by Australian tourist Denis Michael Rohan, the shooting by Allan Goodman, through the 1980s up until the riots in 1990. Plus learn more about Zionist philosopher Shabtai Ben-Dov, radical activist Yehuda Etzion, Gershon Salomon and the Temple Mount Faithful. What Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif and Al Aqsa Mosque and what Jews call the Har HaBayit and Beit HaMikdash have ramifications for today’s conflict.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer – Pardes Faculty

 

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 17 – The Temple Mount Part I – The Hinge Point

Every tale has a point around which it revolves, and for the Jewish Story that is the Temple Mount. Here is the opening round in a new series tracing the way in which the sacred mountain in the middle of Jerusalem is still at the center of our story.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer – Pardes Faculty

 

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Interlude - The Crisis of Israeli Sovereignty

A live webinar on behalf of for Fuel For Truth: Israel Education & Advocacy Training, on “The Crisis of Israeli Sovereignty.” First Rav Mike lays out his innovative approach to three dimensions in which sovereignty is exercised – territorial, economic and cultural. Then in the question and answer he engages the judicial reform protests, the purpose of Israel, what it means to be a Jew in modern society and whether or not one can believe in both the Nakba and in the miracle of Israel’s founding.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Interlude - Constitution Now!

Rav Mike Feuer calls for a constructive alternative to the current mass protests against judicial reform being debated in Israel’s Knesset. Along the way he touches upon some historical context about Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak, Meir Kahane’s Kach party and what the Israeli Declaration of Independence actually says. On the way toward a new model of national covenant, the Jewish State needs to learn to speak to one another again, and that also requires understanding how the Disengagement from Gaza and destruction of Gush Katif in 2005 affect the current political situation.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 16 – The Endgame (American Anti-Semitism Part VII)

The final installment in the series on the tri-partite part nature of American Antisemitism. This episode revisits all three forms of Jew-hatred characteristic of society in the United States and touches base with their manifestation in the new millennia. Along the way we identify the narrative endgame driving each of these stories of destruction and consider what the Jews ought to do about it.

Learn about the 2001 Durban Conference on Racism, the Turner Diaries, the Oklahoma City Bombing, James Baldwin, Black Lives Matter, and Jewish students on college campus today.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

 

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 15 – Progressing Towards Anti-Semitism (American Anti-Semitism Part VI)

Anti-Jewish and Anti-Israel leftists and progressives. Learn why Jews vote Democratic, and how Tikkun Olam became the civil religion of liberal American Jews. As Jews sought greater acceptance for themselves and other minorities, anti-Zionism turned into Judeophobia, with help from the community Soviet Union. Anti-Zionism became Judeo-phobia and a manifestation of hate in the progressive culture of the United States. Hear the stories of Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine who authored The Socialism of Fools, Leonard Fein, CAJE (Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education), the New Jewish Agenda, and more in this important episode of the ongoing series that explores both right-wing and left-wing Jew-hatred.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer – Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Interlude - Interview with Ken Jacobson of the ADL

Is Judeophobia getting worse in the US? Kenneth Jacobson has worked for the Anti-Defamation League since 1971 and as deputy director, he shares his unique view on the history of Jew-hate in America.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 14 - American Antisemitism Part V

This episode opens up our exploration of the third face of American antisemitism with the backstory of progressive Jew-hate. Listen in to uncover the ongoing impact of Soviet era propaganda, and to learn what is “the socialism of fools.”

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 13 - American Antisemitism Part IV

When the cracks start to open up in American race relations, Jew-hate seeps into the mainstream. Here is an episode about Reverend Jesse Jackson, Minister Louis Farrakhan and the evolution of black antisemitism.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Interlude - The Inner Pressure of the Present Moment

Sometimes you have to get out of your own head in order to know what you really think. Here is an episode where my good friend Eitan Ben Avraham of Aleph Male interviews me on the fundamental tensions underlying the Israeli/American Jewish relationship and how they find expression in our present political challenges.

Topics include the Jewish-American identity versus the Jewish-Israeli identity and what it means for an American oleh who made aliyah. Also, the Israeli Supreme Court and justice reform controversy, the Law of Return, reform, conservative and orthodox Jewish synagogues, and more.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 12 - American Antisemitism Part III

Jew-hatred has two fundamental elements no matter where it manifests – one connected to the role Jews play in society, the other the role we play in the mind of the hater. This episode opens a new facet of American Antisemitism as we turn from white hate to black, and try to understand the roots of them both.

Learn about James Baldwin, Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, Elijah Muhammad, Ambassador Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, the PLO, the 1968 New York City teachers’ strike, pawnbrokers, landlords, race riots and the changing face of urban neighborhoods in American’s north.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 11 - American Antisemitism Part II

In part 2 of our exploration of the new face of the oldest hate focuses on the history of Jewish response to American Antisemitism through a look at the Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913 by Sigmund Livingston. Over the years they battled Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent and Father Couglin’s radio show. Later they faced off against modern incarnations of Judeophobia such as Christian Identity and replacement theory. As a bonus there is an interview with Bettysue Feuer, retried regional director of the ADL and my mother.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty

The Jewish Story Season 6 

Episode 10 - American Antisemitism Part I

Antisemitism. It’s an old topic, but somehow seems to be making yet another comeback in America. Here is the introductory episode in my quest to understand the rebirth of humanity’s oldest hatred in the United States today. Learn about British Israelism, white supremacy and more.

Credits: Rabbi Mike Feuer - Pardes Faculty