Identity/Crisis

148 episodes listed below

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Jewish thought under present pressure.

The gist

Identity/Crisis treats Jewish life as an argument worth slowing down for. Across monologues, interviews, and live conversations, it connects prayer, Israel, diaspora power, immigration, AI, education, and popular culture to older Jewish texts and civic dilemmas.

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About Identity/Crisis

Identity/Crisis is a Jewish ideas and public-affairs show with a strong institutional mind and a restless moral center. It does not treat Jewish identity as a fixed label. It treats it as a set of claims, obligations, memories, and arguments that become harder under pressure. Episodes often begin with a framing essay from Yehuda Kurtzer, then move into conversation with scholars, writers, educators, and communal voices. The subjects are current, but the method is older and slower. Prayer becomes a question about what real Jews need from community, not only what source texts idealize. Campus life becomes a map of competing commitments, where students weigh egalitarian worship, Zionism, anti-Zionist spaces, belonging, and solitude. AI becomes more than a technology story. In the show’s hands, it raises the question of which religious spaces should remain deliberately human, even when efficiency points elsewhere. The cultural episodes have the same seriousness. A Hollywood animated film about Exodus becomes an occasion to talk about Hebrew, biblical adaptation, Jewish art, and mainstream American imagination. Political episodes tend to avoid easy sorting. A conversation about immigration enforcement and asylum law asks how cruelty enters institutions, and why the stranger so often becomes a screen for public fear. Other installments move through Bar Kokhba, the binding of Isaac, Zionist heroism, Hidden Voices curriculum, Purim, diaspora power, and the anxieties of American Judaism. The show is calm, but not detached. It is argumentative without becoming combative. Its strongest moments come when a familiar Jewish story is made morally unstable again, forcing listeners to reconsider what inheritance asks of them now.

Made for: For listeners who follow Jewish communal life, Israel and diaspora debates, religion in public culture, and the moral language behind institutions. It especially suits people who prefer careful argument over instant certainty.

What sets it apart: Identity/Crisis stands out by pairing current Jewish controversies with text, history, education, liturgy, and institutional experience. It makes room for ambiguity without draining the urgency from the issues.

In their own words

In a frenzied media cycle, Identity/Crisis creates better conversations about the issues facing contemporary Jewish life. Host Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, talks with leading thinkers to unpack current events affecting Jewish communities in North America, Israel, and around the world, revealing the core Jewish values underlying the issues that matter most to you. JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST FOR MORE HARTMAN IDEAS

As heard by us

Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026

Identity/Crisis turns Jewish texts and practices into exacting conversations about power, education, technology, public responsibility, and communal life.

Identity/Crisis starts with Yehuda Kurtzer setting out a live question, then brings a guest into a conversation where Jewish texts, institutions, and public arguments press against one another.

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Why you'd press play

Yehuda Kurtzer makes Jewish ideas answer to the mess outside the classroom.

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Jewish ethics tested against AI-written sermons, immigration policy, and fractured prayer communities
a host who keeps moving expert guests from historical context toward present-day consequences

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Jewish prayer and communityIsrael and diaspora politicscampus Jewish lifeAI and religious ethicsimmigration and the strangerJewish education and historyPurim and diaspora powerJewish culture in film

Talks about

Religion & Spirituality Political Philosophy

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Find your next episode

About Identity/Crisis

In their own words

As heard by us

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Podcasts like Identity/Crisis

Episodes

Concerning Camp Communities – with Adina Frydman

A Hollywood Midrash: The Making of The Prince of Egypt

What Do We Owe the Stranger? — with Seyla Benhabib

The Zionist Paratroopers and the Meaning of Heroism — with Matti Friedman

Teaching Jewish History in America — with Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

Teaching Jewish History in America — with Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

Purim and Diaspora Power— with Barbara Spectre

On Not Standing Idly By

The Haredi Draft Crisis — with Yehoshua Pfeffer

Pathways to Hope in Israel – with Ayalan Dahan and Yonathan Machlis

America Betrays the Stranger

Antizionism and the American Left’s Jewish Problem — with Shaul Kelner

A Yiddish Renaissance: Language, Memory, and Modern Jewish Life — with Rukhl Schaechter

Power, Liberalism, and Moral Responsibility — with Shadi Hamid

Reporting on Antisemitism When No One Wants to Listen — with Jesse Brown

Live at Vilna Shul: Harvard, Leadership, and Free Speech – with Alan Garber

How Americans Reshaped Israeli Judaism — with Adam Ferziger

Christmastime for the Jews (Re-Release)

Can the Jewish Big Tent Hold After October 7? with Yehuda Kurtzer and Claire Sufrin

What Broke the Black–Jewish Alliance? with Terrence Johnson

Covenant, Compromise, Sacrifice, and Kindness (Re-Release)

Carlson, Fuentes, and the New/Old Antisemitism – with Yair Rosenberg

Israel 2026: The Next Elections and What’s at Stake – with Tani Frank

Rabin, Oslo, and the Road Not Taken — with Yossi Beilin

The Jewish Paradoxes of Zohran Mamdani — with Howard Wolfson

Live with Abigail Pogrebin: Holding Hope During a Fragile Peace

Staying Human in the Age of AI — with David Zvi Kalman

Fighting Holocaust Fatigue — with Anita Friedman

Yehuda Kurtzer on Arc: The Podcast

God as King in an Age of Authoritarianism – with Ethan Tucker

What is Netanyahu Doing? with Michael Koplow

The Unapologetic Jewish Story — with Sarah Hurwitz

Non-Jewish in the Shadow of the Synagogue — with Christine Hayes

Live at JFN: What Ails American Judaism? with Franklin Foer and Sarah Hurwitz (Re-Release)

Future Tense: What Comes Next? with Yehuda Kurtzer

Genocide and the Burden of History

Staying Human in the Age of AI — with David Zvi Kalman (Re-release)

Holding it Together – with Donniel Hartman

Journalism in the Fog of War – with David Horovitz

Disagreeing without Baseless Hatred — with Daniel Taub

The State of Jewish Innovation - with Aaron Katler

When Crisis is the Job – with Barry Finestone

Power and Negotiations -- with Daniel Kurtzer

The Sound and the Fury

Hartman Summer, Interrupted

Hate Crimes in the Name of Resistance — with Amy Spitalnick

Announcement: Shavuot Hiatus

Is the War Still Worth it?– with Tal Becker

Announcement: Thursday Release

When Do We Speak Up? – with Abe Foxman

Announcement: Purim Hiatus

Jewish in the Heartland

A Jewish Paradigm for Caring for the Sick – with Sara Labaton

Naomi Shemer’s Soundtrack of Israel at 77 - with Moti Zeira

The Politics of Holocaust Memory in Israel – with Dani Dayan

Announcement: Passover Hiatus

How is this Seder Different from Other Seders?—with Dara Horn

Live at JFN: What Ails American Judaism? - with Franklin Foer and Sarah Hurwitz

How Do You Raise a Jewish Adult? - with Stephanie Ives

A Critique of American Judaism with Joshua Leifer

Persuasive Leadership in Divisive Times

Persuasive Leadership in Divisive Times

On Being Palestinian in Israel Today

The Red Cross: Mission Over Moral Red Lines

Educating in the Shadow of Grief

Ghosts of a Holy War

Presidents and Kings

Liberal Democracy as a Matter of National Security

Yehuda Kurtzer on Grappling with History and Memory

Christmastime for the Jews

Sources: On Jewish Leadership

Covenant, Compromise, Sacrifice, and Kindness