PODCAST · society
Can We Talk?
by Jewish Women's Archive
Each month on Can We Talk?, the Jewish Women’s Archive features stories and conversations about Jewish women and the issues that shape our public and private lives. Alternating between a documentary style and a roundtable format, Can We Talk? includes profiles of historical and contemporary Jewish women, frank discussion of culture, politics, and current events, and little-known stories from our past and present. Contact us at [email protected]. Tell us what you think of the podcast! Take our survey at https://jwa.org/podcastsurvey.
Episodes
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Episode 126: In Memory of My Mother
In this special Mother’s Day episode, Nahanni interviews her mother, Emma Rous, who died this winter. They talk about how Emma’s teenage activism in a Protestant youth group influenced her politics, her conversion to Judaism in 1971, memories of her first Yom Kippur, what it was like to invent…
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Episode 125: Making Gay History, the Nazi Era: Frieda Belinfante (Special Episode)
In honor of Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, we're sharing a podcast episode from Making Gay History’s current series about the Nazi era. Frieda Belinfante was a Dutch musician and underground activist who risked her life to help save hundreds of Jews from the Nazis. She’s one of…
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Bonus Episode: Our Stories, Our Resistance
At the Jewish Women's Archive, we’re closely following the attacks on democracy unfolding around us every day. In this special Can We Talk? audio essay, our own Judith Rosenbaum, JWA's CEO, calls out President Trump's moves to erase the histories of women and other marginalized groups. A version…
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Episode 124: Dayenu: Jewish Climate Action Now
The climate crisis has entered an alarming new era. Since President Trump started his second term, the Environmental Protection Agency has fired scores of climate scientists and is trying to roll back climate protections and slash clean energy funding. For organizations like Dayenu: A Jewish Call...
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Episode 123: Message From Ukraine: Three Years Later
As the war between Ukraine and Russia enters its fourth year, Nahanni checks in with Vlada Nedak, the CEO of Project Kesher Ukraine. While American officials try to broker a temporary ceasefire, attacks on the ground in Ukraine are intensifying. Dozens of people have been injured and killed in…
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Episode 122: Miriam Anzovin on Power and Gender in the Megillah
In this special Purim episode, Talmudic TikToker and storyteller Miriam Anzovin joins us to talk about the darker side of the Purim story, especially the role of gender. We start with a dramatic retelling of the Megillah, with Miriam's very contemporary spin on the traditional tale. Then we take…
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Bonus Episode: Sonnet for America: Reprise
Just over eight years ago, Judith and Nahanni were looking for solace after Donald Trump rode a xenophobic, misogynistic and hate-filled campaign to his first presidential victory. In a November 2016 episode of Can We Talk?, we turned to the poet Emma Lazarus, the Jewish woman who gave the statue...
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Episode 121: Alaska's Jewish Pioneer Daughter
On August 4, 1869, a Jewish baby girl named Josie became Alaska’s first pioneer daughter. Josephine Rudolph was born in Sitka, Alaska to German immigrants, and returned to Germany when she was 6 years old. Seven decades later, her American birth saved her life when the Nazis came to power.…
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Episode 120: Until 120!
It’s a Can We Talk? party! Welcome to our 120th episode 🥳. We're celebrating this milestone podcast style—Jen gets Judith and Nahanni reminiscing about the early days, we revisit clips from some of our favorite episodes, and we hear "Until 120!" in six languages. We’re honored to be feted by…
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Episode 119: Erez Zobary Sings Her Yemenite Roots
Toronto R & B musician Erez Zobary was always proud of her Yemenite Jewish identity, but didn't explore it in her music - until now. Her new album, Erez, is a soulful, personal collection of songs that draws on her family's stories of life in Yemen and Israel. In this episode of Can We Talk?…
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Episode 118: The Femme Fatale in the Sukkah
This Sukkot, we're welcoming a special guest into Can We Talk?’s virtual sukkah: the Talmudic “femme fatale” Homa, one of the women featured in her new book, The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic. In this episode, Talmud scholar Gila Fine tells Homa’s story, reinterprets it from Homa’s perspective…
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Episode 117: One Year Later
A year after Hamas’ brutal October 7 attacks on Israel, the war is far from over. Israel is fighting on multiple fronts—with Hamas in Gaza, with Hezbollah in Lebanon—while war threatens to explode with Iran. Hamas is still holding 101 hostages in Gaza, 33 of whom have been confirmed dead by the...
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Episode 116: Jean Carroll, First Lady of Laughs
Before Joan Rivers, there was another Jewish woman who broke ground as a stand-up comedian. Her name was Jean Carroll, and although she was a household name in the 50s and 60s, today she has been mostly forgotten. Grace Kessler Overbeke hopes her new book about Jean Carroll, First Lady of Laughs,...
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Episode 115: Dr. Ruth's Radical Legacy
The iconic Dr. Ruth Westheimer died earlier this year at the age of 96. Dr. Ruth was a trailblazer for her candid and joyful talk about sex, regularly using words like "masturbate" and "vibrator" on the air, and talking about sexual pleasure— including women's sexual pleasure—at a time when few...
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Bonus Episode: A Visit to Pine Ridge Reservation
In this bonus episode, Nahanni Rous shares stories from a trip to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Nahanni visits a solar energy training center, a skateboarding competition, and the annual Oglala Nation powwow, and meets people who are trying to build a better future, both by...
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Episode 114: Can We Talk? 2023-24 Season Wrap
In this episode of Can We Talk?, Jen, Nahanni, and Judith recap the past two seasons of the podcast, in which we entered the uncharted territory of a post-October 7 world. We discuss our approach to creating episodes about Jewish women’s responses to the attack on Israel and the ensuing war in...
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Episode 113: Getting Out Of Gaza
Since Hamas’s brutal attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, Can We Talk? has focused on Israeli women’s responses to the war. In this episode, we turn our attention to Gaza, where Israel’s sustained bombardment has taken a terrible toll—tens of thousands of people have been killed, nearly two...
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Episode 112: Oral History Showcase: Mollie's Fight for Gay Rights
Dr. Mollie Wallick didn't set out to be a gay rights activist; she stumbled into the role in 1983, when she was a guidance counselor at Louisiana State University’s medical school in New Orleans. In this episode of Can We Talk?, you’ll hear excerpts from Mollie’s 2005 interview for the “Women Who...
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Episode 111: Ladino Makes a Comeback
Segun el tiempo, se abolta la vela. That’s a Ladino saying that means, “According to the weather, shift your sail.” And it's an apt way of describing Ladino's recent comeback. Ladino—or Judeo-Spanish—the language spoken by Sephardic Jews in Turkey, Greece and North Africa, saw a major decline…
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Episode 110: Oral History Showcase: Leni's Ladino Legacy
Lenora LaMarche, better known as Leni, was born in 1921 in the Sephardic Jewish community in Seattle, Washington, after her parents moved there from Rhodes, looking for better economic opportunities. She grew up speaking Ladino, and for over 30 years, she wrote a Ladino column in her synagogue...
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Episode 109: Oral History Showcase: Ronya's Liberation Story
When Ronya Schwaab was a young girl, the highlight of her year was preparing for Pesach—the snow was melting, and she got to help bake matzos. Ronya was born in 1909 in Belarus. She grew up amidst the violence and antisemitism of World War I and the Russian Revolution, and immigrated to America…
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Episode 108: Queer Klezmer with Isle of Klezbos
A lot of people love klezmer music and know that it made a big comeback a few decades ago. But not a lot of people know that the klezmer revival of the '70s and '80s was connected to queer Jewish liberation. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we’ll hear about how queer activism fits into the…
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Bonus Episode: The Nightingale of Iran
Last time on Can We Talk?, we spoke with Danielle and Galeet Dardashti about their new podcast, The Nightingale of Iran, which tells the story of their Persian family's musical legacy. Now, we're sharing the whole first episode with you. Enjoy!
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Episode 107: A Persian Family's Musical Legacy
Danielle and Galeet Dardashti grew up in a very musical family—they had a family band, their father was a cantor, their mother was a folk singer, and their grandfather was a famous singer in “the golden age” of Iran in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, with his own show on Iranian national radio. But...
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Episode 106: A Pocket of Hope: Israeli Women Building a Shared Future
“From the deepest crises come the clearest visions…We're fighting for our lives. We're fighting for our future,” says Sally Abed of Standing Together, a grassroots political movement in Israel. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we hear from Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel who are working...
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Episode 105: Hear Their Voices: Sexual Violence on October 7
When Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, they raped, tortured, and mutilated women’s bodies in unimaginable ways. News about the sexual violence emerged within days, but few women’s organizations spoke up to condemn it. Some even questioned whether the claims were true. In this episode...
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Episode 104: Crying and Doing: Iris Bahr and her Aging Mother
Iris Bahr was halfway around the world when she saw her mother having a stroke over video chat. Within days, she was on an airplane, uprooting her life to become her mother’s primary caregiver. The stroke led to vascular dementia– an irreversible condition. Iris is a writer and actor and…
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Episode 103: Kugels and Collards: The Southern Jewish Table
Food can be a vehicle for telling stories, connecting with people, and understanding our history—including the uncomfortable parts. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Jen Richler heads to Charleston, South Carolina to learn about Southern Jewish history through the lens of food. Over a home-cooked...
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Episode 102: One Month Later
Today, November 7, 2023, marks one month since the Hamas attacks on Israel, when 1,400 people in Israel were killed. A month has passed, which feels both like a lifetime and like one long, terrible day. This tragedy is present, and raw and still unfolding. Close to 250 Israelis and foreign…
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Episode 101: The Women's War Room
Israel has been at war with Hamas for nearly a month. Israeli and Palestinian casualties are devastating–and mounting. In Israel, women are on the front lines of a major grassroots mobilization: providing emergency relief to a country in crisis. An army of volunteers of all ages and genders has...
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Episode 100: Missing Vivian Silver
Vivian Silver has been missing since October 7, the day Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,400 people in Israel and took more than 200 hostages to Gaza. Since then, more than 3,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel's air strikes in Gaza. Vivian is 74 years old, from Kibbutz...
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Episode 99: A Wish in Dark Days
It's been a terrifying week of violence in Israel. Instead of our planned episode of Can We Talk?, this week we offer a poem called “Mishalot”—requests, or wishes—by Esther Raab, one of modern Hebrew’s first female poets, born in Israel in 1894. She wrote “Mishalot” in 1967, around the time of…
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Episode 98: By Disabled Jews, For Disabled Jews
What did JOIN for Justice, the Jewish Organizing Institute and Network, do when the pandemic made its in-person community organizing fellowship impossible? It turned the obstacle into an opportunity, shifting to a virtual fellowship specifically for people with disabilities. Over seven months in...
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Episode 97: Golda Reconsidered
Golda Meir is known as Israel's "Iron Lady": gruff, chain-smoking, and fiercely ambitious. In the eyes of many, she was also responsible for the Yom Kippur War, which cost thousands of lives. But Golda's story is far more complex. In this episode of Can We Talk?, as we approach 50 years since the...
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Bonus Episode: Granfran in the Uber
While we’re hard at work on our fall season, which launches Sept 12, enjoy this bonus episode from Joia Putnoi. Joia recorded this conversation with her grandmother Fran Putnoi, or “Granfran,” for a college class. It's about passing recipes and stories from one generation of Jewish women to the...
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Episode 96: Can We Talk? 2022-23 Season Wrap
That's a wrap! In this episode of Can We Talk?, Nahanni Rous, Jen Richler, and Judith Rosenbaum recap the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 seasons—from a celebration at a queer Jewish chicken farm to the fight for Israel's "chained women" to reproductive rights after Roe, and much more.
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Episode 95: Word of the Week: Shiksa
From Portnoy’s Complaint to Seinfeld, the word shiksa is firmly embedded in popular culture. Where does the word come from, and how has its meaning changed over time? In this episode, we’re bringing you another installment of our “Word of the Week” series, where we dig into one word and explore…
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Episode 94: Rebbetzins in America
What did talented, dedicated Jewish women do before they could become rabbis? Some became rebbetzins. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we’re looking at the changing role of the rebbetzin—the rabbi’s wife. Women have been rabbis in America for just over half a century, but for as long as there…
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Episode 93: Alice Shalvi: Israeli Feminist Pioneer
Alice Shalvi has been an Israeli feminist pioneer for decades. Born in Germany and raised in England, she moved to Israel in 1949, a young woman excited to help build a new state. She’s spent her life there, working for gender equality and a more just society. In this episode of Can We Talk?,...
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Episode 92: Beyond the Binary: Making Hebrew More Gender-Inclusive
Hebrew is a very gendered language; every noun in Hebrew is either feminine or masculine. So are pronouns, including “I” and “you.” This makes it nearly impossible to utter a sentence in Hebrew without using gender. So as a Hebrew speaker, how do you refer to a mixed-gender group? What about...
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Episode 91: Israel at 75: Voices of Protest
Israel turns 75 this week. This milestone comes at a moment of unprecedented upheaval in Israeli society and escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Over the past few months, around 1.5 million Israelis have poured into the streets to protest the judicial reforms proposed by...
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Episode 90: Reproductive Rights After Roe
When the Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade, it eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion. As of April 2023, it is now essentially illegal to have an abortion in 15 states. That means limited to no access to terminating a pregnancy. But many people don't…
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Episode 89: Samira Mehta On The Racism of People Who Love You
Samira Mehta is the daughter of a white American mother and a South Asian immigrant father. She’s also a Jew by choice and a scholar of American religious history and women’s and gender studies. Her new book, The Racism of People Who Love You examines the subtle, everyday racism of intimate...
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Episode 88: Jewish Women Behind the Mic
Here at Can We Talk?, we’re podcast fanatics. And we especially like shows that feature Jewish women’s voices. So we decided to bring together some of our favorite Jewish women podcasters to talk shop. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Judith Rosenbaum takes us behind the scenes with Stephanie...
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Episode 87: Jodi Kantor Said
In 2017, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the New York Times story about producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse of women. Their reporting lit a fire under the #MeToo movement, led to Weinstein’s conviction, and prompted a national reckoning with sexual abuse. They chronicled the experience in...
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Episode 86: Fat Torah with Minna Bromberg
It all started at a preschool Hanukkah party a few years ago. That's when an offhand remark led Rabbi Minna Bromberg to start Fat Torah, a project to end fat stigma in Jewish communal life. In this episode of Can We Talk, Judith Rosenbaum speaks with Minna in her home in Jerusalem about how...
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Episode 85: Teens and Mental Health in the (Post)Pandemic
Teens were already struggling before COVID. When the pandemic hit, things just got worse. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we speak with Vanessa Kroll Bennett, co-host of The Puberty Podcast, parenting writer, and mother of four, about teens and mental health—before, during, and after the...
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Episode 84: Modern Loss with Rebecca Soffer
For a long time, Rebecca Soffer, co-founder of the website Modern Loss, had been planning to write a guide to coping with grief. Then the pandemic hit, and the need felt especially urgent. So she wrote The Modern Loss Handbook: An Interactive Guide to Moving Through Grief and Building Resilience....
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Episode 83: Fighting for Israel's "Chained Women"
In Israel, marriage and divorce are governed by Jewish law and controlled by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical courts. If a Jewish woman wants a divorce, she has to get permission from her husband, in the form of a document called a get—and he can refuse. That's exactly what happens to about 1 in 5...
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Episode 82: When Jewish Women Talked to the Dead
In this season of ghosts and haunted houses, we’re taking you back to a time when communicating with the dead was a popular way to spend an evening. Séances were the main practice of the spiritualist movement, which is based on the belief that when people die, they survive as spirits, and that we...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Each month on Can We Talk?, the Jewish Women’s Archive features stories and conversations about Jewish women and the issues that shape our public and private lives. Alternating between a documentary style and a roundtable format, Can We Talk? includes profiles of historical and contemporary Jewish women, frank discussion of culture, politics, and current events, and little-known stories from our past and present. Contact us at [email protected]. Tell us what you think of the podcast! Take our survey at https://jwa.org/podcastsurvey.
HOSTED BY
Jewish Women's Archive
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Can We Talk? have?
Can We Talk? currently has 136 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Can We Talk? about?
Each month on Can We Talk?, the Jewish Women’s Archive features stories and conversations about Jewish women and the issues that shape our public and private lives. Alternating between a documentary style and a roundtable format, Can We Talk? includes profiles of historical and contemporary Jewish...
How often does Can We Talk? release new episodes?
Can We Talk? publishes regularly with 136 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Can We Talk??
You can listen to Can We Talk? on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Can We Talk??
Can We Talk? is created and hosted by Jewish Women's Archive.
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