- 38 minutes 45 secondsA Mixed (Observance) Marriage
We’ve all heard about mixed faith families, but what happens when everyone is Jewish, but one person is more observant? When does this become a burden on the rest of the family? And does that matter?
A listener asks Rabbi Shira and Hanna for help as he tries to lean into his Jewish observance – including shutting down on Shabbat – without annoying his wife and children.
Read more about Shalom Bayit
Read more about a Shabbos Goy
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices21 October 2026, 9:00 am - 30 minutes 8 secondsE.T. Phone Shul
An all alien round-up episode! You asked, and we answered:
Are aliens kosher? Are angels aliens? And does a belief in extra-terrestrial life strengthen Jewish faith or cause a crisis?
Rabbi Shira and Hanna talk about the boundless ways Judaism can stretch to infinity and beyond, with an extra nod to the Jewish roots of the Vulcan salute.
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices14 October 2026, 9:00 am - 39 minutes 29 secondsJewish Advice for the Election on the Anniversary of October 7th
As we mourn the lives lost on and after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, Rabbi Shira and Hanna discuss a problem common for many American Jews this election season: Should you support a candidate who aligns with your values on most everything…except Israel? They’re joined by Nicholas Lemann, Dean Emeritus at the Columbia Journalism School and author of Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries.
Read “A Profound Question Haunting Jews Today” by Nicholas Lemann
Read more about Nicholas Lemann
Read El Malei Rachamim by Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
Learn about Values based decision making
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices7 October 2026, 9:00 am - 32 minutes 16 secondsRabbi Freud
Fun fact: Rabbi Shira is not only a rabbi, she’s also a therapist! So she’s uniquely equipped to answer this week’s listener question: When should you seek counseling from a rabbi and when should you see a therapist?
Shira and Hanna debate the merits of both types of counseling and find themselves asking why do Jews love therapy so much?!
Listen to Hanna on Radio Atlantic: How American Became Addicted to Therapy:
Read a History of Jewish Chaplaincy
Read about how Rabbis act as counselors
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices30 September 2026, 9:00 am - 47 minutes 54 secondsHebrew School Dropout
🎶No graduation day for you 🎶
As Hebrew Schools around the country supply their students with lulavs and etrogs for the upcoming Sukkot holiday, Rabbi Shira and Hanna talk about all things religious education. What’s the goal? Is it working? Is Hebrew School just a B’Mitzvah Factory? (and is there anything wrong with that?). Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal, the Senior Director of Youth and Family Education at Central Synagogue in New York, helps answer these questions and more.
Read more on Jewish obligations to teaching children
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices23 September 2026, 9:00 am - 15 minutes 42 secondsRabbi Shira’s Yom Kippur Sermon: “See It”
Even if you can’t make it to Aspen you can hear Rabbi Shira’s sermon for Yom Kippur this year. Drawing on her own experience visiting the Langa Township in Cape Town, South Africa, the Yom Kippur Haftarah reading and some Ursula LeGuin, Shira urges us all to “shrink the frame” to a human-sized small town of responsibility, practice Teshuvah and reject willful blindness.
Watch this sermon
Read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Read the Yom Kippur Haftarah reading
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices16 September 2026, 9:00 am - 33 minutes 25 secondsMisery Loves Company (Even on Rosh Hashanah)
Chutzpod is back to usher everyone into the New Year! And as we approach 5787, a listener wonders how to show up authentically, even if that means bringing the mood down. Rabbi Shira and Hanna wonder why we feel pressure to have a “happy” new year and encourage everyone not to bring the Jewish equivalent of a sanitized Christmas letter to their high holiday celebrations.
Read This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared
Read about the Unetanah Tokef
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices9 September 2026, 9:00 am - 1 hour 16 minutesThe Long Arc: 250 Years of Jews and America
Listen to this special bonus episode recorded live at Aspen Jewish Congregation on August 12, 2026.
As America approaches 250 years, this conversation looks at the enduring relationship between Jewish life and the American experiment. Through historical reflection and contemporary insight, speakers will explore how Jewish tradition and democratic ideals have shaped one another—and what that long story asks of us now.
This conversation features Rabbi Sharon Brous, Founder and Senior Rabbi of IKAR, Eric Cohen, President and CEO of Tikvah, and moderator Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor-in-Chief, The Atlantic.
Chutzpod will be back with new episodes September 9th! Need advice from Hanna and Shira? Submit your questions to [email protected]. And make sure you're subscribed.
Listen to Rabbi Brous on Chutzpod!
More AJC conversations
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices2 September 2026, 9:00 am - 1 minute 3 secondsComing Soon...Chutzpod Season 8!
Chutzpod is coming back with new episodes and new real-life questions September 9th!
Rabbi Shira and Hanna will talk about when to see a rabbi over a therapist, how to navigate a mixed-observance marriage and is believing in aliens Jewish??
Subscribe to automatically get all new episodes. And submit your own questions to be featured on an episode!
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices26 August 2026, 9:00 am - 39 minutes 28 secondsA Whole Lotta Leviticus: Our Traditional (Untraditional) Torah Study for Season 7
In our Season 7 finale, Hanna again poses as a yeshiva bocher. Shira takes her through a very special double Torah portion: Achrei Mot-Kedoshim Leviticus 16:1–20:27. She talks about why Leviticus is such a grab bag of rules and laws with seemingly no real narrative order, some of the more controversial laws on sex, homosexuality and female impurity and how to view this part of the Torah as a guide to holiness in daily life, especially in a contemporary world that is often too cruel.
Read Achrei Mot-Kedoshim
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices22 April 2026, 9:00 am - 37 minutes 34 secondsOl' Dirty Money
What does Judaism say about accepting “dirty” money? A listener has been watching the online debate about how her alma mater should handle money from a prominent donor associated with Jeffery Epstein. She asks how does Jewish tradition handle this moral predicament? And at what point are institutions complicit spiritually and ethically when they accept tainted funds?
Rabbi Shira and Hanna talk about when tzedakah becomes murky and how to be accountable morally and practically.
Listen to Responsa Radio’s “Can Nonprofits Accept Money from Crooks?”
Read about accepting and using stolen money
Read about using a stolen lulav
Read Rabbi Sharon Brous’ sermon on the stolen beam
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Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices15 April 2026, 9:00 am - More Episodes? Get the App