In medieval and early modern Europe, the Christian ruling class enjoyed the banking services of what were known as "court Jews"—Jewish people acting as financiers in exchange for temporary protection, even while other Jews faced scrutiny and persecution. This protection, however, was never secured; if fortunes changed, they could easily become political and societal scapegoats.

This analogy proves useful for viewing how modern-day Republicans view the Jewish public, according to Joel Swanson, a scholar of modern Jewish intellectual history at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, NY. In Swanson's view, while President Donald Trump's administration is cracking down on diversity and inclusion initiatives across the country, Jewish Americans are receiving special protection and treatment—but how long until the tide changes? He touches on this and more in his latest article on Slate, "What Are We Allowed to Say? How Trump’s Department of Education has made it harder for me to teach Jewish Studies".

On this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, Swanson joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to get nerdy about European Jewish history and reflect on the lessons we can learn about Jews' modern-day place in North American society.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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The host of this show, Phoebe Maltz Bovy, likes to wear floral dresses. So does her guest, author Joanna Rakoff. But while these two women are fans of floral fashions, they are not MAGA supporters or "momfluencers"—a note that must be clarified for anyone following the political battleground that has erupted around this fashion trend.

In this episode of The Jewish Angle, we unpack the cultural tapestry of floral dresses, weaving together threads of personal experience, fashion history and political implications, from Laura Ashley's pastoral prints to Batsheva Hay's modern reinterpretations. As floral patterns become entangled with right-wing aesthetics and "tradwife" culture, Bovy and Rakoff navigate the shifting landscape where fashion choices carry unexpected political weight.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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To our knowledge, neither the now-former CEO of tech company Astronomer, nor the company's now-former head of HR, are Jewish. The secretive couple—who were having an affair that was famously caught by a videographer behind the Jumbotron of a Coldplay concert—instantly became a viral sensation, sparking waves of ridicule and resulting in their departure from the company.

But The Jewish Angle podcast host Phoebe Maltz Bovy had to ask: is it lashon hara to speak of these people behind their backs? So she asked The CJN's resident rabbi, Avi Finegold, to shed light on the situation. It's not quite lashon hara if the secret has been put out in the open by a Jumbotron, but that doesn't quash the ick factor from giddily discussing people's personal lives on social media. Plus: why wasn't this seen as a #MeToo echo, given the power imbalance between the CEO and lower-level female employee?

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

When U.S. President Donald Trump re-ran for the presidency in 2024, American voters elected him on the premise that he would mark a shift from 2000s-era neoconservatism and keep the U.S. out of foreign wars. Americans on the political left, along with an increasing number on the right, did not think American interventionism worked throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries, and felt these foreign conflicts were costly and did not always help American interests.

Then, this year, Trump ordered American troops to drop missiles on Iran. And some in the president's inner circle, according to journalist Gabby Deutch of Jewish Insider, said to themselves: "This is the Trump we knew all along."

The attack on Iran exposed a small but growing rift within the Republican party, wherein Israel sits squarely in the middle. Should the U.S. be interventionist or not? And what makes Israel the exception to any rule? Deutch, a senior Washington correspondent, joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to explain.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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Ashkenazi food—until recently relegated to the joke pile of ethnic foods, unavoidably beige and full of fat—is undergoing a surprising revival. From karnatzel to kasha, traditional dishes once associated with bubbe's kitchen are now finding their way onto trendy urban menus, sparking an unexpected culinary renaissance that's as much about cultural reconnection as it is about gastronomic indulgence.

That's the topic of an article written by journalist Michael Kaminer, headlined "Toronto chefs put a new twist on the old Jewish classics", recently published in The CJN. In it, Kaminer offers insights into this culinary trend, interviewing young Jewish chefs who are marking a professional return to their Ashkenazi roots. It marks a departure from popular Jewish food of the last few decades, which often skewed toward healthier Israeli restaurants—themselves often broadened as "Middle Eastern" or "Mediterranean". But a newfound wave of Jewish nostalgia, cultural reappropriation and the apolitical joy of comfort food have swung open the kitchen door back to blintzes and babka.

Kaminer joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy to discuss the trend and the possible politics underpinning it, including chefs' own reactions to embracing their Jewish heritage in an era of newfound antisemitism.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle

On June 30, a task force set up by the U.S. federal government, aimed at combatting antisemitism, published an open letter to Harvard University. "Harvard University is in violent violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin," the letter alleges. "The enclosed Notice of Violation details the findings of fact supporting a conclusion that Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff."

The letter continues to outline the task force's findings, including that a majority of Jewish students feel unsafe; Jewish and Israeli students have been physically assaulted; and antisemitic imagery and slogans have been prominent on campus. The letter concludes by stating that failure to adequately change Harvard's culture "will result in the loss of all federal financial resources". The university, meanwhile, has told reporters that it "is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government's findings."

So how much of this has to do with Jews, really? And how much is President Donald Trump's administration simply taking aim at left-leaning, Democratic-aligned instutitions?

David Weinfeld—a Harvard alumnus, former columnist with The CJN and current associate professor of world religions at Rowan University—joins Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle to analyze the issue, and how the university's symbolic status makes it an ideal focal point for a larger assault on America's higher education system.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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When Zohran Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City in late 2024, he flew under the radar of voters and critics. But as his campaign gained steam—notably for arguably radical proposals such as free bus fares, municipally owned grocery stores, and a $30 minimum wage—he wound up overtaking his chief rival, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, and winning the Democratic candidacy for an election that will take place Nov. 4, 2025.

Some of New York City's Jews started to fret. Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, is a vocal ally of Palestinians and a critic of Israel, promising to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to visit the city, as per the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for the Israeli leader.

On this week's episode of The Jewish Angle, Phoebe Maltz Bovy—who grew up in Manhattan—speaks to Aryeh Cohen-Wade, an opinion editor at The Hill, to unpack Mamdani's background, from his college days as a co-founder of his campus's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine to his role as a state assemblyman. They examine how his youth, charisma and progressive policies have inspired voters—while angering others—and whether a Mamdani mayoralty could herald a new era of Muslim-Jewish solidarity in the face of rising right-wing authoritarianism.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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Hadley Freeman often goes back and forth, in her head, about Israel and Palestine. One the one hand, Israel has killed more than 57,000 Gazans; on the other hand, can you trust those figures when they come from Hamas? But what other number can you trust, if Israel refuses to allow in international reporters? Then again, can you even trust outsider news media anyway, or are they blatantly biased?

And on, and on.

This internal dialogue formed the basis for a compelling new article she wrote in The Times in the U.K, entitled, "A conversation every Jew I know is having". In it, Freeman quickly unpacks the inherent nuance and historical lens that Jewish onlookers—especially in the Diaspora—bring to a conversation dominated by loud, reductive activists.

Freeman returns to The CJN Podcasts to discuss this piece, making the internal debates external, with Phoebe Maltz Bovy on The Jewish Angle.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: "Gypsy Waltz" by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

Support our show

• Subscribe to The CJN newsletter
• Donate to The CJN (+ get a charitable tax receipt)
• Subscribe to The Jewish Angle