Episodios

  • William Ury, "Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict" (Harper Business, 2024)

    William Ury, "Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict" (Harper Business, 2024)
    Nov 15 2025
    The author of the world’s best-selling book on negotiation draws on his nearly fifty years of experience and knowledge grappling with the world’s toughest conflicts to offer a way out of the seemingly impossible problems of our time. Conflict is increasing everywhere, threatening everything we hold dear—from our families to our democracy, from our workplaces to our world. In nearly every area of society, we are fighting more and collaborating less, especially over crucial problems that demand solutions. With this groundbreaking book, bestselling author and international negotiator William Ury shares a new “path to possible”—time-tested practices that will help listeners unlock their power to constructively engage and transform conflict. Part memoir, part manual, part manifesto, Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict (Harper Business, 2024) offers stories and sage advice from Ury’s nearly 50 years of experience on the front lines of some of the world’s toughest conflicts. One of the world’s top experts in the field, Ury has worked on conflicts ranging from boardroom battles to labor strikes, from the US partisan divide to family feuds, from wars in the Middle East, Colombia and Ukraine to helping the US and USSR avoid nuclear disaster. Now, in Possible, he helps us tackle the seemingly intransigent problems facing us. In Possible, Ury argues conflict is natural. In fact, we need more conflict, not less—if we are to grow, change, evolve and solve our problems creatively. While we may not be able to end conflict, we can transform it—unleashing new, unexpected possibilities. Successfully tested at Harvard University with almost a thousand participants from business, government, academia, and the nonprofit sector, Ury’s “Path to Possible” proved so valuable that Harvard’s Program on Negotiation selected it as its inaugural online daylong in April 2022. Possible introduces Ury’s methods and makes them available for everyone. Combining accessible frameworks and powerful storytelling and offering dozens of examples, it is an essential guide for anyone looking to break through the toughest conflicts—in their workplace, family, community or the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    35 m
  • Michal Govrin et. al, "But There Was Love―Shaping the Memory of the Shoah" (de Gruyter, 2025)

    Michal Govrin et. al, "But There Was Love―Shaping the Memory of the Shoah" (de Gruyter, 2025)
    Nov 12 2025
    But There Was Love―Shaping the Memory of the Shoah (de Gruyter, 2025) proposes a new paradigm for Shoah remembrance in today’s cultural and political reality. It derives from the four-year workings of a group of researchers and artists at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute led by Michal Govrin. The group positions the extraordinary Jewish and non-Jewish human struggle in facing dehumanization and extermination as the essence of the Shoah, challenging us with a profound ethical call. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    34 m
  • Maya Arad, "The Hebrew Teacher" (New Vessel Press, 2024)

    Maya Arad, "The Hebrew Teacher" (New Vessel Press, 2024)
    Nov 3 2025
    Three Israeli women, their lives altered by immigration to the United States, seek to overcome crises. Ilana is a veteran Hebrew instructor at a Midwestern college who has built her life around her career. When a young Hebrew literature professor joins the faculty, she finds his post-Zionist politics pose a threat to her life’s work. Miriam, whose son left Israel to make his fortune in Silicon Valley, pays an unwanted visit to meet her new grandson and discovers cracks in the family’s perfect façade. Efrat, another Israeli in California, is determined to help her daughter navigate the challenges of middle school, and crosses forbidden lines when she follows her into the minefield of social media. In these three stirring novellas—comedies of manners with an ambitious blend of irony and sensitivity—celebrated Israeli author Maya Arad probes the demise of idealism and the generation gap that her heroines must confront. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    27 m
  • Shaul Kelner, "A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized To Free Soviet Jews" (NYU Press, 2025)

    Shaul Kelner, "A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized To Free Soviet Jews" (NYU Press, 2025)
    Nov 2 2025
    Winner of The 74th National Jewish Book Award: Amer­i­can Jew­ish Studies Cel­e­brate 350 Award Reveals the mass mobilization tactics that helped free Soviet Jews and reshaped the Jewish American experience from the Johnson era through the Reagan–Bush yearsWhat do these things have in common? Ingrid Bergman, Passover matzoh, Banana Republic®, the fitness craze, the Philadelphia Flyers, B-grade spy movies, and ten thousand Bar and Bat Mitzvah sermons? Nothing, except that social movement activists enlisted them all into the most effective human rights campaign of the Cold War.The plight of Jews in the USSR was marked by systemic antisemitism, a problem largely ignored by Western policymakers trying to improve relations with the Soviets. In the face of governmental apathy, activists in the United States hatched a bold plan: unite Jewish Americans to demand that Washington exert pressure on Moscow for change.A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized To Free Soviet Jews (NYU Press, 2025) delves into the gripping narrative of how these men and women, through ingenuity and determination, devised mass mobilization tactics during a three-decade-long campaign to liberate Soviet Jews—an endeavor that would ultimately lead to one of the most significant mass emigrations in Jewish history.Drawing from a wealth of archival sources including the travelogues of thousands of American tourists who smuggled aid to Russian Jews, Shaul Kelner offers a compelling tale of activism and its profound impact, revealing how a seemingly disparate array of elements could be woven together to forge a movement and achieve the seemingly impossible. It is a testament to the power of unity, creativity, and the unwavering dedication of those who believe in the cause of human rights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    36 m
  • Danya Ruttenberg, "On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World" (Beacon Press, 2022)

    Danya Ruttenberg, "On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World" (Beacon Press, 2022)
    Oct 4 2025
    Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards in Contemporary Jewish Life & Practice and Myra H. Kraft Memorial AwardOn Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World (Beacon Press, 2022) is a crucial new lens on repentance, atonement, forgiveness, and repair from harm—from personal transgressions to our culture's most painful and unresolved issues.American culture focuses on letting go of grudges and redemption narratives instead of the perpetrator’s obligations or recompense for harmed parties. As survivor communities have pointed out, these emphases have too often only caused more harm. But Danya Ruttenberg knew there was a better model, rooted in the work of the medieval philosopher Maimonides.For Maimonides, upon whose work Ruttenberg elaborates, forgiveness is much less important than the repair work to which the person who caused harm is obligated. The word traditionally translated as repentance really means something more like return, and in this book, returning is a restoration, as much as is possible, to the victim, and, for the perpetrator of harm, a coming back, in humility and intentionality, to behaving as the person we might like to believe we are.Maimonides laid out five steps: naming and owning harm; starting to change/transformation; restitution and accepting consequences; apology; and making different choices. Applying this lens to both our personal relationships and some of the most significant and painful issues of our day, On Repentance and Repair helps us envision a way forward.Rooted in traditional Jewish concepts while doggedly accessible and available to people from any, or no, religious background, On Repentance and Repair is a book for anyone who cares about creating a country and culture that is more whole than the one in which we live, and for anyone who has been hurt or who is struggling to take responsibility for their mistakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    32 m
  • Mary-Frances O’Connor, The Grieving Body: How the stress of Loss Can be an Opportunity for Healing (Harper One, 2025)

    Mary-Frances O’Connor, The Grieving Body: How the stress of Loss Can be an Opportunity for Healing (Harper One, 2025)
    Sep 14 2025
    The Grieving Body: How the stress of Loss Can be an Opportunity for Healing (Harper One, 2025)by Mary-Frances O’Connor, Ph.D. The follow-up to celebrated grief expert, neuroscientist, and psychologist Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor’s The Grieving Brain focuses on the impact of grief—and life’s other major stressors—on the human body. Coping with death and grief is one of the most painful human experiences. While we can speak to the psychological and emotional ramifications of loss and sorrow, we often overlook its impact on our physical bodies. Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor specializes in the study of grief, and in The Grieving Body she shares vital scientific research, revealing imperative new insights on its profound physiological impact. As she did in The Grieving Brain, O’Connor combines illuminating studies and personal stories to explore the toll loss takes on our cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems and the larger implications for our long-term well-being. The Grieving Body addresses questions about how bereavement affects us, such as: Can we die of a broken heart? What happens in our bodies when we’re grieving? How do our coping behaviors affect our physical health? What is the cognitive impact of grief? Why are we more prone to illness during times of enormous stress? and more Research-backed, warm, and empathetic, The Grieving Body is an essential, hopeful read for those experiencing loss as well as their supportive friends and family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    37 m
  • Nicole Nehrig, "With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories" (W.W. Norton, 2025)

    Nicole Nehrig, "With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
    Sep 3 2025
    In this first of a series of episodes on healing, we speak with Nicole Nehrig, whose book With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories (W.W. Norton, 2025) is a rich and intimate exploration of how women have used textile work to create meaningful lives, from ancient mythology to our current moment. Knitting, sewing, embroidery, quilting―throughout history, these and other forms of textile work have often been dismissed as merely “women’s work” and attached to ideas of domesticity and obedience. Yet, as psychologist and avid knitter Nicole Nehrig wonderfully explores in this captivating book, textile work has often been a way for women to exercise power. When their voices were silenced and other avenues were closed off to them, women used the tools they had―often a needle and thread―to seek freedom within the restrictive societies they lived in. Spanning continents and centuries, With Her Own Hands brings together remarkable stories of women who have used textiles as a means of liberation, from an eighteenth-century Quaker boarding school that used embroidered samplers to teach girls math and geography to the Quechua weavers working to preserve and revive Incan traditions today, and from the Miao women of southern China who, in the absence of a written language, pass down their histories in elaborate “story cloths” to a midcentury British women’s postal art exchange. Textiles have been a way for women to explore their intellectual capacities, seek economic independence, create community, process traumas, and convey powerful messages of self-expression and political protest. Heartfelt and deeply moving, With Her Own Hands is a celebration of women who have woven their own stories―and a testament to their resilience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    40 m
  • Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, "The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism" (Jewish Publication Society. 2024)

    Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, "The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism" (Jewish Publication Society. 2024)
    Jul 23 2025
    The Triumph of Life is Rabbi Irving Greenberg’s magnum opus—a narrative of the relationship between God and humanity as expressed in the Jewish journey through modernity, the Holocaust, the creation of Israel, and the birth of Judaism’s next era.Greenberg describes Judaism’s utopian vision of a world created by a God who loves life, who invites humans to live on the side of life, and who enables the forces of life to triumph over death. The Bible proclaims our mission of tikkun olam, repairing the world, such that every human image of God is sustained in the fullness of our dignity. To achieve this ideal, Judaism offers the method of covenant—a realistic, personal, incremental partnership between God and humanity across generations in which human beings grow ever more responsible for world repair.Greenberg calls on us to redirect humanity’s unprecedented power in modernity to overcome poverty, oppression, inequality, sickness, and war. The work of covenant requires an ethic of power—one that advances life collaboratively and at a human pace—so that the Jewish people and all humanity can bring the world toward the triumph of life. Winner of the National Jewish Book Award's Lifetime Achievement AwardWinner of the Natan Fund’s 2024 Natan Prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    42 m