Joshua Leifer and Shaindy Ort: How Progressive Activists Rediscovered Traditional Jewish Life

This series is sponsored by Mira and Daniel Stokar, and this episode is sponsored by dailygiving.org.

In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we talk to Joshua Leifer and Shaindy Ort, married progressive activists who are reembracing traditional Jewish life.

Joshua and Shaindy grew up in Conservative and Yeshivish communities, respectively, but struggled to find a Jewish community as they joined left-wing circles, specifically those highly critical of Israel. 

After October 7, Joshua resigned from the anti-Zionist magazine Jewish Currents, and in August, he published Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, which made headlines after a Brooklyn bookstore canceled Joshua’s planned talk because it included a Zionist rabbi. In this episode we discuss:

—Has October 7 changed anything for progressive Jews highly critical of Israel?
—Why do left-wing circles struggle to maintain engaged Jewish life?
—What differentiates the Israeli left from the American left?

Tune in to hear a conversation about return and renewal for progressive Jews seeking a life of traditional Jewishness.

Joshua Leifer is a journalist, editor, and translator. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, and elsewhere, and he is the author of the new book Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life.

Shaindy Ort-Leifer is an attorney who works in the fields of strategic litigation and international law.

Joshua and Shaindy are married.

References:

Orot HaTeshuvah by Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook

Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life by Joshua Leifer

Siddur Sefard: “Upon Arising, Upon Entering Synagogue”

Jew Vs Jew: The Struggle For The Soul Of American Jewry by Samuel G. Freedman

After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre

Hirsch Haggadah by Samson R. Hirsch

Arukh HaShulchan by Yechiel Michel Epstein

Kitzur Shulchan Arukh by Shlomo Ganzfried

Deuteronomy