Podcast / On The Nose
On the Nose is our biweekly podcast. The editorial staff discusses the politics, culture, and questions that animate today’s Jewish left.
Chevruta: Debt
Duration
0:00 / 41:54
Published
January 11, 2023

Chevruta is a new column named for the traditional method of Jewish study, in which a pair of students analyzes a religious text together. In each installment, Jewish Currents will match leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The activists will bring an urgent question that arises in their own work; the Torah scholar will lead them in exploring their question through Jewish text. By routing contemporary political questions through traditional religious sources, we aim to address the most urgent ethical and spiritual problems confronting the left. Each column will be accompanied by a podcast and a study guide (linked below).

In our debut Chevruta podcast, rabbinical student Allen Lipson explores debt’s moral implications with Sparky Abraham and Eleni Schirmer—organizers from the Debt Collective, the nation’s first debtors’ union. Lipson chose a rabbinic responsum from 14th-century Spain by Rabbi Isaac bar Sheshet Perfet, generally known as the Rivash, on the question of whether a debtor can be seized and imprisoned according to Torah law. By tracing the Rivash’s ambivalence about debt enforcement, Lipson, Abraham, and Schirmer consider questions about state force and economic consent raised by the text that still resonate today.

You can find the column based on this conversation and a study guide here. The full Hebrew text of the letter and Lipson’s translation are available here.

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

May 25 2023
The Agony and the Ecstasy of Jewish Matchmaking (47:09)
Arielle Angel, Nathan Goldman, Mari Cohen, and Aparna Gopalan discuss Netflix’s Jewish Matchmaking and the questions it raises about contemporary Jewishness.
May 11 2023
Still No Justice for Shireen Abu Akleh (25:19)
One year after her killing, Jewish Currents examines the life and death of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the broader context of Israeli assaults on press freedom.
Apr 27 2023
Fighting Anti-Trans Legislation in Missouri (38:38)
Editor-in-chief Arielle Angel speaks with Rori Picker Neiss about what it's like to advocate for a trans child in a red state.
Apr 13 2023
The Politics of The Last of Us (37:45)
Arielle Angel, Nathan Goldman, Dahlia Krutkovich, and Hazem Fahmy discuss the right-wing vision of HBO’s The Last of Us and its relationship to Israel/Palestine.
Mar 30 2023
Unpacking Israel’s Political Crisis (46:06)
The team behind the Jewish Currents Tuesday Newsletter considers how the anti-occupation left views the Israeli protests and the roots of the Israeli right’s rage against the judiciary.
Mar 23 2023
Two Paths for the Jewish Bachelor Contestant (32:43)
Mari Cohen and Dahlia Krutkovich join guests Hannah Srajer and Xandra Ellin to discuss how The Bachelor’s approach to featuring a Jewish contestant reveals the show’s investment in Christian whiteness.
Mar 9 2023
The Trouble with Germany, Part II (40:51)
Joshua Leifer talks to journalist Hebh Jamal and lawyer Nadija Samour about Germany’s intensifying crackdown on Palestinian identity and activism.
Feb 23 2023
Representation and Exclusion at Israel’s Anti-Government Protests (33:27)
Alex Kane talks to activists Orly Noy and Sally Abed about who the Israeli demonstrations against Netanyahu’s plan to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court are really for.
Feb 9 2023
You People (33:51)
Arielle Angel, Rebecca Pierce, Jasmine Sanders, and Sam Adler-Bell discuss the over-the-top Jewish outcry over Netflix’s new Black–Jewish romcom.
Jan 26 2023
Fables and Lies (43:37)
Rebecca Pierce joins Jewish Currents editors to discuss the visions of 20th-century American Jewish family life in Oscar contenders The Fabelmans and Armageddon Time.
Jan 11 2023
Chevruta: Debt (this page)
Rabbinical student Allen Lipson and members of the Debt Collective study a rabbinic responsum from 14th-century Spain that explores questions about state force and economic consent in debt collection.
Dec 21 2022
Who Is Tom Stoppard’s “Jewish Play” For? (44:56)
Jewish Currents discusses Leopoldstadt’s tired revelations with critics Alisa Solomon and Gabrielle Hoyt.
Dec 8 2022
The Meaning of Apartheid (33:55)
Alex Kane hosts a discussion between Noura Erakat, John Reynolds, and Omar Shakir on the way Western human rights groups use the term “apartheid”—and the different definition at the heart of a long Palestinian intellectual tradition.
Nov 23 2022
“The Jews” (53:00)
Ari Brostoff, Rebecca Pierce, Jasmine Sanders, and Sam Adler-Bell discuss Dave Chapelle's controversial Saturday Night Live monologue.
Nov 8 2022
Victory for Netanyahu’s Far-Right Alliance (26:34)
Alex Kane speaks with Peter Beinart, Joshua Leifer, and Elisheva Goldberg about Netanyahu’s likely return to power and the rise of the far-right Religious Zionism coalition.
Oct 20 2022
Ye (35:43)
Rebecca Pierce, Adam Serwer, and Arielle Angel discuss Kanye West’s recent antisemitic comments.
Oct 13 2022
Gaza Under Blockade (55:23)
Alex Kane speaks with Kholoud Balata and Miriam Marmur about Israel’s blockade and bombardment of Gaza.
Sep 29 2022
Yeshiva Education (38:15)
After a recent New York Times investigation into Hasidic yeshivas, Joshua Leifer speaks with Naftuli Moster and Frieda Vizel about divergent strategies for change in the Hasidic world and what’s at stake in the fight over secular education.
Sep 15 2022
Mom Save America (33:37)
Arielle Angel interviews her mother, Jeri Cohen, about getting back into the reproductive justice struggle at 69.
Aug 25 2022
Documenting the Struggle (41:51)
Joshua Leifer speaks with Oren Ziv, co-founder of the photojournalist collective Activestills, about chronicling the violence of apartheid.
Aug 11 2022
The Scream Clarifies an Elsewhere (01:03:07)
To celebrate the release of Culture Editor Claire Schwartz’s debut poetry collection, Civil Service, she discusses the social meanings of poetry with Managing Editor Nathan Goldman and Graywolf Press editor Chantz Erolin.
Jul 28 2022
The Trouble with Germany, Part 1 (01:06:59)
Arielle Angel speaks with Emily Dische-Becker and Michael Sappir about the bizarre and worrisome ways that “memory culture” plays out in Germany among Jews, Palestinians, and Germans, as well as the recent attacks on Dische-Becker in the German press.
Jul 14 2022
¡Inquilinos Unidos, Jamás Serán Vencidos! (51:29)
Recording from a convention of the Autonomous Tenants Union Network, Ari Brostoff speaks with organizers Kenia Alcocer, Danya Martinez-Spider, and Claire Spiehler about the tenant movement across the country.
Jun 30 2022
The Mapping Project (53:25)
Jewish Currents staff discuss the controversy that arose after Boston activists published a map of Massachusetts institutions they deemed complicit in Zionism and US imperialism.
Spring OfferCode POPUP23