(20) Szonja Komoroczy: Breathing life into Hungary’s enigmatic Jewish community
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
Release Date: 04/29/2025
(34) Holding a community - with Rebbetzen Yael Roodyn
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. Who do you look after when you can’t look after everyone? How does a leader react when she’s the one in need of help? What do you do if you feel pidgeonholed by your education or career choices? Rebbetzen Yael Roodyn, much loved Rebbetzen of Finchley Federation synagogue, gives us insights into caring for and inspiring her close-knit community, bringing out the leadership in others and ensuring everyone feels part of the family. With a Master of Research in...
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(33) Uncovering Halacha for Women Today, with Rabbanit Nechama Goldman Barash
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. I’m delighted to be joined by Rabbanit Nechama Goldman Barash, one of the most refreshing and challenging voices in contemporary Jewish learning. Based in Jerusalem, Nechama teaches Talmud and halachah at the Pardes Institute and Matan, where she’s known for tackling some of the most complex questions around gender and relationships with honesty, warmth and depth. Her recently published book, Uncovered: Women’s Roles, Mitzvot, and Sexuality in Jewish Law, offers a...
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(32) Transforming the halachic landscape, with Nishmat founder Rabbanit Chana Henkin
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. NEW! Talk to us at and tell us about amazing women who you’d like to hear interviewed. Joanne Greenaway is joined by Rabbanit Chana Henkin, founder of Nishmat: The Jeanie Schottenstein Center for Advanced Torah Study for Women in Jerusalem, and Head of its Research Institute. One of the great pioneers of women's Orthodox Torah scholarship, Rabbanit Henkin has transformed the landscape of women's halachic and spiritual leadership. Together...
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(31) Truth Lived, Not Just Truth Learned: The Enduring Legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt"l, with Joanna Benarroch
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. NEW! Talk to us at and tell us about amazing women who you’d like to hear interviewed. Joanna Benarroch joined Rabbi Sacks’ Office of the Chief Rabbi in 1997 and worked for Rabbi Sacks for the next 24 years, first as his Executive Director and then running his private office. Since his passing, Joanna has played a key role in establishing the Rabbi Sacks Legacy to perpetuate his values and teachings. We discuss what drove Rabbi Sacks to...
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(30) Realistic teshuva with Dr. Yosefa Fogel Wruble
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. NEW! Talk to us at and tell us about amazing women who you’d like to hear interviewed. This week, I’m thrilled to welcome Dr. Yosefa Fogel Wruble to the podcast—turning the tables a bit, since Yosefa herself is an accomplished host of not one, but three podcasts in both Hebrew and English. Her mellifluous voice and natural storytelling draw you in, but it’s her deep Torah insights and thoughtful reflections on personal growth that make this episode truly special....
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(29) Innovation with patience: Jo Grose, CEO of the United Synagogue
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. I’m delighted to be joined by Jo Grose, the first ever female CEO of the United Synagogue. Jo stepped into the position in 2023, after many years of senior leadership within the organisation, as well as leadership roles at PaJeS and PJ Library and an earlier career in educational publishing. She is also an active member of her local community, where her passion for community-building began, and serves as a trustee of her local Jewish school trust. For those unfamiliar, the...
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(28) Following Your North Star, with Joanne Greenaway and Dr. Erica Brown
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
***1st Anniversary Edition!*** It’s our birthday! For this special anniversary edition the tables have been turned on me! Joanne Greenaway is Chief Executive of LSJS. Experienced International Arbitration lawyer and formerly Director of Get cases for the London Beth Din, she is part of Ohr Torah Stone’s International Halakha Scholars Program and a Sacks Scholar. One year ago, she launched THIS podcast to inspire women to find what they uniquely bring to the world and create roles for themselves to do so - by showcasing other women in Jewish leadership who’ve done just that. Dr. Erica...
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(27) A voice for the hostages with Dr. Haya Langerman
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. This week I am delighted to be joined by Dr. Haya Langerman. Haya is a medical advisor with a doctorate in diabetes who has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 30 years. For the last 21 months she has been on the frontlines of support for hostage families and fighting for their return (after 669 days now), as a lead volunteer for the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. We discuss what prompted Haya to drop everything and take up this work when the war started, her...
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(26) Exposing and destigmatising sexual abuse, with Shana Aaronson of Magen
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. This week I am delighted to be joined by Shana Aaronson, Executive Director of , where she first began as Social Services Coordinator, supporting families where children had been physically and sexually abused. Magen is dedicated to creating safer Jewish communities in Israel and around the world by developing and implementing programs that foster transparency, prioritizing the well-being of victims, holding perpetrators accountable, and eliminating the stigma surrounding...
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(25) Scaling the heights of halachic scholarship, with Rabbanit Chamutal Shoval
Women’s Gallery: Showcasing Women in Jewish Leadership
This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. I’m delighted to welcome Rabbanit Chamutal Shoval, Director of the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute of Halachic Leadership at Midreshet Lindenbaum, and a graduate of its rigorous five‑year program as a Morat Hora’a and Manhiga Ruchanit - empowering women with halachic authority and spiritual leadership and enabling female halachic leaders to claim their place in discourse, advisory roles, synagogues, schools, and more, both in Israel and abroad. She spent...
info_outlineThis podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.
What’s it like to be part of the Jewish community in Hungary? Home to the second largest synagogue in the world yet a hidden Jewish population that no-one can count, how does it function and what will its future be?
Jewish educator, historian and tour guide Szonja Komoroczy is Vice Rector at the Jewish University of Budapest and has lectured and published extensively in English, Hungarian, Hebrew, and Yiddish. As an educator, her passion is to tell the story behind the facts, and, as a tour guide, to show the stories behind various layers of a city or region - historical, social, and architectural, alike. Behind the scenes, she’s something of an unofficial ambassador of the community.
With a PhD and two MA degrees from Oxford and Budapest, Szonja’s main field of research and interest is Hungarian Jewish history and cultural history, and she is especially intrigued by issues related to changes in national identity and language choice. I think Szonja’s story and that of Hungarian Jewry is not well enough known and I’m really happy for her to share it more widely on this podcast.
For more Jewish learning journeys, connect with us at lsjs.ac.uk/connect.