Looking Back on Israel: One Year Later
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
Release Date: 10/11/2024
S3E19 Strings Attached: The Challenge of Jewish Life in This Moment
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
Three rabbis reunite after a hiatus with no agenda and plenty to say. They wade into the fraught waters of Israel, the war, Yom HaZikaron, and what it means to hold nuance in a community that often demands a party line — then somehow end up in a heated debate about strings in rock music, Charlie Daniels, and whether Phil Spector ruined "The Long and Winding Road." Josh admits he's been hiding from Israel discourse behind his guitar, Jeff cops to being emotionally "buffeted" by the whole thing, and Matt drops the news that he's heading to the pulpit of a major New York synagogue...
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S2E18 Purim & the Jewish Take on Our World of Chaos
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
The three rabbis are at it again, plumming the depths of Purim. This episode was recorded before the attacks on Iran, about which Rabbis Jeffrey, Matt and Josh will likely have something to say in the future.
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S2E17 A Jewish Take on Anger
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
Rabbis Matt and Josh kick around the idea of anger - which is having its moment in the world, it seems - and what the Jewish tradition has to say about it. Rabbi Jeffrey is out this week on an all-expense-paid trip to Ferrett, Alabama for their regionally famous hat-expo. He will return for the next episode.
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S2E16 Every Jew at 22? The Jewish Gun Debate
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
In this episode of Weird Being Jewish the three rabbis are at it again. This time, we discuss guns, gun policy, Jewish safety and Jewish culture. Plus a question that could be applied to any number of topics in Jewish contemporary life: since classical sources don’t mention guns, how should Jewish tradition inform civic norms and democratic policy?
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S2E15 Judaism, Borders, and the Stranger
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
Rabbis Jeffrey, Matt and Josh confont the complexity of the Jewish tradition and the brutality of the current regime on immigration.
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S2e14 Circles of Loss and Jewish Mourning
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
In this episode Rabbis Jeffrey, Matt, and Josh reflect together on how grief actually works: unevenly, unpredictably, and often shaped less by moral logic than by story, familiarity, and perceived relationship. Prompted by recent acts of violence and loss, they talk through why certain deaths—especially of public figures who have quietly accompanied us through decades of culture and art—can feel more piercing than other tragedies that are no less horrific. Drawing on Jewish tradition and lived experience, they explore the idea that mourning comes in layers, and that not all losses land on...
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S2E 13 What the Hell is Going On? (Jewish Answers Only)
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
The episode opens with the perennial prompt, “What the hell is going on?” and uses a small, concrete moment—an eighth-grader’s intense anti-cheating check at a standardized test—to probe larger cultural drift. Are we lowering the baseline of civility and trust, or simply confronting old human problems in new packaging? The hosts toggle between the granular and the global: fraying norms in U.S. and Israeli politics, the difference between safety theater and integrity, and the unsettling feeling that structures once thought stable are wobbling. From there, the conversation tests three...
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S2E12 Doing Good, Feeling Joy: A Jewish Take on Happiness
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
What’s the difference between happiness and joy—and does Judaism care? In this episode of Weird Being Jewish, Rabbis Matt Reimer, and Jeffrey Weill and Josh Rose discuss whether Jewish practice actually generates joy or just names it. Along the way, they question the American, individualist chase for “happiness” and weigh it against a communal, ethical frame. You’ll hear a sukkah open-house story, a meteor-shower moment that turns into a lesson about craving, and a spirited back-and-forth over aligning with “the Ultimate” versus focusing on doing the mitzvot right now—inviting...
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S2E11 Do You Want Hope or Honesty from Your Rabbi?
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
Just before this past the High Holidays, Rabbis Matt, Jeff Weill, and Josh Rose wrestled with a blunt dilemma: when the world feels bleak, what belongs on the bimah—unvarnished realism, performative uplift, or a hard-won mix of both? They talk about shielding kids from despair, writing sermons that don’t lie, and whether prayers for captives can honestly say “speedily” years in. Along the way they parse the difference between timeless petitions (peace, redemption) and policy-laden hopes, and ask what prayer means if God isn’t a vending machine. From machzor-as-cycle to...
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S2E10 Are Jewish People "A People"?
Weird Being Jewish: Three Rabbis Walk Into a Podcast
Rabbi Josh Rose and Rabbi Jeffrey Weill open with quick banter about The Clash—correcting a claim that Allen Ginsberg wrote broadly for Combat Rock (it was a spoken-word feature on “Ghetto Defendant”)—then pivot to their real topic: Jewish peoplehood. They trade personal moments that made peoplehood feel tangible: a wild wedding hora, a teenage son’s ecstatic trip to Israel, and the fantasy of a synchronized, worldwide Shema. Both admit strong, visceral bonds to other Jews, yet note how personality, humor, music, and shared culture can sometimes trump tribal ties in day-to-day...
info_outlineRabbis Reimer, Rose and Weill join in a conversation about Israel on the one year anniversary of the October 7th attacks.