''Judaism Unbound'' is a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

and digital education platform hosted by Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg that discusses Judaism in the 21st century.

Overview

Judaism Unbound was founded by Dan Libenson in 2015, and would develop from a podcast into a digitally-based centre for Jewish education and experimentation. "Dan Libenson". ''Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Jewish Life. Accessed 19 September 2023.
/ref> Libenson began to do research for a book and after Rofeberg joined him as an assistant they decided to turn it into a podcast. Libenson and Rofeberg analyze Judaism in the context of the 21st century while interviewing experts and regular Jewish people. Libenson claims that the traditional methods of engaging people with Judaism alienates American Jews and that digital mediums such as podcasts and online teaching can be used to address that problem. Libenson is the founder and president of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future, which is the provider of the podcast. Libenson is the son of Eli Libenson, a Conservative rabbi, who left Manetto Hill Jewish Center and made

aliyah Aliyah (, ; he, עֲלִיָּה ''ʿălīyyā'', ) is the immigration of Jews from Jewish diaspora, the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel, which is in the modern era chiefly represented by the Israel, State of Israel ...

when Dan was only 14 years old. Rofeberg grew up in

Shorewood, Wisconsin Shorewood is a village in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 13,859 at the 2020 census. History In the early 19th century when the first European American settlers arrived, the Shorewood area was controlled by Nativ ...

before becoming a rabbinical student at the Alliance for Jewish Renewal and later attending

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Format

The podcast releases episodes on a weekly basis. The show's format was originally based on tech podcasts like ''

This Week In Tech ''This Week in Tech''–casually referred to as ''TWiT'', and briefly known as ''Revenge of the Screen Savers''–is the weekly flagship podcast and namesake of the TWiT.tv network. It is hosted by Leo Laporte and many other former TechTV emplo ...

'' and ''Future Tense'' and focused on interviewing well known Jewish leaders such as

Benay Lappe Benay Lappe (Hebrew: בִּנֵיי לַפֶּה/בנאי לאפה) is a rabbi and a teacher of Talmud in the United States. In 2016, Lappe was awarded the Covenant Award for innovation in Jewish education by the Covenant Foundation. Biography La ...

, Noam Sienna, and Lori Schneide Shapiro

Reception

In April 2019, the podcast had over 200 episodes and one million downloads. The show was the seventh most popular Jewish podcast on iTunes with episodes receiving between 40,000 and 50,000 downloads every month. The show hosted a live, online episode to celebrate. The hosts did interviews with the New Voices and The Jewish Chronicle.

References

External links

* * {{URL, http://nextjewishfuture.org/, The Institute for the Next Jewish Future Audio podcasts 2016 podcast debuts Religion and spirituality podcasts American podcasts Jewish podcasts