Shows
Research Bites'Fake News'Research Bites, season 6: The Public and the Sacred
In this season of the MBSF podcast, 5 Buber fellows are sharing their cutting-edge research.
In this episode, Dr. Christopher Roser is joined by Dr. Eilat Maoz and Dr. Uri Eren for an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon known as "fake news." Together, they discuss the critical questions it raises and consider how it influences our perception and understanding of the core functions of news. This episode sheds light on the complex challenges misinformation presents across political and public spheres, revealing its far-reaching impact.
2025-03-1831 minResearch BitesWhy Does Brass Music Move Us?Research Bites, season 6: The Public and the Sacred
In this season of the MBSF podcast, 5 Buber fellows are sharing their cutting-edge research.
In this episode, Dr. Carolin Müeller offers a brief history of Brass music, its unique sounds and rhythms, and the way it has developed into a vibrant genre that connects people around the world. This episode looks into the connection between Brass music and different belief systems and religious rituals. It investigates the way Brass music changed people and lives as it connects between music and movement.
*The podcast was created for res...2025-02-1830 minResearch BitesThe Synagogue's AnimalResearch Bites, season 6: The Public and the Sacred
In this season of the MBSF podcast, 5 Buber fellows are sharing their cutting-edge research.
In this episode, Dr. Sarah Pe'er (stoll) looks into one of Kafka’s short stories: “The Animal in the Synagogue.” Through the story, we learn about the Jewish community in the 20th century, its struggles and conflicts. The episode also allows a wider discussion of the dynamics and subtleties that the Jewish community in Europe faced in light of the changing world.
2025-02-1116 minResearch BitesChurch of the Holy SepulchreResearch Bites, season 6: The Public and the Sacred
In this season of the MBSF podcast, 5 Buber fellows are sharing their cutting-edge research.
In this episode, Dr. Kathatrina Palmberger takes us back in time to the foundation of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem. By looking at the unique art and architecture of the church, this episode sheds light on the people who created it: the Crusaders'. This episode will uncover the historical significance of this extraordinary church and the Crusaders' efforts to integrate their identity into its architecture.
2025-01-2816 minResearch BitesWhy Does Food Matter?Research Bites, season 6: The Public and the Sacred
In this season of the MBSF podcast, 5 Buber fellows are sharing their cutting-edge research.
This episode is about food and people; Dr. Limor Yungman examines why food matters and why it is more than just eating. Looking at recipes from long ago, she discusses how food impacts places, cultures, and economic trade. Through these recipes, we can learn not only about the history of food but also about the role that food plays in the world.
2025-01-2117 minResearch BitesI paid my duesIn this mini-series, Dr. Anna Gutgarts, Dr. Amit Gvaryahu and Dr. Idit Ben-Or will talk about how money makes the bonds that connect us to other people – and separates us as well. It's about how money constitutes what is public and what is private.
In the third act of the mini-series about money, Dr. Amit Gvaryahu will talk about how paying money would constitute the body politic of the ancient Jewish people and the Jerusalem temple, year after year.
2023-03-0614 minResearch BitesOur houseThis mini series is about how money makes the bonds that connect us to other people – and separates us as well. It's about how money constitutes what is public and what is private.
This is the second episode of the series. In this episode, Dr. Anna Gutgarts will talk about how medieval individuals worked together with institutions like churches in the urban environment of Crusader Jerusalem.
2023-03-0614 minResearch BitesMoney, money, moneyIn this mini-series, Dr. Anna Gutgarts, Dr. Amit Gvaryahu and Dr. Idit Ben-Or will talk to each other about the role of money in making the bonds that connect us to other people – and erecting the fences that separate us from them, too.
This is the first act, in which Dr. Idit Ben-Or will talk about enterprising English individuals who made their own coins, and what exactly other people did with them, besides, of course, buying beer.
2023-03-0614 minResearch BitesDo some facts call out for explanation?Some things seem like they just can't be coincidences. They seem to call for explanation. If you toss a coin many times and it repeatedly lands heads, that might be an example. Philosophers have used this idea to argue for some far-reaching conclusions, such as that there aren't really any numbers, that other universes exist and, more famously, that an all-powerful god exists. But what does it mean for something to call for explanation? And, are these arguments good ones?
2021-11-0935 minResearch BitesThe problem of evilIn the 5th century C.E. the Greek philosopher Proclus wrote that “the same argument that keeps the whole world perfect posits evil among beings.”
In the eighteenth century, the satirist Bernard Mandeville would inspire the economist Adam Smith with his poem describing a city where “every Part was full of Vice, Yet the whole Mass a Paradise.” Connecting these two distant thinkers is the claim that evil somehow contributes to the good of the whole. How can such an articulation of good and evil make sense? And how can studying such historical arguments be relevant to understa...2021-11-0914 minResearch BitesRevisiting the Old Heimat: German – German-Jewish Relations after the Second World WarOnly fifteen years after the Second World War some cities in western Germany started to contact former citizens living abroad who had been persecuted during National Socialism. A few of these cities also granted invitations to these former victims of National Socialism, inviting them to visit their former places of residency in Germany for one or two weeks. Some of these contacts and invitations started in the 1960s. Since the 1980s they took place all over Germany. Surprisingly, most of these contacts and invitations were not initiated by German politicians. Instead, former victims of the Nazi persecution within the...2021-03-1435 minResearch BitesIndonesian Tourism to JerusalemTens of thousands of Indonesian tourists come to Israel/Palestine every year. Some of them come in groups that consist only of Muslims, while others are made up by Christians. How are the experiences and itineraries of the two types of groups different, and how are they similar? And what can we learn from these about tourism, identity formation, Indonesia, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
2021-03-1429 minResearch BitesReligious Mobility and Identity among Christians in KenyaWe often think of religious membership as clear-cut and exclusive: A member of group A could not possibly also be a follower of group B. Conversely, and especially among scholars observing disempowered populations, religion is often seen as instrumental – a means for accumulating material, social, or symbolic capital. How do these two perspectives fit together in Kenya – a diverse and predominantly Christian country with high rates of material insecurities? How has the Christian revival of recent decades, associated with neo-Pentecostalism and with becoming born again, influenced patterns of mobility and conceptions of religious belonging among Kenyan Christians? And what are...2020-04-0248 minResearch BitesWomen’s Letters from the Cairo GenizahWe often imagine the Jewish family of past generations to have been a bastion of stability and affection in uncertain times. However, at least in eleventh and twelfth century Egypt, the Jewish family was fluid and unstable. Women occasionally married several times during their lives, husbands were often away for long periods of time, and polygamy was not uncommon. The documents of the Cairo Geniza, a rich trove of documents discovered in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, reveal how women, with their limited resources, maneuvered in such unstable conditions. Of special interest are the more than 200 women's...2020-03-2529 minResearch BitesLet's NOT talk about 'you' and 'me': Changing languagesLanguage teachers make us believe that learning a language means learning a bunch of grammatical rules. But we all know that native speakers don't have the slightest problem bending those rules backwards to carve out nuances and to skillfully avoid tricky topics. In southern Northeast India, a number of related languages have come up with new forms replacing 'you' and 'me'. But how can you replace expressions as basic as 'you' and 'me'? And why would you?
In this episode, Dr. Daphna Oren-Magidor interviews Dr. Linda Konnerth, a linguistician that studies the Trans-Himalayan languages of North...2020-03-1828 minResearch BitesVisual Dimensions of the Qur‘anWhen we think about the Quran - the holiest religious book for a quarter of humanity - we rarely think about it as a visually-rich text. The Quran and Islam in general, often enter the cultural imagination through auditory practices such as recitation, or even with a mind to the Islamic prohibition of pictures. But is this the whole story? Are there visual aspects to the Quranic text that scholarship has neglected so far? And if we turn our attention to these aspects, how will this shape our understanding of the Quran as a historical document that is a p...2018-12-3026 minResearch BitesTaking the Pulse - The Emergence of a New Diagnostic MethodWhat is a more familiar bodily phenomenon than the pulse? We are so accustomed to the sensation of our pulse that it is easy to think this was always a part of human experience. But what if this was not always the case? When did physicians learn about the pulse, and how did it become so central to medical practice and to our own experiences of our bodies?
Let’s turn to Dr. Yakir Paz, who is interviewing Dr. Orly Lewis, a historian of medicine in antiquity.
image: Erasistratus, a physician, realizing that Antiochus's (son of...2018-12-3027 minResearch BitesTime and again: The Contested History of Working HoursIt is hard to imagine a world without the division into work days and holidays, or regular office hours (usually 9 to 5), extra hours, and free time. But how did this daily rhythm--which is at the core of our current experience of time--come to be? What is its impact on our lives? And how does it continue to evolve today, with changes in the workplace and in the global economy?
Let’s turn to Dr. Eitan Grossman, who is interviewing Dr. Philip Reick, a social historian who is working on the history of capitalism, organized labor, and Urbanism.2018-12-3036 minResearch BitesWhy Moll Wouldn’t Marry?We seem to have a pretty clear picture of the lives of women three or four hundred years ago. They were under the charge of their fathers until their parents chose a husband for them, and then they had to get married. They had very little freedom and very little choice about it.
But… Who decided when and to whom women in early-modern England should marry? Why would a woman decide to refuse all her suitors and never marry? And what were the consequences of such choices?
Let’s turn to Dr. Yonatan Moss, who is i...2018-12-1326 minResearch BitesGood Shepherds – Black Sheep: Catholic Priests as Stasi Collaborators in East GermanyIt sounds like a James Bond movie: Catholic priests as spies who collaborated with the secret police. Clergymen who met in secret with officers of the socialist regime to report about other church members. High representatives of the church who willingly violated their own moral standards. Another scandal in recent church history, that has been kept secret for too long?
Let’s turn to Dr. Orit Gazit, who is interviewing Dr. Gregor Buss, a Catholic theologian and ethicist.
2018-12-0931 min