The Dybbukast
Jewish Podcast | Jewish Diaspora | Jewish Arts | Jewish Literature | Jewish History
What do poems, plays, and other creative texts from throughout history tell us about the times in which they were written? And what do they reveal about the forces still at play in our contemporary societies?
Using interviews with artists and scholars combined with performed readings by actors, The Dybbukast examines and gives context to creative works while exploring their relationships to issues still present today.
While we are no longer producing full seasons, we will continue to present live recordings of our illuminated lectures – which share The Dybbukast format – as they are available.
Listen here, on YouTube (captions available), or on your favorite podcast app.
Season 1
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S1 E1 "I-Tell-You"
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S1 E1 bonus "I-Tell-You...More"
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S1 E2 "The Book of Enoch"
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S1 E3 "The Death of My Aunt"
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S1 E3 bonus "Translation and The Death of My Aunt"
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S1 E4 "The Murdered Jewess"
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S1 E5 "The Protocols, Henry Ford, and The International Jew"
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S1 E5 bonus "A Fine Ford Vehicle"
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S1 E6 "How to Hide"
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S1 E7 "Unetaneh Tokef for Black Lives"
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S1 E8 "In Defense of Women"
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S1 E9 "The Book of Bovo"
Season 4
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S4 E1 "The Merchant of Venice: Ghetto"
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S4 E2 "The Merchant of Venice: Shakespeare in Performance"
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S4 E3 "The Merchant of Venice: Annotated"
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S4 Guest "Primary Source: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
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S4 E4 "At Newport"
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S4 E5 "The Marvelous Puppet Show"
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S4 E6 "Fiction without Romance"
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S4 E7 "Lilith"
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S4 Bonus "Hymn of the Majestic"
Season 2
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S2 E1 "I Sing and I Pray"
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S2 E2 "The Book of Job"
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S2 E3 "Sing This at My Funeral"
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S2 E4 "The St. Thomas Split"
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S2 E5 "The New World"
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S2 E6 "The Temple Bombing"
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S2 E7 "Sound in the Silence"
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S2 E8 "Adapting Exagoge"
Season 5
Season 3
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S3 E1 "Years Have Sped By"
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S3 E2 "Why I Was a Zionist and Why I Now Am Not"
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S3 Guest "The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages"
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S3 E3 "The Chronicles of the Rabbis"*
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S3 E4 "The Imagined Childhood"*
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S3 E5 "The Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers"*
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S3 E6 "The Book of Tahkemoni"*
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S3 E7 "Studying Sacred Texts"*
Season 1 of The Dybbukast was started with seed funding from The Covenant Foundation.
Seasons 2, 3, and 4 are generously supported by a grant from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.
*Episodes 3-7 of Season 3 were co-produced as a limited series with the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University.
Latest Episode
"Dracula: Antisemitism and British Gothic Literature"
Season 5, Episode 2
This episode features a discussion between theatre dybbuk's artistic director, Aaron Henne, and Professor Carol Margaret Davison about Bram Stoker's Dracula, exploring the ways in which the societal concerns present at the time of its publication intersect with the prejudices and beliefs that are embedded in the text.
Professor Davison acted as a consulting scholar on theatre dybbuk's new world premiere production, Dracula (Annotated), which Aaron wrote and directed, and which opens in Los Angeles on September 26, 2025 then tours to Tucson and Cincinnati in the weeks that follow. In the piece, the company uses a unique blend of scholarly investigation and heightened theatricality to weave together the gothic characters and plot of Dracula with references to the forces at play in Victorian England that are still timely today.
This episode is a rebroadcast of an online Zoom event that was recorded live on August 10, 2025, as presented by the Orange County Jewish Community Scholar Program and hosted by Shirel Horovitz.
Season 4
Season 4 of The Dybbukast is generously supported by a grant from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.
Season 3
Season 3 of The Dybbukast is generously supported by a grant from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.
Season 2
Season 2 of The Dybbukast is generously supported by a grant from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.
Season 1
Thank you to The Covenant Foundation and Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah for their support of The Dybbukast and related educational resources.