Last Tuesday I heard this fascinating episode of Code Switch, an NPR podcast “cover[ing] race, ethnicity and culture.” For this round, they looked at the place that Jews occupy in America’s odd definitions of all those things. Ultimately, it…

…wasn’t totally off base. They narrated the American Jewish experience of becoming White clearly, accurately, and charitably: as a combination of White society’s whims, and of the desire (or need) to reap the benefits of Whiteness. This meshes well with the shockingly-civil social media debates I’ve gotten into with fellow Jews about our racial identity. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that light-skinned Jews get White privilege no matter how they personally feel about it.

But before the epic success of that discussion, the episode tries to characterize Jewish identity independently of American race politics. To explain how we define ourselves. And totally flubs it.

They try! They bring on their resident Jew, Leah Gershenfeld Donnella, to present large chunks of the program material. Both by her words and by her undeniable Blackness, she makes clear to everyone that It’s Complicated. (Code Switch host Shireen Meraji says “it should be the show’s subtitle—Code Switch: It’s Complicated.”) And yet they fail almost as soon as they start:

MERAJI: All right, so we’ve answered the question, everybody. Jews are a religious group, not their own ethnicity or race.

[Gene] DEMBY: Problem solved. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. OK. OK. If you take a DNA test, though, it will tell you what percentage Jewish you are. So it sounds like there’s at least some ethnic component to being Jewish.

Blink and you might miss it—amid the charming self-deprecation there’s a conflation of “race/genetics” and “ethnicity,” and a related dichotomy between racial and religious identity. When combined with the (very true) observation that race as an identity category is new, this leaves them at a loss to understand the deep roots of non-religious Jewish identity. Even when their (Jewish) sources bring up concepts like “tradition or identification,” or mention “speaking Hebrew” as a marker of Jewish identity, the hosts never seem to notice or to fit these ideas into their narrative. They talk about the meaning of 23andme, but not of Yiddish revivalism, secular Diasporic Zionism, or hipster gastropubs’ chopped liver. (I have tasted of all these things, and the last is the most satisfying.)

It’s not all guesswork. We have the numbers (thanks, Pew), we know what we think of us. A large minority of Jews (especially young ones) say they’re “Jews of no religion.” Most Jews say being Jewish is about ancestry and culture, not religion; even most Ultra-Orthodox Jews say it’s not just religion.

So definitely not just a religious group. But not “just” anything else— the main impression is of an imagined community whose members disagree about what exactly they’re imagining. How very Jewish. And useless. There’s only one traditional solution to this conundrum—smartass Jews torturously justifying their preconceived notions. I’ll go first!

My tack is to think about that most bitterly-contested of questions: Who is a Jew? Not with the intent of answering it, but to observe the points where it’s uncomfortable. Controversial.

Someone who’s born in a practicing Jewish household and practices Judaism is clearly Jewish. And if they’re non-practicing atheists? Probably Jewish, even if some say they’re Bad Jews. And if instead of atheists they become Lutherans? Ooooh. Much less comfortable. What about Buddhists? Slightly better (judging by the way my father’s voice would communicate ridicule rather than pain).

And if someone who’s not Jewish just starts calling themselves Jewish? Probably not. But if they start studying Hebrew? Going to services? Beginning the conversion process? The line’s blurry, but every Jew has some point at which they start chanting “one of us!”

So, a group that you can be in by ancestry; with initiation rites and customs that you’re supposed to follow, but don’t lose membership by shirking; that you may be kicked out of for adopting another group’s ways, depending on how much bad blood there is; and that you’re formally adopted into by practicing said rites and customs and being recognized by the community. You know what this sounds like? Someone at Code Switch knew. They did, after all, call the episode, with head-scratching earnestness, “Members of Whose Tribe?”

Image via Pixabay.

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Alright, nerds. Pack it in— podcasts are over. They had a good run, but now they’re gone the way of professional wrestling, comic books, and the entire Internet and they’re too mainstream to be fun anymore. Why? Because ABC has released the trailer for its new TV show, Alex, Inc. about Alex Blumberg, the founder of Gimlet Media.

Well, there’s one thing that seems to be keeping podcast diehards safe— if you watched the trailer, you would have little to know idea what a podcast is. Instead, you will experience 3 minutes of a pleasant Zach Braff vehicle (he’s also producing and directing) in which the former Scrubs star keeps taking generic risks, and not playing by other people’s vague rules, and trying to create something unspecified-yet-great despite some sorts of obstacles. (For the record, Blumberg quit his job at This American Life to create Gimlet Media and find success with the likes of StartUp, even though this trailer seems to operate on the premise that trying to earn a living doing radio is itself folly.)

Seriously, this commercial could be about pursuing a career in any creative medium and barely change a word:

“What’s the first show about?” An eccentric investor yet to be convinced asks on the stairs of his private jet.

“A guy like me!” responds Braff/Blumberg, with his wife and children. “With a family like them. He could succeed, he could fail. I promise you— people are going to love to watch him try.”

“I’m in!” Announces the investor, now convinced.

Well, if it doesn’t turn out to be the most sophisticated of stuff, it’s neat at least to see a Member of the Tribe play another person of Jewish descent on television. And maybe now you’ll have an easier time explaining to your aunt what a podcast actually is.

Alex, Inc. doesn’t have a premiere date yet, but you can watch the trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=148&v=j91FK6K-8Dg

Image from YouTube.

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This past Sunday in a rented storefront in Crown Heights, Vaybertaytsh, a podcast which producer Sandy Fox bills as “the first—as far as we know— Yiddish speaking, feminist radio program” celebrated the release of its second season.

Before it was a podcast, “Vaybertaytsh” – literally “translations for women” in Yiddish—was a term once used for commentaries on Torah written by Hebrew-literate Ashkenazi men for their Yiddish-speaking women wives (and other women) who were unlikely to learn the “Loshnkoydesh” (“holy tongue”) themselves. “Vaybertaytsh” also came at times to refer to the language of Yiddish itself, one of many names the “jargon” (another slang term for Yiddish) went by.

This podcast is a project of reclamation of the word.  Women themselves become the teachers, “flipping the concept of ‘vaybertaytsh’ on its head,” says Fox, “explaining and commenting on our own terms.” Interviews in the first season included a midwife serving the Hasidic community, a female cantor  for the renewal movement in Germany, and several international attendees of the Women’s March last January.

These interviews and conversations take place entirely in Yiddish, and the podcast draws guests mainly from the international community of Yiddishists, a group which speaks Yiddish in order to preserve the language. The Yiddishist movement began at the turn of the 20th century as activists and scholars sought to “legitimize” what was at the time seen as a “low” tongue, spoken by unsophisticated people—and women. “Those scholars were primarily men whose mission was to de-feminize Yiddish, to distance the language from its association with women as a ‘mameloshn,’ [or ‘mom’s tongue’],” Fox told me.

Sandy Fox, who also goes by the Yiddish name Sosye, describes Vaybertaytsh both as a continuation and a refutation of that philosophy. Just as these men sought to produce mainstream literature and journalism in Yiddish, Fox creates episodes of Vaybertaytsh available for download on any podcast app.

But unlike this earlier wave of Yiddishists, Fox does not shy from association with women or the home. The pilot opens with a tribute to the Riot Grrrl music movement , and another episode in the first season is devoted to a conversation between women who have lost their mothers on their memories of those women.

Nor does Fox insist on a rigid grammatical purity, as the first wave of many turn-of-the-century Yiddishists did. “I don’t really believe there is such a thing as ‘authentic’ Yiddish,” she says, “and it can be uncomfortable to speak perfect clinical Yiddish.” Vaybertaytsh’s opening episode contains a kind of non-apology for any grammatical “mistakes” the podcast may make: “Let’s simply feel free to speak” says Fox in the first episode (in of course, Yiddish). Creating something new is “too important to wait for a perfect Yiddish.”

As a Yiddish learner who speaks with less than perfect grammar, this stance excites me. More than once I have lost my train of thought while speaking due to interruptions correcting my grammar. While such interruptions are kindly meant and an important part of the language-learning process, they can make communication a little exhausting. “Often it’s been men serving as the gatekeepers,” Fox notes.  That gate-keeping can turn people away from actually speaking the language, something the relatively small community of Yiddishists arguably cannot afford.

At the second season’s release party, Fox welcomed non-Yiddish-fluent guests to “Yiddishland” before continuing entirely in Yiddish, while translations in English appeared onscreen behind her. “Maybe it seems weird, considering the fact that we all speak English. But such is the way of the Yiddishists,” the screen read, “Welcome to our world.”

The default language of the night was Yiddish, with a “learner’s couch” equipped with a dictionary. Party attendees schmoozed over the food, the drinks,  and the choice of women’s social justice groups to which to donate the nights proceeds (the winner was Days for Girls), all in Yiddish of varying fluency. Emboldened by the podcast’s premise, I took my time forming clunky sentences for concepts that I might have communicated much faster in English. By the time the event ended, I was only rarely asking my conversational partners to repeat themselves.

One man asked me near the evening’s end how I had first encountered Vaybertaytsh. I told him I’d heard of it online, I’d been unsure if my language comprehension would be strong enough to follow along, but I eventually checked it out and was using it to train my ear. “And here I am!” I finished exuberantly. My conversational partner nodded. “Okay. But I didn’t mean the podcast—I meant the language.”

Rachel Wetter is an educator and history nerd living in New York who also goes by Rokhl.

Images via Facebook.

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You may or may not remember, but media personality and fitness motivator Richard Simmons has been completely cut off from the world since April 2014. He’s been contactable enough to assuage police, but one day, with almost no warning, he ghosted everyone he knew; he cut out his fans, friends, and ceased public appearances entirely.

It may not seem enough to go on for a podcast, but Dan Taberski has created your latest audio addiction— Missing Richard Simmons tells the story of a man who has both been aggressively present his entire life, and how his absence affected those he touched. There are debates on the nature of fame and privacy, semi-shady detective work, and 100% serious allegations of witchcraft.

If you’re looking for something while waiting for season three of Serial, there are surprising parallels— a colorful cast of supporting characters, the podcaster not sure at the top of the show where it will end, details too bizarre for fiction.

Whether or not Simmons is Jewish depends on who you talk to; he has a Jewish mother, but he was raised a devout Catholic, and even considered the priesthood, and once scored a personal audience with the pope.

But regardless, treat yourself, and listen to this podcast. There have only been three episodes so far. While those are downloading, here’s an old Rosh HaShanah tweet from Richard, followed by his iconic turn on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

If you are of the Jewish faith…….. Happy New Year to you!

— Richard Simmons (@TheWeightSaint) September 17, 2012

Image from Missing Richard Simmons

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We already know that Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer are soulmates, and now, they’re officially family.

We know this amazing news thanks to Twice Removed, a podcast by A.J. Jacobs (also Jewish, because of course). The podcast premise is that Jacobs takes a different celebrity each episode and, as he interviews them, explores their genealogy. Then, he presents his guest with someone unexpected he’s found on their extended family tree— like when Dan Savage turned out to be related to the drag queen who set him up with his husband.

This episode’s guest was Abbi Jacobson, and after an episode diving into her genealogy, her “mystery relative” is brought in. Spoiler, it’s her comedy partner Ilana Glazer.

“I did know who that was gonna be,” Jacobson responds, “I was like, ‘Who else would come in this early for me?’”

They also joke that being related makes doing the show together, and potentially having sex, weird. Never change, gals.

While the two are extremely distantly related (seriously, it’s further apart than Lone Star and Dark Helment’s connection in Spaceballs), this is the best news since we learned that Glazer and Rachel Bloom were post-college roommates.

Of course, all Ashkenazi Jews are all genetically related to each other. That similarity between any two Jews is going to look like fourth or fifth cousins in the general population. That’s about ten times higher than, say, two random New Yorkers, according to the New York Times.

But this is a definitive connection, and not all members of the ladies’ extended family are Members of the Tribe. In an odd twist of fate, it turns out that the ladies are also related to Molly Shannon (50+ degrees of separation apiece).

So mazel tov, Abbi and Ilana, on your newly found connection.

You can listen to the episode (the interview portion is great as well) below:

Image via Wikimedia

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Do you like Star Wars? Do you have aggressively strong opinions about Marvel Comics properties? Do you spend Shabbat catching up on fantasy novels? Do you not even know what Shabbat is (wow, welcome to the site), but you like hearing Jewish women explain things? Presenting the new podcast: Nice Jewish Fangirls.

Only five episodes in, the show features three Orthodox Jewish New York women as they go over pop cultural news and discuss every element of “fandom” they can, from literature, to TV, to even, yes, sports. Fangirl (also a verb, as in, to be a woman becoming very excited about pop culture) can take on a slightly condescending connotation, but the trio of hosts claim it proudly here, debating, obsessing, and, yes, fangirling, about their latest obsessions.

All three women work as writers or journalists; Michal Schick is an entertainment reporter for Hypable, as well as a writing teacher.  Tamar Herman is a freelance writer who particularly contributes to Billboard about Korean pop culture. SM Rosenberg has done everything from working (and retiring) as an auto mechanic to fiction writing (definitely not retired).

The women for the most part became friends online, through Orthodox Ladies United in Fandom, a popular Facebook group for Jewish female geeks (Schick is a founder). Herman rallied the trio into creating Fangirls for Jewish Coffee House, a media site that has recently launched a podcast network (and is still looking for pitches!).

The trio talked to Jewcy via email to discuss why the intersection of being Jewish woman and a geek begs its own podcast, what they’re looking forward to in 2017, and passing out at one of the biggest fan conventions in the country.

Jewcy: How did you decide to do a podcast and get started?

Tamar Herman:  Modern Orthodoxy means that we’re living in modern society with our religious beliefs intact, but being too invested isn’t really socially acceptable even though so many people love seeing Marvel movies, watch tons of television, read fantasy books, etc.  OLUF served as a venue for some of us who are really involved in fandom culture, but I wanted to create a place for people to come and enjoy what those things are like through a MO [Modern Orthodox] lens. So I asked SM and Michal if they wanted to be involved and they said yes.

I don’t think you need to be Jewish, or MO, to listen to NJF and enjoy it, but we definitely went into it wanting it to be a place where we can, and should, talk about what we read on Shabbat or why we were upset the Goldstein sisters [from the new Harry Potter spinoff, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them] were just Jewish in name.

Jewcy: So, it may seem obvious, but why a podcast about the intersection of your geekiness and Jewish identities?  Much of the conversation you have could be taking place amongst people who aren’t even Jewish.

Michal Schick: I think we’re all very accustomed to separating our identities as fans and as religious Jewish women, since those are spheres that often do not have the opportunity to cross. I know that I used to feel the need to perform as a “regular person” in geek circles— I wouldn’t bring up my religious identity, and often wouldn’t engage even if there did happen to be some intersection. The same was true of my daily life as a frum woman; I was used to assuming that displaying my “fannishness” would be strange, and in certain contexts even unacceptable.

So for me, the point is not to explicitly integrate every element of these two identities, but rather to foster coexistence between them. We are both Jewish women and geeks, and depending on the subject, we may sound more like one than the other. But by bringing those identities together under the banner of Jewish Fangirls, we are honoring the importance and relevance of both simultaneously. What used to be divergent, or even contradictory, is now a holistic part of my identity.

And of course, there are many opportunities where this combination gives us a valuable and unique perspective. We can discuss Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, for example, both as Harry Potter fans and as Jewish women who want to be represented onscreen. We can bring attention to the use (or misuse) of our religion and culture in popular media. And I also hope that we can do our part to demystify Orthodox life for geeks who are not Jewish, or aren’t familiar with our lifestyles. We’re religious, but we’re not scary, or secretive, or weird; we’re just nerds, and we love our fandoms like anyone else.

TH: Michal pretty much said it. As much as many women get scorned for being fangirls, I think Jewish women even more so. What is a Nice Jewish Girl doing spending her time obsessing over something like a book or pop star? But, of course, so many of us do and, like Michal said, we hide part of our identity. I for one feel far more at ease with my fandom friends than some of my closest friends from Jewish day school and college because they will never understand why I feel the way I do. And that’s fine, because we need different people in our lives for different things. But for so many frum people, there’s no outlet.

In OLUF, so many people have said that they’d never imagine there were so many Orthodox fangirls. We can be ourselves within the scope of Judaism, but we need a place to do it. That’s why I think it’s so important for us to be talking about fandoms, in a Kosher way.

SM Rosenberg: I’ve always surrounded myself with Jewish nerdy friends and family, so I’ve never struggled finding an outlet, and I’ve also always been pretty open about my Jewishness in fandom environments and am comfortable answering questions about it (like a time at DragonCon when I donated blood and nearly passed out and spent the afternoon recuperating and teaching the con medics the kosher symbols on the snacks I could eat), so my perspective is probably different.

Mostly, I think that with any minority group, accessibility is key. How can anyone relate to people without common ground? Pop culture and fandom are amazing sources of common ground and conversation fodder. I currently help out a child who is recovering from cancer, and sometimes his friends come over and aren’t sure what to say, so they bring up Harry Potter or baseball or superheroes, and it’s so wonderful to watch the walls come down for those few minutes while they fanboy about things. Common ground makes people approachable and likable, be they Jews or Buddhists or Mormons or kids with cancer, and hey, I like being likable. And I like making it okay for other people like me to be open about the things they like.

Jewcy: What’s one thing you’re really excited to fangirl about (with a Jewish angle would be nice, but not necessary) in 2017?

MS: Wonder Woman! It’s way past time for a woman-centric superhero movie, and the fact that Gal Gadot is unapologetically Israeli and Jewish just thrills me.

TH: I was going to say Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, but Michal beat me to it. Can I say more episodes of NJF? I really have been quite fangirly about our own fangirl podcast…

SMR: Well, The Good Place just came back from hiatus and I love it an irrational amount at the moment, and everyone should watch it. It’s gotten so much better since the pilot, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Thanks to the gang for talking to us! Nice Jewish Fangirls drops (more or less) every other Monday on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts! You can also tweet at the show, or email the gang at nicejewishfangirls@gmail.com.

Image courtesy of Nice Jewish Fangirls.

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More! Weird! Podcasts!

There have only been five episodes of the show so far, so it’s not too late to get in on the ground floor of The Orbiting Human Circus (Of the Air). The show is part of the Night Vale Presents network, of which the titular podcast has also included Jewishness before (Remember when Cecil Gershwin-Palmer learned an old prayer in “Torah school”: “Where everyone just shouts, “De-fense! De-fense!” while clapping in rhythm?”).

Part of The Orbiting Human Circus’s appeal is that it’s rather difficult to describe, but it’s best summarized as the ongoing adventures of behind-the-scenes of the world’s most famous (fictional) radio program, broadcast from the Eiffel Tower, centered on the exploits of the Tower’s janitor, a put-upon young man named Julian. The podcast is also filled with segments from the titular show-within-the-show, which is usually quirky music or some form of experimental storytelling.

Julian is portrayed by show creator Julian Koster, who is best known for his involvement with Neutral Milk Hotel— that’s right, the band most known for their album that features Anne Frank as its central figure.

If there’s anything Jews like, it’s finding a Jewish connection to secular culture (take this article, for example). And, so, in the second episode of Circus, the show within the show references an ongoing series on the “formative influence of Judaism on rock and roll.” And who better than to demonstrate? Mandy Patinkin as 1920s cantor Moishe Lebowitz. Yes, this podcast got Mandy Patinkin to sing in Yiddish a song in the style of cantorial greats that sounds vaguely like “Surrender” by Cheap Trick. As previously stated, the show is rivetingly weird.

Another episode features the Alicia Svigals Klezmer Ensemble (Svigals is a big name in the scene). Plus, there are other little references, like bit characters “Brooklyn bagel bakers,” who speak in thick Yiddish accents (voiced by one Khayim Wolff, according to the show’s website). And the holiday episode featured Jewish author Larry “Ratso” Sloman as the Jewish protagonist of a Christmas story.

What’s also arguably Jewish about the podcast is its setting— while it avoids giving itself a specific date (and its world is obviously more fantastical than our own), there’s something European, cosmopolitan, and nostalgic about it. It’s like a dieselpunk France populated by the most interesting and colorful of characters. It’s diverse beyond Jewishness (one Roma character has made a brief appearance), and, so far, no mention of war or grand-tragedy. Listening to The Orbiting Human Circus is settling into a rich Old World that was never able to be, and Jews are fully a part of it.

And if that sounds like a reach, then settle for major klezmer artists and/or Mandy Patinkin singing in Yiddish. Surely that’s Jewish enough for you.

Image from The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air).

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The world’s greatest podcaster is Jewish!

No, not Ira Glass; that’s obviously old news. This is the premier fictional radio host: Cecil Gerswhin-Palmer from Welcome to Night Vale.

Welcome to Night Vale is one of the most popular podcasts out today, with devoted audiences all over the world and in online communities reminiscent of fans of cult TV shows. Descriptions of the program usually try to rely on vague pop cultural comparisons, from Stephen King to Garrison Keillor, because there’s actually nothing like it.

What Night Vale is, simply is this: A fictional local radio news broadcast, in a small, town in the American southwest, where horrors, conspiracies, and unholy rites are a natural part of a pleasant, close-knit community.

Take, for instance, when a glowing cloud rained animal carcasses on the town, controlled the minds of its residences, and then, ultimately enrolled its child in the local public school and joined the PTA. The tone is humor, mixed with horror, with surprisingly a lot of heart, and at its heart is Cecil Gershwin-Palmer (portrayed by Cecil Baldwin).

In many episodes, Cecil is the only speaker, and his personal life is as important to the story as, say, the standings of the local Little League team (their coach is a ghost). The show has also received accolades for its remarkable diversity, as well as its hesitancy to describe characters as having a definitive appearance or race, Cecil especially.

Night Vale is also one of very few podcasts that has successfully become franchise; for example, its first companion novel debuted in October, and there are more books on the way. The show also tours with its cast internationally, reading scripts in front of a live audience with new content that is eventually sold online as premium supplements to the otherwise free program.

That’s where Cecil’s Jewishness comes in. Night Vale is currently between legs of its latest tour, “Ghost Stories.”

According to attendees of “Ghost Stories,” the most spoiler-free description possible of the reveal is that the show includes Cecil attending the unveiling of an immediate family member.

To confirm the news, Night Vale co-creator Joseph Fink took to Twitter:

For close Jewish listeners of Night Vale, this statement canonizes hints dropped in the series before. In one particularly creepy episode, Cecil finds a cassette tape he recorded when he was younger, in which he describes his mother has avoiding him and covering all the mirrors of their home. As the episode progresses, it becomes unclear whether or not Cecil actually died (and came back in some way to be our protagonist; Night Vale has its own horror logic). In light of the news of Cecil’s identity, this was probably no coincidence that his mother was performing another Jewish mourning ritual.

Going forward in Night Vale, how will this affect the series? The town mostly worships via bloodstones and Christmas is forbidden, but there is at least one mosque.

The world of Night Vale is wonderfully diverse, so it’s a really great moment of representation that Jewish denizens are officially included, to say nothing of the show’s star. It’s a unique, creative way to include Jewishness in media, vague though it might be for now.

In the meantime, we can only imagine what Shabbat dinners would be like in Cecil’s home.

Image Credits: Facebook, and art by David Shear.

The post The Protagonist from ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ Is Jewish! appeared first on Jewcy.

In the latest episode of OMGWTFBIBLE, host David Tuchman and guest Mordechai Levovitz of Jewish Queer Youth reach the end of Parshat Shmot and try to draw a lesson from it all. For David, this chapter is the start of the Bible describing something bigger than that one little family God anointed as his favorites. But what does Mordechai learn? Listen below to learn what the Bible taught him about Biblical literalism.

David Tuchman translated the Tanakh as a comedy and called it OMGWTFBIBLE. Each month on his podcast, he calls up a different guest to read as many chapters of OMGWTFBIBLE as they can while they both make fun of it.

Jewcy is the proud (internet) co-host of OMGWTFBIBLE. Read more about the project here, and listen to previous episodes here.

David will be reading the next live show with Y-Love at Beauty Bar on September 22.

The post OMGWTFBIBLE Podcast: The Israelites Confront Pharoah, Things Get Real appeared first on Jewcy.

OMGWTFBIBLE dives ever further into Exodus! This week, host David Tuchman reads even more Bible with Mordechai Levovitz of Jewish Queer Youth, and they cover a number of pressing questions, like: What exactly is Moses’s relationship with Yitro? What does God do when nobody’s around? And why is he so long-winded?

Find out below in this week’s installment, in which Moses is called to SAVE. HIS. PEOPLE.

Also, discover how the Bible inspired Groot.

David Tuchman translated the Tanakh as a comedy and called it OMGWTFBIBLE. Each month on his podcast, he calls up a different guest to read as many chapters of OMGWTFBIBLE as they can while they both make fun of it.

Jewcy is the proud (internet) co-host of OMGWTFBIBLE. Read more about the project here, and listen to previous episodes here.

David will be reading the next live show with Y-Love at Beauty Bar on September 22.

(Image: Burning Bush by Sébastien Bourdon)

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