Jewish History Nerds

Jewish History Nerds

Whoever said history was boring clearly never heard these stories…Welcome to Jewish History Nerds! Join hosts Yael and Schwab each week as they take a dive into some deep cuts of Jewish history. From the Jewish Da Vinci Code to mass suicide pacts, explore true stories that feel larger than life. Be in touch: nerds@unpacked.media

Episodes

The Jews of 1776: The Revolution (Part 1)

July 7, 2026 • 39 mins
Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! A broker who bankrolled the Continental Army and died penniless. An officer who refused pork in a British prison. A bill sent to George Washington for a missing fork. In Part 1 of Jews and the American Revolution, Yael and Schwab explore how the colonies' 2,500 Jews showed up for the fight for independence. Win...
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Why The First Jews in Colonial America Nearly Vanished

July 2, 2026 • 49 mins
Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Well over a century before the Declaration of Independence, a boatload of Jewish refugees landed in New Amsterdam with no money, no synagogue, and a governor who desperately wanted them gone. What followed was a century of scrappy survival — building communities in port cities from Newport to Charleston, pi...
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Jewish Pirates and the Caribbean

June 25, 2026 • 44 mins
Were there really Jewish pirates in the Caribbean? The answer is far more complicated (and fascinating) than the legend. From Samuel Pallache, the so-called Pirate Rabbi, to the thriving Jewish communities of Curaçao and beyond. Schwab walks Yael through the story of Jews navigating empire, trade, exile, and opportunity in the Americas. This is the second episode in a mini series on Jews in the Americas. If you like this show,...
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The First Jews in the Americas: Fleeing the Inquisition

June 18, 2026 • 49 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Fleeing the Inquisition, Crypto-Jews who had been forced to hide their faith for generations found refuge in Recife, Brazil — and for the first time, rebuilt Jewish life in the open. When Recife fell, twenty-three Jewish refugees set sail for New Amsterdam, launching the birth of Jewish America. Schwab and Yael tell the remark...
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Yitzhak Rabin: Not the Peacenik You Think He Was | with Noam Weissman

June 16, 2026 • 63 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Jewish History Nerds welcomes its first-ever guest, Noam Weissman, host of Unpacking Israeli History. Yael, Schwab and Noam explore the life and legacy of Yitzhak Rabin through the lens of Itamar Rabinovich's Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman from the Jewish Lives series. Rabin's life is the story of Israel itself. But who w...
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The Many Lives of Anne Frank - Turning 97

June 11, 2026 • 65 mins
June 12th marks Anne Frank’s birthday, and it was on her 13th birthday that she received the diary that would later become one of the most widely read books in the world. Anne Frank remains one of the most recognizable voices in Jewish history, and one of the most misunderstood. In this bonus episode sponsored by the Jewish Lives series from Yale University Press, Schwab walks Yael through Ruth Franklin's The Many Lives of ...
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King David: A Divided Heart

June 9, 2026 • 53 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Few figures in all of Jewish history are as celebrated, as contradicted, and as human as King David. But how well do we really know him? We're kicking off new bonus episodes in partnership with the Jewish Lives series from Yale University Press by going back to the Hebrew Bible. Drawing from Rabbi David Wolpe's David: The Divided H...
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New Episodes, Coming Next Week

June 4, 2026 • 2 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Yael and Schwab are back — and this season, they're diving into the history of Jews in the Americas, just in time for the US's 250th birthday. But first: special episodes sponsored by The Jewish Lives Series. Catch up on past episodes, subscribe wherever you listen. If you like this show, please rate and write a review. Wri...
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Voices of the Warsaw Ghetto: A Yom HaShoah Re-Release

April 14, 2026 • 37 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Yael and Schwab revisit the remarkable story of the Oneg Shabbos archive from the Warsaw Ghetto in honor of Yom HaShoah. The tins held the second of three caches of the Oneg Shabbos archives: a collection by ordinary people turned archivists who risked their lives to preserve the darkest moment of Jewish history. Among the photog...
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The Haggadah: The Book of the People of the Book

March 31, 2026 • 40 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! The Haggadah is the most widely read Jewish book in the world, and yet it was never supposed to be a book at all. Yael takes Schwab through its surprising history: how an oral commandment became rabbinic debate, evolved into illuminated medieval manuscripts, and ended up as 60 million free copies tucked inside a can of Maxwell Hou...
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Albert Einstein: Was He a Zionist? (Part 2)

March 26, 2026 • 50 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Jonathan Schwab and Yael Steiner tackle one of Jewish history's most debated questions: was Albert Einstein a Zionist? From Nazi Germany naming him public enemy number one to eventually being offered the presidency of Israel, Schwab traces Einstein's complicated, lifelong relationship with Zionism. And they explore a question the Na...
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Albert Einstein: Rebel. Reject. Genius. (Part 1)

March 19, 2026 • 47 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Before Albert Einstein became the wild-haired icon who changed how we understand the universe, he was a struggling patent clerk with a rejected dissertation, no job prospects, and a messy personal life. But he had time to spare and a mind that wouldn't stop. In this first episode of a two-part series, Jonathan Schwab takes Yael Stei...
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The Girl Rabbi of the Golden West: Ray Frank

March 12, 2026 • 43 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Ray Frank was a gifted Jewish teacher, journalist, and speaker who became a sensation in the American West in the 1890s. Crowds packed opera houses to hear her preach, newspapers called her the “Girl Rabbi of the Golden West,” and communities begged her to lead them. But Ray Frank refused the title of rabbi. So who was s...
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Gambling Addict, Renaissance Rabbi? Leone da Modena

March 5, 2026 • 44 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! What happens when a rabbi becomes a compulsive gambler? Yael and Schwab explore the life of Rabbi Leone de Modena, a remarkable Renaissance thinker from the Venetian ghetto. A prodigy, prolific writer, and the author of the first full-length Hebrew autobiography, Modena was also a famous preacher whose sermons drew both Jews and Ch...
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Jews Who Turned Suffering Into Holiness: The Hasidei Ashkenaz

February 26, 2026 • 45 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! What happens when trauma reshapes religious life, and suffering itself becomes sacred? This week, Jonathan Schwab introduces Yael Steiner to the Hasidei Ashkenaz, a small but intense medieval movement that emerged in 12th–13th century Germany after the Crusades of 1096. Living in the shadow of violence, they turned to radical...
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The Rosenbergs: "Atomic Spies" or Scapegoats? The Jewish Community’s Reckoning

February 19, 2026 • 49 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! In 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sent to the electric chair. They were condemned by a Jewish judge, and executed on a Friday night. The charge: espionage. The backdrop: Cold War hysteria. This week, Yael Steiner and Jonathan Schwab reframe the story. Yael explores the Jewish response to the Rosenberg trial and the tensions...
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Meet the First Jewish Woman to Publish a Book: Rivka Tiktiner

February 12, 2026 • 41 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! In 1609, Rivka Tiktiner did something no Jewish woman had ever done before: she published a book. Meneket Rivka, printed in Prague, is the earliest surviving full-length work by a Jewish woman—written in Yiddish yet steeped in serious Torah scholarship. This week on Jewish History Nerds, Jonathan Schwab introduces Yael Stein...
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Leon Trotsky: The Reluctant Jew Behind the Russian Revolution

February 5, 2026 • 47 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Leon Trotsky’s name gets thrown around a lot—but the story behind it is darker and stranger than most realize. This week, Yael Steiner walks Schwab through Trotsky’s rise from an assimilated Jewish childhood in Ukraine to revolution, Lenin’s inner circle, and the founding of the Red Army. From a revealing s...
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Secret Jews: Samuel Schwarz’s Discovery of Portugal’s Crypto-Jews

January 29, 2026 • 44 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! This week, Jewish History Nerds explores the extraordinary story of Portugal’s secret Jews—families forced into hiding who preserved Judaism for centuries after the Inquisition. Through Samuel Schwarz’s accidental 1925 discovery, Jonathan Schwab and Yael Steiner reveal whispered prayers, hidden rituals, and a Jew...
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Janusz Korczak: Polish Icon. Holocaust Hero

January 22, 2026 • 46 mins
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: ⁠⁠⁠⁠unpacked.bio/podsurvey⁠⁠⁠⁠. We want to hear from you! Yael Steiner and Jonathan Schwab are back for a new season of Jewish History Nerds, starting with the remarkable story of Janusz Korczak—the Jewish-Polish pediatrician and educator who insisted children are full human beings, not “human becomings.” Korczak pioneered radical ideas about children’s rights, d...
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