Jewish History Matters

Rachel B. Gross talks about nostalgia and lived religion in American Jewish life, which is the focus of her book Beyond the Synagogue: Jewish Nostalgia as Religious Practice. Listen in as we talk about a variety of ways in which American Jews connect to their past through nostalgia—through historical museums like the Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York’s Lower East Side, through genealogy, through children’s books and dolls, and through delis and other foodways. As Rachel explains, nostalgia actually offers a kind of lived religious practice, even if it is beyond the synagogue.