All magazines take on the sensibilities and tastes of their editor, and since its founding

a dozen years ago, the beautifully designed quarterly Jewish review of books has been

refined and elevated by its founding editor, the Oberlin

College Professor Emeritus, Abraham Socher. The Jewish Review of Books was founded and funded

as a project of the Tikva Fund. Earlier this year, it became an independent entity under a newly

formed J.R.B. Foundation, still still, thankfully under Abe's editorial leadership.

This week I sit down with the editor of the JRB and discuss his ideas, his educational

formation, his preoccupations. This week we look at the mind at work behind the Jewish

review of books. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.

Abe Socher's own essays have been recently published in a gorgeous edited volume,

liberal and illiberal arts, essays mostly Jewish.

In it, you can read about his meditations on Jewish texts,

Jewish institutions and communal affairs, on the

life of the campus, and what has come of his beloved Oberlin. You'll learn about some of your

favorite Jewish authors, and, in my favorite section of the book, you will accompany Abe,

as he turns to the enduring texts of the religious and literary traditions of the West,

to think about mortality and the dilemmas and paradoxes of human embodiment,

how the breathing, blood-pumping person is animated by a mind and soul.

That's in a section called Life and Afterlife.

Liberal and Illiberal Arts was published by

Paul Dry Books in 2022. If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on

Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. I hope you'll leave us a five-star review to help us

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