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Tablet Studios

Kung Fu Naches: Ep. 139

Tablet Studios

Tablet Magazine

Judaism, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.61.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2018

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Unorthodox, we talk to Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, the new scholar in residence for trans and queer Jewish studies at CBST, the world's largest LGBTQ synagogue. He's the first Orthodox rabbi at the New York City synagogue, and he explains how Judaism, even at its most observant, can make room for transgender adherents—and how Jews could learn a lot from the trans community.  We're also joined by Gentile of the week Matthew Polly, whose latest book is Bruce Lee: A Life. He tells us about Lee's continued influence in not just martial arts but Hollywood as well, describes his own two-year study of kung fu at the Shaolin Temple in China, and shares a surprising discovery he made while researching the book: Bruce Lee is one-eighth Jewish! Mark sits down with our Jewish guest, Arnold Gorlick, owner of Madison Art Cinemas, one of the country's last great arthouses. He tells Mark about growing up in Brooklyn as the son of an appetizing store owner before moving to Connecticut and devoting himself to indie movies. And in honor of Father's Day, we're airing Liel's moving story about fatherhood, and his own father, which he shared at a Moth storytelling event. Our next live show is July 18 at the JCC Manhattan, and it’s an episode devoted to the question “Is it OK to say ‘JAP’?” Jill Kargman of Odd Mom Out joins us to screen our short film about the persistence of the Jewish American Princess stereotype. We’ll follow with a lively discussion with guests including Judith Rosenbaum of the Jewish Women’s Archive and Bat Sheva Marcus of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, audience questions, and much more. Get your tickets here. We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at Unorthodox@tabletmag.com or leave a message at our listener line: 914-570-4869. We may share your note on the air. If you like us, please consider leaving a review in iTunes. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and join our Facebook group to chat with the hosts and see what happens behind-the-scenes! Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get new episodes, photos, and more. Show your love for Unorthodox with our new T-shirts, sweatshirts, and baby onesies. Get yours at bit.ly/unorthoshirt.

Transcript

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0:00.0

So it's almost Father's Day and we're going to be talking about Father's a little bit on our show and you know Father is an F word and we might actually also be using other F words too not to describe our Father's obviously but you know it might come up so just you know be

0:14.4

warned happy f-word day remove your fathers from the room

0:19.0

hello this is unorthodox the world's leading Jewish podcast. I'm Stephanie Butnick and I'm

0:26.5

joined this week by senior writer Leah Leibowitz. I think we're alone now.

0:32.0

Mark Oppenheimer isn't here.

0:34.6

Yeah, so Mark isn't here.

0:35.8

He's running his storytelling conference at Yale,

0:38.2

or is that like a Brooks Brothers warehouse sale,

0:40.3

I'm not sure.

0:41.6

And we have a special episode today Father's Day is coming up so we have like a

0:45.6

Father's Day is coming up so we have like a Father's Day is episode and we have actually we have

0:48.8

something from you right we do we have a story about my own father, the father of all stories, which I recorded live for our beloved friends in The Moth, which I will introduce in a little bit. We also have Matthew Polly joining us in studio

1:02.8

biography of Bruce Lee, the father of martial arts. So we're just

1:06.8

keeping it on theme today. And can I tell you, if you love your father, you

1:11.7

should get him, Matt's book? It's him mad's book and we have

1:14.5

Mark coming in later on in the episode to do a pre-recorded bit with Arnold

1:18.2

Gorlich who is an indie movie theater proprietor and all I can hope honestly is that Mark pays for

1:24.0

indie movies that's right because otherwise he is a monster so yeah like it's just

1:28.5

us what's going on with you isn't it like an amazing kind of you know just sense of freedom it really is like dad's not in the house

1:35.0

I keep looking over being like is he gonna am I gonna be in trouble for that we

1:37.3

could watch TV we can eat breakfast

1:40.1

you can know whatever you want so you you have been back. He's back from the war years.

...

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