JCast Network

 Brad and Steven are back with the first episode of Season Eight of the Corner. They’re back to their usual banter about the Jewish High Holidays, the best food for breaking the fast, Lauren Boebert, and the lack of accountability in our society. All in all, it’s like they’ve never been gone — have a listen […]

Rabbis Knopf and Olitzky seem like they would be the target audience for Adam Sandler’s new Netflix movie, You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah. But while the film covers some explicitly Jewish subject matter, the rabbis had mixed feelings about it — as an Adam Sandler comedy, and as a piece of Jewish art. […]

It’s official — ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ are this summer’s unlikely “it” couple! This summer, we’re all obsessed with the World’s Most Famous doll taking on the patriarchy and wrestling with mortality, and the Father of the Atomic Bomb struggling with his conscience and (maybe) starting a chain reaction that will destroy the world. It all […]

The Bear, whose first two seasons are currently streaming on Hulu, follows Carmy Berzatto, a rising superstar in the culinary world, as he seeks to revitalize his brother Mikey’s Chicago dive following Mikey’s suicide. The show masterfully explores very Jewish themes, like honoring difficult parents, carrying on a legacy, dealing with grief and guilt, the ethics […]

Indiana Jones is back! The dashing, swashbuckling, fedora-wearing, bullwhip-cracking, Nazi-punching archaeologist is literally racing against time in his fifth and, by all accounts, last, crusade. But did Disney choose wisely with this one, or does this iconic franchise belong in a museum? Join Rabbis Knopf and Olitzky to hear “just what the Hebrews thought” about […]

This is it, the season finale of the Amen Corner. This week, Brad and Steven talk about the heat (without using the word “schvitzing” even once!), the antisemitic comments of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the fascist group Moms for Liberty, isolationists and appeasers, and Jews Behaving Badly. Happy listening and enjoy the summer! You can […]

‘The Flash’ was supposed to be an exciting reset for the beleaguered DCEU, even heralded by some Hollywood luminaries as one of the greatest superhero films of all time. Instead, it was at least as much of a mess as many of its predecessors, and doubly burdened with instability at Warner Bros. (the parent company […]

This week, summer is here and Brad and Steven are coming to the end of the podcast season. The guys lament the state of the New York Yankees and of New York sports in general. They also discuss the 40th(!) anniversary of Trading Places, the mysterious coup in Russia, the lost submarine, and why Texas […]

 ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse’ is the sequel to the hit 2018 animated adventure ‘Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse,’ and the second part of a planned trilogy following Miles Morales as the titular wall-crawler, along with hundreds of other spider-people. Our friendly neighborhood web-heads, Rabbis Knopf and Olitzky, want to talk about the high-flying, wise-cracking, multiverse spanning […]

This week, after three plus years of flying below the radar, Brad finally got Covid. The guys talk about the dreaded “C word’ before pivoting to discuss the rise in antisemitic incidents in the  Montgomery County, Maryland school system. Steven is trying to figure out an appropriate response — Amen Corner listeners are invited to […]

This week, Brad and Steven welcome a special guest to the Amen Corner, Catherine Herrold, associate professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and Loyal Amen Corner Listener. Catherine talks about free speech on campus and DEI. It’s a thoughtful and important discussion, one not to be missed. You […]

The hit HBO series Succession, currently in its final season, is deceptively complex. On the surface, it’s about members of a wealthy family vying for control of their father’s media empire. But while most similar shows would either glorify or revile wealth and power, Succession deals in shades of grey that are truer to life and closer to […]

This week, Brad and Steven are back at it, talking about members of Israel’s government getting into trouble on the streets of NYC. The guys spend much of the episode discussing an article from the Atlantic about CNN head, Chris Licht. Here’s a link to the piece, which you may want to check out before listening to the podcast (you don’t […]

The MCU has been in a bit of a rough patch lately, but ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3’ gets things back on track. The final chapter of James Gunn’s trilogy about this wisecracking gang of galactic misfits has jokes, action, and lots of heart. In this episode, Rabbis Knopf and Olitzky argue that the […]

This week, Brad and Steven are talking again about an old favorite subject of theirs: hagbah. With Steven in Georgia for a family Bat Mitzvah, the pressure is on for him to lift a special Torah that was rescued from the Nazis. They also talk about what to eat in Georgia and the elections in Turkey. […]

It’s Mother’s Day this week and Brad and Steven discuss the day’s merits and its potential impact on gifts for Steven. They also talk about the disgraceful CNN broadcast of Trump’s town hall last week and wonder how the media will cover a presidential campaign that promises to be like none other before it. Spoiler alert: they’re […]

‘The Mandalorian,’ whose third season is now streaming on Disney+, is one of the most critically and commercially successful offerings of Disney-era Star Wars. Noted Star Wars nerds Rabbis Knopf and Olitzky discuss the show’s very Jewish themes, its relationship to Torah and Midrash, and the relative value of complex mythology in modern pop culture. […]

This week, it’s The Coronation Day Episode, where Brad and Steven spend as little time as possible talking about the British monarchy. Instead, they talk about Twitter vs. TV news, Clarence Thomas’ shameless corruption, the killing of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway car this week and how it relates to the national homeless crisis. Have a […]

After a two-week hiatus, Brad and Steven are back at it. In this week’s episode, the talk about the ongoing protests in Israel which Brad attended last weekend, the future of Israel’s democracy, the prospect of being a stranger in a country that’s not one’s own, and old school Chinese restaurants. Happy listening! You can listen to The Amen […]

Mario, Luigi, Toadstool, Princess Peach, and Bowser are back — this time in the cleverly-titled blockbuster animated comedy ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie.’ Is it super? Or is it the film equivalent of hitting a banana peel on Rainbow Road? What does it say about the state of entertainment and society? And what does it […]