48 | JANUARY 5 • 2023
ARTS&LIFE
PODCASTS
New Reboot podcast explores
the stranger topics in
Jewish history.
Jewish
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Bizarre
Dr. Eddy
Portnoy
A
new podcast is
taking listeners
down a rabbit hole
of bizarre Jewish history.
Released in November,
the Jewish Bizarre Podcast, a
new project from Reboot, a
Jewish arts and culture non-
profit and development plat-
form, explores little-known
pockets of Jewish history
that are strange, mysterious
and often downright shock-
ing.
In fact, podcast host Dr.
Eddy Portnoy calls it a
“Jewish Atlas Obscura of
historical material.”
“It’s the strange corners of
history that most historians
don’t deal with,” he says,
“and that most people don’t
even know about.”
The Jewish Bizarre
Podcast is the inaugural
podcast of the new Reboot
Presents Podcast Network,
which features top idiosyn-
cratic Jewish personalities.
It’s produced by executive
producers David Katznelson
and Noam Dromi and engi-
neered by Jonathan London.
This new podcast features
Portnoy, academic advis-
er for the Max Weinreich
Center and exhibition
curator at the YIVO
Institute for Jewish
Research, as well
as Metro Detroit
native, as one of three
co-hosts who join
ranks to discuss the
Jewish bizarre.
Podcast hosts also
include Dr. Tony
Michels, professor
of Jewish American
History at University
of Wisconsin-