Expelliarmus!

This week on Unorthodox: Bloomberg, Bernie, and Trump, oh my!

Our Jewish guest is Mark Seidenfeld, vice president and deputy general counsel at Scholastic, publisher of the wildly successful Harry Potter and The Hunger Games series. He tells us about traveling to Scotland to pick up a manuscript from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling—which he then sat on during the flight back to New York to keep safe—and never leaking any secrets to his Harry Potter-obsessed kids.

Our non-Jewish guest is bioethicist and writer Alice Dreger, whose new book, Galileo’s Middle Finger, explores clashes between scientists and activists throughout history. The book was the result of Dreger’s experience having found herself in those cultural crosshairs after her research on intersex people angered transgender activists. She also tells us about her family’s pet rat, Darling.

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Unorthodox is a smart, fresh, fun weekly take on Jewish news and culture hosted by Mark Oppenheimer, Stephanie Butnick, and Liel Leibovitz. You can listen to individual episodes here or subscribe on iTunes.