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Six Podcasts To Get You Through Your Thanksgiving Prep (and Schlep)

Kick off the long weekend with our favorite episodes of Vox Tablet, Unorthodox, and Israel Story

by
Sara Ivry
November 24, 2015

You’ve been to the market and gotten all your ingredients—cranberries, turkey, sweet potatoes, pecans. The aroma of cinnamon and cloves is beginning to waft through your kitchen, and now you’re getting ready to roll up your sleeves, don an apron, stuff your bird, bake pies, and prepare your sides. Face it—you’re looking at a whole lot of kitchen time over the next couple of days.

There’s no better way to spend that cooking time than with a few podcasts, and we’ve got a bunch from Vox Tablet, Unorthodox, and Israel Story to recommend for your utter pleasure and complete entertainment.

• Kick off your journey with this moving episode of Israel Story, about a feisty and determined mother whose love for her child, born with Down syndrome, led her to Israel, where she expanded her family to include many other babies with disabilities.

• Then, eavesdrop on everybody’s favorite lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, as he joins the Unorthodox crew to talk Abraham and Israel. And comedian Negin Farsad dishes on suing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which initially refused to run humorous ads publicizing her documentary, The Muslims Are Coming.

• “Chavele, little Chavele, you were such a lovely child…” Yes! Fiddler on the Roof’s back on Broadway! On Vox Tablet, Fiddler aficionado Alisa Solomon gives us the low-down on the show that transformed American musical theater.

• As the Eurythmics themselves once sang: Don’t Mess With a Missionary Man. In this episode of Israel Story, we meet three Israelis who aren’t religious, but have pursued unusual hobbies—collecting autographs of female Knesset members, tackling crow over-population, and whistling—with missionary zeal.

Unorthodox kicks it with memoirist Shulem Deen, who had to leave his family behind when he left the world of ultra-Orthodoxy, and with Wall Street Journal sportswriter and funnyman Jason Gay.

• After learning that her grandmother was not the love of her grandfather’s life, Sarah Wildman became obsessed with what happened to the young woman who was. It’s a war-time thriller and Wildman is a passionate, animated narrator who endows timelessness to a true story of lost love and life.

Want even more listening material? You got it. Visit our Vox Tablet, Israel Story, and Unorthodox feeds to hear more.

Sara Ivry is the host of Vox Tablet, Tablet Magazine’s weekly podcast. Follow her on Twitter@saraivry.