Judaism Unbound Episode 403: Hey Alma – Molly Tolksy
Molly Tolsky is the founding editor of Hey Alma, and the editor of Kveller. She joins Dan Libenson and Lex Rofeberg for a conversation about digital Judaism, pop culture as Torah, and finding humor in dark spaces.
Registration for the UnYeshiva’s new fall mini-courses is now open! We’ve got witches, demons, angry mystical gods, magic, feminist comedy, and more. Visit JudaismUnbound.com/classes for more information and to register!
[1] Read Molly Tolsky’s full biography here, and don’t forget to check out the platforms she works with, Hey Alma and Kveller. And follow @hey.alma on Instagram to fill your feed with diverse Jewish voices, as well as top-tier Jewish pop culture and meme content.
[2] This episode is the first in a new series on digital Judaism. To listen to some of our earlier conversations exploring this topic, check out our playlist, What Is Digital Judaism?.
[3] Lex states that the median American age is 38. He got that from the census.
[4] Lex shouts out this 2017 Jewish Currents article, “A Taxonomy of Stupid Shit the Jewish Establishment Says to Millenials.”
You can also listen to our episode with one of its co-authors, David Wilensky, here: Conversion to Judaism – But… You’re Already Jewish: Episode 388 – David A.M. Wilensky (the other co-author is Gabriel Erbs).
[5] Dan mentions he and Lex’s conversations with Moishe House’s David Cygielman in the early days of Judaism Unbound. Get a glimpse into one of those chats via Episode 19: Moishe House – David Cygielman.
[6] Tolsky talks about Hey Alma’s writing fellowship for college students. Meet the current cohort of Writing Fellows here, and read some of last year’s Fellows work here.
[7] Lex cites this article, ‘Yentl’ Made Me Want to Be a Jew, when talking about the value of pop culture, and its potential to become Torah: sacred, self-shaping material.
[8] Tolsky alludes to the fact that there are multiple Hey Alma pieces by people who changed their names in relation to their Jewish identity, such as Changing My Name Brought Me Closer to My Biblical Ancestors and Why I Chose to Start Going By My Hebrew Name. There are tons of these articles – check ‘em out!
