Judaism Unbound Episode 453: Sukkot 2024 - Joseph Altshuler, Ethan Blake

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Happy Sukkot! Chag Sameach! The 7-day-long festival of Sukkot is here, and Dan and Lex welcome Joseph Altshuler and Ethan Blake — both founders of local Sukkah festivals celebrating creative design and architecture — to explore what this festival can teach us.

[1] Explore our upcoming courses in the UnYeshiva: Judaism Unbound’s digital center for Jewish learning and unlearning! Head to JudaismUnbound.com/classes to learn more — options include:

• Gender in Judaism: Tradition and Transformation (Sarah Imhoff)

• The Rambam’s Theology: Which Laws are the “Foundations of Torah?” (Laynie Soloman)

• Jewish Communities in Africa, Asia, and the New World (Juan Mejia)

• Fierce Women of Torah: Girls in Trouble Unbound (Alicia Jo Rabins)

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[2] Learn more about Joseph Altshuler here, and learn more about the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival that he founded via ChicagoSukkahFestival.org. Learn more about Ethan Blake, and his 16 Cubits architectural design competition, via 16cubits.org.

[3] Lex references how much of the second half of the book of Exodus revolves around the architectural project of constructing the tabernacle. Explore those chapters by looking at Exodus chapters 25-31, and 35-40.

[4] Dan references the architect Maya Lin, whose submission to a national design competition went on to become Washington D.C’s Vietnam Veterans memorial. Learn more about Maya Lin here.

[5] For an article about Sukkah City — an initiative in New York City that Dan referenced early in this episode — see this 2013 article in The Atlantic.

[6] Take a look at the section of the Talmud exploring…whether it’s permissible for elephant to serve as the wall of a Sukkah (really!) via Sukkah 23a.

[7] Blake references writer and activist Jane Jacobs, and in particular her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Learn more about her work via this 2016 article in The Guardian, entitled “How Jane Jacobs changed the way we look at cities.”