Stephanie Butnick, THE NEWISH JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

[1:06]Zibby Owens: But at that time, was like going to the guy at Joe and the Juice behind the counter asking him to vote for me and anyone I could. So now I'm coming to all of you to ask you to please vote for moms don't have time to read books to win the People's Choice Webby Award for Best Live Podcast. If you go to vote.webbyawards.com, again, that's vote.webbywebbyawards.com. And then go to the little magnifying glass search thing on the upper right. All you have to type in is search my name or entry and just type in moms and it will come up. And then you can click on the best live podcast recording nominee and vote for me. Also, by the way, I won honoree for best influencer, which is crazy. Anyway, thank you for voting. I really, really would appreciate it. I would love to win the People's Voice Award, especially after trying so hard and failing two years ago. So if you could just take a few minutes and vote, I would be so grateful. You could email me after if you want at infosibbyowens dot com. And I will say thank you to you via email myself because I'm so grateful. So email me if you've done it, post about it. I'm just I would be so grateful. Thank you. Hi, this is Zoe Owens and you're listening to the award winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a New Publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. I loved talking to Stephanie Butnik, who is the author of the Newish Jewish Encyclopedia from Abraham to Zabars and everything in between. Stephanie is a deputy editor at Tablet magazine and a host of the Unorthodox podcast, which she had me on before I launched my book, Moms Don't Have Time To. And I had the best time talking to her and was so excited to have her back on my podcast. She and her podcast co hosts wrote The Newest Jewish Encyclopedia. And she also helped edit Tablet's first book, The 100 Most Jewish Foods, a highly debatable list. Welcome, Stephanie. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Now Time to Read Books to discuss the Newish Jewish Encyclopedia

[3:40]Stephanie Butnick: from Abraham to Zabar's and everything in between. Thank you so much, Zabby. It's weird for you to be interviewing me now. Like, I'm a little stressed. I don't know what the questions are. I don't have notes in front of me. Like, it's weird for me to be on this side of things. I'm sorry. You don't need any notes. I know. I've loved being on Unorthodox,

[3:57]Zibby Owens: the tablet podcast. And you, of course, are like miss tablet, miss tablet everything and now part of this book. And I'm just so impressed with all the things you're doing. So actually, why don't we start there before we talk about this particular book? Tell me about your whole journey with tablet and how you've been in it since the beginning. And in the introduction, it says you're basically running the show of the whole company. So

[4:19]Stephanie Butnick: let's let's hear a little bit more about that. Well, my boss and tablet's founder, Alana Newhouse, wrote that introduction. So she's a very, very wonderful mentor to me. I think she's exaggerating a little bit, but I'll take it. So I've been in tablet now for ten years, which in media time is like centuries. But I really, really love it. It's it's a wonderful place. It started about two years before I got there, and it's just an online Jewish publication that is thought provoking and smart, and there's, you know, there's stuff about arts and culture and lifestyle, and there's essays, and there's, you know, of course, stuff about Israel and The Middle East, and there's news, but but it has sort of everything. And and, you know, we've shown this amazing readership who really, really care about Jewish things. And so about five years ago, we decided to start this podcast called unorthodox. And the idea was it would be sort of like, you know, these these conversations we're having in our office, maybe other Jewish people or non Jewish people were interested in the same things, were sort of talking about the same things as they come up. And so two of my colleagues, Mark Oppenheimer and Leah Leibowitz, started this podcast called unorthodox. You were on the show. I got to interview my you myself, which we're doing more and more these days because everything is over Zoom. But and we interrupt each other too much for, like, three people to interview one person on a Zoom. It's crazy. It's chaos for a Jewish podcast in the pandemic. But, you know, we started this podcast because we just sort of thought maybe people wanna hear these Jewish conversations. And I'm still surprised because it it just blew up beyond our wildest expectations. And we have all these people who say, you know, I don't do anything Jewish. I just listen to your podcast once a week. Or, like, I don't live near my family. I don't live near a synagogue. I would never go to a synagogue, but I do this one thing each week. And it's been really, really inspiring. And so that sort of leads us to the book, which I'm so excited to talk about. But people sort of had a lot of questions. And, you know, you don't wanna, like, Google Jewish stuff. Like, you don't you're not gonna get good answers. You're gonna go to weird places. Like, you don't there's not that many authorities on things. And so what we were finding was that we had these amazing listeners who would reach out to us and be like, what do I do for Shabbat? Like, how do I have a Shabbat dinner? What do I need? Do I need anything special? And we're like, not really. I mean, maybe candlesticks and a challah, but we were having people sort of ask us questions or, you know, I'm I'm dating someone Jewish. I'm going to my first brisk. What happens there? What do I do? What do I say? What do I bring? And so we sort of were finding that people had all these somewhat basic, but also somewhat existential Jewish questions, and they didn't know where to go for them. And we were always tickled that they were coming to a Jewish podcast because we're not experts. We're journalists. We have, you know, different guests on the show, but but we realized we sort of wanted to give these people what they wanted, which is sort of like a more foundational undergirding in, like, all things Jewish.

[6:46]Zibby Owens: Amazing. Well, it was funny because I was reading it sort of, like, from start to finish. And I was like, well, it's you know, my husband was asking me what it was about. And I'm like, well, it's like an encyclopedia, but it's really funny. And he's like, well, what do you mean it's funny? And I was like, it's just funny. It's like so it's it's great. There's like so much character in everything. And as you were saying, by the way, about interrupting, you had this whole section in here on Deborah Tannen's quotes about how and she was actually on this podcast too, about how even in her book from 1990, she was talking about how Jewish people tend to interrupt. And of course, it's not just Jewish people interrupting, but this is such a part of it. And I suddenly felt like so validated because, like, that's the thing I try so hard to work on. I'm constantly interrupting people. So I especially on the show, I had to always be like, don't interrupt. Like, wait for people to finish. You know? But, you know, and I I stopped myself from interrupting you. I think it's a sign of excitement and engagement, and she calls it, like, cooperative overlapping. Yeah. And I think it's it's almost the biggest sign of respect you can do to interrupt someone being like, yes. Yes. Yes. That's exactly right. You know? And so it's funny, but the thing we hear from people is like, I like listening to your show because I feel I call it the.

[7:50]Stephanie Butnick: Like, I feel like I'm listening to a Jewish conversation, like, at a Shabbat table, people interrupting and loud and boisterous. My husband listens to all podcasts on, like, 1.5 or two two x speed. And he's like, I cannot listen to you. I mean, he barely listens to us anymore after the pandemic because we've spent every day together for a year. But now he's like, he's just like, I can't listen to your podcast on I have to listen to it on one, like, one x because you guys talk too fast. You talk very quickly, I have to say. I mean, I love it. I love it. That's like a pet peeve when someone speaks so slowly. I'm like, come on. Come on. Come on. But you you do definitely have a quick voice, but I love it. Well, I have two co I have two chatty cohosts that I need to, like, get a word at Edgewise. I talk so fast now. But, you know, it's it's funny. We we hear from a lot of people whose conversion rabbis, whose rabbis who are helping them through the conversion process or who are leading their, you know, Judaism one zero one, like, getting the foundational before they start a conversion. Wherever they are in their journey, people say, you know, listen to this show because you'll sort of hear a Jewish conversation. And that to me was just like this amazing validation because I love that idea that, like, you can live wherever, but just, like, tune in each week and hear these just

[8:54]Zibby Owens: kind of crazy people talk. I mean, it's us. We're we're crazy. I'm talking so fast. You're right. It's just half an hour. No. I'm no. I love it. I'm not it's not a criticism by any stretch. No. The podcast is amazing. As I told you when I was on unorthodox, I had people, like, coming out of the woodwork from all different parts of my life, this ex boyfriend who hadn't reached out in forever and, like, oh my gosh. It was amazing. So your listenership, as you well know, is far and wide. And, yes, the sense of Jewish geography, I think, makes it Strong. Smaller. And as you say in here, there's sort of, like, seven degrees of separation or whatever, how basically, like, every Ashkenazi Jew is related. If you're eleventh cousins or third cousins,

[9:30]Stephanie Butnick: that everybody sort of came from the same little towns, and that we're all essentially related in some way, shape, or form. I love that. I mean, we talk a lot in a tablet of the show, like, what do are Jews what? Are we a religion? Are we a tribe? Like, whatever. Are we a people? But I I've heard this from someone a family, this idea of we're a family. And I love that because, like, families fight, and they get mad at each other, and they yell, and they interrupt. But they're they're sort of all connected. And so to me, like, the fact that we are probably like, you and I, we could put our things in the genealogical thing. We're probably not that far away is the crazy like, it it really validates that that idea. But, you know, it's funny for me. Like, I'm not a religious person. I'm a journalist. I need really say that. Sorry. I think I interrupted you. There we go. I love it. I love it. I think it's important to say because, you know, I got to tablet. I studied religion in college. I did a graduate program in religious studies and journalism. I really know, I want to be a religion reporter, and I sort of got at it sideways by serving a Jewish community and a Jewish audience. I mean, we have a lot of non Jewish readers and listeners, a tablet and unorthodox. But so for me, I I sort of see myself as does this does this make sense to me? You know, like, do we how do we say something that makes sense to someone who doesn't have the fluency, didn't go to a Jewish day school or a yeshiva? Like, how do we make this this accessible to people? And that's what we really tried to do in this book. You know, one of my favorite things we do is we have two entries. One is for Aliyah and the other but both for Aliyah. And one is for, you know, you you get an Aliyah at at synagogue. You get called up to the Bema during a bar mitzvah. The grandparents go, the parents, the aunts and uncles. It's like a whole, probably, drama behind the scenes of deciding the order. But then there's this idea of making Aliyah, which is to move to Israel. And those words are pronounced differently. And for me, it was so important in this book to say, this is how you pronounce this one, and this is how you pronounce this one. And you don't have to get like, you don't have to feel uncomfortable that you might actually say the word wrong. And I always feel like, you know, people go to synagogue for the first time. Or also, how about the fact that, like, temple, synagogue, and shul are three words for the same thing? Temple is more traditionally reformed if you're a reformed Judaism. Like, you've a reformed Jewish temple, conservative synagogue, orthodox shul. And those words are kind of interchangeable, but they're kind of not. And I think that there's sort of a a really fun blueprint we could we could provide for people. And again, like, fun is the key here. Like, if this book was know the new Jewish encyclopedia so we're the newest Jewish encyclopedia. But the new Jewish encyclopedia is like a 24 volume leather bound book that we have in our tablet offices because someone had it in their mother's storage unit, she was cleaning it out and didn't want it anymore. I got it in an Uber and picked it up. And I was like, who's using this? This is not accessible at all. And so for me, the point is, like, the cover's bright. It's golden. It has sort of, like, funky lettering. I love it. I love To me, it's like, this needs to be fun. I mean, that's the the the key to the podcast. It's like, we trick you. Right? We're having a fun conversation. And actually, wait. I've just spent forty minutes listening to, like, a Jewish conversation, and I think that that's what we're trying to do with this book. It's like, you you could be proud of being Jewish. You can have fun with it. You can do what you could dip in one page at a time. You could go from start to finish. I mean, to me, it's so important to what I do to show people that this isn't just, like, sad history and bad things happening to Jews, even though there's a ton of that. And it's in this book, but, like, there's so much more fun that I feel like we don't have permission to enjoy. And so that's the goal of the book. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[15:32]Zibby Owens: It's like the Jewish sense of humor and the smart, witty friend who, like, would be at your table. That's this book. And it's such a great resource. I mean, first of all, everybody who's Jewish should own this book, a. And b, you're welcome. This is also something that, like, every bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah gift should include. Like, this is just such a natural thing. Like, what should I get? Should I get her a silver bracelet? Do I have to give her money? Whatever. Anyway, this book, like, perfect gift. So that's just, like, should be on everyone's list. But there were so many funny things. And I know I keep saying funny. It's also, like, really relevant and and some of it is very poignant and everything. But, like, even, like, look at how you did these monopoly cards for all the different banks in the whole, like, Jews finance section. And each one, like, Lehman Brothers that looks like, you know, Park Place and Bear Stearns and, you know, Ben Bernick Bernarki and Goldman Sachs and Lloyd Blankfein. I mean, it's hilarious just the way you formatted everything. And then, of course, like, ode to Nora Ephron, who's, like, my favorite author Of course. Creator ever, ever, ever, and all the different people that you point out who are Jewish and even, like, Carrie Fisher, who's, like, half Jewish. And Take her. What's that? We'll take her. You'll take her. I know. It's just so funny. All of it. The Munich Olympics and the MAGABA games. I mean, it's everything that you need. I'm trying to think what else. Oh, this is also so relevant, this Passover section. So I'm definitely like, you know, Passover as we're recording this is coming up this weekend and will extend obviously for forever. Forever.

[17:01]Stephanie Butnick: My annual, like, carb free, you know, reset where I'm like, okay. God has put me on a diet. I got it. I got the message loud and clear. But just every you know, it's Gwyneth Paltrow, so funny. So I noticed in the back you had thousand collaborators on this, including by the way, Sarah Arreste who Yes. I went to college with at back in the day who's like amazing. Yeah. She was like really good friends with a good friend of mine who I ended up dreaming about last night probably because of this. Anyway, how did you put this whole thing together with these, what, twenty, thirty contributors and and make it into this book? It was a nearly impossible task. We worked with this amazing publisher, Artisan Books, and they do they do beautiful books. A lot they do a lot of incredible cookbooks that you everyone listening probably has on their shelves. And so it was really important to us to say, like, this is gonna be a beautiful book. We're gonna have it's it's gonna look primarily like an encyclopedia. Right? That's what the pages look like. But then we're gonna have sort of these, like, breakout things about Jews in Hollywood, Jews in banking, Jews in the garment industry, you know, Hollywood. Like, just have sort of fun Jews in feminism, Jews in the sixties, have these sort of, like, breakout essays that really do break up the book. And so what we did was sort of go through our Rolodex. Right? Who have we had on the show that's been really interesting? We had Sarah Arawestegon sing in Ladino for us, which is a Sephardic Jewish language that I didn't know I didn't really know about. And so as, you know, as an Ashkenazi Jew whose family is from Eastern Europe, I mean, she came on and sang sang to us. And so we were like, you know, we need to include Ladino. We have this page that's sort of it's called How to Curse in Jewish. And so we have we have Ladino. We have Esperanto. We have Hebrew. We have Yiddish. You know, we have and so it was important to us to show the range of the Jewish geographical historical experience. So then we said, you know, who's our favorite food writer? And so we brought on this amazing woman, Gabriela Gershenson. And we said, who are the six food figures that belong in this book? We took we went to one of our great friends who is a sports writer and said, who are the like, you you okay. You're gonna do the Jews in Sports page, and you put you make your hall of fame. And we went to Jordan Hoffman, who's a great movie, right, film critic, and film reviewer. And we said, okay. You're you're on Jews in Hollywood. Like, that's that's you. Give us and then give us, like, the the the the breakdown of the five different types of Holocaust movies. Like, just you go with that. And so, of course, everything gets edited, and we wrote a bunch of it. But we really said, we wanted sort of we sort of outsourced to experts in our in our world, and we found that, mean, people those people we knew, people we didn't know. I had this great professor in South Right, the essay on Jews and the garment industry, because he had written a great book about it. And so I was like, you just summarize this for us. Right? Like, you you know. You are the expert. I'm never gonna pretend to be the expert on all this stuff. And so we put it together, and it's sort of this, I wanna say a mishmash, one of the debates on our shows, if it if it's pronounced mishmash or mishmash. Yes. People get very heated about it. But so, you know, what it ended up with because the book is alphabetical. So my favorite page, I will tell you, is page one forty nine, which starts with Billy Joel Go in there. And goes One forty nine. One forty nine. So Billy Joel, like, I guess I kind of knew he was Jewish, but then he, like, wore a yellow star on stage after Charlottesville, like Madison Square Garden. And you're like, well, that's a big Jewish act. Then we have Scarlett Johansson, who's a Jewish actress. Then we have Al Jolson and Jonah, like, you know, like the guy that was in the whale, and then Joseph. And so it's like, you're gonna go on any page from, like, the biblical to the pop culture, to the serious, to the hit, to the funny, to the sad. I mean, we wanted to get that mix of, like, just what happens when you put all the k's together. Like, what words are gonna end up I think Kristallnacht is on the same page as Krusty the clown. And so you're just sort of like, that is the Jewish experience. It's textured. It's rich. It's weird. There's things next to each other that doesn't you know, don't necessarily make sense, but but it's all there on the same page. And I feel like that's what we're trying to do is sort of say, like, we're all on the same page My even if we disagree. My favorite

[20:44]Zibby Owens: sequence of terms here is on page two sixty where you start with swastika. Next to sweater, did you bring one? Next to sweet and low, which by the way, I didn't even know that story. I'm just gonna read that in a second, by the And then synagogue, which of course goes back to your earlier conversation. So here's what you wrote about Sweet and Lo, by the way. While running a cafeteria in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Benjamin Eisenstadt invented the sugar packet but neglected to patent it. Then in 1957, together with his son Marvin, he invented the pink packaged artificial sweetener that we still love and use today. Who knew?

[21:16]Stephanie Butnick: The crazy thing is so the author Rich Cohen, like, this is his family. And so he has, like, this whole thing about his families, and there's, like, a big drama. I mean, it's crazy. So it's really fun, the stories you you can uncover. And I don't know. I mean, to me, it was such a fun experience. I mean, it was chaos to put this together. I had it was me and Mark and Lial, our three the three cohosts were the three co authors, co editors, and we obviously wrangled a bunch of amazing collaborators. And then, you know, at a certain point, we had to turn it into the publisher. And the book isn't it's it's it's a coffee table sized book, but it's not enormous. Right? It's not an encyclopedic volume. It's we sort of had to put a deadline on it, and we could have gone forever and ever and just kept adding things. We'll do reprints. We'll do reissues and stuff like that because things do change. But, you know, it's funny the conversations we had. Like, I fought to get, like, marvelous missus Maisel in there, which my cohost said, are people gonna care about that in five years? Yes. I don't yes. I I don't know for sure, but it's so important right now. This is such an amazing, fun depiction of Jewish life on screen right now and one of the most popular shows. And so we sort of had these funny debates of, like, who gets into this canon? The peep like, of course, Joan Rivers is going in there, but, you know, what about Abby and Alana from Broad City? I mean, they're sort of a really fun it it mirrored the conversations I think a lot of us are having about, like, what will stand the test of time. So it was a crazy project, but it was so, so fun. And you even had the section on people who you think are Jewish but are not Jewish.

[22:35]Zibby Owens: Yep. That was Like Alan Alda. Yeah. Who I mean, I was I would have said for sure. And Jason Biggs, he's really not Jewish? I was like, I have to Google this. This can't be right. He's not Jewish. His wife is Jewish, which is amazing. You're just like, everyone must think he's Jewish. Yeah. You never I mean, I just I don't I'm okay. Alright. I'll let it go. Sometimes though, I feel like you don't necessarily believe people's like roots sometimes get mixed up in the things and you never know. And anyway, well, it's amazing that you guys had fun while you were doing it because you can tell there's so much spirit and, I you knew when I said earlier, was like, I had a feeling you were going to talk about how religious you are because I feel like every Jewish person always says, well, I'm not that religious, but or like, you know, I'm not that religious or not everybody. I mean, a lot of Jewish people are very religious, but No. Most people do say. I know because it's like a throat clearing thing to be like, I'm not weird, don't worry. Right. Or like, I love my kids, but I'm going to complain about them. Like, of course we know you love your kids. Most people, being Jewish, which you talk about in different ways, shapes, and forms in the book, is not about how often you go to temple and how much you observe it because it's just part of who you are. It's like a cultural it's so much more a cultural thing for so many people, and that's why a cultural reference guide like this is so apt.

[23:47]Stephanie Butnick: I mean, the thing is we really do wanna give you the information. Like, when you mentioned the Passover page, we have these, like, patent pending religiometers at the top of the page. And Passover is, like, a five all the way at the end of the you know, tipping the scales. Hanukkah is, a one or a two. And what we're trying to say is, like, we're gonna show you what these holidays are about. I think everything every holiday says, like, any bad guys? What do we eat? And we're gonna explain the holidays to you. And we are really serious about Jewish history. You're gonna get a lot of history. You're gonna get a lot of of of religion in from this book. But, yeah, I mean, we're we skew culture. I mean, the thing is, I guess I did do that as as a way of, like, telling your listeners, like, this is fun. I'm not trying to make you religious. And it's totally it's totally a tick, and it's like a defensive thing. But I think I don't know. I mean, I think what I'm trying to telegraph is that it's okay wherever you fall on the spectrum. You know, we we obviously, as I said, we hear from people who don't do Jewish things but love the show. We also hear from Orthodox Jews who say, you know, I listen to your show to get a more diverse perspective of Jewish voices than I get in my shul. You know? Like, we actually have people and that's why, to me, it was important to put Scarlett Johansson on the same page as Joseph and Jonah. Because if you're religious and you look at this book, you're like, of course, Joseph's here. Of course, Jonah is here. We all know the whale and technicolor dreamcoat. Why Scarlett Johansson here? So the idea is that on any page, you're gonna get a diversity of viewpoints, and something is gonna surprise you. Something's gonna make you wonder why it's in here. Something might make you mad. I mean, that's the whole point of this. Right? It's sort of an invitation to a million conversations. And the the fun thing is when people write in and say, is why didn't you put this in the book? And we're like, oh my god. Great idea. We we had to stop at some point. You know? So so what are we gonna you know? So yeah. I mean, I think it's all about that conversation, but I hear you. I I think that's that's totally true. People say that all the time. Like, it's fine. Don't worry. I'm not gonna, like, try to make you be more religious or anything like that. But

[25:38]Zibby Owens: So I'm not. Stephanie, tell me a little more about you as you, not just you as host and you as writer and you as, you know, religious studies expert and journalist and all of that. Like, what do you do on the weekends? Like, what do you what's your what are some of your favorite things to do that aren't work?

[25:56]Stephanie Butnick: That's a funny question. Do you I forgot that there are things that you can do. Like, it's funny. You know, even I feel like you must feel the same way. You're like, wait. Who am I when I'm not hosting a podcast? What do I talk about in real life? How do I have a conversation with someone without, like, peppering them with questions as though I'm interviewing them? In real life, I don't know. What do what do I do? I I don't do Jewish things, which is very funny. You know? Like, I don't really observe Shabbat. Like, I think that would be a nice idea, but I'm just like, I'm done at the end of the week. You know, when you work at a Jewish magazine, by the time the holidays roll around, you're like, I've been thinking about Passover for six weeks at least trying to get our coverage ready. Like, I'm not supposed to do this now. So what do I do in my real life? I have a wonderful husband. He's a sports reporter, and so there's sports going on in our house a lot, sports on the TV. We have a crazy cat. I I love I love reading. I love writing. It's it's you know, it's you know, when you read a lot for a for work, for a show, it's hard to find things it's important, I think, to find things that are, like, so unrelated. But that's what I struggle with, like, reading for fun. And that's why I love your show so much because it's, like, just a nice little window into all these books that I might not have heard about otherwise. So what are you what are you reading now? What am I reading now? Well, there's a book it's a Jewish book, but it's this amazing memoir by this guy, Menachem Keyser. It's called Plunder. And it's basically how he goes I'm I'm doing an event with him, and so this is a work related thing technically, but it was such a good book. It's it's he basically picks up his grandfather's property restitution claim. His grandfather passed away before he was born, and he goes back to Poland and tries to figure out, like, what where this building was that his family owned. Did they live there? Who lives there now? I mean, it's all about that. And then there's, like, this whole other interweaving story about these people who basically look for, like, Nazi looted treasure, and there's supposedly, like, all these tunnels underneath Poland with, like, a a train made of gold. And so, like but the stories weave together in a really seamless way. And so I just found myself being really captivated by it. And he goes out of his way to say, like, this isn't your typical book by a grandson of Holocaust survivors. I mean, to me, it was just a fascinating look at modern Poland,

[27:59]Zibby Owens: just sent no. Like, intergenerational trauma. Yeah. That's a that's a book that I've been really, really excited about. Have you read Julie Metz's new book? It's called Eva and Eve or Eve and Eva. It's so good. And it's about her mom grew up in Vienna, and it does this this amazing, like, pre holocaust depiction of Vienna and what it's like to be a girl there and also a businessman there because her grandfather was like a huge businessman. They eventually get out, but you see them through the war and then it comes back to like modern day and her interactions with her daughter and going back to Vienna. It's really good. Like you said, like it's not a typical memoir about like a, you know, a grandson. I feel that way about this book. I felt like it was something really new, a new way to do it and just so visual. It felt like a movie to me. So, anyway, put that on your list. I love that. More Jewish books. Add them to my list. I know. Sorry. Beauty Battalion's new book. Have you Yes. Okay. And what a great spread she got. Know. I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my gosh. Amazing. So great. Well, what advice would you have for aspiring authors, not just for this, but for the magazine and everything that you're doing that's also literary and Jewish and just amazing.

[29:06]Stephanie Butnick: So let's say there's someone out there. How would you inspire them? What could you say? What advice would you give? You know, the thing I I always say, because I do every time a young journalist emails me and says, like, I'm interested in this or I'm a college senior, I'm I'm like I mean, in the olden days, would get coffee with them. I wouldn't I never say I never say no to that. I probably shouldn't be saying this on your show, but to me, it is so important to to sort of so many people did that for me when I was coming up, and it's I will give you all my time, basically, to people who who are interested. Obviously, that's something that you are quite familiar with as sort of the the trailblazer in that in that in that world. But, you know, what I say now is, you know, when I was in college, you had to I mean, this wasn't that long ago, but you had to write for the student newspaper if you wanted to get clips. Now you do not I mean, you could do that still, but there are so many ways. I said I tell people, I'm like, just write. Write anywhere. It doesn't matter. Send me your Medium clips. Send me anything you've written because you can just write wherever now. You don't have to wait to get in. The gatekeepers don't exist in the same way anymore. And so you don't need to, like, wait for that New York Times clip to reach out to someone else. You sort of sort of start with the self published clip that you send to someone that gets you somewhere, then you get to the next place. And so to me, there's just such a wide open field of opportunity for people now. And that's exciting. I mean, I felt like I missed beat on my freshman year of college to get on the newspaper, and then by sophomore year, it's too late. And then I was graduating, and all a sudden, was like, want to be a journalist. What do I do? And so I think now it's so easy to do that. And so I mean, so many of the the people that I like and the people that I read, I mean, it's like, you just start publishing yourself, and then you you go from there. So to me, I'm that's a very optimistic view of all of this. I also caution people who wanna get into journalism right now that it's really dicey. It's really hard. It's hard to get a full time journalism job. I feel really lucky to have one and have had one for so long. I mean, I just sort of tell people, like, you know, think about if you're comfortable freelancing. Think about if you wanna get a real job, and then do this on the side. Think about what that actually will mean. Do Do you want to be on your computer at night after you've just done a full day's work? I mean, it's really it's really hard. And I don't know. I'm just trying to encourage people to find their their little points of access. I mean, I'm very specific. I mean, I basically made myself, like, completely unmarketable by the time I graduated college and grad school being like, I write about journalism, and I I do journalism about religious studies. Well, you have been perfect. But I found a place. So, I mean, I think that to me, people who have really specific sets of interests are really interesting, and they are experts in them. Right? Because they know more than anyone else in that newsroom about that thing. So to me, I'm always sort of telling people to, like, find their their niche and and and just really double down on it. Amazing. Last question. What's next for you? Any new projects aside from this and everything you're already doing that we should be aware of? So something in tablet we're focusing on, which I'm heading up, is more podcasts because we love the fact that there are so many people who wanna listen to good Jewish podcasts. So you are on our our newest show, Anxiously, which is a really fun look at you know, a weekly look at our two amazing hosts' anxieties from the trivial to the existential. You were helping them talk about time management. By the way, your tips were so helpful. I actually been thinking about them a lot lately. So Thank you. I like knowing that you record your intros all at once Yes. On Tuesday mornings. Yes. I love that idea. Go for it. But so we're we're we have a bunch of new podcasts coming. We're working on a show about Jews and sports. We're working on a narrative nonfiction, like big heavy hitting podcast. We have so much stuff coming from we're calling it tablet studios. So we have a lot coming from tablet studios, tablet more broadly, unorthodox,

[32:33]Zibby Owens: everything. Love it. Oh my gosh. Amazing. Stephanie, thank you so much. This was so much fun. I could talk to you all day. And Yes.

[32:40]Stephanie Butnick: Thank you. Stephanie, thank you. It is an honor to be part of this pantheon of guests that you've you've assembled. It's really exciting. Alright. Well, have a great Passover. Thanks. You too. Enjoy that matzah. Okay. Bye. Bye.

[32:54]Zibby Owens: Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram

[33:05]Zibby Owens: and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.