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Introduction: Jewish History Matters

ABSTRACT:Since the early 2000s, podcasts have grown into an important global broadcast medium with wide application in a variety of fields. This article introduces the Jewish History Matters podcast and situates it in within this broader history of podcasting and the role of aural culture in academia and Jewish studies. It details the origins and aspirations of the project and the possibility of podcasting as a means of scholarly communication, service, and reaching a broader public. Alongside this general introduction to the podcast, the article presents an edited transcript of a conversation on the podcast between Jeffrey Blutinger, Mirjam Thulin, and Jason Lustig reflecting on two centuries of modern Jewish studies, from the emergence of Wissenschaft des Judentums in 1818 to the present. We discuss why studying Jewish history mattered to nineteenth-century scholars of Jewish studies, why it is still significant in the present moment, how the field of Jewish studies has changed over the generations, and why this history of history matters in terms of understanding the modern Jewish experience and the past, present, and future of Jewish studies.