Podcast
The Jewish futurism Lab
The Jewish futurism Lab: Torah, Tech, Tomorrow is a creative audio laboratory where Jewish tradition meets design, technology, and speculative imagination. Host Mike Wirth explores Torah, myth, ritual, art history, and emerging tools like AI to prototype Jewish futures rooted in ethics, dignity, and meaning. New episodes blend story, studio practice, and future-thinking, with companion visuals and essays at mikewirthart.com.
- Episodes
- 32
- Releases
- Weekly
- Typical length
- 1 hr 18 min
- On air since
- 2026
- Latest episode
- 4 days ago
Episodes
32 episodes, from the first
Season 1
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37 min
Speed Kills : Why Every futurist must confront the past
Episode 8
Show notes
In this episode, we confront the rise and collapse of Italian Futurism, the avant garde movement that worshiped speed, technology, youth, and rupture at any cost. What began as radical artistic rebellion under Filippo Tommaso Marinetti quickly blurred in
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26 min
From Cult to Code: Tracing the History of the Aura in Art
Episode 9
Show notes
Walter Benjamin, AI, & the Aura of Art: In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, host Mike Wirth unpacks Walter Benjamin’s “aura” of art and asks what presence means when every image can be copied, remixed, and generated on demand. Moving from Byz
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30 min
From Utopia to Conspiracy: The Secret Battle Over Jewish Futures
Episode 10
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, Jewish futurist and we’ll explore early Jewish futurism, Zionist art, and media history through Theodor Herzl’s Altneuland, Ephraim Moses Lilien’s Zionist Art Nouveau, and Boris Schatz’s Bezalel School in
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29 min
Episode 11: Jews, AI, and the Real Meaning of “Creative”
Episode 11
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, Mike Wirth uses the 4C model of creativity to map out what we really mean by “creative” in an age of AI art and endless images. He traces his own journey from parametric code experiments to Jewish futurist mura
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43 min
Episode 12: Professors, Dads, and the Jewish future with Shai Davidai
Episode 12
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish Futurism Lab, Mike Wirth sits down with Shai Davidai, the Israeli‑born social psychologist and former Columbia Business School professor who became a prominent voice for Jewish students after October 7. Together they trace S
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27 min
Episode 13: How a Jewish Immigrant Named Hugo Created Sci-Fi
Episode 13
Show notes
Before science fiction was a genre, Hugo Gernsback was already building the infrastructure for it: radio magazines, hobbyist communities, wild speculative stories, and the first publication devoted entirely to imagining tomorrow. A Jewish immigrant from
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35 min
EP 14- Papayas on the Moon- My Chat with Alejandro Glatt
Episode 14
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, I sit down with Mexican artist and papaya visionary Alejandro Glatt, the first Mexican artist to send a papaya to the Moon as part of the Lunaprise art museum project connected to NASA’s Artemis missions. Recor
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1 hr 13 min
Episode 15- Hiddur Olam: The Creative Torah System for Jewish futurist Living
Episode 15
Show notes
In this episode, Mike unpacks Hiddur Olam, his creative Torah system and multi‑volume art book series that reimagines Genesis through Jewish futurism, design thinking, Mussar, and Kabbalah. Listeners will hear how weekly parsha study, visual storytelling
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1 hr 18 min
Episode 16: The Digital Worlds of Erez Cohen
Episode 16
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab: Torah, Tech, Tomorrow, host Mike Wirth sits down with his friend, Israeli digital artist and projection‑mapping creator Erez Cohen. Mike first encountered Erez’s work through a projection‑mapping piece cal
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1 hr 1 min
Episode 17- Recoding the Lehrhaus: Jewish Learning in the Future Tense
Episode 17
Show notes
This episode explores Franz Rosenzweig’s radical vision for Jewish education through the Frankfurt Lehrhaus (1920) and traces its influence into contemporary experiments in creative, future-oriented learning. Rosenzweig rejected passive transmission of k
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57 min
Episode 18 – Here I Am: The Hineni Project, Bar Shechter z”l, and Painting Through Grief
Episode 18
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, I share how the Hineni Project carried me from the shock of October 7 into a deeply personal relationship with one family in Israel: the family of Bar Shechter z”l, a young father and psy‑trance DJ murder
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1 hr 14 min
Episode 19 -Designing Shabbat: A UX Approach to Jewish Ritual Design
Episode 19
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, host Mike Wirth shares the story behind a UX‑driven case study in Jewish ritual. Mike talks about creating the High and Low Ritual at the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum’s Social Practice Institute, and h
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1 hr 43 min
Episode 20: Painting Herzl in the Age of AI with Avraham Vofsi
Episode 20
Show notes
Mike Wirth talks with Israeli realist painter Avraham “Avi” Vofsi about classical oil painting, Jewish identity, and his AI assisted Theodor Herzl project. They explore how to use new tools without losing the human aura, and what Jewish images might look
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1 hr 9 min
Episode 21: Psychology of the future with Shely Rachel Esses
Episode 21
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, host Mike Wirth sits down with therapist Shely Rachel Esses, LMFT, to explore the psychology of the future self and what it takes to imagine a life beyond survival mode. Shely brings together clinical psycholog
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1 hr 2 min
Episode 22: Future Judaism on Campus with Rabbi Daniel Levine
Episode 22
Show notes
In this episode, Rabbi Daniel Levine, Hillel rabbi, podcast host, and Jewish history professor at UC Irvine, joins us for a wide ranging conversation about the future of Jewish life on campus and beyond. We talk about how October 7 has reshaped the emoti
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48 min
Episode 23: Jewish futurist Learning Spaces with Rabbi Charlie Schwartz
Episode 23
Show notes
In this episode, we sit on the patio at Lehrhaus, a Jewish tavern and house of learning in Somerville, in front of a mural by Boston based Jewish artist Chloe Rubinstein, and explore the story behind this unusual space. Rabbi Charlie Schwartz shares his
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1 hr 19 min
Episode 24: Reclaiming the Future of Zionism with Eitan Chitayat
Episode 24
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, host Mike Wirth sits down with writer and creative director Eitan Chitayat, creator of the viral I’m That Jew project, to talk about his new campaign “Zionism Is”, created with former Knesset member and leading
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1 hr 13 min
Episode 25: The Future Is a Torah Story with Rabbi Danny Burkeman
Episode 26
Show notes
Mike Wirth sits down with Rabbi Danny Burkeman, Senior Rabbi at Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland, Massachusetts, and host of the award-winning podcast Two Minutes of Torah. Danny was raised in the British Reform movement, ordained in 2009, and has spent his
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1 hr 22 min
Episode 26: The Future Song of Cantors with Hollis Schachner
Episode 26
Show notes
In this episode of The Jewish futurism Lab, host Mike Wirth sits down with his cousin, Cantor Hollis Schachner, to explore her future vision of cantors, community, and creativity. Hollis is a longtime spiritual leader and artist at Temple Shir Tikva in W
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41 min
Episode 27: Filming our future with Noam Leibman
Episode 27
Show notes
In this episode of Jewish futurism lab, host Mike Wirth sits down with Jewish filmmaker Noam Leibman, founder of Kavana Films, to explore how the camera can become a kind of kavannah practice in Jewish life. They talk about Noam’s journey from Minnesota to Jerusalem, his work discovering and reconnecting Jewish communities in Africa, and […]
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