Podcast: Annika Hernroth-Rothstein On Her Travels to the Most Far-Flung Jewish Communities

This Week’s Guest: Annika Hernroth-Rothstein

Since the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans until now, a span of over two millennia, most Jews have lived in the diaspora. While frequently far from easy, diaspora life, with its endurance and with the way far-flung communities have remained connected to the Jewish people as a whole, constitutes something of a miracle.

In researching her forthcoming book Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora, the Swedish-born journalist Annika Hernroth-Rothstein visited a dozen small surviving diaspora communities, roaming from Iran to Tunisia, Uzbekistan to Siberia, Cuba to Venezuela. In this podcast, Ms. Hernroth-Rothstein joins Jonathan Silver for a conversation about her journeys around the world. You’ll hear what it was like to pray in a synagogue with Tehran’s remaining Jewish community, what she learned speaking with pious Jews in Djerba, Tunisia, and how, while fleeing a warrant for her arrest in Venezuela, she was reminded that, wherever Jews find themselves in the world, they are family.