Unorthodox (Tablet Studios)

Tablet Magazine has been running Unorthodox since 2015, and it has become something like the flagship podcast of American Jewish culture. Hosted by Liel Leibovitz, Stephanie Butnick, and actor Joshua Malina, the show drops twice a week with episodes that typically run 25 to 50 minutes. The format bounces between freewheeling conversations about Jewish identity and sharply focused interviews with writers, musicians, politicians, and scholars. One week they might break down a controversy in the kosher food world; the next, they sit with a novelist whose latest book reimagines the shtetl. The chemistry between the three hosts is genuinely fun -- they disagree, they riff, they crack jokes that land about 80% of the time. With 568 episodes and a 4.6-star rating from nearly 1,500 reviews, Unorthodox has built an audience that keeps coming back because the show never talks down to its listeners. It treats Jewish life as complicated, funny, sometimes infuriating, and always worth paying attention to. The hosts bring real warmth to heavy topics and enough irreverence to keep things from getting preachy. If you want one podcast that captures what it means to be Jewish in America right now, this is probably the one to start with.