Episode Details

A Rebbe’s Life of Constant Reinvention - Rabbi Pini Dunner -Public Research with Daniel Schwartz — Episode 59

In this episode of Public Research, Rabbi Pini Dunner joins Daniel Schwartz to discuss Paradise Cove: They Escaped the Cuckoo’s Nest, a remarkable historical investigation into one of the most improbable Jewish lives of the 20th century.The conversation centers on the extraordinary story of the Yablonna Rebbe, a Polish Hasidic leader who helped lead hundreds of Jews out of Europe before the Second World War, only to find himself unexpectedly stranded in America after 1938. There, he reinvented himself repeatedly—first as a secular Californian builder, later as a psychology academic working with former mental patients and as the oldest college student in the state of California.Drawing on newly uncovered letters, archival material, and personal correspondence, Rabbi Dunner explains how this hidden life was reconstructed decades later,This episode explores escape, exile, and the uneasy freedom of starting over—told through one man’s astonishing life.Rabbi Pini Dunner is the rabbi of the Beverly Hills Synagogue in Los Angeles and the author of "Paradise Cove: They Escaped the Cuckoo’s Nest", as well as "Mavericks, Mystics & False Messiahs", his acclaimed study of radical figures and movements in modern Jewish history.You can buy "Paradise Cove" here:https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Cove-They-Escaped-Cuckoos/dp/196848552X #JewishHistory #BookDiscussion