Thank you for your time and for tuning in to our expository episode of the Playing Books podcast. In this new episode of the Playing Books Podcast, we sit down with Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin’s Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism (An Examination of Antisemitism), a book that doesn’t tiptoe around the hard questions. Instead, it walks straight into them with clarity, realism, and a kind of expository honesty that feels rare today.

You may have asked this question yourself: Why the Jews? Welcome to your long-awaited answers or attempts to ask further questions and clarify the mysteries surrounding this question. There are compelling data, research, and books that Why the Jews used to discuss this question. It is an interesting and enlightening episode, and the book should be unputdownable.

The conversation isn’t abstract or academic. It’s grounded, relatable, and deeply human. The episode explores why antisemitism has persisted across centuries and cultures, why it mutates but never disappears, and what this says about human nature, identity, envy, morality, and the stories societies tell themselves. Prager and Telushkin don’t just diagnose a problem; they illuminate patterns that help us understand our world with sharper eyes.

Learn the sequences that are consistent with oppressing the Jewish people. These sequences are close to those employed in hating and oppressing Christians, women, blacks, children, the elderly, albinos, and other marked minorities or isolated groups.

Wherever you are with Jewish history or approaching this topic for the first time, this episode invites you to think, question, and reflect.

Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin’s Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism (An Examination of Antisemitism) deserves a deeper and reflective read. Please consider purchasing the book on Amazon, at a major bookstore, or at a local library. You will learn all the different types of antisemitism and other interesting aspects of hate and how it is perpetrated and sustained.

Please comment, share, follow, subscribe, and recommend the Playing Books Podcast with folks who always want to go beyond the surface of any prevailing issue.

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Thank you so much once again for your time and for listening.

Thank you so much for tuning in to the Playing Books podcast. Welcome to yet another episode to honor women in this International Women's Month. This episode explores the conversation we’ve all been avoiding until now.

We discuss Laura Bates' Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All (Essential Book for Women's History Month), one of the most unflinching voices of our time rips the lid off the online rabbit holes where “nice guys” morph into incels, where pickup artists train men to treat women like targets, and where everyday misogyny quietly poisons dating apps, offices, bedrooms, and even friendships.

This isn’t theory. It’s real screenshots, real stories, and real data that will make your stomach drop, then make you nod because you’ve felt it. Whether you’re a woman exhausted by the “not all men” debate, a man who wants to do better but doesn’t know where to start, or anyone who just wants relationships to feel safe again, Laura Bates hands you the flashlight.

We’re talking about the book everyone’s quietly recommending to their group chats right now; the one that feels like essential Women’s History Month reading because it’s not about the past. It’s about right now.

Bates' book isn't about women as it seems on the surface; it is about freedom. Men consumed with sexual drive are in spiritual, social, biological, and psychological bondage; hating women only shows their in-depth frustration. On the other hand, women are seen to be people who can't have their say, even on issues about their bodies and when to have sex. Women exist, according to men who hate women, for sex and other errands. We recommend the book for you. Consider purchasing it on Amazon, at your favorite bookstore, or at your local library.

Have you read Bates' Men Who Women before? Are her expository ideas relatable? Please, comment with the one sentence that stayed with you. Please, share the episode with the friend who needs to hear it (you know exactly who), and among men's groups dedicated to hating women.

Please subscribe, follow, and recommend Playing Books to help us keep pushing books about freedom to every ear possible.

Thank you for listening with open hearts and braver minds. Please, connect with other art and literature advocates on our social media:

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Thank you so much once again.

Thank you for your time and for tuning in to the Playing Books podcast. Welcome to the spycraft episode of the Playing Books podcast.

In this episode of Playing Books, we discuss Operation Ajax: The Story of the CIA Coup that Remade the Middle East by Mike de Seve, illustrated by Daniel Burwen, with a foreword by Stephen Kinzer, and ask a simple question: what really happened in Iran in 1953, and why does it still shape every headline you scroll past today?

This episode and the book, Operation Ajax, remind us that history repeats itself. What we see going on in Iran today follows the pattern of the CIA operation in Iran in 1953. The use of protests, attacks on Iran’s autonomy, CIA dirty operations in foreign governments, and how the West interferes in foreign countries for its own interests. The U.S. government complains of Islamic tyranny in Iran, but they forget that it laid the foundation for Iran to become an extreme Islamic country.

This isn’t a dry history class. It’s a graphic, true-life spy thriller where oil prices are soaring, British and American agents are playing chess with a sovereign nation, and a democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, is caught between popular hope and secret backroom deals. We talk about how this story of propaganda, paid mobs, and a hidden CIA–MI6 operation didn’t just topple a government—it helped script the next seventy years of Middle East politics and Western foreign policy.

We also dig into why telling this story as a graphic novel hits differently: the panels, the pacing, and the way de Seve and Burwen turn declassified documents and historical research into a visual narrative you actually feel in your gut. If you’ve ever wondered why Iran’s relationship with the West is so fraught, or how our global addiction to oil became “just the way things are,” this book—and this conversation—will stay with you long after you hit pause.

This is an intense spy story. The book is packed with many applicable lessons. Learn from the book, apply its lessons to how you read the news, and consider purchasing a copy of Operation Ajax on Amazon, from your favorite bookstore, or from your library.

If you enjoy this conversation, please comment with your thoughts, share the episode with a friend who loves history or graphic novels, follow and subscribe to Playing Books, and recommend the podcast to someone who needs a fresh way into serious topics. Your support helps us keep turning powerful books into unforgettable, real-world conversations.

Remember that the CIA prevented the success of true democracy in the Middle East through Operation AJAX in Iran in 1953.

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Thank you for your time and for listening.