Episodes
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In this special ‘War Edition’ of the show, Dan and Benny take a deep dive into the geopolitical context of the October 7th war with Col. (Res.) Dr. Eran Lerman. Together, they discuss the war’s progress, impact, and possible outcomes both near- and long-term.
About Col. (Res.) Dr. Eran Lerman:
Colonel (Res.) Dr. Eran Lerman is a lecturer in the Shalem College Departments of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and Strategy, Diplomacy, and Security and in the Tel Aviv University Department of Political Science. He is also the Vice President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and, since 2021, the editor-in-chief of Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.
A historian by training and the former deputy for foreign policy and international affairs at Israel’s National Security Council, Lerman has also served as director of the American Jewish Committee’s Israel/Middle East Office and in senior positions at the Israel Defense Forces’ Directorate of Military Intelligence.
He holds a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics and a mid-career MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. A third-generation “Sabra,” he is married to Annelies, the father of three, and the proud grandfather of four.
A special message from Benny & Dan:
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the thousands of victims - murdered, kidnapped, and injured - of the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on the morning of October 7th. This episode of the show is dedicated to the brave men and women of the IDF and Israel's security forces as they bravely serve to eliminate the destructive threats faced by Israel and the Jewish People both near and far - and to the People of Israel who are struggling at this unprecedented time.
For those interested in donating to help the Israeli people in this time of need, please check out the following resources. Your help is highly appreciated at this urgent time:
The Jewish Agency for Israel's Fund for Victims of Terror - CLICK HEREFriends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Emergency Campaign 2023 - CLICK HEREIsrael Trauma Coalition (ITC) - CLICK HEREJNF-USA Israel Resilience Campaign - CLICK HEREעם ישראל חי! Am Yisrael Chai!
Additional Links:
· Follow Dr. Lerman on X @EranLerman
· Visit Dr. Lerman’s page at Shalem College HERE.
A special word about Israel travel from Kenes Tours:
Saturday, October 7th will go down in infamy. Israel was brutally and horrifically attacked by Hamas terrorists who violently infiltrated the country and penetrated southern Israeli communities. Thousands of Israelis were murdered, terrorized, and kidnapped. Deadly rockets are being fired upon southern and central Israel from the Gaza Strip and upon communities in the northern Galilee from Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces are working
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In this special ‘War Edition’ of the show, Dan and Benny cover updates on the war as well as discuss Israel’s PR battle with special guests Joanna Landau, founder and president of Vibe Israel, and Haisam Hassanein, a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies specializing in Israel’s relations with Arab states and Muslim countries.
About Joanna Landau:
Best-selling author of “Ethical Tribing: Connecting the Next Generation to Israel in the Digital Era,” Joanna is an expert on country branding, Israel’s soft power, and the unique challenges Israel faces when building its global reputation. Recognized by Forbes Israel as one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Israel, Joanna worked as a lawyer in Israel’s high-tech industry, established two Tel Aviv-based start-ups, and is the Founder and President of Vibe Israel, a nonprofit that has generated over a billion positive mentions about Israel online. She is a director of Tel Aviv Global & Tourism, a governor of Tel Aviv University, and a member of the International Education Committee of Taglit-Birthright. Born in London and raised in Israel, Joanna lives in Tel Aviv with her husband, 3 children and 2 dogs.
About Haisam Hassanein:
Haisam Hassanein is an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, where he is analyzing Israel’s relations with Arab states and Muslim countries. He has published in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, the Hill magazine, the New York Daily News, and The Jerusalem Post. He was the first Egyptian to be named a graduate school valedictorian by an Israeli academic institution. Hassanein also sits on the advisory board of Sharaka, a leading organization working to shape a new Middle East, built on dialogue, understanding, cooperation, and friendship.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the thousands of victims - murdered, kidnapped, and injured - of the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on the morning of October 7th, and is dedicated to the brave men and women of the IDF and Israel's security forces as they valiantly serve to eliminate the destructive threats faced by Israel and the Jewish People both near and far - and to the People of Israel who are struggling at this unprecedented time.
For those interested in donating to help the Israeli people in this time of need, please check out the following resources. Your help is highly appreciated at this urgent time:
The Jewish Agency for Israel's Fund for Victims of Terror - CLICK HEREFriends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Emergency Campaign 2023 - CLICK HEREIsrael Trauma Coalition (ITC) - CLICK HEREJNF-USA Israel Resilience Campaign - CLICK HEREעם ישראל חי! Am Yisrael Chai!
Additional Links:
Learn more about Vibe Israel – HERETo buy Joanna Landau’s book, ‘Ethical Tribing: Connecting the Next Generation to Israel in the Digital Era’ click HERE.Learn more about The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies – -
Missing episodes?
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Join Dan Feferman and Benny Scholder for the return of Jewanced as we present a special live podcast covering Swords of Iron - The Simchat Torah War.
Taped Live on Friday, October 13, 2023, day 7 of the war, this will be the first in a series of episodes we're broadcasting to bring you ongoing updates and snapshots of the progress of this unfolding war - a horrific, devastating, and pivotal moment in the history of Israel and the Jewish People.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the thousands of victims - murdered, kidnapped, and injured - of the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel on the morning of October 7th, and is dedicated to the brave men and women of the IDF and Israel's security forces as they valiantly serve to eliminate the destructive threats faced by Israel and the Jewish People both near and far - and to the People of Israel who are struggling at this unprecedented time.
For those interested in donating to help the Israeli people at this time of need, please check out the following resources. Your help is highly appreciated at this urgent time:
The Jewish Agency for Israel's Fund for Victims of Terror - CLICK HEREFriends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Emergency Campaign 2023 - CLICK HEREIsrael Trauma Coalition (ITC) - CLICK HEREJNF-USA Israel Resilience Campaign - CLICK HEREעם ישראל חי! Am Yisrael Chai!
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Dr. Shlomo Fischer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and teaches sociology in the School of Education at Hebrew University and at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He served as a research fellow at the Van Leer Institute.
Fischer has worked in the field of education for the past 25 years. In the past 10 years, he has worked in the field of religion, democracy, and tolerance. He has edited (together with Adam Seligman) The Burden of Tolerance: Religious Traditions and the Challenge of Pluralism (Hebrew; HaKibbutz Hameuchad and the Van Leer Institute, 2007) which addresses these issues. From 1996 to 2007 he was the founder and Executive Director of Yesodot – Center for Torah and Democracy which works to advance education for democracy in the State-Religious school sector in Israel and was also one of the founders and is on the Board of the International Summer School for Religion and Public Life which is based in Boston, Mass. He is a graduate of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem.
Fischer’s research interests include the nexus of religion, politics and class in Israel, contemporary religion, and the sociology of the Jewish people. He has published extensively on radical religious Zionism and the West Bank settlers as well as on the Shas movement.
Links:
Shlomo Fischer at the JPPI – Jewish People Policy Institute (including a selection of his published writings and articles)
Shlomo Fischer at The Blogs at The Times of Israel
Buy The Burden of Tolerance: Religious Traditions and the Challenge of Pluralism (Hebrew) at the Van Leer Institute
Visit Yesodot: The Center for Torah and Democracy
Visit the International Summer School for Religion and Public Life
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Rawan Osman was born in Damascus and raised in Lebanon. After high school, Osman moved back to Syria and in 2011, during the beginning of the unrest, left for France. In 2018, Osman moved to Strasbourg and started working on her first book, The Israelis, Friends or Foes. Osman is a contributor to Fikra Forum.
A true believer in the potential for authentic and positive human interactions with Jews to change popular narratives in the Arab world and bring about peace, Rawan recently participated in the NGO Sharaka’s first-ever historic delegation of Arabs from across the Middle East, Europe, and America who traveled to Auschwitz together with their Jewish and Israeli peers to participate in the annual March of the Living, commemorating the victims of the Shoah on Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day.
Links:
Watch an interview with Sharaka March of the Living delegation members that recently aired on I24 News.
Read an article from The Jerusalem Post / JPost.com about Sharaka’s historic delegation to the March of the Living bringing together Arabs across the Middle East.
Watch an interview of Saudi journalist Abdulaziz Alkhamis who participated in the March of the Living with a historical delegation from the Sharaka NGO at Auschwitz to commemorate the six million Jewish people who were exterminated by the Nazis (in Arabic).
Read a feature piece in The Times of Israel about the historic delegation bringing together influencers from around the Middle East to learn firsthand about the Holocaust and partake in March of the Living (featuring interviews with both Dan Feferman and Rawan Osman).
Rawan Osman on Facebook
Rawan Osman at the Washington Institute
Read a letter from Rawan Osman to Yossi Klein Halevi featured in his award-winning book, Letters To My Neighbor
Visit the Fikra Forum at the Washington Institute
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Listener’s beware, this episode of the show is virtually guaranteed to leave you super hungry!
NJ native and former screenwriter Joel Haber made aliya to Israel in 2009. Looking to leave his former profession behind in the Old Country, Joe did what anyone would do and became a licensed tour guide and soon found himself escorting travelers from all over the world to discover and uncover the wonder and beauty that is the Land and People of Israel.
Joel grew up in a modern orthodox home with a mother who was a great home cook, and a cosmopolitan one, and through her kitchen ate many traditional foods of his Ashkenazi Jewish background as well as dishes from other segments of Jewish culture. Developing a diverse palate, Joel’s taste buds found their perfect habitat when he got to Israel and he quickly was able to enjoy the super-diverse variety that is today’s modern Israeli culinary scene (think everything from pickled herring and kugel to malawach, khachapuri, kuba & gondi).
Combining his passion for tours with his love of food, Joel is renowned for his incredible, one-of-a-kind tasting tours of Jerusalem’s iconic Machane Yehuda market and giving lectures on what our classic Jewish dishes say about Jewish culture. He is the author of the popular Jewish food blog, “The Taste of Jewish Culture” and author of the book “Chulent: How an Unassuming Sabbath Stew Traveled the World, Changed its Look, and Came to Embody the Jewish Experience.”
Links:
Joel’s popular Jewish food blog ‘The Taste of Jewish Culture’
Tour Israel with Joel Haber at Fun Joel’s Israel Tours
Shuk Tours with Joel Haber
New Passover Foods For Your Seder – by Joel Haber
Learn all about Schmaltz with Joel Haber
A selection of articles by Joel Haber at The Times of Israel
Joel Haber on Twitter, @funjoel
Joel Haber on Facebook
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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DIG into history on this week’s episode of the show as Dan and Benny explore ancient Israel and the turbulent times of the 1st Jewish State and its destruction with guest Dr. David Gurevich, an archaeologist and expert on Jerusalem and the 2nd Temple period.
Dr. David Gurevich is an archaeologist who studies Jerusalem and the Second Temple Period. His doctoral dissertation focused on the large water pools of Jerusalem and established the link between the Jewish pilgrimage to the Temple and the water management of the city.
In 2014-2015, he was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship and became a post-doctoral scholar at Harvard University. In 2019, he published his co-edited volume Exploring the Holy Land that explores the story of the 19th-century British Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), the scientific society that sent the first archaeologists to the region. He also studies the First Jewish-Roman Revolt, a topic of his chapter in the Sefer Yerushalayim volume of Yad Ben Zvi. Dr. Gurevich is a member of the Archaeological Council of Israel.
Dr. Gurevich also researches Antisemitism in the Orthodox Church. He established the academic program ‘Ambassadors Online’ at the University of Haifa, which trained students to become unofficial diplomats of Israel. In 2017-2018, he worked in the Jerusalem Municipality as an officer-in-charge on the relations of the city and Christian institutions. He is frequently invited to speak on Israeli matters on various forums worldwide, and also works as a tour guide who guides enhanced excursions on historical themes and geopolitics.
Links:
Dr. David Gurevich can be contacted via email at [email protected]
Visit his website at https://www.israelincolor.com
Follow his Facebook group הרצאות וסיורים עם ד''ר דויד גורביץ (Hebrew only) where you can learn about the archaeological history and heritage of the Land of Israel and the ancient near east, as well as join upcoming tours led by Dr. Gurevich.
Click HERE for a selection of academic publications by Dr. Gurevich.
BUY ‘Exploring the Holy Land – 150 Years of the Palestine Exploration Fund’, a book co-edited by David Gurevich and Anat Kidron
Visit David's Instagram
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Are we headed towards a Cold War – Round Two?
Our guest this week, Daniel Rakov, might have the answer for that ominous question and it might not be what you think…
Lt. Col. (Res). Daniel Rakov is an expert on Russian policy in the Middle East and Great-Power Competition in the region. He served in the Israel Defense Forces for over 20 years, mainly in the Israeli Defense Intelligence Division (Aman). From 2019-2021, he was a research fellow at the Russian Studies Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). Today, Daniel is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), and he is internationally recognized as one of Israel’s premier experts on Russia today.
He is the author of ‘Thirty Years of Russian-Israeli Relations: Past, Present, Future(currently available only in Russian).
Links:
Daniel’s page at the JISS
A selection of articles by Daniel in the Israeli and international press
Daniel Rakov on Facebook
Download Daniel’s book, ‘Thirty Years of Russian-Israeli Relations: Past, Present, Future’ (currently available only in Russian)
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Len Khodorkovsky has one of those heartwarming American Jewish stories: A refugee from the Soviet Union finds safe haven in America, where he thrives, builds a family and reaches professional success… then helps the president of the United States tweet Game of Thrones memes.
Len Khodorkovsky served at the State Department as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs. He was also a Senior Advisor to the US Special Representative for Iran and the Chief Marketing Officer of America’s economic diplomacy. He was also the Trump State Department’s secret weapon, the guy who helped the President of the United States tweet some of his most famous (or infamous?) memes!
Prior to joining government, Len was an advertising executive for more than two decades, where he helped Fortune 100 companies develop global ad campaigns and grow their brands.
He is now the Chief Marketing Officer of the Technology Trust Network, an organization working to secure freedom through widespread adoption of trusted technologies.
Links:
Jpost article- Len Khodorkovsky: The State Department’s Secret Weapon
Len on Twitter, @MessageFromLen
Len on LinkedIn
Len on Facebook
Visit WatchYalla, a fast-paced, entertainment program in Arabic that gives a glimpse into the exciting characters shaping the future of the Middle East, promoting peaceful, people-to-people connections between the Arab World and Israel.
Visit WatchYalla on Facebook
WatchYalla on Twitter, @WatchYalla
WatchYalla on Instagram
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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How do China, Hezbollah, int’l NGO’s, Iran, Palestinian politics, Gaza, Israel, Jihadism, and illicit financial networks connect?
Dan and Benny sat down with Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, terrorism finance analyst and Senior VP of Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to find out!
Dr. Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he oversees the work of the organization’s experts and scholars. He is also on the leadership team of FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power, a project on the use of financial and economic power as a tool of statecraft.
Jonathan previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. He has held previous think tank research positions at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Middle East Forum.
Jonathan has written hundreds of articles on the Middle East, along with more than a dozen monographs and chapters for edited volumes. His new book, Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War (FDD Press 2021), challenges and corrects the some of the wildly inaccurate news reported during the conflict. It is the first book published on the war. His three other books have made unique contributions to the field. State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State (Palgrave Macmillan 2013) argues the main roadblock to Palestinian statehood is the Palestinian Authority’s political dysfunction and mismanagement. Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine (Palgrave Macmillan 2008) is still the only book on the market that analyzes the ongoing Palestinian civil war. Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror (Washington Institute for Near East Policy 2004) was the first to explore the al-Qaeda franchises of the Middle East.
Jonathan testifies often before Congress and publishes widely in the American and international media. He has appeared on American television channels such as Fox News and CNN, and Arabic language television channels such as Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera.
Links:
Visit Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Read Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War
Read State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State
Read Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine
Read Al-Qaeda’s Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror
Read a recent article by Jonathan in the Boston Herald: The Hamas Caucus gets it wrong on Gaza
Listen to Jonathan on NPR’s All Things Considered
View all news articles by Jonathan...
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The Future is Now!
Hey, Jewanced fans. We have missed you. Wondering where we went? Well, it all goes back to the Abraham Accords. We recorded this episode with our good friend (and Dan's colleague) Omar Al Busaidy. In case you are curious, Benny was about to head off for his first trip to the UAE. Omar, who usually lives in the US, was in his hometown of Dubai, and Dan just got back from Dubai and was getting ready to ship off to California (with Omar) to be a part of a Sharaka delegation promoting awareness of the Abraham Accords. This episode was recorded before these trips. We hope you enjoy.
CEO of Sharaka USA and may we say, a super friend of Jewanced Omar Al Busaidy is a Fulbright Scholar, Author and Economic Affairs Liaison at the Consulate General of the United Arab Emirates in New York. He is also the Co-Founder of Creative Space Events Management based in Saudi Arabia.
With a master’s degree in International Affairs & Intelligence at Florida State University, Omar is also a Non-Resident fellow at Trends Research & Advisory a geopolitical think tank based in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
His multiple roles have allowed him to achieve several accomplishments, from publishing his self-help book ‘Just Read It’ and his upcoming book on futurism titled “Why Jobs are Robots and Life is for People’, to investing in startups in the tech sector.
A former Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum and an alumnus of the State Department’s IVLP, Omar has been invited to mentor students on entrepreneurship, communication and leadership at several universities and conferences across the UAE and around the world.
Links:
Buy Omar’s book, Just Read It
Follow Omar on Twitter
Omar on Facebook
Follow Omar’s Instagram
Experience Sharaka
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Join us on a journey of discovery into the heart some of Israel’s best kept gems of history!
Our guest this week, Shakked Beery AKA The Wandering Jewess, spent this episode of the show as our expert tour guide as together we explored some of Israel’s most fascinating and least-known secret places – the ones most visitors to the country never get to see.
Native to Israel for ten generations, Shakked's family arrived at the land more than 200 years ago and took an active part in reconstructing the Jewish homeland. Following her family’s heritage, she combines her love for the land with her passion for storytelling. She is a third-generation tour guide.
While guiding people from all over the world, she experienced firsthand the negative views people hold against Israel, and how different they are from reality. Her mission became to deliver Israel to people “as is”, challenges and beauty combined, driven by a strong faith that only truth can bring peace. To better pursue her goal, she earned a Masters in Israel Studies from Haifa University, and a teaching certification from Oxford, specializing in Critical Antisemitism and the Delegitimization of Israel. Today, Shakked is an international speaker, dividing her time between guiding in Israel and speaking around the world, telling stories about the Israel she loves.
The halt of incoming tourism caused by the pandemic gave Shakked the time to write her first book: "SECRET ISRAEL – The Israel Most Visitors Miss". After guiding for ten years she seized the opportunity to finally tell the stories of the places she loves most. In the book, she reveals the incredible stories behind ten secret gems most tourists never get to visit.
Links:
Buy SECRET ISRAEL: The Israel Most Visitors Miss, by Shakked Beery
The official website of The Wandering Jewess: Speaker
Follow Shakked Beery – The Wandering Jewess on Facebook
Follow Shakked Beery – The Wandering Jewess on Twitter
Official website of Home Free, a seriously awesome country acapella band mentioned on the show
Reg’s 7 Mile SteakHouse of Columbus, Nebraska – as recommended by Shakked
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Now, perhaps more than ever before in our lifetimes, humanity seems to be seeking answers to some of our biggest questions. What and where is God? How do spirituality and religion impact the uniqueness of humanity? What is the nature of reality? Will everything be ok?
Fresh off the boat from Berkeley, CA, Dr. Tomer Persico takes us on a fascinating journey throughout the human landscape of the Jewish and Western worlds to help uncover the evolution of our shared spiritual, religious, and humanistic existence.
Together with Tomer, this remarkable episode of the show explores topics ranging from Bay Area-based communities of experimental Jewish Renewal, the evolution of Jewish and Universal spirituality, human understanding of God, the nature of existence and the quest to connect to the beyond, Jewish meditation, New Age thought, the breakdown and evolution of Israeli Jewish identity, the profound impact that Jewish belief that all people are created in the image of God has had on defining the modern west, an interesting and otherworldly thought experiment explaining why religion exists, and beyond.
Dr. Tomer Persico is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. For the last three years, he served as the Koret Visiting Assistant Professor at the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at UC Berkeley and a senior research scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Persico's fields of study are contemporary spirituality, Jewish modern identity, Jewish renewal, and forms of secularization and religiosity in Israel.
His first book, The Jewish Meditative Tradition (Hebrew), was published by Tel Aviv University Press, and his second book, In God's Image: the Making of the Modern West (Hebrew), examined the way the idea of the image of God influenced modern western civilization, was published in May 2021 by Yedioth books.
Links:
Books by Dr. Tomer Persico:
In God’s Image: The Making of the Modern West (Hebrew)
The Jewish Meditative Tradition (Hebrew)
Dr. Tomer Persico at the Shalom Hartman Institute
Dr. Tomer Persico’s blog, לולאת האל (Hebrew)
Dr. Tomer Persico’s blog in English
Dr. Tomer Persico’s Facebook & Twitter pages
Jewish R&D - Bay-area Jewish communities and congregations:
The Kitchen – led by Rabbi Noa Kushner
Urban Adamah
Aquarian Minyan
Beyt Tikkun: The Synagogue of Spiritual Transformation and Social Healing
Chochmat Halev
Congregation B’nai...
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On this episode of the show, we talk to Anat Sultan-Dadon, Israel's Consul General to the US Southeast and learn everything we’d want to know about how Israel's all-star diplomats strengthen Israel by building relationships at the state, local, and national levels across a wide range of diverse interests.
As Israel’s Consul General in Atlanta, Anat Sultan-Dadon promotes bilateral relations between Israel and seven states covered by the Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, furthering connections with national and local political, economic, cultural, and academic organizations and leaders to promote a strong, secure, and vibrant future for Israel, the Israeli people, and US-Israel relations.
Our conversation covered a broad range of topics ranging from how she became a diplomat to promoting Israel’s image through social media, the democratization of information, the battle against Antisemitism, the value of creating diverse partnerships and coalitions of allies throughout the community, the impact Israel’s national politics has on the nation’s diplomatic corps and efforts and much much more!
Links:
The official website of the Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta
Israel in Atlanta – the Consulate General’s official Facebook page
Get updates from the Consulate General on its official Twitter page
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Over a year and a half into the Covid-19 Pandemic, we find ourselves in a very different place than we did back in 2020. If you’re fortunate to be in the developed world, chances are you have access to vaccines and promising therapeutics are right around the corner. But does this new reality translate to a new roadmap as far as public health policy is concerned? How is the world handling the realities of its ‘new normal’ as we enter the latter half of 2021?
On this episode of the podcast, we sat down with the two people we most wanted to talk with to try to answer our and YOUR most burning questions about the state of the pandemic today, Dr. David Manheim (episode 6) and Dr. Rami Shanani.
Dr. David Manheim is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Haifa’s Health and Risk Communication Research Center, as well as working with universities and NGOs in the UK and US. His recent work has focused on modeling test and trace programs for the UK, and policy options for COVID-19 in the US and internationally.
Long before the pandemic, David was working on understanding and mitigating global catastrophic biological risks including work on bioweapons, natural pandemics, and other disasters with groups at the University of Oxford such as the Future of Humanity Institute and for various nonprofits and NGOs in the United States.
He has a Ph.D. in public policy and decision theory at the RAND Corporation and has done work that ranged from informing policy decision making for infectious diseases to modeling risks from earthquakes, hurricanes, and terrorism, and from flood insurance and resiliency building in the wake of catastrophes, to how bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies affect counter-terrorism finance.
Dr. Rami Shanani is an Israeli physician. Born and raised in Jerusalem, Rami attended Hebrew University medical school and has worked for decades as a family doctor in Israel's public health system and has served in various management roles. He is a major in the IDF reserves, where he continues to serve as a commander of a medical unit involved with national preparedness for pandemics and other emergency situations, and is active in civic and communal leadership roles.
Links:
David’s LinkedinA selection of Dr. Manheim’s published scholarly articlesA selection of Dr. Manheim’s research expertise & collaborations on Covid-19The RAND CorporationAbout Healthcare in IsraelAs always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Hi friends! This episode of the show was recorded as a Jewanced LIVE! discussion, sponsored by the Orange County Community Scholars Program (CSP).
CSP is dedicated to bringing the best Jewish thinkers, writers, artists and musicians in the world to Orange County, California, the greater USA and the world!
Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum is co-founder of the Beit Midrash for Israeli Rabbis, a joint project of the HaMidrasha Educational Center for Israeli Judaism and the Shalom Hartman Institute. She is also the founder of Kehilat Zion in Jerusalem. Her work spans and links tradition and innovation, working toward Jewish spiritual and ethical renaissance. She devotes much of her energy to the renewal of community life in Israel and the struggle for human rights. In 2010 she was named by the Forward as one of the five most influential female religious leaders in Israel for her work promoting pluralism and Jewish freedom.
Links:
Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum – Hamidrasha At Oranim
Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum – Shalom Hartman Institute
Video - Intervention in Times of Crisis: On Moral and Spiritual Leadership
Visit Kehilat ZION, an Eretz Yisraeli community in Jerusalem
Visit the Orange County Community Scholar Program (CSP)
Orange County CSP on Facebook
Learn more about Jewanced LIVE!
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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Much like an onion, sometimes life seems to be made up of layers upon layers of complexity.
Our guest this week, Jonathan Elkhoury, definitely embodies a life of many such layers.
Jonathan Elkhoury is a gay Christian Lebanese refugee who now lives in Israel. In 2000 when he was 8 years old, he and his family were forced to leave Lebanon for Israel after the Lebanese Civil War for their own protection because his father was a member of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which was supported by the Israel Defense Forces which had just withdrew from the country after a lengthy engagement there.
These days, he is a speaker, public diplomacy adviser, commentator, and advocate for Israel. He founded and coordinated the ‘Minorities Project’ for the organization Reservists on Duty in Israel. The Minorities Project is the first of its kind, in which Israeli minorities present their own perspective about life in the Democratic Jewish state and their part for its success today.
Elkhoury is the former spokesman for the Christian Empowerment Council that focused on integrating the Christian population into Israeli society through national and military service. He himself completed his national service of 2 years in Rambam Hospital in Haifa.
Jonathan writes and gives talks about the situation of Christians and other minorities in Israel, the integration and rights of the South Lebanon Army. He is a frequent commentator for Israeli media on Israeli Arab relations and the Middle East.
Links:
Visit Reservists on Duty, dedicated to defending freedom from hate by training college students and IDF reservists to speak with knowledge and confidence on behalf of Israel.
Learn about ‘The Minorities Project’ – dedicated to teaching about the lives of minorities in Israel and providing them with a platform to share their personal stories as well as their experiences in the military/national service, and to present their perspective on life in Israel.
Watch Jonathan Elkhoury responding to CNN criticism towards Israel.
Recent commentary by Jonathan on whether there’s a shift in Lebanese public opinion toward Israel.
Jonathan Elkhoury on Twitter, @Jonathan_Elk
Jonathan Elkhoury on Facebook
Follow Jonathan on Instagram @jon_elk
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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EXTRA! EXTRA!
DAVID HOROVITZ – THIS WEEK ON JEWANCED
In today’s media landscape where it’s increasingly difficult to tell facts from fiction and where finding a trustworthy news source seems as challenging as running a marathon (fake news anybody?), The Times of Israel’s founding editor David Horovitz truly is an anchor of authenticity and a real source of stability for our times. Listen to our fascinating interview with him on this week’s episode of the show.
David Horovitz is the founding editor of The Times of Israel, the fastest-growing current affairs website in the Jewish world, with an average of some 8 million monthly users worldwide and 40 million monthly page views. The Times of Israel, which provides independent, non-partisan coverage of Israel, the region, and the Jewish world, also publishes in Hebrew, French, Arabic, and Persian.
Horovitz was previously editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post (from 2004-2011). Before that, he was editor and publisher of the award-winning newsmagazine The Jerusalem Report.
He has written from Israel for newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Irish Times, and (London) Independent, and is a frequent interviewee on CNN, the BBC, Sky, and other TV and radio stations.
He has conducted landmark interviews with a succession of Israeli and international figures, including all of Israel’s recent prime ministers, Presidents Barack Obama (when he visited Israel as a candidate) and George Bush, as well as Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin and, to the particular delight of his children, Paul McCartney.
Horovitz is the author of 2004’s “Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism,” and 2000’s “A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel,” both published in the US by Knopf.
Links:
Visit The Times of Israel
Read David’s articles at The Times of Israel
Follow David on Twitter
Follow the Times of Israel on Twitter
Follow the Times of Israel on Facebook
David’s book “Still Life with Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism” on Amazon
David’s book “A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel” on Amazon
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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…So Much Trouble in the World…
It isn’t just one of the greatest Bob Marley songs, it’s the truth. We live in a wild place during a crazy time. But, it helps to remember that ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’…things have by and large been ‘burning since the world’s been turning.’ Only now, we have the added benefit of social media, a decentralized media landscape, echo chambers, clickbait, hardcore polarization, the 8-second attention span, Q, Wokeism, endless conflicts abound (especially in the Middle East) and it just seems like the thing’s starting to spin out of control – so much so that it’s kind of hard to make sense of it all.
This week’s guest, Seth Frantzman, gets up each and every day and tries to do just that – to make sense of the chaos and explain it to the world with proper context, nuance, and care – all with the perfect modicum of outrage, sensibility, and perspective.
Seth J. Frantzman is a Middle East affairs analyst based in Jerusalem. He is the author of After ISIS: America, Israel and the Struggle for the Middle East and 'Drone Wars: Pioneers, Artificial Intelligence, Killing Machines and the Battle for the Future, and executive director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis. He runs the Israel Gulf Report, which follows developments between Israel and the Gulf countries, and has reported extensively from and conducted research in Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Israel, and the UAE. A former lecturer at Al-Quds University on US foreign policy, he has a Ph.D. from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he writes on Middle East Affairs for The Jerusalem Post and contributes to Defense News and other publications and media.
Our time with Seth on the show was just as interesting and thought-provoking as his articles. Together, we jumped right into some amazing topics such as modern warfare (Seth’s newest book, Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machines, Artificial Intelligence, and the Battle for the Future comes out next week!), contextualizing Israel’s predicament in Gaza, the prevalence of atrocities and Western European resistance to the Nazis, western thought supremacy, the arrogance of some western approaches to Israel and the Palestinians and positive attributes of western culture such as human rights, freedom, and democracy, the cause celebre of turning Israel into a pariah state, progressive politics and false narratives of Israel as a white supremacist, settler-colonialist enterprise, the media’s deliberate omission of Hamas from its coverage of the conflict, the peace industry = war industry, the frequent disingenuity of the Israeli right’s approach to Palestinian national aspirations, Mansour Abbas and Raam, whetherIsrael’s adversaries (Iran & Turkey) will test the new Israeli government, and much much more.
Links:
Pre-order Seth’s newest book, Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machines, Artificial Intelligence, and the Battle for the Future, on Amazon.
Visit Seth’s official website
Seth Frantzman at the Jerusalem Post
Seth Frantzman at Defense News
Seth Frantzman at Foreign Policy
Seth’s
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So, there’s a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas…now what?
In this special live episode of the show, we sat down with IDF military affairs expert Col. (Res) Reuven Ben-Shalom (nickname ‘Rabash’) to discuss the aftermath of Operation Guardian of the Walls (שומר החומות), the cease-fire, and how we move forward from here.
What transpired was a fascinating, nuanced discussion about the nature of modern war in the Middle East, IDF contingencies and battle tactics mixed with a bit or concern about the country’s overall strategy (or lack thereof) to handling Hamas and the Gaza Strip. In addition, we talked about how this round of violence may only be the promo for what’s to come should Hezbollah and Iran choose to join in the future, and we received a scary vision of what a full-scale, multi-front missile war would look like (beware – you might become a prepper after hearing about it…).
Col. (Res.) Reuven Ben-Shalom (Rabash) is a cross-cultural strategist and columnist. He served for 25 years in the Israel Defense Force as a helicopter pilot and in various international relations positions. As a reservist, Reuven commands the IDF International Cooperation Division’s Operations Center during times of contingency. He also teaches cross-cultural communication at the Israel Defense College and the IDF School of Military Diplomacy. He holds a B.Sc. in industrial engineering and management and M.Sc. in business administration from Ben Gurion University. Reuven is an associate at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
Links:
Cross-Cultural Strategies Ltd., Reuven’s website.
The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism
Reuven’s LinkedIn
For lectures and speaking engagements, contact Reuven at [email protected]
As always, make sure to subscribe to Jewanced on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
For more information, visit us at http://www.jewanced.com
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