Rachel Sharansky Danziger’s connection to the Exodus story is personal. Her parents, Natan and Avital Sharansky, were born in the Soviet Union. Natan spent nine years in a Soviet prison after he was arrested for his political activism in 1977. Avital led an international campaign to pressure the Soviet regime to release her husband and other Jewish refusniks. After twelve years apart, Natan was finally released and reunited with Avital in Israel, where Rachel was born. In this episode, Rachel discusses the way her family celebrated Passover and shares what she learned from the Hagaddah about passing her family's liberation story down to her children.

Every family has hidden stories, but some are more deeply hidden than others. Esther Safran Foer’s parents both survived the Holocaust, but most of their relatives were killed. Like many survivors, Esther’s parents rarely spoke about their experiences… which left her with a lot of unanswered questions. Esther has spent much of her life piecing together the truth of her family story. In this episode, Judith Rosenbaum talks with Esther about her new memoir, I Want You to Know We’re Still Here, which chronicles this lifelong search.

Joan Rivers and Treva Silverman were friends and partners in comedy for decades. In this delightful conversation from JWA’s archive, Joan and Treva talk about what it was like to be women in comedy in the 1960s and 1970s, how they got their start driving to gigs in the Catskills in Joan’s beat up old car, and the origins of some of their favorite jokes.

This is the second episode in a two-part series. Check out the previous episode for a solo-interview with Joan from JWA’s archive.

Joan Rivers’ comedy career spanned six decades, from off-Broadway and cabaret to television and books. She was self-deprecating and abrasive, and charted new territory by telling stories from her own life and talking about taboo subjects on stage. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we share a 2006 interview with Joan Rivers from JWA’s documentary Making Trouble and talk about Joan’s legacy as a pioneering Jewish woman in comedy. We’ll also explain why we chose Joan’s signature tagline “Can we talk?” as the name of our podcast. This is the first episode in a two-part series. Stay tuned for another interview from the JWA archive between Joan Rivers and her writing partner and close friend Treva Silverman.

Opening clip with Joan Rivers courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation.

We're facing a global pandemic, the likes of which most of us have never lived through. In these unsettling days, community healer and spiritual leader Dori Midnight brings us this prayer for relearning to wash our hands. We hope this poem helps you find the thread of love in this tangle of anxiety.

Closing music is "Aurora" by Jonny Easton.

Welcome back to a new season of Can We Talk?! We’re kicking off our season next week, but in the meantime here’s a taste of some of the episodes coming your way from the Jewish Women’s Archive. Join us!

Author and transgender activist Abby Stein grew up in a tight-knit, insular Hasidic community in Brooklyn; she calls it one of the most gender-segregated societies in America. From early childhood, she knew she was a girl, but for her entire life, her community celebrated the fact that she was a boy. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Stein describes her upbringing, her discovery of non-binary genders in Jewish mysticism, and how she parted ways with her community. This is the final episode in our three-part fall author interview series.

If we're living in the golden age of television, then The New Yorker's TV critic Emily Nussbaum is our soothsayer. In this episode of Can We Talk?, JWA's CEO, Judith Rosenbaum, talks with Nussbaum about portrayals of Jewish women on television, past and present, and Nussbaum's new essay collection, I Like To Watch. Nussbaum also speaks candidly about how the #MeToo movement has made her rethink the way her own cultural tastes have been formed. This is the second episode in our three-part fall author interview series.

Sarah Hurwitz had what she calls her dream job: She was a White House speechwriter for a president and first lady she admired. At the end of the Obama Administration, she took a break from politics and wrote a book that chronicles her foray into Jewish learning and tradition. In this episode, Can We Talk? host Nahanni Rous talks with Sarah Hurwitz about speechwriting, the women of the Bible, silent meditation, what she’s looking for in a presidential candidate, and Sarah's new book, Here All Along. This is the first episode in our three-part fall author interview series.

Host Nahanni Rous talks to Holocaust survivor and author, Irene Butter. Like Anne Frank's family, Butter’s fled Nazi Germany, settled in Amsterdam, and was eventually deported to concentration camps. Irene knew Anne Frank, and saw her at Bergen-Belsen just before Anne died. She tells us why she began sharing her story after more than four decades of silence, and how she sees her experience reflected in the current era of xenophobia and rising antisemitism.

To learn more and order Irene's memoir, visit her website.