Jewanced

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

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

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...

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

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 Linkedin
• A selection of Dr. Manheim’s published scholarly articles
• A selection of Dr. Manheim’s research expertise & collaborations on Covid-19
• The RAND Corporation
• About Healthcare in Israel

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

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

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

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

…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

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