The Jewish Diasporist

By Ben, Jordan and Zach

Join us as we explore the political, cultural and social implications of life in diaspora. We wander across a variety of topics, grounding a socialist diasporist perspective through conversations w

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FAQs about The Jewish Diasporist:

How many episodes does The Jewish Diasporist have?

The podcast currently has 65 episodes available.

The Jewish Diasporist episodes:

September 13, 2026 Counselling American Jews w/ Rabbi Andy Kahn
We wish you a Yom Kippur and a Happy New Year
Rabbi Andy Kahn talks to us about being a Reform Rabbi, his political journey, involvement with the ACJ and JDM, and more!
American Council for Judaism and its beautiful new website
Jewish Diaspora Movement
Zach's everlasting wisdom on the Bund
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If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
...more
1h 30min
June 07, 2026 Layers of Diaspora w/ Sydney Levy
In this episode Ben sits down Sydney Levy, a longtime activist and organizer who has worked with JVP, formerly as advocacy director, CJNV (Center for Jewish Nonviolence), JSWANA Bay and other organizations. Throughout the conversation, Sydney speaks about his experiences growing up within the insular Venezuelan Jewish community, before moving to Jerusalem as an "accidental settler" while studying at the Hebrew University before moving to the US.
Sydney leads us toward an understanding of how experiences of diaspora, displacement and immigration, can layer upon one another to create a tapestry of multirooted identities. We also explore the context-dependent nature of identity labels and their significance in relation to struggles toward a better world.
Read some of Sydney's recent writing in Gazoz de Frambuaz.
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If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
...more
1h 15min
April 18, 2026 The United Jewish People’s Order 100 Years On
In this episode we speak with three organizers of the United Jewish Peoples Order (UJPO) to explore their organization's storied century-long history, and its present work as a community organization committed to developing secular socialist Jewish life in Toronto (and Canada more broadly) through educational, cultural and social events and programs.
Join UJPO, Naomi Klein and others on June 11th for UJPO's Centennial Celebration (Available virtually and in person)
Follow the UJPO on instagram!
Subscribe to our shared YouTube channel
Follow us on Instagram
If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
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1h 18min
February 18, 2026 Miami's Leftist Sephardi Zine w/ Emanuel Ovadia
Ben and Zach are joined by Emanuel Ovadia, creator and editor of Gazoz De Frambuaz, a Ladino-centering zine based in Miami Florida. Gazoz De Frambuaz (Raspberry Soda) serves as a metaphor for the cultural exchange that's served as a a wellspring for Sephardic culture across the region that Sephardic Jews made their home after the Spanish Inquisition: Southwest Asia and North Africa. Our conversation grounds us in the history of the Ladino language, before exploring contemporary Sephardi cultural institutions to situate the contribution of Gazoz De Frambuaz to modern Sephardi culture.
Follow Gazoz De Frambuaz on Instagram to stay up to date on all their work!
Print your own copies!
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Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
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1h 4min
December 20, 2025 Bored of Deputies w/ Daniel Grossman
Ben and Zach speak to Daniel Grossman, a member of Na'amod and fellow (former?) organiser within the British Jewish community, including the Union of Jewish Students and Board of Deputies. Our paths have crossed before...
Member of UK Jewish body resigns over failure to call out Israel on Gaza | UK news | The Guardian (That's Dan!)
yourparty.jewishdiasporist.com
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Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
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1h 6min
November 22, 2025 Jewish Day Schools Reimagined w/ Achvat Olam
Zach speaks to Leah Robbins, one of the organisers behind the Achvat Olam Community Day School, the groundbreaking project to establish the first diasporist Jewish day school in Boston.
(apologies for the audio being a bit rusty - Z)
Learn more about Achvat Olam
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If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
...more
1h
September 20, 2025 Live w/ Chaia and Rabbi Chel Mandell
Chaia of Kleztronica and Rabbi Chel Mandell of Santa Cruz CA's Tzimtzum Community the first ever episode of the Jewish Diasporist recorded with a live audience. This episode was recorded live on September 15th.
Chaia is an electronic composer working at the intersection of Yiddish culture and electronic club music. She weaves archival Yiddish samples with techno and ambient frameworks, creating hybrid folkloric-electronic compositions that situate ancestral sound within global and liberatory rave ecologies.
We work closely to partner with radical communities like Tzimtzum and cultural activists like Chaia to create Jewish spaces like this which foster the world to come both on the earth and across cyberspace.
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Check out Chaia's website or stream her music on Spotify!
If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
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1h 2min
September 13, 2025 Diaspora Studies w/ Naomi Seidman
Naomi Seidman, Director of the University of Toronto's Center for Diaspora and Transnational Studies joins us to explore the young academic discipline of Diaspora Studies, its history and contents, and its relationship to other academic fields.
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If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
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1h 20min
July 05, 2025 Ashkenazi Herbal Diasporism w/ Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel
In this episode, we are joined by Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel, authors of "Ashkenazi Herbalism" and recently: "Woven Roots; Recovering the Healing Plant Traditions of Jews and their Neighbors in Eastern Europe." Their new book expands on their earlier work by foregrounding the ways plant medicine served as a medium for coexistence in a land that's often only remembered as a place of Jewish suffering.
Through concrete examples, we explored the implications of diaspora for herbal and medicinal traditions. These traditions, often considered backwards and lost to history, can continue to teach us about what it means to be in right relations with all of our neighbors.
Get your copy of Woven Roots from Jewitches!
Subscribe to our collaborative YouTube
Follow us on Instagram
If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
...more
1h 32min
May 27, 2025 The Jewish Diasporist and Tzimtzum on KSQD w/ Meilin Obinata and Rabbi Chel Mandell
Rabbi Chel Mandell of the Tzimtzum Community and Jewish educator and Diasporist Podcast Co-Host, Ben Yanowitz were invited on to local Santa Cruz radio station KSQD for an Interview for “Talk of the Bay,” hosted by Meilin Obinata, to explore the complexities of Jewish communal life in Santa Cruz, CA.
The Jewish community in Santa Cruz is a microcosm of our diaspora at large. Change is happening and legacy communal institutions are lagging behind at best, and actively hostile at worst. Thankfully independent communities like Tzimtzum, which embody a queer diasporist Jewishness, are organizing to ground our quest for collective liberation in Jewish ritual and spirituality.
Throughout the discussion we explored different religious and secular Jewish traditions which inform our understanding of the non-Zionist and diasporist Jewish future we are building, and how the pandemic and the post-10/7 Gaza genocide and international political environment have accelerated political polarization and transformed the way people engage with Judaism/Jewishness.
Check out Meilin's work on KSQD here!
Learn about the Tzimtzum Community here!
Subscribe to our collaborative YouTube
Follow us on Instagram
If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Big thank you to Aly Halpert for continuing to allow us to use her music!
...more
1h 18min

FAQs about The Jewish Diasporist:

How many episodes does The Jewish Diasporist have?

The podcast currently has 65 episodes available.

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