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 59 episodes available.

The Jewish Diasporist episodes:

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!
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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 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!
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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 18min
May 10, 2025 Jewish or Zionist Self-Determination? Ben and Zach talk WZC Elections
We made it to Episode 50! Today, it's just Zach and Ben talking about the recent elections to the World Zionist Congress. They start discussing by how Zionism can (and should) be defined, followed by an overview of the voting process, the participating slates, they pros and cons of voting, and some possible alternatives to Jewish self-determination.
Zach's ongoing "Bundism Today" series can be found here
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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
April 19, 2025 Activist Perspective on Palestine and Belarus with Mohammad & Kastuś
This week, Ben and Zach are joined by two organizers based in Palestine-Israel whose lives and political journeys inform powerful reflections on displacement, state oppression, solidarity, and the possibilities of joint struggle.
Kastuś, originally from Minsk, has moved through various diasporic contexts—Belarus, Australia, and now Tel Aviv — shares his path from growing up under authoritarianism to joining the Belarusian uprising in 2020, and working with Kompass Media (Ep. 26) and on his own to alleviate harm and expose the reality of state (and state-backed) violence.
Mohammed, a 48’ Palestinian from Umm al-Fahm, brings deep insight from growing up as part of an activist family and community, and reflects on his experience as a Palestinian student at an Israeli university in the wake of October 7.
Our conversation draws provocative parallels between the histories of European Jews and Palestinians—without flattening their differences—as a way to think about shared experiences of dispossession, repression, and resistance. On this 82nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it is as important as ever to reject nationalist histories and challenge all forms of domination and hate.
Learn more a bout the Polish-Belarusian (EU) Border Refugee crisis and consider supporting activists here! Subscribe to our collaborative YouTube
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If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Thank you to Monsieur Jack for his beautiful rendition of the Partisan Song "Zog Nit Keynmol"
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1h 20min
April 16, 2025 Major Announcement on the Future of the Jewish Diasporist
Becoming Gamers and Deporting Hitler - Let's Play Social Democracy: An Alternate History
After much consideration, we have decided to relaunch the Jewish Diasporist for its 3rd year as a GAMING CHANNEL! Check out the full Let's Play episode in video on youtube!
Play the game here! https://red-autumn.itch.io/social-democracy
Thank you to Dan Nichols for continuing to allow us to use his Aleinu L'shabeiach.
Originally released on Youtube on 1 April 2025
(In reality, Zach and Ben have been busy organizing and working locally and transnationally in their own communities. Stay tuned for more diasporic Jewish educational content. Happy 2nd Anniversary to the Jewish Diasporist Podcast and Happy Belated April Fools Day.)
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4min
February 12, 2025 Exploring Afro-Igbo-Jewish roots w/ Kofi Robinson
This week Zach and Ben are joined by Kofi, who recently took part in the Black Jewish Liberation Collective’s (BJLC) “Teshuvah Across Waters,” the inaugural cohort of a sustained solidarity and education project in relationship to the Hebrew Ibo community in Nigeria.
In our conversation we explored a variety of topics. Kofi's experiences as a Jew by choice, the Afro-Jewish reality of being part of both African and Jewish diasporas, Ibo Jewish communties' relationship to hegemonic Jewishness (Zionism, Orthodoxy and Ashkenormativity) and much more.
This episode is in direct dialogue with Rafael Shimunov's recent interview with one of the organizer's of the trip, Rabbi Dr. Koach Frazier and two other participants. Check out Beyond the Pale's Episode on the BJLC's Teshuvah Across Waters to learn more about this powerful heritage trip.
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If you like the work we're doing here, please consider supporting us on Patreon!
Thank you to Dan Nichol's for continuing to allow us to use his music!
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59min
January 12, 2025 WUJS Conference: A Diasporist Retrospective
The World Union of Jewish Students hosts its annual congress over the new year. Zach retells Ben his experiences from the 2023/24 conference in Prague. They chat about the participants, location, events, conference, and why and how Jewish student diasporists should engage with Jewish student unions at the local, national, regional and global level.
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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 6min
December 29, 2024 Grounding our Critique w/ Becca Explains the Occupation
Becca Strober joins Ben & Zach to speak about her educational organizing and activism as an American-Israeli, both online and on the ground. We speak about the Jerusalemite identity, diverse semantic labels, productive engagement with those who disagree with us, and a road forward for Israelis and the movement for Palestinian liberation.
Check out Becca's work on Instagram and her podcast!
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 38min

FAQs about The Jewish Diasporist:

How many episodes does The Jewish Diasporist have?

The podcast currently has 59 episodes available.

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