We're speaking this week with Daniel Sivan, the Israeli co-director of the new animated Netflix short film, “Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis,” which was shortlisted for the best documentary short Oscar; final nominees will be announced on February 8.

"Camp Confidential” is the latest of several Sivan documentary collaborations with his work and life partner, Mor Loushy, to explore different aspects of Jewish history — their previous films have dealt with subjects such as the Oslo Accords, the Six-Day War and the legacy of AIPAC.

"Camp Confidential" tells the story of a group of Jewish American veterans, refugees of Nazi Germany, whose sole experience of WWII was guarding a secret Nazi POW camp on American soil, outside Washington, DC.

Sivan discusses the use of animation to tell this story, their decision to make it into a short film and how he and Loushy unintentionally became filmmakers telling aspects of the Jewish story.

IMAGE: A still from 'Camp Confidential.' (Netflix via JTA)

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This week in honor of the January 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Times Will Tell spoke with Dani Dayan, the new head of Yad Vashem, in his Jerusalem-based museum and Holocaust education center.

We met a few days after the Colleyville hostage situation, in which four Jews were held captive for some 11 hours in their Reform synagogue in what was arguably an antisemitic attack. We discuss what role Holocaust education could play in mitigating such attacks and how Dayan once naively thought they would not occur in the United States. 

Dayan was born in 1955 in Argentina and moved to Israel in 1971. Prior to heading Yad Vashem, he was the Consul General of Israel in New York. Before that, he was a longtime activist and head of the right-wing Settler Movement’s Yesha Council.

In the most recent elections, he ran on Gidon Sa’ar’s New Hope ticket and was appointed chair of Yad Vashem by the party’s Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton in August. Despite his former political ties, Dani tells me that he and Yad Vashem are strictly non-partisan in their work -- and why that is increasingly important. 

IMAGE: Head of Yad Vashem Dani Dayan. (Alex Kolomoisky/Yad Vashem)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.

We’re taking a deep dive today into Israel’s kosher certification system, as the government undertakes the first step in overhauling the industry.

The new plan, unveiled in July by religious affairs minister Matan Kahana, would presumably end the monopoly of the chief rabbinate and local rabbinates as the only bodies that can issue kosher certificates, which costs businesses upwards of $2 million a year, and allow for other private kosher certification agencies.

This long-awaited privatization of the kosher certification industry follows a path paved by the religious Zionist Tzohar organization, which launched its own kosher certification agency in 2018. They took over for a grassroots group that first entered the industry years before, aiming to break the rabbinate’s grip on what can be considered kosher.

You'll hear from several people involved in this industry, including Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar; Tzvi Maller, the American-born owner of Crave, a restaurant in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market that grappled with a fakin' bacon issue; Itzik Kadosh, a pastry chef and owner of a beloved Jerusalem cafe who fought the rabbinate over turning his croissants into triangles; Yittie Lawson, who runs Tacos Luis, a Mexican restaurant down the block from Kadosh; Dan Male, who runs Jerusalem's Angelica, a fine chef restaurant whose customers won't stand for anything other than the rabbinate's stamp of approval and Leon Avigad, who owns and operates the Brown Hotel chain in Israel, Greece and Europe and just wants his kosher supervisors to tell him what to do and how to do it.

It's a wacky world of kosher laws and these people live it, every day.

Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Crave Jerusalem's 'facon' duck bacon on its Black Forest Special (Courtesy Crave)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.

This week we're speaking about the play "The Blessing of a Broken Heart," based on the book by Sherri Mandell, directed by Yael Valier of Theater and Theology and with the lead role played by Rebecca Sykes.

The production was supposed to be performed this week in Jerusalem, but is being postponed due the current wave of the omicron variant.

This latest version of the one-woman play is now backed by an ensemble created by Valier in order to underline the story and reflect what the Mandell character is thinking and feeling throughout the work.

The production is about the brutal terrorist murder of Mandell's 13-year-old son Koby Mandell and his friend Yosef Ishran in 2001, near their home in Israel.

This terrible tragic loss led the Mandell and her husband, Seth Mandell, to do many things, including establishing the Koby Mandell Foundation that offers support programs to people who have lost family members to terrorism.

Mandell has always been a writer and "The Blessing of a Broken Heart" was written in the year after Koby's murder, portraying her experience of mourning and renewal.

Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: From recent rehearsals of "The Blessings of a Broken Heart," the book by Sherri Mandell that's being performed by Theater and Theology in Jerusalem, in January 2022. (Courtesy PR)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.

This week we're speaking with author and journalist Andrew Lawler, who recently published the fabulous “Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City.”

Host Amanda Borschel-Dan absolutely devoured the book and highly recommends it to anyone interested in Holy Land history, archaeology, or even just tales of unbelievable, but real characters. It’s a real trip along the timeline of Jerusalem archaeologists, spanning from the 1860s through today.

We get a sense of the crazy people behind the digs, government involvement and the sparks of geopolitical conflict that still simmer.

Image: Author Andrew Lawler (Samir Al-Sharif)

Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.

This week, we're speaking to Danna Stern, the managing director of Yes Studios.

This is the studio that brought us "Fauda" and "Shtisel," "On the Spectrum" and "Your Honor," and many hours of viewing pleasure in this new era of streaming platforms and often shorter, sharper series.

We discuss what makes a successful Israeli show and when it can be 'translated' into success abroad, such as Kan 11's grocery store mockumentary "Checkout," being distributed by Yes.

Stern feels that Netflix's recently canceled "Hit and Run," from the "Fauda" team, can be considered a success, given the parameters that brought it about, and waxes poetic over her own recent viewing favorites, "Squid Game" and Apple TV's "Ted Lasso."

IMAGE: Yes Studios' Danna Stern (right), with Niv Majar (middle) and Naomi Levov of 'On the Spectrum,' during a 2019 awards ceremony in Monte Carlo (Courtesy Yes Studios)

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This week on Times Will Tell, we sent our New York-based film and culture critic Jordan Hoffman on an odyssey to ascertain how best to fulfill the American Jewish "mitzvah" of Chinese food and a movie on Christmas.

Our tireless correspondent went deep into the heart of Chinatown and sampled dim sum and hot and sour soup. He also explains how the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is currently affecting the city that never sleeps, and who gets no (wonton) soup from him. 

We hear about Columbus Park, a unique snapshot of New York at its finest, and where to go to get the best tea (and potential prezzie) ever. 

In the second half of the show, Hoffman explores what's screening in local theaters. What's worth the hype -- and what decidedly is not. And finally, he explains where those New Yorkers who want to fulfill the Xmas mitzvah to its fullest can have a most goyische evening out. 

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: People are seen in the window eating at a Chinese restaurant decorated with menu items on its shop front on January 10, 2020, in New York City. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.

We're speaking this week to Bishop Glenn Plummer, a minister, pastor and bishop of the Pentacostal Church, with Lazar Berman hosting, putting on his Christian Affairs correspondent hat.

Plummer was appointed in 2019 as the first Pentacostal bishop of Israel, representing the predominantly Black church that has nearly nine million adherents worldwide.

He was mandated, said Plummer, to "come and embrace Israel," from his position as one of the top African American, pro-Zionist clergy in the US.

Berman and Plummer discuss his first few months in Israel, when certain Jewish Israelis felt threatened by his presence and intentions. They also discuss the roots of the Pentacostal Church, evangelical Christianity, Black-Jewish relations in the US and Plummer's plans and experiences in Israel until now.

Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Bishop Glenn Plummer, the Pentacostal minister who moved to Israel during the pandemic, on a boat in the Galilee (Courtesy Bishop Plummer)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. 

We're speaking this week to flag football players who gathered in Jerusalem this week to play in the IFAF Flag Football world championship. 

Organized by American Football in Israel founder Steve Leibowitz, who brought flag football to Israel in the 1980s, the championship gathers hundreds of athletes from all over the world to the Kraft Family Sports Campus in Jerusalem, for three days of games.

Given the pandemic, it was a last minute decision to hold the championship in Israel, after other countries had to cancel. Leibowitz tells us that it was only back in May that he began organizing the games in Jerusalem, a plan that was nearly abandoned with the arrival of the Omicron variant.

But Leibowitz and other government agencies prevailed, and the players arrived late lat week, quarantining for three days, sticking to their own team tents when not on the field, and only gathering together when it's time to play.

According to them, it's all worth it.

Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Flag football players competing in IFAF Flag Football world championship in Jerusalem, December 7, 2021 

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. 

This week, we're speaking to the Djamchid Sisters, Shay-Li Djamchid and Eden Djamchid, sisters in life and in music, who have been composing, playing and singing together for the last 15 years, since they were teens.

Their new single, "B'Yadayim Shelcha," ("In Your Hands") was recently released as part of their second album, "A Thousand Suns."

It's an album that's been long awaited by local 88FM listeners, as well as their fans around the country. 

During the conversation, the two sisters speak about being born in Jerusalem into a musical family. Shay-Li picked up the guitar when she was still in grade school, and began writing songs and music on her own. Her younger sister Eden, only by a year and a half, began learning how to play the cello at the age of five, when she was still in kindergarten.

The two began playing and singing together from their bedrooms in their teens and performing soon followed, with a serious approach to their music from the very start.

This latest collection of songs, say the sisters, reflects where they are in life now, older, wiser, still full of hopes and dreams. 

Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: The Djamchid Sisters, Eden Djamchid (left) and Shay-Li Djamchid (Courtesy Omri Rosengart)

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