Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.

This week we’re speaking to bestselling author Faye Kellerman about her latest book, "The Hunt," the final installment in her Decker/Lazarus series, coming out next month.

As usual, there’s some intense drama, plenty of crime, punishment and suspense in "The Hunt," as well as the usual details about the observant Jewish life led by Kellerman's beloved characters, Detective Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus.

Kellerman speaks about her writing career, what led her to this series, as well as why she chose to bring so much of her own lifestyle to her characters. She talks about what it's like to write about detective work now, as opposed to thirty years ago, and what different characters can teach us about life and decisions.

Kellerman, soon approaching her 70th birthday, talks about what she's doing with her life now, and whether or not she'll be saying goodbye forever to Detective Decker and his beloved wife, Rina.

IMAGE: Author Faye Kellerman (Courtesy)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.

This week we’re speaking about evangelical support for Israel with Prof. Motti Inbari.

Born, raised and educated in Israel, Motti is today a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. While most of his previous research has focussed on Jews, his forthcoming book, which was co-authored with Kirill Bumin, is “Christian Zionism of the Twenty-First Century: Evangelical Public Opinion on Israel.” It’s expected in 2023 from Oxford University Press. 

The book is based on four consecutive surveys on the attitudes of American evangelicals on Israel. We learn that there is no such thing as a monolithic evangelical block. We hear how politics and other factors, such as age and race, can impact support for Israel and how the past five decades have shaped the ways in which evangelical theology has evolved, along with views on Jews’ roles in the Holy Land.

IMAGE: Prof. Motti Inbari (Rose Trail Images)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.

This week, we're speaking with Jamie Geller, often known as the Jewish Rachael Ray, who just published her eighth cookbook, "Farmer’s Kitchen Cookbook: 50 Recipes Celebrating Israel’s Veggies and their Growers."

The cookbook features ten vegetables common to the Israeli kitchen, with guides on selecting, storing and cooking with them in 50 different recipes.

Geller speaks about the process of writing the book during the pandemic, what she's learned about Israeli produce and seasonal vegetables during her ten years living in Israel, and whether her six kids actually eat braised fennel and leeks.

"Farmer's Kitchen" also highlights Israeli farmers who are currently observing the biblical mitzvah or commandment of shmita, Israel's sabbatical for the land that comes around every seven years. 

With farming families facing loss of income from the observance of shmita, Geller partnered with The Shmitah Fund, which offers farmers financial assistance, and she tells the stories of those families, taking a closer look at their farms and what they grow.

IMAGE: From Jamie Geller's 'Farmer’s Kitchen Cookbook: 50 Recipes Celebrating Israel’s Veggies and their Growers' (Courtesy)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.

Our guest this week is Dr. Mark Shinar, who captured the attention of host Amanda Borschel-Dan through his moving blog, “Broken roads: Leadership, authenticity and sexuality.”

The blog discusses how, as an Orthodox father, husband and educator, he came out of the closet a year and a half ago. We’ll hear segments of the blog throughout the longer-than-usual episode.

Shinar has been a Jewish day school administrator and Head of School for 20 years and has worked in Jewish summer camp for more than 25. Today, his main focus is on helping schools shape cultures that inspire within its administrators, teachers, and students a willingness to be vulnerable, to take risks, and to live lives of courageous authenticity and empathy.

Shinar made aliyah in 2017 and lives in Modiin where he and his ex-wife are raising their four sons.

Image: Dr. Mark Shinar (courtesy)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.

This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks to Dr. Tova Hartman, dean of the faculty of humanities at the Ono Academic Campus and founder of the Shira Hadasha congregation in Jerusalem, the first of its kind, a religious community that combines a commitment to Jewish law, with a commitment to prayer and feminism. At the time, it drew a lot of criticism from many Orthodox rabbis who opposed having women lead prayer and read from the Torah. 

Hartman persisted and built Shira Hadasha with her fellow founders, spawning an entire movement in Judaism, of partnership minyanim, communities committed to Jewish law, as well as to feminism in prayer and action. 

She speaks about the inspiration drawn from her father, Rabbi David Hartman, the American-Israeli leader and contemporary Jewish philosopher who founded the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.

Hartman also speaks about making the world of academia accessible to the ultra-Orthodox and Arab populations within the multicultural campuses of the Ono Academic Campus, helping change the direction and goals of those societies.

IMAGE: Dr. Tova Hartman (Courtesy Ono Academic College)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.

This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks to documentary filmmaker Tal Inbar and producer Nancy Spielberg, sister to Steven Spielberg, who premiered their new film, "Closed Circuit" at DocAviv, Tel Aviv’s annual documentary film festival.

"Closed Circuits" uses security camera footage -- much of it taken on the night of the 2016 terror attack in Tel Aviv’s Sarona market -- when two men in suits shot at a crowd eating out. The use of the footage deconstructs the event augmented by interviews with those who survived the attack, and who speak about their insights into that event.

Inbar speaks about how she came across the closed circuit footage of the attack and developed it into a fuller-length film.

Spielberg discusses her fascination with the film upon receiving a 'cold' email from Inbar, as well as her own relationship to Israel, and how the film resonates, particularly in the US, currently reeling from its own spate of tragic attacks.

IMAGE: A closed circuit screen grab from 'Closed Circuit,' Tal Inbar's 2022 film about the 2016 Sarona, Tel Aviv terror attack (Courtesy 'Closed Circuit)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.

This week, host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with archaeologist Prof. Jennie Ebeling about women’s live in ancient Israel.

In addition to leading and participating in archaeological excavations in Israel and Jordan, Ebeling is sculpting the next generation of scholars through her teaching at the University of Evansville in Indiana.

She has written extensively about ancient food and drink technology which can offer a deeper look at women in antiquity, including a book, “Women’s Lives in Biblical Times.”

One of the ways we can learn about women’s agency is through studying ancient ovens, said Ebeling, which in part has led her to hypothesize that women were the master brewers of ancient Israel. 

IMAGE: Archaeologist Prof. Jennie Ebeling at the Jezreel Expedition. (Ashley Motes, courtesy of the Jezreel Expedition)

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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel's weekly feature podcast.

This week, we speak with journalist Joshua Prager, the author of "The Family Roe: An American Story," which was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

"The Family Roe" tells the larger story of abortion in America through focussing on the stories of "Jane Roe," Norma McCorvey, and her three daughters -- including the baby she was carrying that spawned Roe V Wade.

Our conversation was prompted by a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision that could overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. We discuss this potential decision’s implications.

And finally, we talk about another book Prager wrote, "Half-Life," which charts the aftermath of a 1990 bus accident in Israel that left him paralyzed. 

My destruction, my resurrection

Half Life: Reflections from Jerusalem on a Broken Neck, by Joshua Prager

Image: Journalist Joshua Prager, author of 'The Family Roe.' (Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos)

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Welcome to a bonus episode of Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel's weekly feature podcast.

We're speaking with Joshua Cohen, the prize-winning author of "The Netanyahus, An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family," who is in Israel for the Writers Festival and a residency at Jerusalem's Mishkenot Sha'ananim.

We speak about his fictionalization of the very famous political Israeli family and how he chose the Netanyahus as his focus for the novel, as well as the twists of fact and fiction.

Cohen talks about winning the Pulitzer for a book about identity, tokenism and, the Jews.

IMAGE: American novelist Joshua Cohen speaks during a meeting with Journalists as part of the International Writers Festival, in Jerusalem, May 16, 2022. (Courtesy Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90)

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Welcome to this week’s Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from the Times of Israel.

This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks with Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringras, two Israel-based educators and longtime professional collaborators who have just written a book, "Stories for the Sake of Argument," a collection of 24 tales designed to provoke disagreements  about Israel.

The aim is to teach readers more about themselves, each other, and the world at large, with a how-to book of stories that address various controversial issues, taking place primarily in Israel but with universal themes.

They tackle subjects such as religious freedom in Israel, demands of history, issues of social media, praying at the Western Wall, Arab-Israeli voting issues, refugees, racial profiling and the list goes on.

Dauber Sterne and Gringrass discuss their working process, how they chose their subjects and the ultimate aims of this how-to-argue book.

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

IMAGE: Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringrass, educators and authors of 'Stories for the Sake of Argument' (Courtesy PR)

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