Jewanced Benny Scholder & Dan Feferman

Dr. Shlomo Fischer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and teaches sociology in the School of Education at Hebrew University and at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He served as a research fellow at the Van Leer Institute.
Fischer has worked in the field of education for the past 25 years. In the past 10 years, he has worked in the field of religion, democracy, and tolerance. He has edited (together with Adam Seligman) The Burden of Tolerance: Religious Traditions and the Challenge of Pluralism (Hebrew; HaKibbutz Hameuchad and the Van Leer Institute, 2007) which addresses these issues. From 1996 to 2007 he was the founder and Executive Director of Yesodot – Center for Torah and Democracy which works to advance education for democracy in the State-Religious school sector in Israel and was also one of the founders and is on the Board of the International Summer School for Religion and Public Life which is based in Boston, Mass. He is a graduate of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem.
Fischer’s research interests include the nexus of religion, politics and class in Israel, contemporary religion, and the sociology of the Jewish people. He has published extensively on radical religious Zionism and the West Bank settlers as well as on the Shas movement.
Links:
Shlomo Fischer at the JPPI – Jewish People Policy Institute (including a selection of his published writings and articles)
Shlomo Fischer at The Blogs at The Times of Israel
Buy The Burden of Tolerance: Religious Traditions and the Challenge of Pluralism (Hebrew) at the Van Leer Institute
Visit Yesodot: The Center for Torah and Democracy 
Visit the International Summer School for Religion and Public Life
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

Rawan Osman was born in Damascus and raised in Lebanon. After high school, Osman moved back to Syria and in 2011, during the beginning of the unrest, left for France. In 2018, Osman moved to Strasbourg and started working on her first book, The Israelis, Friends or Foes. Osman is a contributor to Fikra Forum.
A true believer in the potential for authentic and positive human interactions with Jews to change popular narratives in the Arab world and bring about peace, Rawan recently participated in the NGO Sharaka’s first-ever historic delegation of Arabs from across the Middle East, Europe, and America who traveled to Auschwitz together with their Jewish and Israeli peers to participate in the annual March of the Living, commemorating the victims of the Shoah on Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day.
Links:
Watch an interview with Sharaka March of the Living delegation members that recently aired on I24 News.
Read an article from The Jerusalem Post / JPost.com about Sharaka’s historic delegation to the March of the Living bringing together Arabs across the Middle East.
Watch an interview of Saudi journalist Abdulaziz Alkhamis who participated in the March of the Living with a historical delegation from the Sharaka NGO at Auschwitz to commemorate the six million Jewish people who were exterminated by the Nazis (in Arabic).
Read a feature piece in The Times of Israel about the historic delegation bringing together influencers from around the Middle East to learn firsthand about the Holocaust and partake in March of the Living (featuring interviews with both Dan Feferman and Rawan Osman).
Rawan Osman on Facebook
Rawan Osman at the Washington Institute
Read a letter from Rawan Osman to Yossi Klein Halevi featured in his award-winning book, Letters To My Neighbor
Visit the Fikra Forum at the Washington Institute
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

Listener’s beware, this episode of the show is virtually guaranteed to leave you super hungry!
NJ native and former screenwriter Joel Haber made aliya to Israel in 2009. Looking to leave his former profession behind in the Old Country, Joe did what anyone would do and became a licensed tour guide and soon found himself escorting travelers from all over the world to discover and uncover the wonder and beauty that is the Land and People of Israel. 
Joel grew up in a modern orthodox home with a mother who was a great home cook, and a cosmopolitan one, and through her kitchen ate many traditional foods of his Ashkenazi Jewish background as well as dishes from other segments of Jewish culture.  Developing a diverse palate, Joel’s taste buds found their perfect habitat when he got to Israel and he quickly was able to enjoy the super-diverse variety that is today’s modern Israeli culinary scene (think everything from pickled herring and kugel to malawach, khachapuri, kuba & gondi). 
Combining his passion for tours with his love of food, Joel is renowned for his incredible, one-of-a-kind tasting tours of Jerusalem’s iconic Machane Yehuda market and giving lectures on what our classic Jewish dishes say about Jewish culture. He is the author of the popular Jewish food blog, “The Taste of Jewish Culture” and author of the book “Chulent: How an Unassuming Sabbath Stew Traveled the World, Changed its Look, and Came to Embody the Jewish Experience.”
Links:
Joel’s popular Jewish food blog ‘The Taste of Jewish Culture’
Tour Israel with Joel Haber at Fun Joel’s Israel Tours
Shuk Tours with Joel Haber
New Passover Foods For Your Seder – by Joel Haber
Learn all about Schmaltz with Joel Haber
A selection of articles by Joel Haber at The Times of Israel
Joel Haber on Twitter, @funjoel
Joel Haber on Facebook
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

DIG into history on this week’s episode of the show as Dan and Benny explore ancient Israel and the turbulent times of the 1st Jewish State and its destruction with guest Dr. David Gurevich, an archaeologist and expert on Jerusalem and the 2nd Temple period.
Dr. David Gurevich is an archaeologist who studies Jerusalem and the Second Temple Period. His doctoral dissertation focused on the large water pools of Jerusalem and established the link between the Jewish pilgrimage to the Temple and the water management of the city.
In 2014-2015, he was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship and became a post-doctoral scholar at Harvard University. In 2019, he published his co-edited volume Exploring the Holy Land that explores the story of the 19th-century British Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), the scientific society that sent the first archaeologists to the region. He also studies the First Jewish-Roman Revolt, a topic of his chapter in the Sefer Yerushalayim volume of Yad Ben Zvi. Dr. Gurevich is a member of the Archaeological Council of Israel. 
Dr. Gurevich also researches Antisemitism in the Orthodox Church. He established the academic program ‘Ambassadors Online’ at the University of Haifa, which trained students to become unofficial diplomats of Israel. In 2017-2018, he worked in the Jerusalem Municipality as an officer-in-charge on the relations of the city and Christian institutions. He is frequently invited to speak on Israeli matters on various forums worldwide, and also works as a tour guide who guides enhanced excursions on historical themes and geopolitics.
Links:
Dr. David Gurevich can be contacted via email at sendtodav@gmail.com
Visit his website at https://www.israelincolor.com
Follow his Facebook group הרצאות וסיורים עם ד''ר דויד גורביץ (Hebrew only) where you can learn about the archaeological history and heritage of the Land of Israel and the ancient near east, as well as join upcoming tours led by Dr. Gurevich.
Click HERE for a selection of academic publications by Dr. Gurevich.
BUY ‘Exploring the Holy Land – 150 Years of the Palestine Exploration Fund’, a book co-edited by David Gurevich and Anat Kidron
Visit David's Instagram
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

Are we headed towards a Cold War – Round Two?    
Our guest this week, Daniel Rakov, might have the answer for that ominous question and it might not be what you think…
Lt. Col. (Res). Daniel Rakov is an expert on Russian policy in the Middle East and Great-Power Competition in the region.  He served in the Israel Defense Forces for over 20 years, mainly in the Israeli Defense Intelligence Division (Aman).  From 2019-2021, he was a research fellow at the Russian Studies Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).  Today, Daniel is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), and he is internationally recognized as one of Israel’s premier experts on Russia today. 
He is the author of ‘Thirty Years of Russian-Israeli Relations: Past, Present, Future(currently available only in Russian).
Links:
Daniel’s page at the JISS
A selection of articles by Daniel in the Israeli and international press
Daniel Rakov on Facebook
Download Daniel’s book, ‘Thirty Years of Russian-Israeli Relations: Past, Present, Future’ (currently available only in Russian)

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

Len Khodorkovsky has one of those heartwarming American Jewish stories: A refugee from the Soviet Union finds safe haven in America, where he thrives, builds a family and reaches professional success… then helps the president of the United States tweet Game of Thrones memes. 
Len Khodorkovsky served at the State Department as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs. He was also a Senior Advisor to the US Special Representative for Iran and the Chief Marketing Officer of America’s economic diplomacy.  He was also the Trump State Department’s secret weapon, the guy who helped the President of the United States tweet some of his most famous (or infamous?) memes!
Prior to joining government, Len was an advertising executive for more than two decades, where he helped Fortune 100 companies develop global ad campaigns and grow their brands.
He is now the Chief Marketing Officer of the Technology Trust Network, an organization working to secure freedom through widespread adoption of trusted technologies.
Links:
Jpost article- Len Khodorkovsky: The State Department’s Secret Weapon
Len on Twitter, @MessageFromLen
Len on LinkedIn
Len on Facebook
Visit WatchYalla, a fast-paced, entertainment program in Arabic that gives a glimpse into the exciting characters shaping the future of the Middle East, promoting peaceful, people-to-people connections between the Arab World and Israel.
Visit WatchYalla on Facebook
WatchYalla on Twitter, @WatchYalla
WatchYalla on Instagram
 
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