Podcasts about jewish

“What did daily life look like for the Holy Family?” This question opens a discussion about the domestic life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, touching on their cultural practices, including cleanliness in Jewish tradition. Other topics include the identity of the “brothers of Jesus,” and insights into St. Joseph’s life and burial. Join the Catholic Answers Live Club Newsletter Invite our apologists to speak at your parish! Visit Catholicanswersspeakers.com Questions Covered: 02:00 – What Did Daily Life Look Like for the Holy Family? 22:50 – Were the “brothers of Jesus” children from Joseph but not Mary? 29:37 – I think I might disagree with you statement that the Holy Family would have been dirty. That Jewish culture was very concerned with being clean. 33:20 – How does the Bible describe St. Joseph? 37:33 – Where is St. Joseph buried? 41:49 – Was Joseph old or young when He married Mary? 47:43 – What is the earliest attestation of the assumption of St. Joseph ?

JAKEGTV is joining us live from the supposed war zone in Puerto Vallarta, where the Zionist media is shoving down endless footage of black smoke, burning buses, torched stores, flaming highways, and panicked tourists after the U.S.-backed hit on CJNG leader El Mencho. Stew Peters breaks down Tucker Carlson's absolute demolition of Mike Huckabee in their explosive Israel interview. Huckabee, the fake Christian Zionist US Ambassador to Israel, got caught red-handed pushing the Jewish supremacist fantasy that Israel has a “biblical right” to steal the entire Middle East from the Nile to the Euphrates.

As Germany conquered countries in WWII, in many nations, they found willing volunteers to help them identify Jews to send to concentration camps. However, not every country did. Finland, Bulgaria, and Albania engaged in a spirited defense of their Jewish communities in the face of Nazi oppression.  However, no country did more to save its Jewish population than Denmark. Learn more about Denmark's Great Escape on this episode of Everything, Everywhere, Daily. Sponsors Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Mint Mobile Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/Ds7Rx7jvPJ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Disce aliquid novi cotidie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul finds some disciples who have never heard of the Holy Spirit. Baptism is a hands-on sacrament. And seven itinerant Jewish exorcists get beaten naked by a man with an evil spirit. Have a listen.  Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Being Family by Dr. Scott Keith A Reasoned Defense of the Faith by Adam Francisco Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Dr. Christopher Richmann The Essential Nestingen: Essays on Preaching, Catechism, and the Reformation Philip Melanchthon's Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Translated by Dr. Derek Cooper More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Erick Sorenson

The dream came true. And then reality arrived. In the 4th episode of our epic series tracing the Jewish relationship to the Land of Israel, Zionism shifts from vision to governance as Israel fights to survive. Noam Weissman explores the country's turbulent early decades, absorbing waves of immigrants, forging a new national identity, and confronting wars that reshaped the region and tested the dream. This episode of Unpacking Israeli History is generously sponsored by Debra and Avi Naider and Jody and Ari Storch. To sponsor an episode or to be in touch, please email noam@unpacked.media. Visit jewishlives.org to explore and buy books from the Jewish Lives book series. Use the discount code JLIFE to get a discount. Check out this episode on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠This podcast is brought to you by Unpacked, an OpenDor Media brand .------------------- Visit jewishlives.org/ to explore and buy books from the Jewish Lives book series. Use the discount code JLIFE to get a discount. For other podcasts from Unpacked, check out: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jewish History Nerds⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Soulful Jewish Living⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stars of David with Elon Gold ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wondering Jews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

This month of learning is sponsored by our dear friends Matt and Mollie Landes of Riverdale for the neshama of Dovid Yehonatan ben Yitzchak Yehuda.In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we speak with Yehuda Geberer—a researcher, educator, and tour guide—about the history of the yeshiva world.In this episode we discuss:How did we get from the start of the Lithuanian yeshiva movement to the American yeshiva world of today?What were the premodern precursors to yeshivas? What effect did the Vietnam War have on the development of the American yeshiva world?Tune in for a conversation about “change in service of perpetuating the eternal.” Interview begins at 22:43.Yehuda Geberer is a Jewish history researcher, educator, and licensed tour guide who leads heritage tours in Europe and Israel focused on the modern Jewish story. He guides at Yad Vashem, where he also interviews Holocaust survivors, lectures internationally, hosts the popular Jewish History Soundbites podcast, and writes the “For the Record” column for Mishpacha Magazine. A former Mir Yeshiva student with a business degree from Ono Academic College, he is currently studying Jewish history at Hebrew University and lives in Beit Shemesh with his family.References:Jew Vs Jew: The Struggle For The Soul Of American Jewry by Samuel G. FreedmanThe Jewish Self by Jeremy Kagan Lithuanian Yeshivas of the Nineteenth Century: Creating a Tradition of Learning by Shaul StampferMaking of a Godol by Nathan KamenetskyPsalms 89Jewish History SoundbitesThe Golden Age of the Lithuanian Yeshivas by Ben-Tsiyon KlibanskyThe World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry by William B. HelmreichBava Batra 21aFor more 18Forty:NEWSLETTER: 18forty.org/joinCALL: (212) 582-1840EMAIL: info@18forty.orgWEBSITE: 18forty.orgIG: @18fortyX: @18_fortyWhatsApp: join hereBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/18forty-podcast--4344730/support.

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. Archaeology reporter Rossella Tercatin and diplomatic reporter Nava Freiberg join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode. If Iran attacks Israel, it will be “perhaps the most serious mistake in their history,” warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening, threatening an overwhelming response to any aggression. As the world awaits US President Donald Trump's State of the Union address tonight, Freiberg updates us with the push-pull diplomacy of the past day. The Palestinian technocratic body tasked with managing postwar Gaza announced last week that it was opening applications for “qualified candidates” seeking to serve in a “transitional police force” to be deployed in the Strip. This comes as Hamas appears poised to keep hold of its control of civilian and security infrastructure even as the Trump peace plan moves ahead. The Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest nearly complete book from the Hebrew Bible ever found, is on display in its full length for the first time since 1968. Tercatin was on hand at Jerusalem's Israel Museum for the unveiling and fills us in. Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates. For further reading: Trump said frustrated with limits of military leverage against Iran Netanyahu: An attack on Israel would be ‘most serious mistake’ in Iranian history Hamas seen working to maintain control of Gaza via Trump-backed bodies Gaza oversight committee seeks ‘qualified’ candidates to join Strip’s police force Great Isaiah Scroll, oldest near-complete biblical book ever found, on show in entirety for 1st time since 1968 Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ari Schlacht produced this episode. IMAGE: Hamas gunmen in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City, November 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God's presence. I'm Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God's presence through biblically guided imagination.  Acts 17:25 NIV “...He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” Genesis 2:7 NIV “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV “...If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” John 20:19-22 NIV 19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

Romans 11:13-15 — What is the future of the Jewish nation? According to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in this sermon on Romans 11:13–15 titled “Life From the Dead,” one does not have to wonder since God prophesied through the apostle Paul that there will be a great day when Israel is saved. While they may have stumbled, this was only temporary in order that the gospel might go to all the nations of the Gentiles. God has promised that there will come a day when the dead come to life; that is, when the spiritually dead Israelites receive the gospel of Jesus Christ and believe in Him. All Christians ought to pray and seek the day when God moves and causes a great revival amongst the people of Israel. Furthermore, Paul warns Gentile Christians from becoming prideful and boastful towards the Jewish people, for both Jew and Gentile are justified by faith in Christ as a gift from God. How should this message change the way Christians live now? Christians ought to seek to evangelize the people of Israel because they know that there will be a day when God causes a great revival amongst them. The church ought to pray and eagerly await the day when God fulfills His promise and brings many national Israelites into the church of Jesus Christ. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/603/29?v=20251111

I watched the recent interview between Tucker Carlson and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee with careful attention. I wanted to see whether it would be a fair exchange or something else.It was something else. Very disturbing. Beneath the calm tone and sweet, unassuming delivery, Tucker Carlson framed the interview to function as a hit job, not just on Israel but on Ambassador Huckabee as well.This was not an interview designed to uncover the truth for the benefit of Americans. It was engineered to implant doubt about Israel's moral legitimacy, about the justice of its war, about the wisdom of America's alliance with the Jewish state, and about Huckabee's alliance to the USA over Israel. The framing did the damage, long before any answer was given.Join Our Whatsapp Channel: https://chat.whatsapp.com/GkavRznXy731nxxRyptCMvFollow us on Twitter: https://x.com/AviAbelowJoin our Telegram Channel: https://t.me/aviabelowpulseFollow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pulse_of_israel/?hl=enPulse of Israel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IsraelVideoNetworkVisit Our Website - https://pulseofisrael.com/Donate to Pulse of Israel: https://pulseofisrael.com/boost-this-video/

Can you help children with challenging behaviors without bribes, sticker charts, or constant rewards?In this episode, I sit down with Yiska Zelikovich, an experienced teacher, to talk about the Nurtured Heart Approach and how it shifts the focus from managing behavior to building inner confidence and successful outcomes. We explore what positive reinforcement really means, why external rewards can sometimes backfire, and how intentional recognition can transform both classrooms and homes.We also discuss how this approach beautifully aligns with Jewish parenting and teaching values—seeing each child's inherent greatness, celebrating successes, and creating clear routines that help children feel secure, capable, and empowered.If you're a parent or educator looking for practical, values-based tools to support strong-willed or high-energy kids, this conversation is for you.You can connect with Yiska at monseynurturedheart@gmail.comFor more from me visit my website MussiDiskin.com or email me at EnergizingHearts@gmail.comCheck out my free parenting course called Parenting 101 at MussiDiskin.com/freecontent

Legendary comedian and Emmy-winning writer David Steinberg joins Gilbert and Frank to talk about his friendships with Jack Benny and George Burns, his 140+ appearances on Johnny Carson's “Tonight Show," his inclusion on Richard Nixon's infamous enemies list and the 2013 biographical Showtime documentary “Quality Balls." Also in this episode: the Smothers Brothers get hate mail, David directs Gilbert in an episode of “Mad About You” and David presents Showtime's "Inside Comedy" series. PLUS: John Candy does Doc Severinsen! David saves Tony Randall's life! And the Mount Rushmore of Jewish comedians! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this brief episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi dissects a revealing interview between Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, using it as a window into the growing rift inside the MAGA coalition. At the center of the clash is a theological and political divide: Christian Zionism versus a rising strain of Christian anti-semitism - nationalist, isolationist populism that increasingly traffics in anti-Jewish tropes. Brad unpacks how debates over Genesis 15, biblical land claims, and U.S. foreign policy toward Israel expose deeper fractures—ones that pit older religious right leaders like Huckabee against a younger, more conspiratorial wing associated with figures such as Candace Owens and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The result is a struggle over theology, nationalism, and who truly defines “America First.” Brad also explores how the Epstein files, Gaza, and the language of “protecting children” are being weaponized within this intra-MAGA battle. On one side stands a Christian Zionist framework that collapses biblical covenant, modern nation-state politics, and unconditional U.S. support for Israel. On the other stands an isolationist populism that critiques foreign aid and military alliances but often slips into conspiratorial and antisemitic rhetoric. Neither camp, Brad argues, offers a healthy path forward. Instead, this moment reveals how theology, demographics, generational divides, and media ecosystems are reshaping the American right in real time—and why the consequences extend far beyond Israel policy alone. Subscribe for $3.65:⁠ ⁠https://axismundi.supercast.com/⁠⁠ Subscribe to our free newsletter:⁠ ⁠https://swaj.substack.com/⁠⁠ Order American Caesar by Brad Onishi:⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/⁠⁠ Donate to SWAJ: ⁠https://axismundi.supercast.com/donations/new Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can trauma become a catalyst for creative transformation? What lessons can indie authors learn from the music industry's turbulent journey through technological disruption? With Jack Williamson. In the intro, Why recipes for publishing success don't work and what to do instead [Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast]; Why your book isn't selling: metadata [Novel Marketing Podcast]; Creating a successful author business [Fantasy Writers Toolshed Podcast]; Bones of the Deep – J.F. Penn. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Jack Williamson is a psychotherapist, coach, and bestselling author who spent nearly two decades as a music industry executive. He's the founder of Music & You, his latest nonfiction book is Maybe You're The Problem, and he also writes romance under A.B. Jackson. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Finding post-traumatic growth and meaning after bereavement, and using tragedy as a catalyst for creative transformation Why your superpower can also be your Achilles heel, and how indie authors can overcome shiny object syndrome Three key lessons from the music industry: embracing change, thinking creatively about marketing, and managing pressure for better creativity The A, B, C technique for PR interviews and why marketing is storytelling through different mediums How to deal with judgment and shame around AI in the author community by understanding where people sit on the opinion-belief-conviction continuum Three AI developments coming from music to publishing: training clauses in contracts, one-click genre adaptation, and licensed AI-generated video adaptations You can find Jack at JackWilliamson.co.uk and his fiction work at ABJackson.com. Transcript of the interview with Jack Williamson Jo: Jack Williamson is a psychotherapist, coach, and bestselling author who spent nearly two decades as a music industry executive. He's the founder of Music & You, his latest nonfiction book is Maybe You're The Problem, and he also writes romance under A.B. Jackson. Welcome to the show. Jack: Thank you so much for having me, Jo. It's a real honour to be on your podcast after listening all of these years. Jo: I'm excited to talk to you. We have a lot to get into, but first up— Tell us a bit more about you and why get into writing books after years of working in music. Jack: I began my career at the turn of the millennium, basically, and I worked for George Michael and Mariah Carey's publicist, which I'm sure you can imagine was quite the introduction to the corporate world. From there I went on to do domestic and international marketing for a load of massive artists at Universal, so the equivalent of the top five publishers in the publishing world that we all work in. Then from there I had a bit of a challenge. In December 2015, I lost my brother, unfortunately to suicide. For any listener or any person that's gone through a traumatic event, it can really make you reassess everything, make you question life, make you question your purpose. When I went through that, I was thinking, well, what do I want to do? What do I want out of life? So I went on this journey for practically the next ten years. I retrained to be a psychotherapist. I created a bucket list—a list of all the things that I thought maybe my brother would've wanted to do but didn't do. One of the things was scatter his ashes at the Seven Wonders of the world. Then one of the items on my bucket list was to write a book. The pandemic hit. It was a challenge for all of us, as you've spoken about so much on this wonderful podcast. I thought, well, why not? Why not write this book that I've wanted to write? I didn't know when I was going to do it because I was always so busy, and then the pandemic happened and so I wrote a book. From there, listening to your wonderful podcast, I've learned so much and been to so many conferences and learned along the way. So now I've written five books and released three. Jo: That's fantastic. I mean, regular listeners to the show know that I talk about death and grief and all of this kind of thing, and it's interesting that you took your brother's ashes to the Seven Wonders of the world. Death can obviously be a very bad, negative thing for those left behind, but it seems like you were able to reframe your brother's experience and turn that into something more positive for your life rather than spiralling into something bad. So if people listening are feeling like something happens, whether it's that or other things— How can we reframe these seemingly life-ending situations in a more positive way? Jack: It is very hard and there's no one way to do it. I think as you always say, I never want to tell people what to do or what to think. I want to show them how to think and how they can approach things differently or from a different perspective. I can only speak from my journey, but we call it in therapeutic language, post-traumatic growth. It is, how do you define it so it doesn't define you? Because often when you have a bereavement of a loved one, a family member, it can be very traumatic, but how can you take meaning and find meaning in it? There's a beautiful book called Man's Search for Meaning, and the name of the author escapes me right now, but he says— Jo: Viktor Frankl. Jack: Yes. Everyone quotes it as one of their favourite books, and one of my favourite lines is, “Man can take everything away from you, apart from the ability to choose one thought over the other.” I think it's so true because we can make that choice to choose what to think. So in those moments when we are feeling bad, when we're feeling down, we want to honour our feelings, but we don't necessarily want to become them. We want to process that, work through, get the support system that we need. But again, try to find meaning, try to find purpose, try to understand what is going on, and then pay it forward. Irrespective of your belief system, we all yearn for purpose. We all yearn for being connected to something bigger than ourselves. If we can find that through bereavement maybe, or through a traumatic incident, then hopefully we can come through the other side and have that post-traumatic growth. Jo: I love that phrase, post-traumatic growth. That's so good. Obviously people think about post-traumatic anything as like PTSD—people immediately think a sort of stress disorder, like it's something that makes things even worse. I like that you reframed it in that way. Obviously I think the other thing is you took specific action. You didn't just think about it. You travelled, you retrained, you wrote books. So I think also it's not just thinking. In fact, thinking about things can sometimes make it worse if you think for too long, whereas taking an action I think can be very strong as well. Jack: Ultimately we are human beings as opposed to human doings, but actually being a human doing from time to time can be really helpful. Actually taking steps forward, doing things differently, using it as a platform to move forward and to do things that maybe you didn't before. When you are confronted with death, it can actually make you question your own mortality and actually question, am I just coasting along? Am I stuck in a rut? Could I be doing something differently? One of the things that bereavement, does is it holds a mirror up to ourselves and it makes us question, well, what do we want from our life? Are we here to procreate? Are we here to make a difference? Some of us can't procreate, or some of us choose not to procreate, but we can all make a difference. And it's, how do we do that? Where do we do that? When do we do that? Jo: That's interesting. I was thinking today about service and gratitude. I'm doing this Master's and I was reading some theology stuff today, and service and gratitude, I think if you are within a religious tradition, are a normal part of that kind of religious life. Whether it's service to God and gratitude to God, or service and gratitude to others. I was thinking that these two things, service and gratitude, can actually really help reframe things as well. Who can we serve? As authors, we're serving our readers and our community. What can we be grateful about? That's often our readers and our community as well. So I don't know, that helped me today—thinking about how we can reframe things, especially in the world we're in now where there's a lot of anger and grief and all kinds of things. Jack: That's what we've got to look at. We are here to serve. Again, that can take different shapes, different forms. Some of us work in the service industry. I provide a service as a psychotherapist, you serve your listeners with knowledge and information that you gather and dispense through the research you do or the guests you have on. We serve readers of the different genres that we write in. It's what ways can we serve, how can we serve? Again, I think we all, if we can and when we can, should pay it forward. Someone said this to me once in the music industry: be careful who you meet on the way up and how you treat them on the way up, because invariably you'll meet them on the way down. So if you can pay forward that kindness, if you can be kind, considerate, and treat people how you want to be treated, that is going to pay dividends in the long run. It may not come off straight away, but invariably it will come back to you in some way, shape, or form in a different way. Jo: I've often talked about social karma and karma in the Hindu sense—the things that you do come back to you in some other form. Possibly in another life, which I don't believe. In terms of, I guess, you didn't know what was going to happen to your brother, and so you make the most of the life that we have at the moment because things change and you just don't know how things are going to change. You talk about this in your book, Maybe You're The Problem, which is quite a confronting title. So just talk about your book, Maybe You're The Problem, and why you wrote that. Put it into context with the author community and why that might be useful. Jack: Thank you for flagging my book. I intentionally crossed out “maybe” on the merchandise I did as well, because in essence, we are our own problem. We can get in the way, and it's what happened to us when we grew up wasn't our fault, but what we do with it is our responsibility. We may have grown up in a certain period or a climate. We didn't necessarily choose to do that, but what we do with that as a result is up to us. So we can stay in our victimhood and we can blame our parents, or we can blame the generation we are in, or we can blame the city, the location—however, that is relinquishing your power. That is staying in a victim mindset rather than a survivor or a thriver mindset. So it's about how can we look at the different areas in our life. Whether that is conflict, whether that is imposter syndrome, whether that is the generation we're born into. We try to understand how that has shaped us and how we may be getting in our own way to stop us from growing, to stop us from expanding, and to see where our blind spots are, our limitations are, and how that may impact us. There's so much going on in the moment in the world, whether that is in the digital realm, whether that is in the geo-climate that we're in at the moment. Again, that's going to bring up a lot for us. How can we find solutions to those problems for us so that we continue to move forward rather than be restricted and hindered by them? Jo: Alright. Well let's get into some more specifics. You have been in the author community now for a while. You go to conferences and you are in the podcast community and all this kind of thing. What specific issues have you seen in the author community? Maybe around some of the things you've mentioned, or other things? How might we be able to deal with those? Jack: With authors, I think it is such a wonderful and unique industry that I have an honour and privilege of being a part of now. One of the main things I've learned is just how creative people are. Coming from a creative industry like the music industry, there is a lot of neurodivergence in the creative industries and in the author community. Whether that is autism, whether that is ADHD—that is a real asset to have as a superpower, but it can be an Achilles heel. So it's understanding—and I know that there is an overexposure of people labelling themselves as ADHD—but on the flip side to that, it's how can we look at what's going on for us? For ADHD, for example, there's a thing called shiny object syndrome. You've talked about this in the past, Joanna, where it's like a new thing comes along, be it TikTok, be it Substack, be it bespoke books, be it Shopify, et cetera. We can rush and quickly be like, “oh, let me do this, let me do that,” before we actually take the time to realise, is this right for me? Does this fit my author business? Does this fit where I'm at in my author journey? I think sometimes as authors, we need to not cave in to that shiny object syndrome and take a step back and think to ourselves, how does this serve me? How does this serve my career? How does this work for me if I'm looking at this as a career? If you're looking at it as a hobby, obviously it's a different lens to look through, but that's something that I would often make sure that we look at. One of the other things that really comes up is that in order for any of us to address our fears and anxieties, we need to make sure that we feel psychologically safe and to put ourselves in spaces and places where we feel seen, heard, and understood, which can help address some of the issues that I've just mentioned. Being in that emotionally regulated state when we are with someone we know and trust—so taking someone to a conference, taking someone to a space or a place where you feel that you can be seen, heard, and understood—can help us and allow us to embrace things that we perceive to be scary. That may be finding an author group, finding an online space where you can actually air and share your thoughts, your feelings, where you don't feel that you are being judged. Often it can be quite a judgmental space and place in the online world. So it's just finding your tribe and finding places where you can actually lean into that. So there'd be two things. Jo: I like the idea of the superpower and the Achilles heel because I also feel this when we are writing fiction. Our characters have strengths, but your fatal flaw is often related to your strength. Jack: Yes. Jo: For example, I know I am independent. One of the reasons I'm an independent author is because I'm super independent. But one of my greatest fears is being dependent. So I do lots of things to avoid being dependent on other people, which can lead me to almost damage myself by not asking for help or by trying to make sure that I control everything so I never have to ask anyone else to do something. I'm coming to terms with this as I get older. I feel like this is something we start to hit—I mean, as a woman after menopause—is this feeling of I might have to be dependent on people when I'm older. It's so interesting thinking about this and thinking— My independence is my strength. How can it also be my weakness? So what do you think about that? You're going to psychotherapist me now. Jack: I definitely won't, but it's interesting. Just talking about that, we all have wounds and we all have the shadow, as you've even written about in one of your books. And it's how that can come from a childhood wound where it's like we seek help and it's not given to us. So we create a belief system where I have to do everything myself because no one will help me. Or we may have rejection sensitivity, so we reject ourselves before others can reject us. So it's actually about trying, where we can, to honour our truths, honour that we may want to be independent, for example, but then realising that success leaves clues. I always say that if you are independent—and I definitely align a hundred percent with you, Joanna—I've had to work really hard myself in personal therapy and in business and life to realise that no human is an island and we can't all do this on our own. Yes, it's amazing with the AI agents now that can help us in a business capacity, but having those relationships that we can tap into—like you mentioned all of the people that you tap into—it's so important to have those. I always say that it's important to have three mentors: one person that's ahead of you (for me, that would be Katie Cross because she's someone that I find is an amazing author and we speak at least once a month); people that are at the same level as you that you can go on the journey together with (and I have an author group for that); and then someone that is perceived to be behind you or in a younger generation than you, because you can learn as much from them as they can learn from you. If you can actually tap into those people whilst honouring your independence, then it feels like you can still go on your own journey, but you can tap in and tap out as and when needed. Sacha Black will give you amazing insights, other people like Honor will give you amazing insights, but you can also provide that for them. So there's that safety of being able to do it on your own. But on the flip side, you still have those people that you can tap into as and when necessary as a sounding board, as information on how they were successful, and go from there. Jo: No, I like that. If you're new to the show, Sacha Black and Honor Raconteur have been on the show and they are indeed some of my best friends. So I appreciate that. I really like the idea of the three mentor idea. I just want to add to that because I do think people misunderstand the word mentor sometimes. You mentioned you speak to Katie Cross, but I've found that a lot of the mentors that I've had who are ahead of me have often been books. We mentioned the Viktor Frankl book, and if people don't know, he was Jewish and in the concentration camps and survived that. So it's a real survivor story. But to me, books have been mostly my mentors in terms of people who are ahead of me. We don't always need to speak to or be friends with our mentors. I think that's important too, right? Because I just get emails a lot that say, “Will you be my mentor?” And I don't think that's the point. Jack: Oh, I a hundred percent agree with you. If you don't have access to those mentors—like Oprah Winfrey is one of the people that I perceive as a mentor—I listen to podcasts, I read her books, I watch interviews. There is a way to absorb and acquire that information, and it doesn't have to be a direct relationship with them. It is someone that you can gain the knowledge and wisdom that they've imparted in whatever form you may consume it. Which is why I think it is important to have those three levels: that one that is above you that may be out of reach in terms of a human connection, but you can still access; then the people at the same level as you that you can have those relationships and grow with; and again, that one behind that you can help pave the way for them, but also learn from them as well. So a hundred percent agree that that mentor that you are looking for that may be ahead of you doesn't necessarily need to be someone that is in a real-world relationship. Jo: So let's just circle back to your music industry experience. You mentioned being on the sort of marketing team for some really big names in music, and I mean, it's kind of a sexy job really. It just sounds pretty cool, but of course the music industry has just as many challenges as publishing. What did you learn from working in the music industry that you think might be particularly useful for authors? Jack: The perception of reality was definitely a lot different. It does look sexy and glamorous, but the reality is similar to going to conferences. It's pretty much flight, hotel, and dark rooms with terrible air conditioning that you spend a lot of time in. So sorry to burst the illusion. But I mean, it does have its moments as well. There is so much I've learned over the years and there's probably three things that stand out the most. The first one was I entered the industry right at the height of the music industry. In 2000, 2001. That was when Napster really exploded and it decimated the music industry. It wiped half the value in the space of four years. Then the music industry was trying to shut it down, throwing legal, throwing everything at it, but it was like whack-a-mole. As soon as one went down such as Napster, ten others popped up like Kazaa. So you saw that the old guard wasn't willing to embrace change. They weren't willing to adapt. They assumed that people wanted the formats of CDs, vinyls, cassettes, and they were wrong. Yes, people wanted music, but they actually wanted the music. They didn't care about the format, they just wanted the access. So that was one of the really interesting things that I learned, because I was like, you have to embrace change. You can't ignore it. You can't push it away, push it aside, because it's coming whether you like it or not. I think thankfully the music industry has learned as AI's coming, because now you have to embrace it. There's a lot of legal issues that have been going on at the moment with rights, which you've covered about the Anthropic case and so on. It's such a challenge, and I just think that's the first one. The second one I learned was back in 2018. There was an artist I worked on called Freya Ridings. At that time I was working at an independent record label rather than one of the big three major record labels. She had great songs and we were up against one of the biggest periods of the year and trying to make noise. At the time, Love Island was the biggest TV show on, and everyone wanted to be on it in terms of getting their music synced in the scenes. We were just like, we are never going to compete. So we thought, we need to be clever here. We need to think differently. What we did is we found out what island the show was being recorded on, and we geo-targeted our ads just to that island because we knew the sync team were going to be on there. So we just went hard as nails, advertised relentlessly, and we knew that the sync people would then see the adverts. As a result of that, Freya got the sync. It became the biggest song that season on Love Island, back when it was popular. As a result of that, we built from there. We were like, right, we can't compete with the majors. We have to think differently. We need to do things differently. We need to be creative. It wasn't an easy pathway. That year there were only two other songs that were independent that reached the top 10. So we ended up becoming a third and the biggest song that year. The reason I'm saying that is we can't compete with the major publishers. But the beauty of the independent author community is because we have smaller budgets—most of us, not all of us, but most of us—we have to think differently. We have to make our bang for our buck go a lot further. So it's actually— How can we stay creative? How can we think differently? What can we do differently? So that would be the second thing. Then the third main lesson that I learned, and this is more on the creative side, is that pressure can often work against you, both in a business sense, but especially creativity. I've seen so many artists over the years have imposed deadlines on them to hand in their albums, and it's impacted the quality of their output. Once it's handed in, the stress and the pressure is off, and then you realise that actually those artists end up creating the best material that they have, and then they rush to put it on. Whether that's Mariah Carey's “We Belong Together,” Adele with her song “Hello,” Taylor Swift did the same with “Shake It Off”—they're just three examples. The reason is that pressure keeps us in our beta brainwave state, which is our rational, logical mind. For those of us that are authors that are writing fiction, or even if we are creating stories in our nonfiction work to deliver a point, we need to be in that creative mindset. So we need to be in the alpha and the gamma brain state. Because our body works on 90-minute cycles known as our ultradian rhythm, we need to make sure that we honour our cycle and work with that. If we go past that, our creativity and our productivity is going to go down between 60% and 40% respectively. So as authors, it's important—one, to apply the right amount of pressure; two, to work in breaks; and three, to know what kind of perspective we're looking at. Do we need to be rational and logical, or do we need to be creative? And then adjust the sails accordingly. Jo: That's all fantastic. I want to come back on the marketing thing first—around what you did with the strategic marketing there and the targeted ads to that island. That's just genius. I feel like a lot of us, myself included, we struggle to think creatively about marketing because it's not our natural state. Of course, you've done a lot of marketing, so maybe it comes more naturally to you. I think half the time we don't even use the word creative around marketing, when you're not a marketeer. What are some ways that we can break through our blocks around marketing and try to be more creative around that? Jack: I would challenge a lot of authors on that presumption, because as authors we're in essence storytellers, and to tell a story is creative. There's a great quote: “One death is a tragedy. A thousand deaths is a statistic.” If you can create a story, a compelling narrative about a death in the news, it's going to pull at the heartstrings of people. It's going to really resonate and get with them. Whereas if you are just quoting statistics, most people switch off because they become desensitised to it. So I think because we can tell stories, and that's the essence of what we do, it's how can we tell our story through the medium of social media? How can we tell a story through our creative ads that we then put out onto Facebook or TikTok or whatever platform that we're putting them out—BookBub, et cetera? How can we create a narrative that garners the attention? If we are looking at local media or traditional media, how can we do that? How can we get people to buy in to what we're selling? So it's about having different angles. For me with my new romance book, Stolen Moments, one of the stories I had that really has helped me get some coverage and PR is we recorded the songs next door to the Rolling Stones. Now that was very fortunate timing, very fortunate. But everyone's like, “Oh my God, you recorded next door to the Rolling Stones?” So it's like, well, how can you bring in these creative nuggets that help you to find a story? Again, marketing is in essence telling a story, albeit through different mediums and forms. So it's just how can you package that into a marketable product depending on the platform in which you're putting it out on. Jo: I think that's actually hilarious, by the way, because what you hit on there, as someone with a background in marketing, your story about “we recorded an album for the book next door to the Rolling Stones”—it's got nothing to do with the romance. Jack: Oh, the romance is that the pop star in the book writes and records songs. Jo: Yes, I realised that. But the fact is— For doing things like PR, it's the story behind the story. They don't care that you've written a romance. Jack: Yes. Jo: They're far more interested in you, the author, and other things. So I think what you just described there was a kind of PR hook that most of us don't even think about. Jack: I'm sure a lot of authors already know this, so it's a good reminder, and if you don't, it's great. It's called the A, B, C technique. When you get asked a question, you Answer the question. So that's A. You Build a bridge, and then you go to C, which is Covering one of your points. So whenever you get asked a question, have a list of things you want to get across in an interview. Then just make sure that you find that bridge between whatever the question is to cover off one of your points, and that's how you can do it. Because yes, you may be selling a story, like I said, about writing the songs, but then you can bridge it into actually covering and promoting whatever it is you're promoting. So I think that's always quite helpful to remember. Jo: Well, that's a good tip for things like coming on podcasts as well. I've had people on who don't do what you just mentioned and will just try and shoehorn things in in a more deliberate fashion, whereas other people, as you have just done with your romance there, bring it in while answering a question that actually helps other people. So I think that's the kind of thing we need to think about in marketing. Okay, so then let's come back to the embracing change, and as you mentioned, the AI stuff that's going on. I feel like there's so many “stories” around AI right now. There's a lot of stories being told on both sides—on the positive side, on the negative side—that people believe and buy into and may or may not be true. There's obviously a lot of anger. There's, I think, grief—a big thing that people might not even realise that they have. Can you talk about how authors might deal with what's coming up around the technological change around AI, and any of your personal thoughts as well? Jack: I was thinking about this a lot recently. I mean, I guess everyone is in their own ways and forms. One of the things that came up for me is we have genre expectations and we have generation expectations. When we look at genres, you will have different expectations from different genres. For romance, they want a happily ever after or a happy for now. For cosy mysteries, they expect the crime to be solved. So we as authors make sure we endeavour to meet those expectations. The challenge is that if we are looking at AI, we are all in our own generations. We might be in slightly different generations, but there are going to be different generation expectations from the Alpha generation that's coming up and the Beta generation that's just about to start this year or next year because they're going to come into the world where they don't know any different to AI. So they will have a different expectation than us. It will just be normal that there will be AI agents. It will just be normal that there are AI narrators. It will be normalised that AI will assist authors or assist everyone in doing their jobs. So again, it is a grieving period because we can long for what was, we can yearn for things that worked for us that no longer work for us—whether it's Facebook groups, whether it's the Kindle Rush. We can mourn the loss of that, but that's not coming back. I mean, sometimes there may be a resurgence, but essentially, we've got to embrace the change. We've got to understand that it's coming and it's going to bring up a lot of different emotions because you may have been beholden to one thing and you may be like, yes, I've now got my TikTok lives, and then all of a sudden TikTok goes away. I know Adam, when he was talking about it, he'll just find another platform. But there'll be a lot of people that are beholden to it and then they're like, what do I do now? So again, it's never survival of the fittest—it's survival of the most adaptable. I always use this metaphor where there are three people on three different boats. A storm comes. And the first, the optimist, is like, “Oh, it'll pass,” and does nothing. The pessimist complains about the storm and does nothing. But the realist will adjust the sails and use the storm to find its way to the other side, to get through. It's not going to be easy, but they're actually taking change and making change to get to where they need to go, rather than just expecting or complaining. I get it. We are not, and I hate the expression, “we're all in the same boat.” I call bleep on that. I'm not going to swear. We're not all in the same boat. We're all in the same storm, but different people are going through different things. For some, they can adjust and adapt really quickly like a speedboat. For others, they may be like Jack and Rose in the Titanic on that terrible prop where they're clinging to dear life and trying to get through the storm. So it's about how do I navigate this upcoming storm? What can I do within my control to get through the storm? For some it may be easier because they have the resources, or for some of us that love learning, it's easy to embrace change. For others that have a fear mindset and it's like, “Oh, something new, it's scary, I don't want to embrace it”—you are going to take longer. So you may not be the speedboat, but at some point we are going to have to embrace that change. Otherwise we're going to get left behind. So you need to look at that. Jo: The storm metaphor is interesting, and being in different boats. I feel I do struggle. I struggle with people who suddenly seem to be discovering the storm. I've been talking about AI now since 2016. That's a decade. Jack: Yes. Jo: Even ChatGPT has been around more than three years, and people come to me now and they're talking about stories that they've seen in the media that are just old now. Things have moved on so much. I feel like maybe I was on my boat and I looked through my telescope and I saw the storm. I've been talking about the storm and I've had my own moments of being in the middle of the storm. Now I definitely do struggle with people who just seem to have arrived without any knowledge of it before. I oscillate between being an optimist and a realist. I think I'm somewhere between the two, probably. But I think what is driving me a little crazy in the author community right now is judgment and shame. There are people who are judging other people, and there's shame felt by AI-curious or AI-positive people. So I want to help the people who feel shame in some way for trying new technology, but they still feel attacked. Then those people judge other authors for their choices to use technology. So how do you think we can deal with judgment and shame in the community? Which is a form of conflict, I guess. Jack: Of course. I think with that, there's another great PR quote: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Especially in this digital age, there's a lot of clickbait. So the more polarising, the more emotion-evoking the headline, the more likely you are to engage with that content—whether that is reading it or whether that's posting or retweeting, or whatever format you are consuming it on. So unfortunately, media has now become so much more polarising. It's dividing us rather than uniting us. So people are going to have stronger positions. There's so much even within this to look at. One is, you have to work out where people are on the continuum. Do they have an opinion on AI? Do they have a belief? Or do they have a conviction? Now you're not going to move someone that has a conviction about something, so it's not worth even engaging with them because they're immovable. Like they say, you shouldn't talk about sports, politics, and religion. There are certain subjects that may not be worth talking about, especially if they have a conviction. Because they may not even be able to agree to disagree. They may not be willing or able to hear you. So first and foremost, it's about understanding, well, where are those people sitting on the continuum of AI? Are they curious? Do they have an opinion, but they're open to hearing other opinions? Do they have a belief that could be changed or evolved if they find more information? That's where I think it is. It's not necessarily our jobs—even though you do an amazing job of it, Joanna—but a lot of people are undereducated on these issues or these new technologies. So in some cases it's just a case of a lack of education or them being undereducated. Hopefully in time they will become more and more educated. But again, it's how long is a piece of string? Will people catch up? Will they stay behind? Are they fearful? I guess because of social media, because of the media, as they say, if you can evoke fear in people, you can control them. You can control their perspectives. You can control their minds. So that's where we see it—a lot of people are operating from a fear mindset. So then that's when they project their vitriol in certain cases. If people want to believe a certain thing, that's their choice. I'm not here to tell people what to think. Like I said earlier, it's more about how to think. But I would just encourage people to find people that align with you. Do a sense test, like a litmus test, to find where they sit on the continuum and engage with those people that are open and have opinions or beliefs. But shy away or just avoid people that have convictions that maybe are the polar opposite of yours. Jo: It's funny, isn't it? We seem to be in a phase of history when I feel like you should be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Although, as you mentioned, there's certain members of my family where we just stay on topics of TV shows and movies or music, or what books are you reading? Like, we don't go anywhere near politics. So I do think that might be a rule also with the AI stuff. As you said, find a community, and there are plenty of AI-positive spaces now for people who do want to talk about this kind of stuff. I also think that, I don't know whether this is a tipping point this year, but certainly— I know people who are in bigger corporates where the message is now, “You need to embrace this stuff. It is now part of your job to learn how to use these AI tools.” So if that starts coming into people's day jobs, and also people who have, I don't know, kids at school or people at university who are embracing this more—I mean, maybe it is a generational thing. Jack: Yes. Look, there were so many people that were resistant to working from home, or corporations that were, and then the pandemic forced it. Now everyone's embraced it in some way, shape, or form. I mean, there are people that don't, but the majority of people—when something's forced on you, you have to adapt. So again, if those things are implemented in corporations, then you're going to see it. I'm seeing so many amazing new things in AI that have been implemented in the music industry that we'll see in the publishing industry coming down the road. That will scare a lot of people, but again, we have to embrace those things because they're coming and there's going to be an expectation—especially from the younger generations—that these things are available. So again, it's not first past the post, but if you can be ahead of the wave or at least on the wave, then you are going to reap the rewards. If you are behind the wave, you're going to get left behind. So that's my opinion. I'm not trying to encourage anyone to see from my lens, but at the same time, I do think that we need to be thinking differently. We need to always embrace change where we can, as we can, at the pace that we can. Jo: You mentioned there AI things coming down the road in the music industry. And now everyone's going, wait, what is coming? So tell us— What do you see ahead that you think might also shift into the author world? Jack: There are three things that I've seen. Two that have been implemented and one that's been talked about and worked on at the moment. The first, and this will be quite scary for people, is that major record labels—so think the major publishers on our side—they're all now putting clauses in their contracts that require the artists that sign with them to allow their works to be trained by their own AI models. So that is something that is now actually happening in record labels. I wouldn't be surprised, although I don't have insight into it, if Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, et cetera, are potentially doing the same with authors that sign to them. So that's going to become more standardised. So that is on the major side. But then on the creative side, there are two things that really excite me. The music AI platforms that we're hearing about, the stories that we've seen in the press, and it's the fact that with a click of a button, you can recreate a song into a different genre. I find it so fascinating because if you think about that—turning a pop song into a country song or a rap song into a dance song—the possibilities that we have as authors with our books, if we wish to do so, are amazing. I just think, for example, with your ARKANE series, Joanna, imagine clicking a button and just with one click you can take Morgan Sierra and turn her into a romantic lead in a romance book. Jo: See, it's so funny because I personally just can't imagine that because it's not something I would write. But I guess one example in the romance genre itself is I know plenty of romance authors who write a clean and a spicy version of the same story, right? It is already happening in that way. It's just not a one-click. Jack: Well, I think you can also look at it another way. I think one of the most famous examples is Twilight. With Twilight and Stephenie Meyer, if she had the foresight—and I'm not saying she didn't, just to clarify—but fan fiction is such a massive sub-genre of works. And obviously from Twilight came 50 Shades of Gray. Imagine if she had the licensing rights like the NFTs, where she could have made money off of every sale. So that you could then, through works that you create and give licence, earn a percentage of every release, every sale, every consumption unit of your works. There are just so many possibilities where you can create, adapt, have spinoffs that can then build out your world. Obviously, there may need to be an approval process in there for continuity and quality control because you want to make sure you're doing that, but I think that has such massive potential in publishing if we wish to do so. Or like I said, change characters. Like Robert Langdon's character in Dan Brown's books—no longer being the kind of thriller, but maybe being a killer instead. There's so many possibilities. It's just, again, how to think, not what to think—how to think differently and how we can use that. So that's the second of three. Jo: Oh, before you move on, you did mention NFTs and I've actually been reading about this again. So I'm usually five years early. That's the general rule. I started talking about NFTs in mid-2021, and obviously there was a crypto crash, it goes up and down, blah, blah, blah. But forget the crypto side—on the blockchain side, digital originality, and exactly what you said about saying like, where did this originate? This is now coming back in the AI world. It could be that I really was five years early. So amusingly—and I'm going to link to it in the notes because I did a “Why NFTs Are Exciting for Authors” solo episode, I think in 2022—it may be that the resurgence will happen in the next year, and all those people who said I was completely wrong, that this may be coming back. Digital originality I think is what we're talking about there. But so, okay, so what was the other thing? Jack: So the third one is the one that I'm most excited about, but I think will be the most scary for people. Obviously consumption changes and formats change. Like I said, in music I've seen it all the time—whether it's vinyl to cassettes, to CDs, to downloads, to streaming. Again, there's different consumption of the same format, and we see that with books as well, obviously—hardbacks, paperbacks, eBooks, audiobooks. Now with the rise of AI, AI narration has made audiobooks so much more accessible for people. I know that there are issues with certain people not wanting to do it, or certain platforms not allowing AI narration to be uploaded unless it's their own. The next step is what I'm most excited about. What I'm seeing now in the music industry is people licensing their image to then recreate that as music videos because music videos are so expensive. One of my friends just shot a music video for two million pounds. I don't think many authors would ever wish to spend that. If you can license your image and use AI to create a three-minute music video that looks epic and just as real as humanly possible, imagine if those artists—or if we go a step further, those actors—license their image to then be used to adapt our books into a TV series or a film. So that then we are in a position where that is another format of consumption alongside an audiobook, a paperback, an eBook, hardcover, special edition, and so on and so forth. It potentially has the opportunity to open us up to a whole new world. Because yes, there are adaptations of books that we're seeing at the moment, but for those of us that are trying to get our content into different formats, this can be a new pathway. I'm going to make a prediction here myself, Joanna. Jo: Mm-hmm. Jack: I would say in the next five to ten years, there will be a platform akin to a Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Apple Plus, where you can license the rights to an image of an actor or an actress. Then with the technology—and you may need people to help you adapt your book into a TV series or a film—that can then be consumed. I just think the possibilities are endless. I mean, again, I think of your character and I'm like, oh, what would it be if Angelina Jolie licensed her image and you could have her play the lead character in your ARKANE series? I mean, again, the possibilities potentially are endless here. Jo: Well, and on that, if people think this won't happen—1776, I don't know if you've seen this, it's just being teased at the moment. Darren Aronofsky has made an American revolutionary story all with AI. So this is being talked about at the moment. It's on YouTube at the moment. The AI video is just extraordinary already, so I totally agree with you. I think things are going to be quite weird for a while, and it will take a while to get used to. You mentioned coming into the music industry in 2000, 2001—I started my work before the internet, and then the internet came along and lots of things changed. I mean, anyone who's older than 40, 45-ish can remember what work was like without the internet. Now we are moving into a time where it'll be like, what was it like before AI? And I think we'll look back and go like, why the hell did we do that kind of thing? So it is a changing world, but yes, exciting times, right? I think the other thing that's happening right now, even to me, is that things are moving so fast. You can almost feel like a kind of whiplash with how much is changing. How do we deal with the fast pace of change while still trying to anchor ourselves in our writing practice and not going crazy? Jack: Again, it's that everything everywhere all at once—you can get lost and discombobulated. I always say be the tortoise, not the hare—because you don't want to fly and die. You want pace and grace. Everyone will have a different pace. For some marathon runners, they can run a five-minute mile, some can run an eight-minute mile, some can run a twelve-minute mile. It's about finding the pace that works for you. Every one of us have different commitments. Every one of us have different ways we view the industry—some as a hobby, some as a business. So it's about honouring your needs, your commitment. Some of us, as you've had people on the podcast, some people are carers. They have to care. Some people are parents. Some people don't have those commitments and so can devote more time and then actually learn more, change more as a result. So again, it's about finding your groove, finding your rhythm, honouring that, and again, showing up consistently. Because motivation may get you started, but it's habit and discipline that sees you through. Keep that discipline, keep that pace and grace. Be consistent in what you can do. And know where you're at. Don't compare and despair, because again, if you look at someone else, they may be ahead of you, but the race is only with yourself in the end. So you've got to just focus on where you are at and am I in a better place than I was yesterday? Am I working on my business as well as in my business? How am I doing that? When am I doing that? And what am I doing that for? If you can be asking yourself those questions and making sure you're staying true to yourself and not burning out, making sure that you are honouring your other commitments, then I think you are going at the pace that feels right for you. Jo: Brilliant. Jo: Where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Jack: Thank you so much for having me on, Joanna, today. You can find me on JackWilliamson.co.uk for all my nonfiction books and therapy work. Then for my fiction work, it is ABJackson.com, or ABJacksonAuthor on Instagram and TikTok. Jo: Well, thanks so much for your time, Jack. That was great. Jack: Thank you so much. The post Post-Traumatic Growth, Creative Marketing, And Dealing With Change with Jack Williamson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective, continues his deep dive into organized crime history with prolific Mafia author Jeffrey Sussman. Sussman, the author of eight books on organized crime, joins Jenkins for a wide-ranging conversation that spans the rise, violence, prosecutions, and survival tactics of La Cosa Nostra in America. Drawing from works like Backbeat Gangsters and his latest release Mafia Hits, Misses Wars and Prosecutions, Sussman offers sharp insight into how the Mafia enforced silence, eliminated enemies, and adapted to government pressure. The discussion opens with omertà, the Mafia's infamous code of silence, and how mob warfare enforced loyalty through fear. Sussman recounts notorious hits and mob wars that shaped organized crime, then shifts to landmark prosecutions led by Thomas Dewey, whose relentless pursuit of Murder Incorporated dismantled the mob's most feared execution squad. Jenkins and Sussman examine the disastrous Appalachian Conference, where Vito Genovese overplayed his hand, drawing national attention to the Mafia and setting the stage for informants like Joe Valachi to break decades of secrecy. The episode also explores the Mafia's darkest execution methods, including lupara bianca—murders designed to leave no body and no evidence—along with chilling stories involving Mad Sam DeStefano. The assassination attempt on Joe Colombo, and its ties to Joey Gallo, highlight how ego and publicity often proved fatal in the mob world. The episode concludes with Sussman previewing his upcoming book on the Garment District, blending personal family history with organized crime's grip on American industry. Together, Jenkins and Sussman deliver a sweeping, chronological look at how the Mafia rose, fractured, and endured—leaving a permanent mark on American culture. Get his book Mafia Hits, Misses, Wars, and Prosecutions. ⏱️ Episode Chapters 00:00 – Introduction and Jeffrey Sussman's Mafia work 03:45 – Omertà and enforcing silence 07:30 – Mafia hits and internal wars 12:10 – Thomas Dewey and Murder Incorporated 18:40 – St. Valentine's Day Massacre 23:30 – Formation of the Five Families 28:50 – Italian and Jewish mob alliances 34:20 – Capone, Lansky, and Luciano 39:45 – Appalachian Conference fallout 45:10 – Vito Genovese and Joe Valachi 50:30 – Lupara blanca and body disposal 55:20 – Mad Sam DeStefano's brutality 59:40 – Joe Colombo assassination 1:05:30 – Betrayal and mob survival 1:10:50 – Sussman's upcoming Garment District book   [0:00] Hey, welcome, all you Wiretipers, back here in the studio of Gangland Wire, as you can see. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective and later sergeant. I have a guest today. He is a prolific author about the mob in the United States. We have several interviews in the archives with Jeffrey Sussman. Welcome, Jeffrey. Thank you, Gary. It’s a pleasure to be with you once again. All right. How many mob books you got? Eight or nine, I think. Eight or nine. I know you’ve covered Tinseltown, the L.A. Families, the crime in L.A., the Chicago. What are some of those? I did Las Vegas, which had a number of the Chicago outfit members in it. I did Big Apple Gangsters. Oh, yeah. My last one was Backbeat Gangsters about the rock music business. Oh, yeah. And then I did also one about boxing and the mob, how the mob controlled boxing. And then my new book is Mafia Hits, Misses Wars and Prosecutions. The update is February 19th. All right. Guys, when I release this, we’re doing this, actually, we’re doing this before Christmas. But when this comes out, while you’ll be able to go to the Amazon link that I’ll have in there, get that book, we’ll have, you’ll see a picture of it as we go along. So you’ll know what the cover looks like. It sounds really interesting, especially about the Mafia Misses. But I’m sure that’s interesting. [1:29] Well, the mob, that’s their way of enforcing their rules. The omerta, somebody talks, they’re going to rub you out, supposedly. And by mob, we’re talking about primarily La Cosa Nostra, Sicilian-based organized crime in the United States. Yeah. The five families particularly have brought this up front. The five families have really perfected this as an art, killing their rivals, killing people that threaten them in any way, killing people that they even had a contract on Tom Dewey, the prosecutor, I believe, at one time. That would be a bomb miss, wouldn’t it? Yeah, actually, what happened with that is Dutch Schultz wanted the commission to take out a contract on Tom Dewey, and they said, no, we can’t do that, because if we do that, it’ll bring down too much heat on us. And so the mob wound up killing Dutch Schultz because he was too much of a threat to them in some ways. But the irony was that if they had killed him, Lucky Luciano never would have been prosecuted. He was prosecuted by Thomas Dewey. Lucky Bookhalter never would have been prosecuted and gone to the electric chair, several others as well. So, by not killing Dewey, they set themselves up to be arrested and get either very long prison terms or go to the electric chair. [2:57] Yeah, Dewey sent, I think it was four members of Murder Incorporated to the electric chair and the head of it, the Lepke book halter. And then he arrested and got a conviction against Lucky Luciano for pimping and pandering, which should have been a fairly short sentence, just a couple of years. But he had him sentenced to 50 years in prison, which is amazing, the pimping. [3:20] So if they had killed Thomas Dewey, they probably would have been better off. But that’s 2020 hindsight. Yeah, hindsight’s always 2020. And a cost-benefit analysis, if you want to apply that, why the cost of killing Tom Dooley might have been much less than the actual benefit was. That’s right. Exactly. And they came to realize that, but it was too late for them. I think they always do a cost-benefit analysis in some manner. How much heat’s going to come down from this? Can we take the heat? Because I know in Kansas City, our mob boss, Nick Savella, was in the penitentiary. He was about to get out, and he sent word out, said I want all unfinished business taken care of by the time I get out. Because when I get out, I do not want all these headlines, because murder generates headlines. And so there was like three murders in rapid succession right after that. [4:13] So they worry about the press and hits, murders generate press. So let’s go back and talk about some particular ones. One of the most famous ones was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Do you cover that? [4:26] Yeah, I start with the assassination of Arnold Rothstein in 1928, and then I go right into the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. I go into the Castel Marari’s War, the birth of the five families. They had a famous meeting at the Franconia Hotel where the Jewish and Italian gangsters decided to form an alliance rather than fight one another. I went through the trial and conviction of Al Capone, the Bug and Meyer gang. Which evolved into Murder Incorporated, and then how Mayor LaGuardia went after the mob in New York and drove out Frank Costello, who had all the slot machines in New York, drove him down to Louisiana, where Frank Costello paid Huey Long a million dollars to let him operate slot machines all around New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana. And then there was William Dwyer, O’Dwyer, and Burton Turkus, who prosecuted the mob, other members of Murder Incorporated, and then how the federal government was using deportation to get rid of a lot of the mobsters, and how the mafia insinuated itself with entertainers and was controlling entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and others. [5:44] And then the Appalachian Conference, and what an embarrassment that was to Vito Genovese, who wanted to declare himself the boss of bosses. Instead, he became the schmuck of schmucks because the FBI invaded this. And there was a theory that this was really set up, Meyer Lansky, Carl Gambino, and Lucky Luciano, because they didn’t want Vito Genovese to become the boss of bosses because Vito Genovese was responsible for the attempted murder of Frank Costello, and they wanted to get rid of him. After they embarrassed him with Appalachian, And then they set him up for a drug buy. Which is ridiculous because you don’t have the head of a mafia family going out on the street and buying heroin from someone. But that’s what they got him for. And they sent him off to prison for 15 years where he died. But in the realm of unintended consequences, which we just heard some, he goes down to Atlanta and a guy named Joe Valacci is down there. And he thinks that Vito Genovese is given to the fisheye and maybe wants to have him killed. [6:52] If Vito Genovese is not in Atlanta, Joe Valacci does not turn and become the first big important witness against the mob in the United States that couple that with Appalachian. And embarrassment to the FBI and then this Joe Valacci coming out with all these stories explaining what all that meant, the organized crime in the United States, why we may not have the investigation that subsequently came out of all that. It’s crazy, huh? Yeah, exactly. In terms of unintended consequences, because if Vito Genovese hadn’t given the kiss of death, supposedly, to Joe Valacci, you never would have had Joe Valacci’s testimony about how the mob operates. He opened so many doors and told so many secrets. It was a real revelation to the world. [7:42] Now, what about these murders? And I understand they call them a lupara blanca, where the body is never found. Did you talk about any of those or look into that at all? [7:53] We’ve had them in Kansas City, where it’s obviously a mob murder. They even will send a message to the family. We had one where the guy disappeared. Nobody ever found his body. But somebody called the family and said, hey, go up on Gladstone Drive and check this trash can. And then they find the guy’s clothes and his driver’s license, everything in there. Now, did you go into any of those blanks? Yeah, there were a number of mob hits, especially during the murder ink era where they would dispose of the bodies and no one would ever find them. But they would leave clues around for members of the family just so they would know that their father or their son or their brother, whoever was no longer in this world. [8:39] Yeah, that was done quite a bit. And when the Westies, which was an Irish gang that operated on the west side of New York, they believed that if you never found the corpse, you could never convict them of murder. So they used to take their dead bodies out to an island in the East River and chop them into little pieces and then dump them in the river and no one would ever find them. And supposedly they did that with dozens and dozens of bodies. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, and it is. It’s hard to prosecute without the body. It’s been done, but it’s really hard to do. You’ve got to have a really lot of circumstantial evidence to approve a murder without a body. And when Albert Anastasia and Leffy Foucault, who were running Murder Incorporated, they believed two things. One, that if you didn’t find the body, it would be hard to prosecute. And if you couldn’t show a motive, that would be the other thing that would make it difficult. So there would be absolutely no connection between the person who killed the victim and the victim. There was no connection whatsoever. So it was almost as if it was a stranger. In fact, it was a stranger who would commit the murder and then disappear and make sure that the body also disappeared. So you’d have neither motive nor body. Interesting. Pretty stiff penalty for murder. So I understand why you take some extra. Exactly. [10:08] Yeah, that tried to disassociate yourself from any motive for the body. There’s a guy in Chicago named Mad Sam DeStefano. Oh, sure. Lone shark and particularly egregious person when it came to collecting and was responsible for some murders and tortures. And they claim that he would buddy up to the person he knew he wanted to have killed and give him a watch. So then when the police came back around, he’d say, he was my friend. I gave him a present. I gave him that watch. Look and see. Ask his wife. I gave him a watch. Yeah. And I think it was Anthony Spolatro who was charged by the outfit of getting rid of Sam DiStefano because he was a friend. He had been like a protege of Crazy Sam. And so Sam didn’t suspect him as the person who would come and kill him. Yeah, that’s common clue. They say, look out. When a friend comes around and it seems a little bit funny and they want her particularly nice to you and you know you’re in trouble, anyhow, look out. Because that’s the guy that’s going to get you. Exactly. At least set you up. Maybe they have somebody else come in and pull the trigger, somebody that’ll leave town or whatever, but your friend’s going to set you up, make you comfortable. [11:24] Yeah, I think that’s exactly how it happened. We talked a little bit about the Joe Colombo murder. Did you look at that? Yes. [11:31] Tell us about that, because I’m really interested in that. I’d kind of like to do a larger story, just focusing on that, what really happened there, because that’s a mystery. Did this Jerome Johnson, this black guy, do it? Why would he do it? Nobody ever came out and connected him directly to Joey Gallo, and that’s the claim. So talk about that one. What happened is Joe Colombo formed the Italian Anti-Defamation League because he thought Italians were being blamed for too many things. And Colombo was responsible for having the producers of the movie The Godfather never use the word mafia in the movie, never use La Cosa Nostra in the movie. And he was making a big splash for himself. And this was driving a lot of people in the mafia a little crazy. They’re getting nervous because he was getting so much attention for himself, and it’s not the kind of attention they wanted. And Gambino was particularly upset about this. And Joey Gallo had been in prison, and he had been involved in the war against Profaci earlier on. And when he got out of prison, he felt that the new head of the Profaci family, who was Joe Colombo, should honor him with the amount of time that he spent in prison. And Joe Colombo offered him $1,000. [12:57] And Gallo was incensed by that. He expected $100,000. [13:02] And so he started another war with Colombo. [13:09] This would be good for Carlo Gambino because then he could use Joey Gallo to get rid of someone and his hands wouldn’t appear to be anywhere near this. And when Joey Gallo was in prison, he befriended a lot of black gangsters who were drug dealers and showed them how to succeed in the drug dealing business. And his attitude was that the mafia was very prejudiced against black people, but he thought that was stupid. He thought that we should use black criminals the same way we use any other criminals. And so he befriended a lot of blacks when he was in prison. And no one really knows how exactly he came in contact with Jerome Johnson. But anyway, Jerome Johnson was given the mission of assassinating Joe Colombo at a demonstration where Joe Colombo would be speaking about the Italian American Anti-Defamation League, which had attracted a lot of entertainers. Frank Sinatra was on the board of it. They raised a lot of money. I spoke to some Italian friends of mine at the time, and they said that people from the Italian Anti-Defamation League went around to small Italian-run stores, pizza parlors, shoe repair stores, whatever, and had them closed down for that day so that these people should attend the rally. And the rally was being held, I believe, in Columbus Circle. [14:36] And Jerome Johnson was there, and he had a press pass. So he was permitted to get very close to Joe Colombo because it appeared that he was a reporter or a photographer for a newspaper. And as soon as he got close enough, he pumped a couple of bullets into Joe Colombo’s head. Immediately, three or four gangsters descended on Jerome Johnson and killed him immediately. [15:02] And those three or four people who killed him, they disappeared into the crowd. No one ever found them again. I know. I wish we’d had cell phone footage from that. No one wouldn’t have gotten away if everybody had their cell phones out that day when they would have seen everything that happened. [15:21] Exactly. Columbo existed in a vegetative state. I think it was for about seven years before he finally died. I didn’t realize it was that long. Wow. Yeah, but he was semi-conscious. He couldn’t communicate. He was paralyzed. But the The Colombo family believed that it was Joey Gallo who was responsible for this. Joey Gallo and his new wife had been having a dinner with friends at the Copacabana nightclub in New York. They were joined at their table by Don Rickles, who had been performing that night. Comedian David Steinberg, who had been the best man at Joey Gallo’s wedding to a second wife, was there. And he suggested to them that they left the Copacabana about three o’clock in the morning. And he suggested to them that they all go down to Little Italy, go to Chinatown, and we’ll have a late dinner there. So Rick Olson and Steinberg said, it’s too late for us. You go and enjoy yourself and we’ll see you another time. Joey Gallo, his bodyguard, a Greek guy, I can’t remember his name exactly. Peter Dacopoulos. That’s it. And his wife, and Decapolis’ girlfriend and Joey Gallo’s stepdaughter. They all drove downtown. They couldn’t find anything open in Chinatown, so they drove over to Little Italy, and they went into Umberto’s Clam House. [16:49] And it was very strange, because supposedly a gangster would never do this. Joe Colombo was sitting with his back to the door. [16:58] Usually, your back is to the wall, and you’re facing the door. Oh, Joey Gallo was sitting with his back to the door. Yeah, I meant Joey Gallo. Yeah. Go ahead. And there was kind of a lonely guy sitting at the bar having a drink, and no one paid any attention to him. He was a mob wannabe, and he recognized Joey Gallo, and he went to a mob social club that was a few blocks away that was a hangout for Colombo gangsters. And when he came in and told them that joey gallo was there and the one of the guys there called a capo from the colombo family and told him who they saw and so forth and apparently he instructed them to go and get rid of him and so they took the mob wannabe guy and they got in two cars and they drove down to or around the block whatever it was to umberto’s clam house they went in and they immediately started shooting. And Colombo flipped over the table. I’m sorry, Joey Gallo flipped over the table and had his wife and girlfriend in the step door to get behind the table. And he and Peter were firing back at these guys. [18:07] Peter got shot in the ass and complained about it for many months afterwards, and Joey Gallo ran out onto the street chasing them, and he got shot in the neck, and I think it hit his carotid artery, and he bled to death on the sidewalk. And the guys from the Columbo and the Columbo wannabe guy, they quickly drove up to an apartment on the Upper East Side where the Columbo capo was. And he told them to go to a safe house in Nyack, New York, where they went. And meanwhile, the mob wannabe guy who had fingered Columbo, he’s getting very nervous. He feels that his life isn’t worth too much. He’s in over his head. [18:51] Right. So he sneaks out in the middle of the night and takes a plane to California to live with his sister. And he tries to get into the witness protection program, but they don’t believe him. They don’t believe he has enough evidence to make it worthwhile. No one knows exactly what happened to him afterwards. And the guys who supposedly killed Gallo, nothing really happened to them either. There was a huge funeral for Joey Gallo in Brooklyn. And it was like one of those old mob funerals that you see in a movie with a hundred flower cars and people lining the streets. And I think it was Joey Gallo’s mother who threw herself into the grave on top of the coffin. Oh, really? And Joey Gallo’s. [19:38] He had two brothers, one of whom had died of cancer, and the other one wound up going into another mob family. That was part of the peace deal. I can’t remember if it was the Gambino family or the Genovese family. He went into one of those two families. I think it was Gambino family, that Albert Kidd Twist gallo, I think was his name. And I think it was the Gambino family. He just kept a low profile until he died of natural causes. I think he’s dead now. He never heard from him again, basically. Exactly. [20:06] Interesting. That’s a heck of a story. A lot more stories like that in there, too. I bet. What was your favorite story out of that, or the one that shocked you or you learned something? Maybe something that you learned that you didn’t know or cut through some myth. [20:20] Probably, I’m just looking at my notes here to see what really fascinated me the most. I think the evolution of the Bug and Meyer gang. This guy, Ralph Salerno, who was a fascinating guy who headed the New York Prime Strike Force, Mafia investigators He’s been dead for about I think 10 or 15 years But I spent about Two or three hours Interviewing him A long time ago Didn’t he write a book Didn’t he write a book Called The Crime Confederation Or something like that Yes he did Yeah And it’s excellent So he knew Meyer Lansky He had met Bugsy Siegel Back once In the early 1940s He knew Frank Costello He knew all of these people And it was fascinating To, to hear his stories. And he said that during the time of the Bug and Meyer gang, they were the most vicious gang in New York. And they had a complete menu for crimes that they would commit on your behalf. Burglaries, murders, throwing people out of windows, breaking arms and legs, killing by stabbing, killing by shooting, killing by knifing. And each one had a price. And he said they actually had it printed. It was like a menu and you could check off what you wanted. [21:40] Crazy. And then he said, as they got more and more involved in prohibition, they got out of this and it evolved into Murder Incorporated, which had about 400 members, primarily Jewish and Italian gangsters. And it was run by Albert Anastasia and Lepke Bookhalter. [22:05] And when Thomas Dewey came into power, he wanted very much to convict these guys, but, Murder Incorporated had this fascinating idea that every member of Murder Incorporated would receive a monthly retainer and then it paid a special price for committing murders. And the more ambitious the member was, the more murders he would commit. So there were a couple who were really very ambitious and did a lot of murders. And each one had a specialty. So there was this one guy named Abe Hidtwist Relis, who only killed people with an ice pick in the back of the neck. And then he would leave the body in a car, talking about getting rid of bodies, and he would burn the body and leave it in the car and let other people know who were the relatives that he had been done away with. And then there was a guy named Pittsburgh Phil, who was the most ambitious of them, who supposedly committed about 100 to 150 murders because he just loved getting money for each one that he committed. [23:15] Then there was a guy named Louis Capone, who’s no relation to Al. He worked with a partner named Mendy Weiss, and the two of them went out and killed people together. They thought it was a fun event for them. It was like a boy’s night out. Who we’re going to kill today. Weren’t they two of them that got the electric chair? Yes, they did. And there’s a picture of them on the train up to Singh on their way to the electric chair. And they’re laughing. This is nothing. This is just another fun time for us. And yeah, I think there were four of them who finally went to the electric chair. And then one member of this was a guy named Charlie the Bud Workman, who finally got indicted for the murder of Dutch Schultz. He was the one who carried out the murder of Dutch Schultz for the mob. And he got, I think he was 30 years in prison. But according to his son… [24:13] Who is a PGA golfer, who is well-known in PGA circles as a very good golf competitor, said that the mob took care of his family for the entire time that Workman was in prison because he never spoke about anybody else. He really observed the rules of a murder, and they appreciated him for that. So that whole episode was like a corporation murder, which is why they called it Murder, Inc., that would go out and kill people on orders only from the mafia. They only worked for the mafia. You couldn’t hire them if you weren’t a member of the mafia. And it had to go through a mafia boss for the instructions to come down to them. A soldier couldn’t tell them what to do. Even a capo couldn’t tell them. It had to go up to a boss, the boss had to approve it, and then assign someone to do it. And they all worked out of a candy store in Brooklyn called Midnight Roses because it was open 24 hours a day. And the phone would ring there from giving whoever it was instructions about who was to be killed, where they were to be killed, how they were to do it, and so forth and so on. [25:27] So what was also interesting is even though Bugsy Siegel had left the Bug and Meyer gang, he still loved participating in murder. He liked killing people. And his partner in these murders was a guy named Frankie Carbo, who became a big deal in boxing. He controlled most of the boxing in America up until at the time of Sonny Liston. And his partner in this was a man named Blinky Palermo. [25:59] And according to Ralph Natale, who for a while had been the boss of the Philadelphia crime family, it was Frankie Carbo who was sent by the mob to kill Bugsy Siegel. Because if he was caught or Bugsy Siegel saw him around, he wouldn’t suspect that he was his killer because they were friends and they had operated as partners together. So this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It’s your friend who comes closest to you and then arranges you to be assassinated. So I found that whole story just fascinating. Interesting. I’ll tell you what. And there’s those and a whole lot more stories in this, isn’t there, Jeff? Yes, there are. I think that the book covers pretty much the mob history, beginning with the founding of the five families, going all the way up through Sammy the Bulgurvano’s testimony against John Gotti and the commission trial, where they decapitated the heads of the five families. Not literally, folks. Not literally. Not literally. We didn’t literally decapitate. Rudy Giuliano, he tried to. He tried to. He tried to. Metaphorically, he decapitated the heads of the five families. Exactly. [27:15] You know, what was interesting, though, is in the 1930s, you had Thomas Dewey. In the 1960s, you had Robert Kennedy, who went after the mob. And then later on, you had Rudy Giuliani going after the mob. And the mob always managed to reorganize itself and figure out a new way of existing. They were very opportunistic and they always managed to find a way to keep going, even if it was very low key, which is what it is now, where they operate in the shadows and they don’t have any John Gottis or Al Capone’s out there getting a lot of attention for themselves. They’re still out there doing things. Yeah. Yeah. They finally learned something about that getting publicity. And most recently, they put together a whole scheme, and this goes way back, of cheating people. Big whales, I call them whales, of rich men that like to gamble and brush up against kind of the dark side and cheat them at cards. They’ve been doing that for years. They just do it under goes to clear black to the Friars Club scam in Los Angeles where Ronnie Roselli and some others had a spotter, would see who had what cards in what’s hands, then would tell another player. And so now there’s just more electronic, but the same game just upgraded to electronics. [28:30] That’s right. What someone I spoke to interviewed said, he said they’re very involved in electronic gambling poker machines and that kind of thing. And a lot of offshore gambling and offshore money laundering. And to some extent, even drug dealing now. And they’re still very involved in New York in the construction business. Oh, really? Yeah. Union business. They’re still in it, huh? And I know in Kansas City, there’s a couple of examples where they put money into a buy here, pay here car dealership into a title loan place because there’s a huge rate of interest on those things. And there’s a lot of scams that go down out of those places, especially the old crap cars and put them together and sell them to poor people for they’ve got $500 in the car and they sell it to them for $2,000. They charge them a 25% interest and then go repo it when the car breaks down, turn around and patch it up and sell it again. So there’s always schemes going on out there to mob will put their money into. Oh, it’s incredible. I knew of one scheme where they would They would sell trucks to people and give them a special route. And so on that route, they could make enough money to pay off the loan on the truck. But then they would take away the route from them. They couldn’t pay off the truck. So they would repossess the truck and sell it to someone else and do it all over again. [29:50] Oh, I know. They got to tell you that. And Joey Messino and the Bananos, they organized the tow main wagons, the lunch truck, the snack wagons. Right, exactly. Organize them. And then they start extorting money, formed an association. And then to get to good spots, then you had to kick money to them. And just to be part of the organization, that was kicking money to them. There’s always something. They always manage to find a place where they can make money. And it’s like whack-a-mole. You can stop them here, you can stop them there, and then they pop up in three other places. [30:24] Really all right jeffrey susman i’m so happy to talk to you again i haven’t talked to you for a while and i hope everything else is everything’s going okay for you in new york city yep i’m working on a new book uh what are you working on now oh my god you are so prolific i look on your amazon page just when i was getting ready to do this trying to think of some of those other titles Oh, my God. I’m working on a book about the Garment Center. Ah, interesting. Only because my family was involved in that business, and they had to deal with the mob in various ways, with trucking companies, unions, and so forth. And since I knew that, and I had a lot of information, a lot of contacts, I thought I would tackle that next. I remember when I had my marketing PR business back in the 1970s. [31:16] I had a client who was in the fitness business, and I had a cousin of my mother’s who was a very famous dress designer at the time, and he had a big showroom on 7th Avenue, which is in the garment center. I went to see him because I wanted to see if I could get a deal for my client to manufacture exercise clothes and brand it with her name. I made a date to have lunch with this cousin of mine, and he said, come up to my showroom. we’ll meet for lunch, And so I got to the showroom, and I called out his name when I walked in. It was empty. And this guy comes running out of the back, and he just has a shirt on, and he has a shoulder holster, .38 caliber gun in it. And he says to me, who the F are you? I said, I’m so-and-so’s cousin. I’m here to have lunch with him. He disappeared into the back. And a couple of minutes later my mother’s cousin comes out and i said who was that what was that about he says i don’t want to talk about it now i’ll tell you all for lunch so we go down to a restaurant around the corner and i asked him again and he says he said he couldn’t have his dresses delivered to any department store unless he made a deal with yeah i forgot if it was the gambinos or the lucasies that he had to take this guy on as a partner otherwise the trucks wouldn’t deliver his garments. And there was nothing he could do about it. It was either that or go out of business. [32:45] I’ll tell you what, they’re voracious. They’re greedy and voracious and don’t care. Just give me those, show me the money. That’s all it is. It’s all about money and any way to get it. And then there’s always a threat of murder behind it. If you don’t cooperate, think of the worst thing that can happen to you. And that’s what’ll happen. Yeah. I’ve had guys over the years tell I’m like, oh, you ought to throw in with one of those ex-mobsters that’s doing podcasts and try to do something with them. I say, I ain’t doing business with them. They play by their rules. I play by society’s rules. And I don’t have time to mess with that. Yeah. And that was a smart thing to do. Because also, when I had this fitness client, I met someone who was… I didn’t know what was connected to the mob, but a mutual friend, this guy said that he wanted to set up fitness centers all around the country for my clients. So I mentioned this to a mutual friend and he said, whatever you don’t go into business with this guy, I said, regret it for the rest of your life. So I advised my client not to do it. [33:49] Yeah. Cause initially before we knew that it sounded like a great opportunity. And then when you investigate, it’s not such a great opportunity. Yeah, really. Speaking of that, we tell stories for hours. I just heard a story. We had a relocated mobster, a guy that testified against Gigante, came here to Kansas City. And he was, of course, under witness protection and he’s got an assumed name. And he befriends a guy that has a fitness center. He has a franchise of Gold’s Gym or something. And he has a fitness center. And he talks this guy into taking him on, investing a little money in it, taking him on as his partner. Within the next couple of years, this mobster, he’s got two of his kids working there and neither one of them are really doing anything, but they’re drawing a salary and the money’s trickling out. And the guy, the local guy, he just walks away from it because this guy’s planned by the mob’s rules. So he just ended up walking away from it, did something else. So it’s do not go into business with these guys. No, never. Never. [34:48] Jeffrey Suspett, it’s a pleasure to have you back on the show. Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be with you again, Gary. It’s always a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Welcome to Day 2803 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom. Day 2803 – Wisdom Nuggets – Psalm 115:19-18 – Daily Wisdom Wisdom-Trek Podcast Script - Day 2803 Welcome to Wisdom-Trek with Gramps! I am Guthrie Chamberlain, and we are on Day 2803 of our Trek. The Purpose of Wisdom-Trek is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. The title for today's Wisdom-Trek is: The Living Choir – Trusting the Maker of Heaven and Earth Today, we are continuing our grand expedition through the Egyptian Hallel, that magnificent collection of praise songs sung by the Jewish people during the Passover festival. We are stepping into the second half of Psalm One Hundred Fifteen, covering verses nine through eighteen, in the New Living Translation. To properly set the stage, we must remember the theological fireworks from our previous trek. In the first eight verses of Psalm One Hundred Fifteen, the psalmist drew a sharp, mocking contrast between the God of Israel and the gods of the surrounding pagan nations. He declared that our God is in the heavens, doing whatever He pleases, while the idols of the nations are nothing more than dead blocks of wood, silver, and gold. They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see, and feet but cannot walk. The chilling warning was that those who make them, and trust in them, will become just like them—spiritually deaf, blind, and paralyzed. Now, in this second half of the psalm, the tone shifts from a theological argument, to a vibrant, liturgical choir. Having exposed the absolute uselessness of the pagan idols, the psalmist turns around to face the congregation of Israel. If the idols are dead, where should we put our trust? The answer rings out in a beautifully structured, responsive song. We will see the congregation divided into three distinct groups, receiving a threefold call to trust, followed by a threefold promise of blessing. Finally, the psalm concludes with a profound statement about cosmic geography, revealing our true human purpose on this earth, and the urgent necessity of praising God while we still have breath in our lungs. So, let us enter the temple courts, and join the choir. Psalm One Hundred Fifteen: verses nine through eleven O Israel, trust the Lord! He is your helper and your shield. O priests, descendants of Aaron, trust the Lord! He is your helper and your shield. All you who fear the Lord, trust the Lord! He is your helper and your shield. Imagine being in the temple courtyard. The worship leader, perhaps the High Priest, stands on the steps, and calls out to different sections of the gathered crowd. This is a responsive liturgy, designed to engage everyone present, regardless of their status or background. First, he addresses the entire covenant nation: "O Israel, trust the Lord!" This is the baseline of their identity. They are the people brought out of Egypt, the physical descendants of Jacob. In a world full of glittering, tempting idols, they are commanded to place their entire weight, their complete confidence, on Yahweh. Second, he turns to the religious leadership: "O priests, descendants of Aaron, trust the Lord!" The house of Aaron...

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. Diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode. The next round of talks between the United States and Iran is scheduled for Thursday in Geneva. Even as US military pressure mounts, Tehran expressed hope that a nuclear agreement could be reached that would avert a looming attack. Berman updates on where things stand ahead of US President Donald Trump's State of the Union address tomorrow. We then turn back the clock to last week's inaugural Board of Peace meeting in DC. Washington secured some $7 billion in pledges toward Gaza’s recovery from key Mideast allies; five countries agreed to contribute troops to the International Stabilization Force tasked with phasing the IDF out of Gaza; and plans are advancing to deploy thousands of Palestinian police in Gaza within two months. What about Hamas demilitarization? Berman weighs in. In a program released Friday following his brief visit to Israel, right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson claimed the Israeli government targeted his family, called the Jewish state “probably the most violent country on earth” and aired numerous antisemitic tropes. We hear why the media personality is latching on to them -- and who is listening. Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates. For further reading: US, Iran to hold talks Thursday as Tehran claims ‘good chance’ of diplomatic solution Witkoff says Trump ‘curious’ why Iran hasn’t ‘capitulated’ under US pressure Waving off the skeptics, US feeling bullish after Board of Peace inaugural confab Tucker Carlson claims Israel targeted his family, Netanyahu ‘believes in blood guilt’; questions Israel’s right to exist Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ari Schlacht produced this episode. IMAGE: A hand-drawn swastika is seen on the front of Union Station near the Capitol in Washington, January 28, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when God transforms a death sentence into a joyous celebration?In these last two chapters of Esther, we witness the final unfolding of "The Great Reversal" as the Jewish people move from fasting in terror to feasting in victory.  Esther 9-10 reveals how God's divine providence arranged one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the Old Testament. Episode highlights:Historic Rematch: How Mordecai and Esther (descendants of the House of Kish) finished the mission that King Saul failed centuries earlier.A Bold Request: Why Queen Esther asked for one more day of fighting in the citadel of Susa and the impaling of Haman's ten sons.Origins of the Feast of Purim: Why the holiday is named after the "Pur" (the lot) and how it is celebrated today with gifts, food, and the reading of the Megillah.Mordecai's Legacy: How Mordecai's mourning turned into a day of celebration as he rose to become second-in-command to King Xerxes of the Persian Empire and worked for the good of his people.Lessons for our lives today: The Book of Esther concludes with powerful truths about God's faithfulness and our calling:God Specializes in Reversals: What "impossible" situation in your life might God be transforming from mourning into joy?The Power of Divine Providence: Even when God's name isn't mentioned, His hand is never hidden. He orchestrates your story through what may seem like coincidences.Faithfulness Positions You for Purpose: Like Mordecai, your commitment to the welfare of others opens doors for God to work in unexpected ways.Join the Bible Book Club as we wrap up the story of Esther and prepare for our next season in the Book of Job!We love feedback, but can't reply without your email address. Message us your thoughts and contact info!Contact Bible Book ClubDONATE Buy merch Like, comment, or message us through Bible Book Club's InstagramLike or comment on Susan's Facebook or InstagramLeave us an Apple reviewContact us through our website formThanks for listening and happy podcasting!

Rebecca Starr is the Vice President of Educational Operations and Regional Strategy for the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, where she leads the design and implementation process for educational initiatives and guides the regional hubs across the US and Canada. She lives in Southfield, Michigan and works closely with local partners and institutions throughout southeast Michigan. Rebecca is a respected educator and community organizer. She served as an assistant director at Federation's Alliance for Jewish education at the Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit, where she planned and taught professional development classes for teachers in congregational and day schools. She directed and was an instructor at the award-winning Detroit branch of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School. Rebecca also worked for the National Ramah Commission and Camp Ramah in Canada and expanded educational and outreach initiatives. Raised on a sheep farm in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Rebecca is a proud product of the University of Michigan where she earned undergraduate degrees in education and Judaic studies as well as a master's degree in social work and a certificate in Jewish communal service. She is married to Rabbi Aaron Starr, a graduate of Hartman's Rabbinic Leadership Initiative (RLI), and they are the proud parents of two sons.   Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/ Website: https://jondwoskin.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!   Connect with Rebecca Starr: Website: https://www.hartman.org.il/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShalomHartmanInstitute X: https://twitter.com/Hartman_Inst Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shalomhartmaninstitute YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/HartmanInstitute Podcasts: https://www.hartman.org.il/program/identity-crisis-podcast/ – Identity Crisis Podcast https://www.hartman.org.il/program/for-heavens-sake-podcast/ – For Heaven's Sake Podcast                                                                                   *E – explicit language may be used in this podcast.

This week Rabbi Schneider teaches on the heart of Paul's message in the book of Romans, God's end time plans for Israel, and your role in reaching the Jewish people for Yeshua.

“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt's writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.(0:00) Grief as Unrequited LoveSiri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.(4:00) Facing Death with CourageThe importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.(12:37) Reading from Ghost StoriesSiri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”(21:50)  Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing(24:11)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness(30:09) Feeding the Earth "Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”(44:23) Physical Love in MarriageOn the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.(54:00) The Philosophy of the BetweenHow relational existence is foundational to life.(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

We all have a little Tevye in us. In this first episode of a six-part series on money, Rabbi Josh Feigelson explores what Judaism and mindfulness teach about wealth and the feeling of “not enough.” Beginning with Fiddler on the Roof's “If I Were a Rich Man,” he turns to Rabbi Shimon Ben Zoma's question: “Who is wealthy? One who is happy with what they have.” How can Jewish wisdom and mindfulness help us make money a tool rather than a master? Be in touch at josh@unpacked.media. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. --------------- This podcast is brought to you by Unpacked, an OpenDor Media Brand.For other podcasts from Unpacked, check out:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jewish History Nerds⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stars of David with Elon Gold⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unpacking Israeli History⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Wondering Jews

In today's episode, a changing of the guard at the Vermont National guard, a local author's book gets recognized as an ‘outstanding English-language book of Jewish interest.

What happens when fear grips an entire region — and God uses it to transform one heart forever?In this powerful episode author Cara Shine shares her remarkable testimony from her book The Hallway Miracle. During the terrifying 2002 Beltway sniper attacks, Cara was a young Jewish mother and elementary school teacher living in the Washington, D.C. area — navigating panic attacks, personal crises, and overwhelming fear.But in the middle of national tragedy, an ordinary hallway prayer changed everything.Cara shares:• What it was like growing up Jewish and misunderstanding Jesus• The trauma of living through the Beltway Sniper crisis• How a simple prayer in a school hallway led to a life-changing encounter with the Holy Spirit• How Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment and how her faith was transformed.• Why serving like Christ brings true peaceThis episode is for anyone wrestling with fear, identity, or spiritual doubt. If you're longing for peace that surpasses understanding, this testimony will strengthen your faith and remind you that God can use even the darkest seasons for redemption.Connect with Cara Shine https://www.carashine.com/Buy The Hallway Miracle on AmazonCara Shine Instagram Personalize Scripture With Me! Get Your Serenity Journal & Connect: https://www.jaymeelizabeth.com/CONNECT WITH JAYME ON SOCIALS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ l⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ l ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pinterest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ l ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠

Visit lennygoldberg.com The Jewish Truth Bomb 23FEB2026 - PODCAST

“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt's writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.(0:00) Grief as Unrequited LoveSiri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.(4:00) Facing Death with CourageThe importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.(12:37) Reading from Ghost StoriesSiri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”(21:50)  Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing(24:11)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness(30:09) Feeding the Earth "Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”(44:23) Physical Love in MarriageOn the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.(54:00) The Philosophy of the BetweenHow relational existence is foundational to life.(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt's writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.(0:00) Grief as Unrequited LoveSiri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.(4:00) Facing Death with CourageThe importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.(12:37) Reading from Ghost StoriesSiri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”(21:50)  Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing(24:11)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness(30:09) Feeding the Earth "Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”(44:23) Physical Love in MarriageOn the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.(54:00) The Philosophy of the BetweenHow relational existence is foundational to life.(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt's writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.(0:00) Grief as Unrequited LoveSiri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.(4:00) Facing Death with CourageThe importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.(12:37) Reading from Ghost StoriesSiri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”(21:50)  Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing(24:11)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness(30:09) Feeding the Earth "Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”(44:23) Physical Love in MarriageOn the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.(54:00) The Philosophy of the BetweenHow relational existence is foundational to life.(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt's writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.(0:00) Grief as Unrequited LoveSiri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.(4:00) Facing Death with CourageThe importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.(12:37) Reading from Ghost StoriesSiri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”(21:50)  Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing(24:11)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness(30:09) Feeding the Earth "Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”(44:23) Physical Love in MarriageOn the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.(54:00) The Philosophy of the BetweenHow relational existence is foundational to life.(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Skeptics said synagogues didn't exist in Galilee during Jesus' lifetime. They were wrong. They said crucified victims were never buried. They were wrong. They said the Gospel writers invented details about first-century Palestine. Wrong again.Dr. Craig Evans, one of the world's leading scholars on the historical Jesus and New Testament archaeology, has spent decades connecting physical discoveries to the Gospel narratives. He's authored over 70 books, founded the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute, lectured at Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale, and appeared on BBC, the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic. In this episode, he walks us through the discoveries that secular Israeli archaeologists rely on the Gospels as their primary sources, why skeptical theories collapse under the weight of evidence, and how the skeletal remains of a crucified man confirm that Jesus would have been buried exactly as the Gospels describe. This conversation will transform how you read the New Testament.In this episode, you will learn:Why Israeli archaeologists, even non-believing ones, use Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts as their most reliable sourcesThe discovery of first-century synagogues at Magdala and what they reveal about Jesus' ministryWhat the Theodotus Inscription proves about synagogues existing in Jerusalem before 70 ADHow the Pilate Stone and Caiaphas Ossuary confirm key figures from the Passion narrativesWhy the Gospel writers showed remarkable restraint and integrity in recording only what Jesus actually saidThe archaeological evidence that crucified victims in Jewish Palestine were in fact buriedHow the skeletal remains of Yehohanan, a crucified man with a nail still in his heel, validates Gospel burial accountsWhy Joseph of Arimathea's burial of Jesus is historically plausible and fits Jewish law perfectlyThe stunning continuity of village memory that preserved the location of Jesus' tomb for centuriesCheck out Dr. Craig Evans' work:Website: https://www.craigaevans.comJesus and His World: The Archaeological EvidenceFabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the GospelsThe Bible Seminary: https://www.thebibleseminary.eduStay Connected with Johnny Ova and The Dig In Podcast: Subscribe and follow The Dig In Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejohnnyova Follow all things Johnny: https://linktr.ee/johnnyova Grab Johnny's book, The Revelation Reset: https://a.co/d/hiUkW8H

The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners, who explore the key challenges facing the organizations, churches, and government bodies concerned with religion and heritage. Featuring polemics, case studies, and analysis, the volume is united by major themes,including Jewish, Muslim and Christian heritage, the (post)secular, interreligious heritage, sacred texts, museums, tourism, and contemporary art. The book explores the shifting significance of Europe's historic churches, synagogues, and mosques, many of which are caught between declining numbers of worshippers, increasing numbers of tourists, and the pressure to find new uses. It also examines the key role religious heritage plays in political discourse, both in the interest of including and excluding religious minorities. Todd H. Weir is Professor of History of Christianity and Director of the Centre for Religion and Heritage at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Lieke Wijnia is Head of Curation and Library at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, The Netherlands. James Bielo is an anthropologist and associate professor of religious studies at Northwestern University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth. Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism (Temple University Press, 2026) is Newfield's poignant and hopeful memoir about exiting Orthodoxy. He recounts asserting his individuality and taking the radical step of shaving his beard. Reflective about his upbringing, Newfield is open to and curious about a world beyond Brooklyn while also maintaining his profound bond with his family and Jewish tradition. He writes candidly about his emotional, intellectual, and social experiences in and out of the Lubavitch community. From pivotal moments of devastation, including the illness and death of his younger brother and of his revered spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to moments of joyful resolve, including the decision to pursue a doctorate and marry a non-Orthodox Jew, Newfield takes readers on his moving and impactful journey. Zalman Newfield is Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple). Visit him online at zalmannewfield.com. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another episode of The Chai on Life Podcast. I'm Alex Segal, and today I am speaking with Rebbetzin Lisa Babich all about Purim. Lisa is a Queens-raised New Yorker, full-time Rebbetzin, and licensed speech and language pathologist. She has been involved in Jewish education and outreach since the age of 19, teaching at TBY, EMETT Russian outreach, the Jewish Enrichment Center in the West Village, and now Fifth Avenue Synagogue alongside her husband, Rabbi Eli Babich who is the Rabbi there.She was also very vocal during the NYC mayoral election this past year when unfortunately, Mamdani was elected. Lisa was instrumental in trying to unite the Jewish people in prayer to attempt to stop his win yet even when he did, she did not let the news get her down. She is a strong advocate for the Jewish people and has really become a source of chizzuk, or strength for me, when it comes to the day-to-day issues we're facing these days. Plus, the whole experience with Mamdani has eerie parallels to the Purim story. He really feels like a modern day Haman and I knew I wanted to speak with Lisa around this time to give us insight into how we can use this experience to connect even more to Purim and Hashem, as the ultimate goal.And she really delivered. She shares sooo much wisdom in this podcast episode and I'm so glad we talked it all through. In our conversation, we speak about:-How to see Hashem in this hidden world-What the lessons in the Torah can teach us about the times we're living in now-How she's already seeing Hashem's Hand through Mamdani's election and why she's not scared-Why unity is one of the most important things we need to be focused on and how to work at it in your own life when you feel helpless-Her thoughts on if we should all be moving to Israel right now-How she personally connects more deeply to Hashem and how to work to make it more of a relationship vs just a give and take -What it means to be a strong Jewish woman...and so much more!Connect with Lisa on Instagram at @lisababich9 or via email at lisababich9@gmail.com.

“Grief happens because you don't stop loving the person who died. The person doesn't exist in your reality anymore. The everyday is not colored and shaped by this other human being, but you don't stop loving the person. So grief is a particular kind of unrequited love. And probably without that dynamic relationship with this person, I would be someone else. And he would've been someone else. I mean, Paul died before me. But we were, I think, hugely important to the drama of becoming in our own lives.”Today, we are honored to welcome a writer whose work has long explored the intimate landscapes of the mind, memory and the heart. Siri Hustvedt's writing moves between the personal and the philosophical, the literary and the deeply human. Her work bridges collections of essays, non-fiction, poetry, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Recipient of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature and the Gabarron Prize for Thought, her work has been translated into over thirty languages. Her new memoir, Ghost Stories, is a reflection on forty-three years shared with her late husband, the writer and filmmaker Paul Auster. In its pages, we encounter not only love and loss, but the quiet persistence of presence, memory, and language itself.(0:00) Grief as Unrequited LoveSiri explores the emotional reality of living without Paul Auster, noting that grief occurs because love does not stop when a person dies.(4:00) Facing Death with CourageThe importance of not hiding from mortality and how discussing end-of-life wishes offered a necessary perspective.(12:37) Reading from Ghost StoriesSiri reads the opening passage of her memoir, detailing how the loss of her husband deranged her sense of time and bodily rhythms.(18:41) The Phantom Limb: ” The beloved is taken away and it feels as if you're amputated or gutted.”(21:50)  Grandfather, Father and Son: Generational Traumas Behind Paul Auster's Writing(24:11)  How Powerful Emotions and a Person's Life Can Play a Role in Illness(30:09) Feeding the Earth "Paul very pointedly told me that he wanted to be buried in the Jewish mode. And the phrase he used was, “I want my body to feed the earth.”(44:23) Physical Love in MarriageOn the importance of physical intimacy in long-term marriages, a reality often left out of grief memoirs.(54:00) The Philosophy of the BetweenHow relational existence is foundational to life.(1:00:16) The Hubris of Controlling Nature(1:12:00) The Dark History of Statistics(1:32:12) The Art of Learning vs. AI and Automated Outcomes“I think we have to ask ourselves, what is education? What do we want from it? How do we want people to learn?Episode Websitewww.creativeprocess.info/podInstagram:@creativeprocesspodcast

Show Notes: Elijah Siegler recalls the day of graduation on June 5, 1992, and the prominent promotion of the movie Patriot Games, which seemed at the time an ominous omen, as graduates began to navigate their post-grad journey. Elijah shares his advice to his kids and students: "You don't need to have your whole life post-college figured out. You just need one cool thing lined up, and that'll lead to another cool thing." Elijah describes his first post-graduation job as the editor of the Greece and Turkey book for Let's Go travel guides, which he found out about due to a last-minute cancellation. A Ticket to Israel and Traveling Adventures Elijah had previously been a researcher for Let's Go Pacific Northwest in the summer of 1989. After graduation, Elijah moved back to his parents' house in Toronto, Canada, and spent time reading and applying for jobs. Elijah cashed in his graduation gift from his grandparents, a ticket to Israel, and spent six months in the Middle East, including a solo tour of the Mediterranean. Elijah used his own guidebook for the Greece and Turkey parts of his trip and mentions Gary Bass, a classmate who edited Let's Go Israel and Egypt. Exploring the Middle East Elijah enjoyed both Greece and Turkey, finding Turkey to be one of the great travel destinations of the world. He highlights the unique experiences in Istanbul and Cappadocia, including staying in cave hotels and visiting a center for Sufi culture. Elijah reflects on his visit to Syria, noting the cultural richness and the sadness of seeing the country torn apart by civil war. Elijah moved back to Toronto, spent time with family, and eventually found a job in the non-profit sector in New York. Taking a Slow Boat to China Elijah describes his temporary job in New York, living in a basement in Chelsea, and the cultural experience of living in New York City. He recounts his decision to travel to Asia, including a trip to Japan, where he received a telegram about a job in China. Elijah took a slow boat to China from Kobe to Shanghai and then trains to Chengdu, where he taught English for nine months. He shares his experiences in Chengdu, including teaching and traveling around China, and his interest in Taoism. Opening the Door to the World's Parliament of Religions Elijah attended the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in the fall of 1993, which marked the 100th anniversary of the original event in 1893. He volunteered at the event, met various religious leaders, and was inspired to study religion academically. Elijah decided to pursue a graduate degree in religious studies, applying to various programs and eventually enrolling at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He describes the rigorous Religious Studies Program at UCSB and his initial research on Taoism in America. A Focus on Taoism Elijah explains the concept of Taoism, the indigenous religion of China, and its focus on the Tao, a non-personal divine force. He discusses the transmission of Taoist ideas to America through popular culture, such as the TV show Kung Fu and the book The Tao of Pooh. Elijah interviewed Chinese Taoist masters who came to America and taught Taoist techniques, such as martial arts and meditation. He completed his PhD on Taoism in America and began his academic career, moving from assistant to associate to full professor. The Americanization of Taoism Elijah contrasts Taoism with Buddhism, noting that Taoism does not have a missionary impulse and is spread indirectly through practices like martial arts. He discusses the Americanization of Taoism and the role of popular culture in shaping American Taoism. Elijah shares his research on the authenticity of Taoist masters in America and the concerns within the American Taoist community about who is a genuine master. He mentions the organizational structure of Taoism in China and the challenges of defining authenticity in American Taoism. Religion and Television Elijah discusses his research on religion and television, contrasting it with the study of religion and film. He argues that television's open narrative format allows for the exploration of religious change over time. Elijah highlights the religious themes in popular TV shows and how they reflect and shape American spirituality. He plans to publish a book on his theory of religion and television combining his previous essays on the topic. A Spiritual Journey Elijah shares his personal spiritual journey, growing up in a secular Jewish household and raising his children as Jewish. He expresses a strong affinity for Taoism but does not call himself a Taoist due to the formal initiation required in Taoist traditions. Elijah teaches a class on spirituality, exploring the rise of "spiritual but not religious" individuals and the history of spirituality in America. He emphasizes the importance of interfaith dialogue and understanding different religious traditions, both in his teaching and in his community involvement. Promoting Interfaith Understanding Elijah describes his involvement in the Charleston Interfaith Council, organizing cultural and educational programming to promote interfaith understanding. He organized a  Jewish Muslim Dinner in 2017, bringing together Jewish and Muslim communities for a shared meal and conversation, which has evolved into the Spirited Brunch, a self-guided tour of different sacred spaces in Charleston with snacks, promoting interfaith dialogue and cultural exchange. He encourages others to replicate these initiatives in their own communities, emphasizing the importance of interfaith connections and understanding. Harvard Reflections Elijah  was in the comparative study of religion that was drawn from other departments in the Divinity School, and he mentions professor Diana Eck, who was the chair of that committee on the comparative study of religion. She started something called the pluralism project in 1991 and that summer, Elijah was in the first cohort of student employees for that so I actually got paid to go to Los Angeles and study religious diversity there and inter religious dialog, and in particular, Buddhism.  Timestamps: 01:30 Initial Career Steps and Travel Experiences  04:06: Exploring Greece, Turkey, and Syria  09:03: Moving to New York and Asia  12:10: Attending the World's Parliament of Religions  15:21: Research on Taoism in America  17:31: Taoism in America and Its Cultural Impact  28:59: Religion and Television 31:49: Personal Spiritual Journey and Teaching  39:29: Interfaith Initiatives in Charleston  Links: Faculty Bio: https://charleston.edu/religious-studies/faculty-staff/siegler-elijah.php Spirited Brunch: https://thefoodsection.com/spirited-brunch-101/ The Musical: https://www.happylandmusical.com/ Featured Nonprofit: The featured nonprofit of this week's is brought to you by Tobey Collins who reports:  "Hi. I'm Tobey Collins, class of 1992. The featured nonprofit of this episode of The 92 Report is the Barnstable Land Trust, or BLT. Barnstable Land Trust is a land conservation organization dedicated to preserving green space in the town of Barnstable in Cape Cod, and enhancing access to green space for the broader community. BLT, stewards more than 1250 acres of land in Barnstable, and is always on the lookout for new opportunities. I'm proud to have served as a board member for the Barnstable Land Trust since 2022 as well as having been a regular donor going back more than 15 years. I love helping keep Cape Cod beautiful for generations to come. You can learn more about their work at B, l, t.org, and now here's Will Bachman with this week's episode.  To find out more about their work, visit: www.blt.org.  This episode on The 92 Report: https://92report.com/podcast/episode-161-elij…de-the-classroom/   *AI generated show notes and transcript

The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners, who explore the key challenges facing the organizations, churches, and government bodies concerned with religion and heritage. Featuring polemics, case studies, and analysis, the volume is united by major themes,including Jewish, Muslim and Christian heritage, the (post)secular, interreligious heritage, sacred texts, museums, tourism, and contemporary art. The book explores the shifting significance of Europe's historic churches, synagogues, and mosques, many of which are caught between declining numbers of worshippers, increasing numbers of tourists, and the pressure to find new uses. It also examines the key role religious heritage plays in political discourse, both in the interest of including and excluding religious minorities. Todd H. Weir is Professor of History of Christianity and Director of the Centre for Religion and Heritage at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Lieke Wijnia is Head of Curation and Library at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, The Netherlands. James Bielo is an anthropologist and associate professor of religious studies at Northwestern University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

  Have you ever been asked to keep a secret? Did you? Did you know Jesus asked His disciples to keep a secret? Oh yes! Join me again today in Matthew 17 as three disciples, Peter, James and John, are walking down the mountain with Jesus following an indescribable experience we looked at yesterday.  They had seen Jesus TRANSFIGURED right before their eyes, and furthermore ancient Jewish heroes Moses and Elijah, even though dead hundreds of years, had miraculously appeared before them talking with transfigured Jesus.(Click here to see full text, images and links)    Pastor Doug Anderson    “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)Have a comment or question about today's chapter? I'm ready to hear from you, contact me here. Interested in helping "Walking with Jesus" financially? Click here

Tragic news in the Vikings community, Belinda Jensen calls it a career this May at KARE 11, a sad passing of an orangutan at Como Zoo and more with Quick Takes! Then Jordana shares a sad story regarding anti-semitism with one of the little libraries in Saint Paul and the constant hate towards the Jewish community!

Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth. Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism (Temple University Press, 2026) is Newfield's poignant and hopeful memoir about exiting Orthodoxy. He recounts asserting his individuality and taking the radical step of shaving his beard. Reflective about his upbringing, Newfield is open to and curious about a world beyond Brooklyn while also maintaining his profound bond with his family and Jewish tradition. He writes candidly about his emotional, intellectual, and social experiences in and out of the Lubavitch community. From pivotal moments of devastation, including the illness and death of his younger brother and of his revered spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to moments of joyful resolve, including the decision to pursue a doctorate and marry a non-Orthodox Jew, Newfield takes readers on his moving and impactful journey. Zalman Newfield is Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple). Visit him online at zalmannewfield.com. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and heritage practitioners, who explore the key challenges facing the organizations, churches, and government bodies concerned with religion and heritage. Featuring polemics, case studies, and analysis, the volume is united by major themes,including Jewish, Muslim and Christian heritage, the (post)secular, interreligious heritage, sacred texts, museums, tourism, and contemporary art. The book explores the shifting significance of Europe's historic churches, synagogues, and mosques, many of which are caught between declining numbers of worshippers, increasing numbers of tourists, and the pressure to find new uses. It also examines the key role religious heritage plays in political discourse, both in the interest of including and excluding religious minorities. Todd H. Weir is Professor of History of Christianity and Director of the Centre for Religion and Heritage at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Lieke Wijnia is Head of Curation and Library at Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht, The Netherlands. James Bielo is an anthropologist and associate professor of religious studies at Northwestern University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The Mishneh Torah was the Rambam's (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) magnum opus, a work spanning hundreds of chapters and describing all of the laws mentioned in the Torah. To this day it is the only work that details all of Jewish observance, including those laws which are only applicable when the Holy Temple is in place. Participating in one of the annual study cycles of these laws (3 chapters/day, 1 chapter/day, or Sefer Hamitzvot) is a way we can play a small but essential part in rebuilding the final Temple.

The Mishneh Torah was the Rambam's (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) magnum opus, a work spanning hundreds of chapters and describing all of the laws mentioned in the Torah. To this day it is the only work that details all of Jewish observance, including those laws which are only applicable when the Holy Temple is in place. Participating in one of the annual study cycles of these laws (3 chapters/day, 1 chapter/day, or Sefer Hamitzvot) is a way we can play a small but essential part in rebuilding the final Temple.

The Mishneh Torah was the Rambam's (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) magnum opus, a work spanning hundreds of chapters and describing all of the laws mentioned in the Torah. To this day it is the only work that details all of Jewish observance, including those laws which are only applicable when the Holy Temple is in place. Participating in one of the annual study cycles of these laws (3 chapters/day, 1 chapter/day, or Sefer Hamitzvot) is a way we can play a small but essential part in rebuilding the final Temple.

Big Idea: God is even working in the small stuff!Esther 2:1-14I. Better to choose wisely than regret badly. Esther 2:1-4Some time later, when King Ahasuerus's rage had cooled down, he remembered Vashti, what she had done, and what was decided against her. The king's personal attendants suggested, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. Let the king appoint commissioners in each province of his kingdom, so that they may gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem at the fortress of Susa. Put them under the supervision of Hegai, the king's eunuch, keeper of the women, and give them the required beauty treatments. Then the young woman who pleases the king will become queen instead of Vashti.” This suggestion pleased the king, and he did accordingly.II. God can construct an epic story from your worst moments. Esther 2:5-7In the fortress of Susa, there was a Jewish man named Mordecai son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite. Kish had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the other captives when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took King Jeconiah of Judah into exile. Mordecai was the legal guardian of his cousin Hadassah (that is, Esther), because she had no father or mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was extremely good-looking. When her father and mother died, Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter.III. Find God's favor in any circumstance.  Esther 2:8-9When the king's command and edict became public knowledge and when many young women were gathered at the fortress of Susa under Hegai's supervision, Esther was taken to the palace, into the supervision of Hegai, keeper of the women. The young woman pleased him and gained his favor so that he accelerated the process of the beauty treatments and the special diet that she received. He assigned seven hand-picked female servants to her from the palace and transferred her and her servants to the harem's best quarters.IV. Borrow wisdom carefully, and share it generously.   Esther 2:10-14Esther did not reveal her ethnicity or her family background, because Mordecai had ordered her not to make them known. Every day Mordecai took a walk in front of the harem's courtyard to learn how Esther was doing and to see what was happening to her. During the year before each young woman's turn to go to King Ahasuerus, the harem regulation required her to receive beauty treatments with oil of myrrh for six months and then with perfumes and cosmetics for another six months. When the young woman would go to the king, she was given whatever she requested to take with her from the harem to the palace. She would go in the evening, and in the morning she would return to a second harem under the supervision of the king's eunuch Shaashgaz, keeper of the concubines. She never went to the king again, unless he desired her and summoned her by name.Next Steps: Believe: I, Jesus, to do his biggest miracle in my soul today.Become: I will trust God with the small stuff this week. Be Sent: I will minister to someone far from Jesus this week.Growth Group Questions: What was the last bad decision you made? What were the consequences?What role did prayer play in your schedule last week?What are some practical examples of God's favor in your past?  Did you notice them at the time?How do you decide to follow someone's advice?How quickly do you notice God at work in your worst moments? How easy is it to see God at work in the ordinary moments of your life?Pray for someone by name who is far from Jesus right now.

Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth. Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism (Temple University Press, 2026) is Newfield's poignant and hopeful memoir about exiting Orthodoxy. He recounts asserting his individuality and taking the radical step of shaving his beard. Reflective about his upbringing, Newfield is open to and curious about a world beyond Brooklyn while also maintaining his profound bond with his family and Jewish tradition. He writes candidly about his emotional, intellectual, and social experiences in and out of the Lubavitch community. From pivotal moments of devastation, including the illness and death of his younger brother and of his revered spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to moments of joyful resolve, including the decision to pursue a doctorate and marry a non-Orthodox Jew, Newfield takes readers on his moving and impactful journey. Zalman Newfield is Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple). Visit him online at zalmannewfield.com. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Episode 243 of The Truth Response.What is Messianic Judaism, and how does faith in Jesus connect with Jewish identity and tradition? In this episode, we sit down with Hadassa to hear her personal journey of discovering her Jewish heritage while remaining rooted in faith in Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah.Together, we explore the role of the Torah in a believer's life, the difference between identity and salvation, and the important truth that faith in Christ alone saves. The conversation also addresses common misunderstandings about Messianic believers and wrestles with important questions about calling, heritage, and how the Old Testament still shapes our understanding of God today.Clarity in chaos. Bringing hope to a chaotic world. This episode offers thoughtful perspective, biblical clarity, and a reminder that what matters most is not religious performance, but a heart fully anchored in Christ.

The 2nd Commandment says not to make a chiseled thing part of our worship, yet the 10 Commandments actually are a chiseled thing! In this podcast, I show how the Jewish tradition the notion that it's okay in this instance because we make divine speech --words chiseled on these chiseled stones!-- the center of our worship practice. This changes everything: holiness comes through the holiness of speech, both divine in creating worlds and in creating instructions for how to live, and through our own speech. Instead of an image or an idol, we have speech. I also cover how the 10 Statements (Torah) became the 10 Commandments (Christianity) and so the Rabbis renamed them the 10 Speakings.

Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth. Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism (Temple University Press, 2026) is Newfield's poignant and hopeful memoir about exiting Orthodoxy. He recounts asserting his individuality and taking the radical step of shaving his beard. Reflective about his upbringing, Newfield is open to and curious about a world beyond Brooklyn while also maintaining his profound bond with his family and Jewish tradition. He writes candidly about his emotional, intellectual, and social experiences in and out of the Lubavitch community. From pivotal moments of devastation, including the illness and death of his younger brother and of his revered spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to moments of joyful resolve, including the decision to pursue a doctorate and marry a non-Orthodox Jew, Newfield takes readers on his moving and impactful journey. Zalman Newfield is Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple). Visit him online at zalmannewfield.com. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of strict gender segregation, rigorous religious education, and nearly all-consuming ritual practices. Trained to be a Lubavitch emissary, he traveled around the world doing Jewish outreach to help usher in the messianic redemption. However, after exposure to the wider world, he abandoned the faith of his youth. Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism (Temple University Press, 2026) is Newfield's poignant and hopeful memoir about exiting Orthodoxy. He recounts asserting his individuality and taking the radical step of shaving his beard. Reflective about his upbringing, Newfield is open to and curious about a world beyond Brooklyn while also maintaining his profound bond with his family and Jewish tradition. He writes candidly about his emotional, intellectual, and social experiences in and out of the Lubavitch community. From pivotal moments of devastation, including the illness and death of his younger brother and of his revered spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to moments of joyful resolve, including the decision to pursue a doctorate and marry a non-Orthodox Jew, Newfield takes readers on his moving and impactful journey. Zalman Newfield is Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple). Visit him online at zalmannewfield.com. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

John 3;1-17 shares a powerful and well-known story of Nicodemus, a Jewish leader and a Pharisee who believes that Jesus might just be Who He says He is! What do you think?