Podcasts about soviet jews

In this gripping and profoundly informative conversation, I sit down with Izabella Tabarovsky, a leading scholar of Soviet anti-Zionism and contemporary left antisemitism. Tabarovsky is a Senior Fellow at the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities and a Research Fellow at both the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and ISGAP.Drawing from her years of research on Soviet propaganda and its legacy, Tabarovsky unpacks how virulently antisemitic forms of "anti-Zionism" were central to Cold War-era Communist ideology—and how many of these same tropes and tactics have re-emerged in today's far-left discourse. From the Soviet Union's deployment of conspiracy theories linking Zionism to Nazism to the global campaign that culminated in the infamous 1975 UN Resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism, we trace how these narratives were manufactured, exported, and normalized.Tabarovsky argues that, to quote William Faulkner, “the past is not dead, it is not even past.” Soviet-era antisemitic anti-Zionism, she shows, has left behind a “toxic ideological brew” that still shapes public conversations, academic discourse, and political movements in the West.Topics discussed:The Soviet Union's anti-Zionist propaganda machine and the role of the KGBHow antisemitism was masked as political critiqueThe use of prominent Soviet Jews in anti-Zionist campaignsThe parallels between Cold War-era propaganda and modern leftist antisemitismThe ideological roots of contemporary far-left anti-Zionist rhetoric

What happens when keeping strict halacha on Pesach becomes difficult — in war, under tyranny, or during spiritual crisis? From Roman legionaries to Soviet Jews, from Napoleon's soldiers to early pioneers in Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Dunner explores the challenges — and the halachic courage and compassion that have kept Jews connected to their heritage through Pesach, even when matzah was scarce.

Since the first time Man planted a garden or fought a battle, weather has been vital to success and survival. The weather has famously decided wars. In some cases, weather has been the key factor in the rise and fall of whole Empires. Like many other contemporary real experts, today's guest, Jim Lee, is an independent researcher, in this case, into weather modification.   Why Weather Matters   George Washington avoided surrendering his army in the Battle of Long Island by deceiving the British about his movements and then withdrawing 9,000 men, supplies, and cannons overnight and into the next morning across the East River while a fog miraculously provided cover. If that Providential escape had failed, the War of Independence could have ended.   Napoleon attacked Imperial Russia as winter arrived and was soundly defeated by both poor planning and the vicious cold, decimating the French army, which had over 100,000 men captured, 380,000 dead, and only 27,000 returning to France.   Decades later, despite France's failure in 1812, Hitler's army tried attacking the Soviet Union during World War II and managed to hang on with brutal tactics until winter arrived and the Germans were soundly defeated. Many of the German survivors who managed to make it back to Germany alive were badly disfigured by frostbite, which had claimed noses, eyelids, fingers, and toes. The Germans also murdered over 1 million civilian Soviet Jews during the invasion. The German army troops captured over 5 million Soviet troops and deliberately starved over 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war in brutal disregard for the established rules of war. Despite the most savage and determined fighting, the weather heavily influenced the failure of the German assault upon the Soviet Union.   Any effective military will invest whatever it can to predict, manage, and manipulate weather systems.   More recently, during the Vietnam War, the US seeded clouds over the Ho Chi Min trail in order to mire down enemy North Vietnamese soldiers from moving South.   Growing Concern About Abuses of Weather Control in the US   Many concerns have arisen that Earth's weather is being manipulated in ways harmful to the citizenry and the economy. The hurricane that hit the Hawaiian Island of Maui and the accompanying firestorm that devastated the town of Lahaina in 2023 with grave loss of life and destruction of the community appeared very suspicious. Hurricane Helene and then Milton chewed up Florida and demolished Southeastern Appalachia communities in North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. Have behaved in unusual ways and produced unusual and shockingly high amounts of damage and loss of life. Many citizens have questioned what aspects of the storms may have been “enhanced” or manipulated. The lack of official assistance being provided to survivors of these devastating events has understandably increased suspicion.   The federal government has done nothing to alleviate citizen concerns; instead, it has encouraged censorship through social media. The usual claims of conspiracy theory have been lobbed against anyone raising these questions, but as it turns out, citizens are asking very good questions.   Government Censorship   The federal government censors and curtails information and public discussion on subjects like weather manipulation. For a good review of the state of government censorship in the world today, listen to the Joe Rogan interview with Mike Benz that aired this month. The federal government funds, coordinates, and gives orders to its own branches and federal agencies and to non-government organizations (NGOs), nonprofits, universities, and others to censor and eliminate free speech. There are literally hundreds of thousands of hired individuals manipulating the truth as hired guns through traditional news outlets, social media, university outlets, book publishers, and scientific journals.   Weather Modification, Inc.   The absurdity of these government denials was recently highlighted by a photo of a plane on TikTok with a large corporate logo across its fuselage that said, “Weather Modification, International.” The Weather Modification International website was surprisingly empty, but when I checked the web archive for earlier versions, I found that their website started being stripped of data in early 2020. The 2019 archive offered a more robust introduction to the company. Turns out, Weather Modification Inc. has been operating since its founding in 1961 by two farmers/pilots. As of 2019, the company had grown to almost 40 aircraft and 100 personnel. Here is a screenshot of the 2019 “Who We Are” web page.     Weather Modification, Incorporated has been in business since 1961. Their current website declares:   “When most people look up they see clouds. WE SEE POTENTIAL.” About us: Now, more than ever, the worldwide need for solutions to atmospheric necessities such as water resource management and environmental quality monitoring, is critical. With nearly a half-century of successful programs, our experience speaks for itself.   Let us help you better manage your atmospheric and water resources.   In the archive, Weather Modification Inc. had a very robust and international list of governmental, military, academic, and private clients. The client list for the United States included the US Department of Defense (DOD), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its National Hurricane Center, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, several state cloud seeding or weather modification programs, and more. They also have a number of international government clients.   Our Guest Today, Jim Lee   Despite censorship and other barriers, some intrepid truth-tellers have been collecting and revealing the discovered facts and information concerning both the details of weather manipulation and how it has now been weaponized against U.S. citizens, against all moral and legal limitations.   One of these truth-tellers is today's guest, Jim Lee. He has devoted his work to “separating fact from fiction regarding geoengineering, pollution, privacy, and propaganda in an easy-to-understand way.”   Jim Lee has been gathering and sharing news regarding weather manipulation since 2012. He has gathered and published a collection of historical evidence and news about weather modification that I believe is unmatched anywhere else. His goals are to “enact changes in laws worldwide to bring transparency and accountability for weather modification and geoengineering experiments.” The interview with Jim Lee makes clear that there is nothing conspiratorial about weather modification except the government's attempts to hide it from the public.     His historical Weather Modification History internet collection of thousands of news articles going back more than 100 years is a masterpiece in organization and research. In addition to the screenshots of the media articles, each is linked to the full version of the article, offering an unprecedented review of the history of documented weather management and manipulation.   Lee's accompanying climate viewer maps website is his most remarkable feat, inviting visitors to explore weather issues in depth. His maps are gorgeous.   Jim Lee has directly addressed what he calls the “pseudoscience, fear-porn, clickbait, and the facts” surrounding Helene and Milton. He concludes that proving federal or any other attempts to modify the hurricanes cannot be done but that seeding with chemicals or mechanical devices is possible but there is no data to prove it in this case.   Jim Lee examines in detail on his website why radar or HAARP involvement is impossible, explaining:   First of all, HAARP was not on during either of these storms. If you want to learn more about HAARP and the three ionospheric heaters worldwide, check out my page on Space Weather Modification. You can tell when HAARP is on simply by checking HAM radio or WebSDR and tuning into 2.8 to 10 MHz. It was not.   That leaves NEXRAD Doppler radar, aka WSR-88D. Can a NEXRAD radar alter a hurricane? NO! Why? It's all about the numbers. NEXRAD can produce a peak of 750,000 watts with an average power of around 1300 watts. Let's compare that to a hurricane:   7,000,000,000,000,000 watts or joules/second. 7 quadrillion watts vs 750,000 watts. You do the math.   There is a great deal of old-fashioned weather modifications through seeding and chemtrails (pollution in the sky whether as a byproduct of exhaust or deliberately produced) that have resulted in changing conditions for some of our most fertile and fruitful farmlands turning them from abundant crop producers to wastelands. That alone–the loss of millions of acres of cropland—and the bounty they produce, is alarming enough to warrant our direct attention.   Were the recent hurricanes manipulated by seeding clouds in some way? Lee says, “There isn't evidence.” There are disagreements within the freedom network about this point, but Lee says he and colleagues looked for any airplane traffic, but there was none. So, unless there were undiscovered spy planes with their identifying transponders turned off, there was no manipulation.   There is confirmation of weather modification and manipulation that has now clearly been directed at our own United States citizens and their productivity. Our guest, Jim Lee, tells us about how these practices are used by governments, federal and sometimes state, as well as by private industries. Reasons for manipulating weather vary and include efforts to increase or decrease rainfall and water tables through snow melt and to encourage greater amounts of snow for ski season. Managing rainfall to perfect the growing and harvesting of crops is also attempted.   One of the most serious aspects of climate manipulation is the tolerance shown and lack of measurement of nanoparticles that are spewed into the upper atmosphere by global air traffic.   Listen to us today as we learn so much more about how heavily and capriciously our weather is manipulated, the risks this presents, and what we can do to protect ourselves and our world.   Jim Lee and his marvelous websites can all be found at Connect with ClimateViewer and Weather Modification History. Readers can also connect to Jim through his Substack: The Climate Viewer Report.   ______   Learn more about Dr. Peter Breggin's work: https://breggin.com/   See more from Dr. Breggin's long history of being a reformer in psychiatry: https://breggin.com/Psychiatry-as-an-Instrument-of-Social-and-Political-Control   Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal, the how-to manual @ https://breggin.com/a-guide-for-prescribers-therapists-patients-and-their-families/   Get a copy of Dr. Breggin's latest book: WHO ARE THE “THEY” - THESE GLOBAL PREDATORS? WHAT ARE THEIR MOTIVES AND THEIR PLANS FOR US? HOW CAN WE DEFEND AGAINST THEM? Covid-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey Get a copy: https://www.wearetheprey.com/   “No other book so comprehensively covers the details of COVID-19 criminal conduct as well as its origins in a network of global predators seeking wealth and power at the expense of human freedom and prosperity, under cover of false public health policies.”   ~ Robert F Kennedy, Jr Author of #1 bestseller The Real Anthony Fauci and Founder, Chairman and Chief Legal Counsel for Children's Health Defense.

The main objective of Re-Constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus (de Gruyter, 2020) is to locate the grass roots initiatives of remembering the Holocaust victims in a particular region of Russia which has a very diverse ethnic structure and little presence of Jews at the same time. It aims to find out how such individual initiatives correspond to the official Russian hero-orientated concept of remembering the Second World war with almost no attention to the memory of war victims, including Holocaust victims. North Caucasus became the last address of thousands of Soviet Jews, both evacuees and locals. While there was almost no attention paid to the Holocaust victims in the official Soviet propaganda in the postwar period, local activists and historians together with the members of Jewish communities preserved Holocaust memory by installing small obelisks at the killing sites, writing novels and making documentaries, teaching about the Holocaust at schools and making small thematic exhibitions in the local and school museums. Individual types of grass roots activities in the region on remembering Holocaust victims are analyzed in each chapter of the book. 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

The main objective of Re-Constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus (de Gruyter, 2020) is to locate the grass roots initiatives of remembering the Holocaust victims in a particular region of Russia which has a very diverse ethnic structure and little presence of Jews at the same time. It aims to find out how such individual initiatives correspond to the official Russian hero-orientated concept of remembering the Second World war with almost no attention to the memory of war victims, including Holocaust victims. North Caucasus became the last address of thousands of Soviet Jews, both evacuees and locals. While there was almost no attention paid to the Holocaust victims in the official Soviet propaganda in the postwar period, local activists and historians together with the members of Jewish communities preserved Holocaust memory by installing small obelisks at the killing sites, writing novels and making documentaries, teaching about the Holocaust at schools and making small thematic exhibitions in the local and school museums. Individual types of grass roots activities in the region on remembering Holocaust victims are analyzed in each chapter of the book. 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 main objective of Re-Constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus (de Gruyter, 2020) is to locate the grass roots initiatives of remembering the Holocaust victims in a particular region of Russia which has a very diverse ethnic structure and little presence of Jews at the same time. It aims to find out how such individual initiatives correspond to the official Russian hero-orientated concept of remembering the Second World war with almost no attention to the memory of war victims, including Holocaust victims. North Caucasus became the last address of thousands of Soviet Jews, both evacuees and locals. While there was almost no attention paid to the Holocaust victims in the official Soviet propaganda in the postwar period, local activists and historians together with the members of Jewish communities preserved Holocaust memory by installing small obelisks at the killing sites, writing novels and making documentaries, teaching about the Holocaust at schools and making small thematic exhibitions in the local and school museums. Individual types of grass roots activities in the region on remembering Holocaust victims are analyzed in each chapter of the book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies

The main objective of Re-Constructing Grassroots Holocaust Memory: The Case of the North Caucasus (de Gruyter, 2020) is to locate the grass roots initiatives of remembering the Holocaust victims in a particular region of Russia which has a very diverse ethnic structure and little presence of Jews at the same time. It aims to find out how such individual initiatives correspond to the official Russian hero-orientated concept of remembering the Second World war with almost no attention to the memory of war victims, including Holocaust victims. North Caucasus became the last address of thousands of Soviet Jews, both evacuees and locals. While there was almost no attention paid to the Holocaust victims in the official Soviet propaganda in the postwar period, local activists and historians together with the members of Jewish communities preserved Holocaust memory by installing small obelisks at the killing sites, writing novels and making documentaries, teaching about the Holocaust at schools and making small thematic exhibitions in the local and school museums. Individual types of grass roots activities in the region on remembering Holocaust victims are analyzed in each chapter of the book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

This panel discussion on the legacy of George Shultz, former US secretary of state and Hoover Institution senior fellow, features the Hoover Institution's director, Condoleezza Rice; Israeli politician and human rights activist Natan Sharansky; and Abraham Sofaer, the former legal advisor to the State Department under George Shultz and the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs at the Hoover Institution. Together, they reflect on Shultz's contributions to US foreign policy, human rights, and the end of the Cold War. The discussion explores Shultz's deep commitment to human rights, particularly in supporting Soviet refuseniks and advancing the cause of freedom in the USSR. The panelists recount how Shultz worked alongside President Ronald Reagan to integrate human rights into diplomatic negotiations, leverage the Helsinki Accords, and challenge the Soviet Union's authoritarian system. Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident imprisoned for 12 years for his activism, shares personal experiences of Shultz's support for Soviet Jews and recounts the political maneuvering that contributed to his own release. Rice and Sofaer discuss Shultz's diplomatic philosophy, his strategic role in Reagan's administration, and his ability to bridge the gap between hardline anti-communism and pragmatic diplomacy. The conversation also touches on the role of ideas in shaping policy and whether current generations fully grasp the stakes of international conflict in the way Cold War leaders like Shultz and Reagan did. The panelists debate modern revisionist views on the end of the Cold War with a strong defense of Reagan and Shultz's deliberate strategy to weaken the Soviet Union. Ultimately, the discussion serves as both a tribute to the life and times of George Shultz and a reflection on leadership, diplomacy, and the enduring battle of ideas in world affairs. Recorded on February 12, 2025.

Since the first time Man planted a garden or fought a battle, weather has been vital to success and survival. The weather has famously decided wars. In some cases, weather has been the key factor in the rise and fall of whole Empires. Like many other contemporary real experts, today's guest, Jim Lee, is an independent researcher, in this case, into weather modification.   Why Weather Matters   George Washington avoided surrendering his army in the Battle of Long Island by deceiving the British about his movements and then withdrawing 9,000 men, supplies, and cannons overnight and into the next morning across the East River while a fog miraculously provided cover. If that Providential escape had failed, the War of Independence could have ended.   Napoleon attacked Imperial Russia as winter arrived and was soundly defeated by both poor planning and the vicious cold, decimating the French army, which had over 100,000 men captured, 380,000 dead, and only 27,000 returning to France.   Decades later, despite France's failure in 1812, Hitler's army tried attacking the Soviet Union during World War II and managed to hang on with brutal tactics until winter arrived and the Germans were soundly defeated. Many of the German survivors who managed to make it back to Germany alive were badly disfigured by frostbite, which had claimed noses, eyelids, fingers, and toes. The Germans also murdered over 1 million civilian Soviet Jews during the invasion. The German army troops captured over 5 million Soviet troops and deliberately starved over 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war in brutal disregard for the established rules of war. Despite the most savage and determined fighting, the weather heavily influenced the failure of the German assault upon the Soviet Union.   Any effective military will invest whatever it can to predict, manage, and manipulate weather systems.   More recently, during the Vietnam War, the US seeded clouds over the Ho Chi Min trail in order to mire down enemy North Vietnamese soldiers from moving South.   Growing Concern About Abuses of Weather Control in the US   Many concerns have arisen that Earth's weather is being manipulated in ways harmful to the citizenry and the economy. The hurricane that hit the Hawaiian Island of Maui and the accompanying firestorm that devastated the town of Lahaina in 2023 with grave loss of life and destruction of the community appeared very suspicious. Hurricane Helene and then Milton chewed up Florida and demolished Southeastern Appalachia communities in North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. Have behaved in unusual ways and produced unusual and shockingly high amounts of damage and loss of life. Many citizens have questioned what aspects of the storms may have been “enhanced” or manipulated. The lack of official assistance being provided to survivors of these devastating events has understandably increased suspicion.   The federal government has done nothing to alleviate citizen concerns; instead, it has encouraged censorship through social media. The usual claims of conspiracy theory have been lobbed against anyone raising these questions, but as it turns out, citizens are asking very good questions.   Government Censorship   The federal government censors and curtails information and public discussion on subjects like weather manipulation. For a good review of the state of government censorship in the world today, listen to the Joe Rogan interview with Mike Benz that aired this month. The federal government funds, coordinates, and gives orders to its own branches and federal agencies and to non-government organizations (NGOs), nonprofits, universities, and others to censor and eliminate free speech. There are literally hundreds of thousands of hired individuals manipulating the truth as hired guns through traditional news outlets, social media, university outlets, book publishers, and scientific journals.   Weather Modification, Inc.   The absurdity of these government denials was recently highlighted by a photo of a plane on TikTok with a large corporate logo across its fuselage that said, “Weather Modification, International.” The Weather Modification International website was surprisingly empty, but when I checked the web archive for earlier versions, I found that their website started being stripped of data in early 2020. The 2019 archive offered a more robust introduction to the company. Turns out, Weather Modification Inc. has been operating since its founding in 1961 by two farmers/pilots. As of 2019, the company had grown to almost 40 aircraft and 100 personnel. Here is a screenshot of the 2019 “Who We Are” web page.     Weather Modification, Incorporated has been in business since 1961. Their current website declares:   “When most people look up they see clouds. WE SEE POTENTIAL.” About us: Now, more than ever, the worldwide need for solutions to atmospheric necessities such as water resource management and environmental quality monitoring, is critical. With nearly a half-century of successful programs, our experience speaks for itself.   Let us help you better manage your atmospheric and water resources.   In the archive, Weather Modification Inc. had a very robust and international list of governmental, military, academic, and private clients. The client list for the United States included the US Department of Defense (DOD), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its National Hurricane Center, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, several state cloud seeding or weather modification programs, and more. They also have a number of international government clients.   Our Guest Today, Jim Lee   Despite censorship and other barriers, some intrepid truth-tellers have been collecting and revealing the discovered facts and information concerning both the details of weather manipulation and how it has now been weaponized against U.S. citizens, against all moral and legal limitations.   One of these truth-tellers is today's guest, Jim Lee. He has devoted his work to “separating fact from fiction regarding geoengineering, pollution, privacy, and propaganda in an easy-to-understand way.”   Jim Lee has been gathering and sharing news regarding weather manipulation since 2012. He has gathered and published a collection of historical evidence and news about weather modification that I believe is unmatched anywhere else. His goals are to “enact changes in laws worldwide to bring transparency and accountability for weather modification and geoengineering experiments.” The interview with Jim Lee makes clear that there is nothing conspiratorial about weather modification except the government's attempts to hide it from the public.     His historical Weather Modification History internet collection of thousands of news articles going back more than 100 years is a masterpiece in organization and research. In addition to the screenshots of the media articles, each is linked to the full version of the article, offering an unprecedented review of the history of documented weather management and manipulation.   Lee's accompanying climate viewer maps website is his most remarkable feat, inviting visitors to explore weather issues in depth. His maps are gorgeous.   Jim Lee has directly addressed what he calls the “pseudoscience, fear-porn, clickbait, and the facts” surrounding Helene and Milton. He concludes that proving federal or any other attempts to modify the hurricanes cannot be done but that seeding with chemicals or mechanical devices is possible but there is no data to prove it in this case.   Jim Lee examines in detail on his website why radar or HAARP involvement is impossible, explaining:   First of all, HAARP was not on during either of these storms. If you want to learn more about HAARP and the three ionospheric heaters worldwide, check out my page on Space Weather Modification. You can tell when HAARP is on simply by checking HAM radio or WebSDR and tuning into 2.8 to 10 MHz. It was not.   That leaves NEXRAD Doppler radar, aka WSR-88D. Can a NEXRAD radar alter a hurricane? NO! Why? It's all about the numbers. NEXRAD can produce a peak of 750,000 watts with an average power of around 1300 watts. Let's compare that to a hurricane:   7,000,000,000,000,000 watts or joules/second. 7 quadrillion watts vs 750,000 watts. You do the math.   There is a great deal of old-fashioned weather modifications through seeding and chemtrails (pollution in the sky whether as a byproduct of exhaust or deliberately produced) that have resulted in changing conditions for some of our most fertile and fruitful farmlands turning them from abundant crop producers to wastelands. That alone–the loss of millions of acres of cropland—and the bounty they produce, is alarming enough to warrant our direct attention.   Were the recent hurricanes manipulated by seeding clouds in some way? Lee says, “There isn't evidence.” There are disagreements within the freedom network about this point, but Lee says he and colleagues looked for any airplane traffic, but there was none. So, unless there were undiscovered spy planes with their identifying transponders turned off, there was no manipulation.   There is confirmation of weather modification and manipulation that has now clearly been directed at our own United States citizens and their productivity. Our guest, Jim Lee, tells us about how these practices are used by governments, federal and sometimes state, as well as by private industries. Reasons for manipulating weather vary and include efforts to increase or decrease rainfall and water tables through snow melt and to encourage greater amounts of snow for ski season. Managing rainfall to perfect the growing and harvesting of crops is also attempted.   One of the most serious aspects of climate manipulation is the tolerance shown and lack of measurement of nanoparticles that are spewed into the upper atmosphere by global air traffic.   Listen to us today as we learn so much more about how heavily and capriciously our weather is manipulated, the risks this presents, and what we can do to protect ourselves and our world.   Jim Lee and his marvelous websites can all be found at Connect with ClimateViewer and Weather Modification History. Readers can also connect to Jim through his Substack: The Climate Viewer Report.   ______   Learn more about Dr. Peter Breggin's work: https://breggin.com/   See more from Dr. Breggin's long history of being a reformer in psychiatry: https://breggin.com/Psychiatry-as-an-Instrument-of-Social-and-Political-Control   Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal, the how-to manual @ https://breggin.com/a-guide-for-prescribers-therapists-patients-and-their-families/   Get a copy of Dr. Breggin's latest book: WHO ARE THE “THEY” - THESE GLOBAL PREDATORS? WHAT ARE THEIR MOTIVES AND THEIR PLANS FOR US? HOW CAN WE DEFEND AGAINST THEM? Covid-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey Get a copy: https://www.wearetheprey.com/   “No other book so comprehensively covers the details of COVID-19 criminal conduct as well as its origins in a network of global predators seeking wealth and power at the expense of human freedom and prosperity, under cover of false public health policies.”   ~ Robert F Kennedy, Jr Author of #1 bestseller The Real Anthony Fauci and Founder, Chairman and Chief Legal Counsel for Children's Health Defense.

There is a time to wage wars, Rabbi Michael Melchior says, and there is a time to make peace.An internationally renowned Jewish leader, thinker, and activist, he has long dedicated his life to fighting for human rights and peace—whether for Soviet Jews in the 1960s or Palestinians and Israelis in 2024. In the past, he was a representative of the Meimad Knesset Party, International Director of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, and founder with the late Sheikh Abdullah Nimer Darwish of the Religious Peace Initiative, where he is still active today. The list of his accolades and accomplishments are long.Now, he joins us to answer 18 questions on Israel, including the Israel-Hamas War, prayer after October 7, and why peace is still possible. This interview was held on Dec. 25.Here are our 18 questions:As an Israeli, and as a Jew, how are you feeling at this moment in Israeli history?What has been Israel's greatest success and greatest mistake in its war against Hamas?How have your religious views changed since Oct. 7? What do you look for in deciding which Knesset party to vote for?Which is more important for Israel: Judaism or democracy?Should Israel treat its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens the same?Now that Israel already exists, what is the purpose of Zionism?Is opposing Zionism inherently antisemitic?Should Israel be a religious state?If you were making the case for Israel, where would you begin?Should all Israelis serve in the army?Can questioning the actions of Israel's government and army — even in the context of this war — be a valid form of love and patriotism?What do you think is the most legitimate criticism leveled against Israel today?Do you think the State of Israel is part of the final redemption?Is Messianism helpful or harmful to Israel?Do you think peace between Israelis and Palestinians will happen within your lifetime?Where do you identify on Israel's political and religious spectrum, and do you have friends on the “other side”?Do you have more hope or fear for Israel and the Jewish People?

Natan Sharansky is a renowned human rights activist, former Soviet dissident, Israeli politician, and author. In 1977, Sharansky was sentenced to 13 years of hard labor in a Soviet prison for the crime of advocating for human rights and the right for Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. After nine years of imprisonment, under harsh conditions and including long periods of solitary confinement, Sharankly was released in 1986 as part of a political prisoner exchange between the Soviet Union and western nations. Upon his release, he emigrated to Israel, where he became a prominent figure in Israeli politics and global Jewish advocacy.  In this wide-ranging interview, Sharansky discusses pressing geopolitical issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the nature of anti-Semitism on university campuses, and the role of the United States in supporting Israel and the broader free world. He also reflects on the 1977 Oslo Accords, the resilience of Israeli society amid ongoing threats, and the enduring significance of freedom and identity in Sharansky's life and worldview. Sharansky also examines America's responsibility as a leader in the free world, the challenges posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions, and the deeper cultural and spiritual threads that unite the Jewish people. Recorded on November 18, 2024.

Felice Gaer, esteemed Director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, was an internationally respected human rights advocate who dedicated more than four decades to championing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enforcing international commitments to prevent severe human rights violations globally. On November 9, Felice passed away after a prolonged battle with metastatic breast cancer. In honor of her legacy, we revisit her insightful conversation on People of the Pod, recorded last year during Women's History Month and on International Women's Day. As we remember and celebrate Felice's profound contributions, we share this interview once more. May her memory continue to be a blessing. __ Music credits: Drops of Melting Snow (after Holst, Abroad as I was walking) by Axletree is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. Learn more about Felice Gaer: Felice Gaer, Legendary Human Rights Champion Who Inspired Generations of Global Advocates, Dies at 78 Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  What the Election Results Mean for Israel and the Jewish People The Jewish Vote in Pennsylvania: What You Need to Know Sinwar Eliminated: What Does This Mean for the 101 Hostages Still Held by Hamas? Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with Felice Gaer: Manya Brachear Pashman:   This past weekend, AJC lost a phenomenal colleague. Felice Gaer, the director of American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, was an internationally renowned human rights expert who, for more than four decades, brought life and practical significance to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international commitments, to prevent grave human rights abuses around the world.  She died on November 9, following a lengthy battle with metastatic breast cancer. I had the honor of interviewing Felice last year during Women's History Month and on International Women's Day.  We bring you that interview now, as we remember Felice. May her memory be for a blessing.  _ Felice is with us now to discuss today's human rights challenges and the challenges she has faced as a woman in the Human Rights world.  Felice, welcome to People of the Pod.  Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So let's start with the beginning. Can you share with our listeners a little about your upbringing, and how Jewish values shaped what you do today? Felice Gaer:   Well, I had a fairly ordinary upbringing in a suburb of New York City that had a fairly high percentage of Jews living in it–Teaneck, New Jersey. I was shaped by all the usual things in a Jewish home. First of all, the holidays. Secondly, the values, Jewish values, and awareness, a profound awareness of Jewish history, the history of annihilation, expulsion, discrimination, violence. But also the Jewish values of universality, respect for all human life, equality before the law, sense of realism, sense that you can change your life by what you do, and the choices that you make. These are all core Jewish values. And I guess I always have found the three part expression by Rabbi Hillel to sum up the approach I've always taken to human rights and most other things in life. He said, If I'm not for myself, who will be, and if I'm only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? So that's a sense of Jewish particularism, Jewish universalism, and realism, as well. Manya Brachear Pashman:   You went to Wellesley, class of 1968, it's an all-women's college. Was there a strong Jewish presence on campus there at a time? And did that part of your identity even play a role in your college experience?  Felice Gaer :  Well, I left, as I said, a town that had a fairly sizable Jewish population. And I went to Wellesley and I felt like I was in another world. And so even as long ago as 1964-65, that era, I actually reached out to Hillel and participated in very minor activities that took place, usually a Friday night dinner, or something like that. But it really didn't play a role except by making me recognize that I was a member of a very small minority. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Here on this podcast, we've talked a lot about the movement to free Soviet Jewry. As you pursued graduate work at Columbia, and also during your undergrad days at Wellesley, were you involved in that movement at all? Felice Gaer:   Well, I had great interest in Russian studies, and in my years at Wellesley, the Soviet Union movement was at a very nascent stage. And I remember arguments with the Soviet Ambassador coming to the campus and our specialist on Russian history, arguing about whether this concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews was a valid concern.  The professor, who happened to have been Jewish, by the way, argued that Jews in the Soviet Union were treated badly, but so was everybody else in the Soviet Union. And it really wasn't something that one needed to focus on especially. As I left Wellesley and went to Columbia, where I studied political science and was at the Russian Institute, now the Harriman Institute, I found that the treatment of Soviet Jews was different in many ways, and the capacity to do something about it was serious.  We knew people who had relatives, we knew people who wanted to leave. The whole Soviet Union movement was focused around the desire to leave the country–not to change it–that was an explicit decision of Jewish leaders around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself. And so the desire to leave was something you could realize, document the cases, bring the names forward, and engage American officials in a way that the Jewish community had never done before with cases and examples demanding that every place you went, every negotiation that took place, was accompanied by lists of names and cases, whose plight will be brought to the attention of the authorities. And that really mobilized people, including people like me.  I also worked to focus on the agenda of internal change in the Soviet Union. And that meant also looking at other human rights issues. Why and how freedom of religion or belief was suppressed in this militantly atheist state, why and how freedom of expression, freedom of association, and just about every other right, was really severely limited. And what the international standards were at that time. After I left Columbia, that was around the time that the famous manifesto from Andrei Sakharov, the world famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was made public. It was around the time that other kinds of dissident materials were becoming better known about life inside the Soviet Union post-Khrushchev. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So you left Colombia with a master's degree, the Cold War ends, and you take a job at the Ford Foundation that has you traveling all around Eastern Europe, looking to end human rights abuses, assessing the challenges that face that region. I want to ask you about the treatment of women, and what you witnessed about the mistreatment of women in these regions. And does that tend to be a common denominator around the world when you assess human rights abuses? Felice Gaer:   Well, there's no question that the treatment of women is different than the treatment of men. And it's true all over the world. But when I traveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the height of those years, height of the Cold War, and so forth, the issues of women's rights actually weren't one of the top issues on the agenda because the Soviet Union and East European countries appeared to be doing more for women than the Western countries.  They had them in governance. They had them in the parliament. They purported to support equality for women. It took some years for Soviet feminists, dissidents, to find a voice and to begin to point out all the ways in which they were treated in the same condescending, patriarchal style as elsewhere. But in those years, that was not a big issue in the air.  It was unusual for me, a 20-something year old woman from the United States to be traveling around Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, meeting with high officials and others, and on behalf of the Ford Foundation, trying to develop programming that would involve people to people contacts, that would involve developing programs where there was common expertise, like management training, and things of that sort. And I was really an odd, odd duck in that situation, and I felt it. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I mentioned in my introduction, the Beijing World Conference on Women, can you reflect a little on what had a lasting impact there? Felice Gaer:   Well, the Beijing World Conference on Women was the largest, and remains the largest conference that the United Nations has ever organized. There were over 35,000 women there, about 17,000 at the intergovernmental conference. I was on the US delegation there.  The simple statement that women's rights are human rights may seem hackneyed today. But when that was affirmed in the 1995 Beijing Outcome Document, it was a major political and conceptual breakthrough. It was largely focused on getting the UN to accept that the rights of women were actually international human rights and that they weren't something different. They weren't private, or outside the reach of investigators and human rights bodies. It was an inclusive statement, and it was a mind altering statement in the women's rights movement.  It not only reaffirmed that women's rights are human rights, but it went further in addressing the problems facing women in the language of human rights.  The earlier world conferences on women talked about equality, but they didn't identify violations of those rights. They didn't demand accountability of those rights. And they said absolutely nothing about creating mechanisms by which you could monitor, review, and hold people accountable, which is the rights paradigm. Beijing changed all that. It was a violations approach that was quite different from anything that existed before that. Manya Brachear Pashman :  Did anything get forgotten? We talked about what had a lasting impact, but what seems to have been forgotten or have fallen to the wayside? Felice Gaer:   Oh, I think it's just the opposite. I think the things that were in the Beijing conference have become Fuller and addressed in greater detail and are more commonly part of what goes on in the international discourse on women's rights and the status of women in public life. And certainly at the international level that's the case.  I'll give you just one example, the Convention Against Torture. I mean, when I became a member of the committee, the 10 person committee, I was the only woman. The committee really had, in 11 years, it had maybe said, four or five things about the treatment of women. And the way that torture, ill treatment, inhuman, degrading treatment may affect women.  It looked at the world through the eyes of male prisoners in detention. And it didn't look at the world through the eyes of women who suffer private violence, gender based violence, that is that the state looks away from and ignores and therefore sanctions, and to a certain extent endorses.  And it didn't identify the kinds of things that affect women, including women who are imprisoned, and why and where in many parts of the world. What one does in terms of education or dress or behavior may lead you into a situation where you're being abused, either in a prison or outside of prison. These are issues that are now part of the regular review, for example, at the Committee Against Torture, issues of of trafficking, issues of gender based violence, the Sharia law, the hudud punishments of whipping and stoning, are part of the concern of the committee, which they weren't before. Manya Brachear Pashman:   In other words, having that woman's perspective, having your perspective on that committee was really important and really changed and broadened the discussion. Felice Gaer:   Absolutely. When I first joined the committee, the first session I was at, we had a review of China. And so I very politely asked a question about the violence and coercion associated with the population policy in China, as you know, forced abortions and things of that sort. This was a question that had come up before the women's convention, the CEDAW, and I thought it was only appropriate that it also come up in the Committee Against Torture.  In our discussion afterwards, the very stern chairman of the committee, a former constable, said to me, ‘You know, this might be of interest to you, Ms. Gaer, but this has nothing to do with the mandate of this committee.' I explained to him why it did, in some detail. And when I finished pointing out all of those elements–including the fact that the people carried out these practices on the basis of state policy–when I finished, there was a silence.  And the most senior person in the room, who had been involved in these issues for decades, said, ‘I'm quite certain we can accommodate Ms. Gaer's concerns in the conclusions,' and they did.  That's the kind of thing that happens when you look at issues from a different perspective and raise them. Manya Brachear Pashman:   You talked about being an odd duck in your 20s, as a woman traveling around Eastern Europe, trying to address these challenges. I'm curious if that woman in her 20s would have been able to stand up to this committee like that, and give that thorough an explanation? Or did it take some years of experience, of witnessing these issues, perhaps being ignored?  Felice Gaer:  Well, I think as we go through life, you learn new things. And I learned new things along the way. I learned about the universal norms, I learned about how to apply them, how they had been applied, and how they hadn't been applied. And in that process, developed what I would say is a sharper way of looking at these issues.  But the Bosnian conflict in particular, made the issue of gender based violence against women, especially in war, but not only in war, into a mainstream issue, and helped propel these issues, both inside the United Nations and outside, the awareness changed.  I remember asking the International Red Cross representatives in Croatia, just across the border from Bosnia, if they had encountered any victims of gender based violence or rape, and they said, ‘No.' And I said, ‘Did you ask them about these concerns?' And they sort of looked down and looked embarrassed, looked at each other and looked back at me and said, ‘Oh.' There were no words. There were no understandings of looking at the world this way. And that has changed. That has changed dramatically today. I mean, if you look at the situation in Ukraine, the amount of gender based violence that has been documented is horrifying, just horrifying, but it's been documented. Manya Brachear Pashman   So is the world of human rights advocacy male-dominated, female-dominated, is it fairly balanced these days? And has that balance made the difference in what you're talking about? Felice Gaer:   You know, I wrote an article in 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, about why women's rights weren't being addressed. And one of the points I drew attention to was the fact that the heads of almost all the major organizations at the time were all male. And that it wasn't seen as a concern. A lot of that has changed. There's really a real variety of perspectives now that are brought to bear. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So we've talked a lot about the importance of [a] woman's perspective. Does a Jewish perspective matter as well? Felice Gaer:   Oh, on every issue on every issue and, you know, I worked a great deal on freedom of religion and belief, as an issue. That's a core issue of AJC, and it's a fundamental rights issue. And it struck me as surprising that with all the attention to freedom of religion, the concern about antisemitic acts was not being documented by mainstream human rights organizations. And it wasn't being documented by the UN experts on freedom of religion or belief either. I drew this to the attention of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, who was recently ending his term as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief. And he was really very struck by this. And he went, and he did a little bit of research. And he found out that since computerized records had been prepared at the United Nations, that there had been no attention, no attention at all, to cases of alleged antisemitic incidents. And he began a project to record the kinds of problems that existed and to identify what could be done about it. We helped him in the sense that we organized a couple of colloquia, we brought people from all over the world together to talk about the dimensions of the problem and the documentation that they did, and the proposals that they had for addressing it. And he, as you may recall, wrote a brilliant report in 2019, setting out the problems of global antisemitism. And he followed that up in 2022, before leaving his position with what he called an action plan for combating anti semitism, which has concrete specific suggestions for all countries around the world as to what they can do to help combat antisemitism and antisemitic acts, including and to some extent, starting with adopting the working definition on antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but also activities in in the area of education, training, training of law enforcement officials, documentation and public action. It's a real contribution to the international discourse and to understanding that freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone. Manya Brachear Pashman:   And do you believe that Dr. Shaheed's report is being absorbed, comprehended by those that need to hear it that need to understand it? Felice Gaer   I've been delighted to see the way that the European Union has engaged with Dr. Shaheed and his report has developed standards and expectations for all 27 member states, and that other countries and other parts of the world have done the same. So yeah, I do think they're engaging with it. I hope there'll be a lot more because the problem has only grown. Manya Brachear Pashman:   On the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, JBI issued a report that sounded the alarm on the widespread violations committed against Ukrainians, you mentioned the amount of gender based violence Since that has taken place, and the other just catastrophic consequences of this war. Felice, you've been on the front row of Eastern European affairs and human rights advocacy in that region. From your perspective, and I know this is a big question: How did this war happen? Felice Gaer:   I'll just start by saying: it didn't start in 2022. And if you have to look at what happened, the events of 2014, to understand the events of 2022. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, or even during the breakup, there was a period where the 15th constituent Union republics of the Soviet Union developed a greater national awareness, really, and some of them had been independent as some of them hadn't been, but they developed a much greater awareness. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the 15 countries, including Russia, as one of the 15, became independent entities. And aside from having more members in the United Nations and the Council of Europe and places like that, it led to much more robust activity, in terms of respecting human rights and other areas of endeavor in each of those countries.  The situation in Russia, with a head of state who has been there, with one exception, a couple of years, for 20 years, has seen an angry desire to reestablish an empire. That's the only thing you can say really about it.  If they can't dominate by having a pro-Russian group in charge in the country, then there have been invasions, there have been Russian forces, Russia-aligned forces sent to the different countries. So whether it's Georgia, or Moldova, or Ukraine, we've seen this pattern.  And unfortunately, what happened in 2022, is the most egregious and I would say, blatant such example. In 2014, the Russians argued that it was local Russian speaking, little green men who were conducting hostilities in these places, or it was local people who wanted to realign with Russia, who were demanding changes, and so forth. But in the 2022 events, Russia's forces invaded, wearing Russian insignia and making it quite clear that this was a matter of state policy that they were pursuing, and that they weren't going to give up.  And it's led to the tragic developments that we've all seen inside the country, and the horrific violence, the terrible, widespread human rights violations. And in war, we know that human rights violations are usually the worst.  And so the one good spot on the horizon: the degree to which these abuses have been documented, it's unprecedented to have so much documentation so early in a conflict like this, which someday may lead to redress and accountability for those who perpetrated it. But right now, in the middle of these events, it's just a horror. Manya Brachear Pashman:   What other human rights situations do we need to be taking more seriously now? And where has there been significant progress? Felice Gaer:   Well, I'll talk about the problem spots if I may for a minute. Everyone points to North Korea as the situation without parallel, that's what a UN Commission of Inquiry said, without parallel in the world. The situation in Iran? Well, you just need to watch what's happened to the protesters, the women and others who have protested over 500 people in the streets have died because of this. 15,000 people imprisoned, and Iran's prisons are known for ill treatment and torture.  The situation in Afghanistan is atrocious. The activities of the Taliban, which they were known for in the 1990s are being brought back. They are normalizing discrimination, they are engaged in probably the most hardline gender discrimination we've seen anywhere where women can't work outside the home, girls can't be educated, political participation is denied. The constitution has been thrown out. All kinds of things. The latest is women can't go to parks, they can't go to university, and they can't work for NGOs. This continues. It's a major crisis.  Well, there are other countries, from Belarus, to Sudan to Uzbekistan, and China, that we could also talk about at great length, lots of problems in the world, and not enough effort to expose them, address them and try to ameliorate them. Manya Brachear Pashman   So what do we do about that? What can our listeners do about that, when we hear this kind of grim report? Felice Gaer:   Work harder. Pay attention when you hear about rights issues. Support rights organizations. Take up cases. Seek redress. Be concerned about the victims. All these things need to be done. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I don't know how you maintain your composure and your cool, Felice, because you have faced so much in terms of challenges and push back. So thank you so much for all you have done for women, for the Jewish people, and for the world at large. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.

Gina Waldman shares how she became a lifelong human rights activist. Born in Libya, she fled with her family in 1967 with only $20. Gina is a living example of how one person can make a difference in the world. She uses passive resistance and civil disobedience in a peaceful and respectful way. She shares stories of the hardships of being a jew in an Arab country, and how she helped many people leave their country for a better life. She was instrumental in winning freedom for thousands of Soviet Jews, some of which she shares with us today. Gina speaks 5 languages and has traveled through the world helping others. Her over 30 years of this work include numerous accomplishments, from testifying before the United Nations and US Congress on Human Rights to receiving the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award. CONTACT: Gina Waldman JIMENA: JEWS INDIGENOUS TO THE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA https://www.jimena.org FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/ASMALPodcast VISIT OUR WEBSITE: http://www.asmallmediumatlarge.co Show Produced by Green Valley Production Studio Music by DJ Booda: http://www.djbooda.com

Notes and Links to Sasha Vasilyuk's Work      For Episode 234, Pete welcomes Sasha Vasilyuk, and the two discuss, among other topics, her childhood in Ukraine, Russia, and then San Francisco, her experiences with multilingualism, early formative and transformative reading, seeds for Your Presence is Mandatory, including the ways in which Ukrainian Jewish grandfather's experiences informed the book, gender balances in the USSR post-WWII, humanity and the ways it's expressed in the book, connections between contemporary separatist movements and World War II, and salient themes like grief, trauma, and the ways in which secrecy affects generations.         Sasha Vasilyuk is a journalist and author of the debut novel Your Presence is Mandatory about a Ukrainian Jewish WWII soldier and his family who reckon with his lifelong secrecy, which is coming out in 2024. Sasha has written a lot about Eastern Europe, art, culture, travel and business. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, NBC, Harper's Bazaar, BBC Radio, USA Today, KQED, San Francisco Chronicle, The Telegraph, Los Angeles Times, and Narrative. She has won several writing awards, including the Solas Award for Best Travel Writing and the NATJA award. Besides writing, she has founded a leading wedding PR company, the first coworking space in San Francisco, and the first U.S. magazine for Russian-speaking emigre teens. She also spent a year traveling alone around the world. Sasha is a graduate of Lowell High School, UC Berkeley (BA in Comparative Literature and Italian Studies), and New York University (MA in Journalism). She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.   Buy Your Presence is Mandatory     Sasha's Website   Review of Your Presence is Mandatory in Los Angeles Review of Books     At about 2:55, Sasha talks about her language background, early life  At about 6:00, Sasha talks about early reading through talking about a trip to her San Francisco childhood home At about 9:00, Pete tests Sasha's British English and NorCal slang and Sasha talks about her experiences in ESL in school At about 10:40, Sasha responds to Pete's questions about if and how Russian enhances/affects her English writing At about 13:15, Sasha shares her thoughts on A Woman Warrior and other formative and transformative texts At about 16:20, Sasha highlights contemporary and not so contemporary books that challenge and inspire her, including Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate and Yaa Gaasi's Homegoing At about 19:10, Sasha shares a cool story about the origin of her cover At about 21:35, Sasha gives background on the book's seeds At about 26:20, Sasha shares how Masha and other voices are important in the book At about 27:20, Pete provides some of the book's exposition and how a famous Yevtushenko poem is related  At about 28:45, Pete wonders about atheism and its connection to the Soviet Jews and Christians featured in her book At about 32:10, Pete provides information on key characters in the book, especially Yefim and Niña, and Sasha addresses the note from the book that is a catalyst for important events in the book At about 34:00, The two discuss Baltic/Soviet Union history that informs a lot of the book's key events At about 38:45, Sasha discusses the peculiarities of gender balance (due to the massive death from the WWII-era) that inform the relationship between Yefim and Nina and so many in the book and in real-life At about 42:55, The two discuss Stalino/Donetsk, which features in the book prominently  At about 44:20, Pete reflects on how a possible extramarital affair is so suggestive of the secrecy of the post WWII Soviet Union At about 45:00, Pete's wondering about Yefim's avoiding admittance of his Jewishness and how it paralleled Sasha's grandfather; her response deals with a key question that propelled  At about 50:20, Pete compliments Sasha's fresh take on the events of history/the book  At about 51:40, Pete highlights a key and well-drawn scene that takes place within Germany, and Sasha recounts her experiences in traveling in Berlin and Germany as a whole, and how humanity and nuance come into play  At about 57:20, Pete brings up The Book Thief in praising the ways in which Sasha portrays humanity and the closeness of history  At about 59:15, Sasha discusses her “post-pub weird mental state” and future projects     You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch this and other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.    I am very excited about having one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. A big thanks to Rachel León and Michael Welch at Chicago Review-I'm looking forward to the partnership! Look out for my interview with José Vadi sometime around May 17.    Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl     Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!       This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 235 with Lindsay Hunter, whose novel, DON'T KISS ME, was published by FSG Originals in 2013 and was named one of Amazon's 10 Best Books of the Year: Short Stories; her latest novel, Eat Only When You're Hungry, was a Book of the Month Club selection, a finalist for the 2017 Chicago Review of Books Fiction Award, and a 2017 NPR Great Read. She has been a great help to me as the marvelous host of the podcast I'm a Writer But; her fifth book, 2023's Hot Springs Drive, was named one of the 12 Best Thrillers of the Year by the Washington Post.  The episode will go live on May 22.  Lastly, please go to https://ceasefiretoday.com/, which features 10+ actions to help bring about Ceasefire in Gaza.

Does the war in Ukraine make Soviet Jews feel more Eastern European? by Uptown Radio

In a chilling unsolved mystery that has haunted North Miami Beach for 37 years, the murder of Shirley Brant, a successful commercial real estate developer, remains a painful chapter in the community's history. However, there's newfound hope as police reopen the case, counting on advancements in DNA technology to potentially bring justice to a grieving family and a perplexed community. Detective Pam Denham of the North Miami Beach police, who reopened the case alongside her partner Yvette Darden, shared the significance of seeking closure: "It's so important to give these families closure, and it does happen. Cold cases are solved, and that's what we're hoping to do." The tragic incident occurred on June 13, 1986, at around 4 p.m. when two intruders entered the second-floor office where Shirley Brant worked. At that moment, she was in the front reception area, engaged in a phone call with a client. According to Denham, a temporary employee present in the office witnessed the horrifying events. "There was a witness that was a temporary employee that she was inputting data into a computer system," Denham explained. "And the next thing she knew, Shirley screamed. And then when she turned around, she saw that one of the males was attempting to take the phone away from Shirley. Then, the witness heard her say, 'Don't shoot!' And then she was shot." Denham believes the incident escalated rapidly, suggesting that during a struggle, the assailant may have unintentionally discharged the firearm. The witness, now deceased, described the suspects as well-dressed Black males in their early 20s, possibly dressed professionally to avoid drawing attention. The perpetrators fled the scene after stealing cash and credit cards. Investigators are exploring the possibility that the same individuals might have been involved in a purse theft from another office a week prior, leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of justice. Despite extensive media coverage and the circulation of a composite sketch of one suspect, the case remained cold. Previous detectives had followed up on leads, but none proved substantial enough to solve the case. Shirley Brant's untimely death left a lasting scar on her family, especially her husband, local dentist Dr. Lawrence Brant, who "never got over it," as stated by her son, Dr. Steven Brant. Dr. Brant fondly remembered his mother as a "very, very talented woman" who transitioned from singing on cruise ships in the 1960s to becoming a real estate agent. She eventually excelled in the commercial real estate sector, despite facing initial skepticism due to her gender. Shirley Brant and her husband were also actively involved in Jewish causes, even experiencing tense moments during a trip to Russia while advocating for Soviet Jews during the Refusenik movement. Dr. Steven Brant last saw his mother two weeks before her tragic death, and he reflects on her absence in his life and the lives of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Despite the decades that have passed, the family remains hopeful that the case will finally be resolved. Dr. Brant expressed the importance of finding closure and seeing justice served, emphasizing the indelible impact of such a loss. Detective Denham echoes this sentiment, hoping that renewed interest in the case will encourage individuals with information to come forward. "People move away, and they're not as fearful as they would've been when it actually happened," she noted. "We're just hoping that somebody heard something, or knows something, and that they're willing to come forward." Anyone possessing information related to Shirley Brant's murder is urged to contact the North Miami Beach Police Department at 305-949-5500 ext. 2521 or reach out to Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. As the case is reopened with modern investigative techniques, there is optimism that justice may yet be served for Shirley Brant and her grieving family. Want to listen to ALL of our podcasts AD-FREE? Subscribe through APPLE PODCASTS, and try it for three days free: https://tinyurl.com/ycw626tj Follow Our Other Cases: https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com The latest on Catching the Long Island Serial Killer, Awaiting Admission: BTK's Unconfessed Crimes, Chad & Lori Daybell, The Murder of Ana Walshe, Alex Murdaugh, Bryan Kohberger, Lucy Letby, Kouri Richins, Justice for Harmony Montgomery, The Murder of Stephen Smith, The Murder of Madeline Kingsbury, and much more! Listen at https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com

In a chilling unsolved mystery that has haunted North Miami Beach for 37 years, the murder of Shirley Brant, a successful commercial real estate developer, remains a painful chapter in the community's history. However, there's newfound hope as police reopen the case, counting on advancements in DNA technology to potentially bring justice to a grieving family and a perplexed community. Detective Pam Denham of the North Miami Beach police, who reopened the case alongside her partner Yvette Darden, shared the significance of seeking closure: "It's so important to give these families closure, and it does happen. Cold cases are solved, and that's what we're hoping to do." The tragic incident occurred on June 13, 1986, at around 4 p.m. when two intruders entered the second-floor office where Shirley Brant worked. At that moment, she was in the front reception area, engaged in a phone call with a client. According to Denham, a temporary employee present in the office witnessed the horrifying events. "There was a witness that was a temporary employee that she was inputting data into a computer system," Denham explained. "And the next thing she knew, Shirley screamed. And then when she turned around, she saw that one of the males was attempting to take the phone away from Shirley. Then, the witness heard her say, 'Don't shoot!' And then she was shot." Denham believes the incident escalated rapidly, suggesting that during a struggle, the assailant may have unintentionally discharged the firearm. The witness, now deceased, described the suspects as well-dressed Black males in their early 20s, possibly dressed professionally to avoid drawing attention. The perpetrators fled the scene after stealing cash and credit cards. Investigators are exploring the possibility that the same individuals might have been involved in a purse theft from another office a week prior, leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of justice. Despite extensive media coverage and the circulation of a composite sketch of one suspect, the case remained cold. Previous detectives had followed up on leads, but none proved substantial enough to solve the case. Shirley Brant's untimely death left a lasting scar on her family, especially her husband, local dentist Dr. Lawrence Brant, who "never got over it," as stated by her son, Dr. Steven Brant. Dr. Brant fondly remembered his mother as a "very, very talented woman" who transitioned from singing on cruise ships in the 1960s to becoming a real estate agent. She eventually excelled in the commercial real estate sector, despite facing initial skepticism due to her gender. Shirley Brant and her husband were also actively involved in Jewish causes, even experiencing tense moments during a trip to Russia while advocating for Soviet Jews during the Refusenik movement. Dr. Steven Brant last saw his mother two weeks before her tragic death, and he reflects on her absence in his life and the lives of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Despite the decades that have passed, the family remains hopeful that the case will finally be resolved. Dr. Brant expressed the importance of finding closure and seeing justice served, emphasizing the indelible impact of such a loss. Detective Denham echoes this sentiment, hoping that renewed interest in the case will encourage individuals with information to come forward. "People move away, and they're not as fearful as they would've been when it actually happened," she noted. "We're just hoping that somebody heard something, or knows something, and that they're willing to come forward." Anyone possessing information related to Shirley Brant's murder is urged to contact the North Miami Beach Police Department at 305-949-5500 ext. 2521 or reach out to Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. As the case is reopened with modern investigative techniques, there is optimism that justice may yet be served for Shirley Brant and her grieving family. Want to listen to ALL of our podcasts AD-FREE? Subscribe through APPLE PODCASTS, and try it for three days free: https://tinyurl.com/ycw626tj Follow Our Other Cases: https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com The latest on Catching the Long Island Serial Killer, Awaiting Admission: BTK's Unconfessed Crimes, Chad & Lori Daybell, The Murder of Ana Walshe, Alex Murdaugh, Bryan Kohberger, Lucy Letby, Kouri Richins, Justice for Harmony Montgomery, The Murder of Stephen Smith, The Murder of Madeline Kingsbury, and much more! Listen at https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com

In a chilling unsolved mystery that has haunted North Miami Beach for 37 years, the murder of Shirley Brant, a successful commercial real estate developer, remains a painful chapter in the community's history. However, there's newfound hope as police reopen the case, counting on advancements in DNA technology to potentially bring justice to a grieving family and a perplexed community. Detective Pam Denham of the North Miami Beach police, who reopened the case alongside her partner Yvette Darden, shared the significance of seeking closure: "It's so important to give these families closure, and it does happen. Cold cases are solved, and that's what we're hoping to do." The tragic incident occurred on June 13, 1986, at around 4 p.m. when two intruders entered the second-floor office where Shirley Brant worked. At that moment, she was in the front reception area, engaged in a phone call with a client. According to Denham, a temporary employee present in the office witnessed the horrifying events. "There was a witness that was a temporary employee that she was inputting data into a computer system," Denham explained. "And the next thing she knew, Shirley screamed. And then when she turned around, she saw that one of the males was attempting to take the phone away from Shirley. Then, the witness heard her say, 'Don't shoot!' And then she was shot." Denham believes the incident escalated rapidly, suggesting that during a struggle, the assailant may have unintentionally discharged the firearm. The witness, now deceased, described the suspects as well-dressed Black males in their early 20s, possibly dressed professionally to avoid drawing attention. The perpetrators fled the scene after stealing cash and credit cards. Investigators are exploring the possibility that the same individuals might have been involved in a purse theft from another office a week prior, leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of justice. Despite extensive media coverage and the circulation of a composite sketch of one suspect, the case remained cold. Previous detectives had followed up on leads, but none proved substantial enough to solve the case. Shirley Brant's untimely death left a lasting scar on her family, especially her husband, local dentist Dr. Lawrence Brant, who "never got over it," as stated by her son, Dr. Steven Brant. Dr. Brant fondly remembered his mother as a "very, very talented woman" who transitioned from singing on cruise ships in the 1960s to becoming a real estate agent. She eventually excelled in the commercial real estate sector, despite facing initial skepticism due to her gender. Shirley Brant and her husband were also actively involved in Jewish causes, even experiencing tense moments during a trip to Russia while advocating for Soviet Jews during the Refusenik movement. Dr. Steven Brant last saw his mother two weeks before her tragic death, and he reflects on her absence in his life and the lives of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Despite the decades that have passed, the family remains hopeful that the case will finally be resolved. Dr. Brant expressed the importance of finding closure and seeing justice served, emphasizing the indelible impact of such a loss. Detective Denham echoes this sentiment, hoping that renewed interest in the case will encourage individuals with information to come forward. "People move away, and they're not as fearful as they would've been when it actually happened," she noted. "We're just hoping that somebody heard something, or knows something, and that they're willing to come forward." Anyone possessing information related to Shirley Brant's murder is urged to contact the North Miami Beach Police Department at 305-949-5500 ext. 2521 or reach out to Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. As the case is reopened with modern investigative techniques, there is optimism that justice may yet be served for Shirley Brant and her grieving family. Want to listen to ALL of our podcasts AD-FREE? Subscribe through APPLE PODCASTS, and try it for three days free: https://tinyurl.com/ycw626tj Follow Our Other Cases: https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com The latest on Catching the Long Island Serial Killer, Awaiting Admission: BTK's Unconfessed Crimes, Chad & Lori Daybell, The Murder of Ana Walshe, Alex Murdaugh, Bryan Kohberger, Lucy Letby, Kouri Richins, Justice for Harmony Montgomery, The Murder of Stephen Smith, The Murder of Madeline Kingsbury, and much more! Listen at https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com

In this episode of Capital for Good we speak with Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive officer of PEN America, and one of the country's most prominent experts and voices on free speech, free expression, and human rights. Nossel has held leadership roles in government, the nonprofit and private sectors, and is the author of the award-winning book Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All.   We begin with some of Nossel's formative personal and professional experiences that shaped her passion for human rights, including participating as a young person in the movement to free Soviet Jews in the 1980s, and her years after college in South Africa during the country's early transition from Apartheid to democracy. Both influenced what would become a throughline throughout her career — “an impulse to advocate for people who take great risks, who assert themselves, who challenge authority,” whether that was leading important initiatives at the State Department under President Obama, at the UN under President Clinton, or at civil society organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and now PEN America.   Nossel walks us through a kind of “free speech and free expression” 101. She explains that while much of the important conversation about free speech centers on the First Amendment, and therefore on protections against government infringement on speech, more broadly free speech is also the foundational right for all other rights in a free and democratic society, the “catalyst for a range of social goods.” Nossel reminds us that the open exchange of ideas allows for deliberation, persuasion, debate, accountability, the ability to make better policies, choose better leaders, and advance scientific progress artistic creativity; freedom of expression is “an underwriter of so many other movements, the ability to advocate for… women's rights, climate justice, racial justice.” She worries about a rising generation becoming alienated from the principle of free speech, seeing free speech at odds with commitments to diversity, inclusion, and pluralism — when in fact they are mutually supportive and reinforcing.   We discuss many of the ways Nossel and her PEN America colleagues aim to serve as “guarantors of free speech and open discourse” through work to “celebrate and defend freedom of expression worldwide.” Some of this takes the form of enabling and amplifying lesser heard voices like Dreamers or incarcerated writers; some through awards, festivals, and public programming celebrating a “big tent” of writers and voices that in turn supports PEN's free expression and advocacy work, including the defense of persecuted writers around the world, litigation, i.e., the recent federal lawsuit in Escambia County, Florida challenging book bans, or warnings on the dangers of education gag orders. For years, PEN America has also worked on issues of campus free speech, a topic we explore in light of the recent protests and crises of university leadership. Nossel hopes that today's campus convulsions have brought about a recognition that universities need to put in place deliberate, intentional training and inculcation of a culture of free speech, open discourse, and academic freedom to support the diversity of experience, opinion, and perspective that makes universities “catalysts for understanding and growth.”   We also touch on the large and “messy” issues of online speech, the ways it can be weaponized, the challenges of disinformation, of businesses built on algorithms that prioritize inflammatory content — that are not governed as public entities or liable for most posted speech, and of the lag in appropriate regulation. “The best we can do is experiment,” Nossel says. To date, that experimentation has included important new EU regulations, and efforts from the tech companies themselves to improve content moderation. Nossel herself sits on the Meta oversight board, a group that works to apply human rights principles to adjudicate complex content moderation quandaries and dilemmas.   While deeply concerned about speech issues — particularly the problems of misinformation in an election year (in the United States and around the world), Nossel is also hopeful there is increased recognition, on the political left and right “that each has a stake in speech.” “Speech really should be an issue that sits above politics, and for a long time it was,” she says. “My hope is that we can go back to that when it comes to the nature of our discourse.”    Thanks for Listening! Subscribe to Capital for Good on Apple, Amazon, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Drop us a line at socialenterprise@gsb.columbia.edu.  Mentioned in this Episode “In Win for Free Expression, Jude Rule Lawsuit Challenging Escambia County, FL Book Banks can Move Forward,” (PEN America, 2024) “A Free-Speech Fix for our Divided Campuses,”(Suzanne Nossel, Wall Street Journal, 2023) Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All, (Suzanne Nossel, Dey Street Books, 2020) PEN America

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Amber Nickell is Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University, Editor at H-Ukraine, and Host at NBN Jewish Studies, Ukrainian Studies, and Eastern Europe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. 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

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, interviews with Yelena Shmulenson and Boris Sandler in memory of the August 12, 1952 tragedy known as Night of the Murdered Poets, when thirteen Soviet Jews, all leading intellectuals, five of whom were top Yiddish writers, were executed in the Lubianka Prison in Moscow on false charges of spying and treason. The charges were reexamined and admitted to have "no substance" by the Soviet authorities less than four years later. For more information on August 12 1952 and the history and tradition of its memorialization, see Rokhl Kafrissen's excellent 2019 article in Tablet Night of the Murdered Poets. Yelena Shmulenson discusses her theater piece "Night of the Murdered Poets", being presented in New York City on Thursday, August 10, 2023, sponsored by https://congressforjewishculture.org/, and how it relates to the tragedy of August 12, 1952, a/k/a the Night of the Murdered Poets Boris Sandler discusses his personal connection to the tragic events of August 12, 1952, as well as his main project, the monthly Yiddish journal Yiddish Branzhe. Links two of Sandler's books discussed in the interview: דער ענין נומער 5390: (פון די ק.ג.ב. ארכיוון) With a Mission to Moscow (Yiddish Edition) Music: songs with lyrics by some of those executed August 12, 1952, performed by Emil Gorovets, accompanied by Zalmen Mlotek, from the album Ikh Bin a Yid Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz Air Date: August 9, 2023

Rav Mendel Futerfas (1907-1995) was a Lubavitch chassid who emerged as a leader under the most challenging circumstances in the Soviet Union. He was active in one of the greatest exit attempts for Jews from the Soviet Union under the cover of the repatriation agreement signed between the Soviet Union and Poland in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Under the terms of the agreement Polish citizens were permitted to return to Poland, and some Soviet Jews utilized the opportunity to forge Polish documents and finally exit the Soviet Union. Rav Mendel was arrested in the operations aftermath and sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Siberia. Upon his release, he embarked on a heroic attempt at igniting the fire of Yiddishkeit and Chassidic life in the post Stalinist Soviet Union until he finally was able to reunite with his family in England in 1964. The last decades of his life were spent as the central mashpia at Kfar Chabad in Israel until his passing during a visit to London in 1995.   For sponsorship opportunities about your favorite topics of Jewish history contact Yehuda at:  yehuda@yehudageberer.com   Subscribe To Our Podcast on:  PodBean: https://jsoundbites.podbean.com/ Follow us on Twitter or Instagram at @Jsoundbites You can email Yehuda at yehuda@yehudageberer.com

Rundown -    Morgan Carroll in Craig's Lawyers' Lounge - 09:48   Troubadour Dave Gunders - 01:40:54   "Place In The Sun" by Dave Gunders - 02:06:45   Morgan Carroll, former president and majority leader of the Colorado state Senate, moved mountains during her six super-successful years as Colorado State Democratic Chair and oversaw Democratic domination of Colorado politics. This is her exit interview and she discusses everything.   Current events discussed include the Nashville church school shooting, the expelling of the Tennessee Two, and the Trump Texas judge outlawing medical abortion drugs women have used safely for decades. Carroll is a keen analyst and master of Colorado politics.   Morgan Carroll is outspoken in her demands that women retain their right to bodily autonomy. Hear her heartfelt reaction to Dobbs overturning Roe v Wade. Carroll knows Colorado, including the Western Slope and she was part of almost beating Boebert.   An accomplished attorney, Morgan Carroll discusses the need NOW for Rule of Law holding Trump and his cronies accountable under the law. The NYC prosecution and arrest of USA's 45th president are reviewed. So are upcoming court cases.   Listen to Episode 50 to hear Carroll's remarkable background. As a girl, she traveled with her mother and fought to free Soviet Jews stuck behind the Iron Curtain. Now, Morgan Carrol discusses the importance of fighting Russian attempts to destroy Ukraine. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-50-morgan-carroll/id1522579679?i=1000526954056   Senator Carroll is outspoken in her support for President Joe Biden and she describes their personal encounters. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is another impressive Dem leader Morgan Carroll knows and describes. The wise old Biden and Pelosi of handling Trump gets discussed.   Toward the end of the interview, the Denver mayor's race is analyzed. Run-off will be contested between prior show guests Kelly Brough (Ep. 134) and former Colorado State Senator Michael Johnston (Ep. 136). Morgan Carroll comes out strongly in favor of her former colleague, Johnston, and she explains why.   Troubadour Dave Gunders delivers with fantastic discussion of disturbing current events, including the school shootings and civil rights. Gunders has a song addressing the Tennessee legislators and generational change. Gunders' song, Place in the Sun, was written after the Parkland, FL shooting, and is hopeful.

Merryl Goldberg was followed by the KGB...interrogated by the KGB...even arrested by the KGB.  Just another spy that got caught, right? Well, not exactly. On this episode of DIA Connections, we follow the inspirational story of Merryl Goldberg, a saxophonist from Boston who in 1985 volunteered to go behind the iron curtain into the Soviet Union to help Jews seeking freedom. Hear how she hoodwinked the KGB by hiding coded information in her sheet music, and how she attracted worldwide attention for the plight of Soviet Jews.   *Nothing in this podcast should be construed to be an endorsement by the DIA or the US Government of any particular company, product, or service.

She's one of the world's most effective champions of women's rights, human rights, and democratic values. For Women's History Month, we speak with Felice Gaer, director of American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. Gaer, who fights for religious freedom, the rights of women, and against antisemitism, highlights the importance of women's voices in an often-male dominated field. She has been appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, serving five terms (three as chair and two as vice chair), and was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture.  *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. _____ Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Felice Gaer _____ Show Notes:   Read: JBI Appeal on the One-Year Anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine   Listen: 10 Trailblazing Jewish Women on AJC's People of the Pod Dr. Ahmed Shaheed on first UN human rights report wholly dedicated to antisemitism    Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod   You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org   If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. _____   Transcript of Interview with Felice Gaer   Manya Brachear Pashman:   Felice Gaer has served as the director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of human rights, affectionately known here as JBI since 1993. During that time, she has specifically focused on the rights of religious freedom, the rights of women, the prohibition of torture and the struggle against antisemitism globally. She has been appointed a public member of at least nine US delegations to United Nations Human Rights negotiations, including the Vienna World Conference on human rights in 1993. And the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. She was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture. In fact, she served five terms, and she was appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, where she served as chair and advised the President and Congress on US human rights policy.    And even though she's not a lawyer or a court justice, on March 30, she receives the Honorary Member award of the American Society of International Law, the preeminent international society in this field, as we mark International Women's Day this week and women's history this month, Felice is with us now to discuss today's human rights challenges and the challenges she has faced as a woman in the Human Rights world.    Felice, welcome to People of the Pod.    Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So let's start with the beginning. Can you share with our listeners a little about your upbringing, and how Jewish values shaped what you do today?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I had a fairly ordinary upbringing in a suburb of New York City that had a fairly high percentage of Jews living in it–Teaneck, New Jersey. I was shaped by all the usual things in a Jewish home. First of all, the holidays. Secondly, the values, Jewish values, and awareness, a profound awareness of Jewish history, the history of annihilation, expulsion, discrimination, violence. But also the Jewish values of universality, respect for all human life, equality before the law, sense of realism, sense that you can change your life by what you do, and the choices that you make. These are all core Jewish values. And I guess I always have found the three part expression by Rabbi Hillel to sum up the approach I've always taken to human rights and most other things in life. He said, If I'm not for myself, who will be, and if I'm only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? So that's a sense of Jewish particularism, Jewish universalism, and realism, as well.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   You went to Wellesley, class of 1968, it's an all-women's college. Was there a strong Jewish presence on campus there at a time? And did that part of your identity even play a role in your college experience?    Felice Gaer :  Well, I left, as I said, a town that had a fairly sizable Jewish population. And I went to Wellesley and I felt like I was in another world. And so even as long ago as 1964-65, that era, I actually reached out to Hillel and participated in very minor activities that took place, usually a Friday night dinner, or something like that. But it really didn't play a role except by making me recognize that I was a member of a very small minority.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   Here on this podcast, we've talked a lot about the movement to free Soviet Jewry. As you pursued graduate work at Columbia, and also during your undergrad days at Wellesley, were you involved in that movement at all?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I had great interest in Russian studies, and in my years at Wellesley, the Soviet Union movement was at a very nascent stage. And I remember arguments with the Soviet Ambassador coming to the campus and our specialist on Russian history, arguing about whether this concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews was a valid concern.  The professor, who happened to have been Jewish, by the way, argued that Jews in the Soviet Union were treated badly, but so was everybody else in the Soviet Union. And it really wasn't something that one needed to focus on especially. As I left Wellesley and went to Columbia, where I studied political science and was at the Russian Institute, now the Harriman Institute, I found that the treatment of Soviet Jews was different in many ways, and the capacity to do something about it was serious.  We knew people who had relatives, we knew people who wanted to leave. The whole Soviet Union movement was focused around the desire to leave the country–not to change it–that was an explicit decision of Jewish leaders around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself. And so the desire to leave was something you could realize, document the cases, bring the names forward, and engage American officials in a way that the Jewish community had never done before with cases and examples demanding that every place you went, every negotiation that took place, was accompanied by lists of names and cases, whose plight will be brought to the attention of the authorities. And that really mobilized people, including people like me.  I also worked to focus on the agenda of internal change in the Soviet Union. And that meant also looking at other human rights issues. Why and how freedom of religion or belief was suppressed in this militantly atheist state, why and how freedom of expression, freedom of association, and just about every other right, was really severely limited. And what the international standards were at that time. After I left Columbia, that was around the time that the famous manifesto from Andrei Sakharov, the world famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was made public. It was around the time that other kinds of dissident materials were becoming better known about life inside the Soviet Union post-Khrushchev.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So you left Colombia with a master's degree, the Cold War ends, and you take a job at the Ford Foundation that has you traveling all around Eastern Europe, looking to end human rights abuses, assessing the challenges that face that region. I want to ask you about the treatment of women, and what you witnessed about the mistreatment of women in these regions. And does that tend to be a common denominator around the world when you assess human rights abuses?   Felice Gaer:   Well, there's no question that the treatment of women is different than the treatment of men. And it's true all over the world. But when I traveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the height of those years, height of the Cold War, and so forth, the issues of women's rights actually weren't one of the top issues on the agenda because the Soviet Union and East European countries appeared to be doing more for women than the Western countries.  They had them in governance. They had them in the parliament. They purported to support equality for women. It took some years for Soviet feminists, dissidents, to find a voice and to begin to point out all the ways in which they were treated in the same condescending, patriarchal style as elsewhere. But in those years, that was not a big issue in the air.  It was unusual for me, a 20-something year old woman from the United States to be traveling around Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, meeting with high officials and others, and on behalf of the Ford Foundation, trying to develop programming that would involve people to people contacts, that would involve developing programs where there was common expertise, like management training, and things of that sort. And I was really an odd, odd duck in that situation, and I felt it.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   I mentioned in my introduction, the Beijing World Conference on Women, can you reflect a little on what had a lasting impact there?   Felice Gaer:   Well, the Beijing World Conference on Women was the largest, and remains the largest conference that the United Nations has ever organized. There were over 35,000 women there, about 17,000 at the intergovernmental conference. I was on the US delegation there.  The simple statement that women's rights are human rights may seem hackneyed today. But when that was affirmed in the 1995 Beijing Outcome Document, it was a major political and conceptual breakthrough. It was largely focused on getting the UN to accept that the rights of women were actually international human rights and that they weren't something different. They weren't private, or outside the reach of investigators and human rights bodies. It was an inclusive statement, and it was a mind altering statement in the women's rights movement.  It not only reaffirmed that women's rights are human rights, but it went further in addressing the problems facing women in the language of human rights.  The earlier world conferences on women talked about equality, but they didn't identify violations of those rights. They didn't demand accountability of those rights. And they said absolutely nothing about creating mechanisms by which you could monitor, review, and hold people accountable, which is the rights paradigm. Beijing changed all that. It was a violations approach that was quite different from anything that existed before that.   Manya Brachear Pashman :  Did anything get forgotten? We talked about what had a lasting impact, but what seems to have been forgotten or have fallen to the wayside?   Felice Gaer:   Oh, I think it's just the opposite. I think the things that were in the Beijing conference have become Fuller and addressed in greater detail and are more commonly part of what goes on in the international discourse on women's rights and the status of women in public life. And certainly at the international level that's the case.  I'll give you just one example, the Convention Against Torture. I mean, when I became a member of the committee, the 10 person committee, I was the only woman. The committee really had, in 11 years, it had maybe said, four or five things about the treatment of women. And the way that torture, ill treatment, inhuman, degrading treatment may affect women.  It looked at the world through the eyes of male prisoners in detention. And it didn't look at the world through the eyes of women who suffer private violence, gender based violence, that is that the state looks away from and ignores and therefore sanctions, and to a certain extent endorses.  And it didn't identify the kinds of things that affect women, including women who are imprisoned, and why and where in many parts of the world. What one does in terms of education or dress or behavior may lead you into a situation where you're being abused, either in a prison or outside of prison. These are issues that are now part of the regular review, for example, at the Committee Against Torture, issues of of trafficking, issues of gender based violence, the Sharia law, the hudud punishments of whipping and stoning, are part of the concern of the committee, which they weren't before.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   In other words, having that woman's perspective, having your perspective on that committee was really important and really changed and broadened the discussion.   Felice Gaer:   Absolutely. When I first joined the committee, the first session I was at, we had a review of China. And so I very politely asked a question about the violence and coercion associated with the population policy in China, as you know, forced abortions and things of that sort. This was a question that had come up before the women's convention, the CEDAW, and I thought it was only appropriate that it also come up in the Committee Against Torture.  In our discussion afterwards, the very stern chairman of the committee, a former constable, said to me, ‘You know, this might be of interest to you, Ms. Gaer, but this has nothing to do with the mandate of this committee.' I explained to him why it did, in some detail. And when I finished pointing out all of those elements–including the fact that the people carried out these practices on the basis of state policy–when I finished, there was a silence.  And the most senior person in the room, who had been involved in these issues for decades, said, ‘I'm quite certain we can accommodate Ms. Gaer's concerns in the conclusions,' and they did.  That's the kind of thing that happens when you look at issues from a different perspective and raise them.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   You talked about being an odd duck in your 20s, as a woman traveling around Eastern Europe, trying to address these challenges. I'm curious if that woman in her 20s would have been able to stand up to this committee like that, and give that thorough an explanation? Or did it take some years of experience, of witnessing these issues, perhaps being ignored?    Felice Gaer:  Well, I think as we go through life, you learn new things. And I learned new things along the way. I learned about the universal norms, I learned about how to apply them, how they had been applied, and how they hadn't been applied. And in that process, developed what I would say is a sharper way of looking at these issues.  But the Bosnian conflict in particular, made the issue of gender based violence against women, especially in war, but not only in war, into a mainstream issue, and helped propel these issues, both inside the United Nations and outside, the awareness changed.  I remember asking the International Red Cross representatives in Croatia, just across the border from Bosnia, if they had encountered any victims of gender based violence or rape, and they said, ‘No.' And I said, ‘Did you ask them about these concerns?' And they sort of looked down and looked embarrassed, looked at each other and looked back at me and said, ‘Oh.' There were no words. There were no understandings of looking at the world this way. And that has changed. That has changed dramatically today. I mean, if you look at the situation in Ukraine, the amount of gender based violence that has been documented is horrifying, just horrifying, but it's been documented.   Manya Brachear Pashman   So is the world of human rights advocacy male-dominated, female-dominated, is it fairly balanced these days? And has that balance made the difference in what you're talking about?   Felice Gaer:   You know, I wrote an article in 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, about why women's rights weren't being addressed. And one of the points I drew attention to was the fact that the heads of almost all the major organizations at the time were all male. And that it wasn't seen as a concern. A lot of that has changed. There's really a real variety of perspectives now that are brought to bear.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So we've talked a lot about the importance of [a] woman's perspective. Does a Jewish perspective matter as well?   Felice Gaer:   Oh, on every issue on every issue and, you know, I worked a great deal on freedom of religion and belief, as an issue. That's a core issue of AJC, and it's a fundamental rights issue. And it struck me as surprising that with all the attention to freedom of religion, the concern about antisemitic acts was not being documented by mainstream human rights organizations. And it wasn't being documented by the UN experts on freedom of religion or belief either. I drew this to the attention of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, who was recently ending his term as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief. And he was really very struck by this. And he went, and he did a little bit of research. And he found out that since computerized records had been prepared at the United Nations, that there had been no attention, no attention at all, to cases of alleged antisemitic incidents. And he began a project to record the kinds of problems that existed and to identify what could be done about it. We helped him in the sense that we organized a couple of colloquia, we brought people from all over the world together to talk about the dimensions of the problem and the documentation that they did, and the proposals that they had for addressing it. And he, as you may recall, wrote a brilliant report in 2019, setting out the problems of global antisemitism. And he followed that up in 2022, before leaving his position with what he called an action plan for combating antisemitism, which has concrete specific suggestions for all countries around the world as to what they can do to help combat antisemitism and antisemitic acts, including and to some extent, starting with adopting the working definition on antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but also activities in in the area of education, training, training of law enforcement officials, documentation and public action. It's a real contribution to the international discourse and to understanding that freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   And do you believe that Dr. Shaheed's report is being absorbed, comprehended by those that need to hear it that need to understand it?   Felice Gaer   I've been delighted to see the way that the European Union has engaged with Dr. Shaheed and his report has developed standards and expectations for all 27 member states, and that other countries and other parts of the world have done the same. So yeah, I do think they're engaging with it. I hope there'll be a lot more because the problem has only grown.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   On the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, JBI issued a report that sounded the alarm on the widespread violations committed against Ukrainians, you mentioned the amount of gender based violence Since that has taken place, and the other just catastrophic consequences of this war. Felice, you've been on the front row of Eastern European affairs and human rights advocacy in that region. From your perspective, and I know this is a big question: How did this war happen?   Felice Gaer:   I'll just start by saying: it didn't start in 2022. And if you have to look at what happened, the events of 2014, to understand the events of 2022. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, or even during the breakup, there was a period where the 15th constituent Union republics of the Soviet Union developed a greater national awareness, really, and some of them had been independent as some of them hadn't been, but they developed a much greater awareness. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the 15 countries, including Russia, as one of the 15, became independent entities. And aside from having more members in the United Nations and the Council of Europe and places like that, it led to much more robust activity, in terms of respecting human rights and other areas of endeavor in each of those countries.  The situation in Russia, with a head of state who has been there, with one exception, a couple of years, for 20 years, has seen an angry desire to reestablish an empire. That's the only thing you can say really about it.  If they can't dominate by having a pro-Russian group in charge in the country, then there have been invasions, there have been Russian forces, Russia-aligned forces sent to the different countries. So whether it's Georgia, or Moldova, or Ukraine, we've seen this pattern.  And unfortunately, what happened in 2022, is the most egregious and I would say, blatant such example. In 2014, the Russians argued that it was local Russian speaking, little green men who were conducting hostilities in these places, or it was local people who wanted to realign with Russia, who were demanding changes, and so forth. But in the 2022 events, Russia's forces invaded, wearing Russian insignia and making it quite clear that this was a matter of state policy that they were pursuing, and that they weren't going to give up.  And it's led to the tragic developments that we've all seen inside the country, and the horrific violence, the terrible, widespread human rights violations. And in war, we know that human rights violations are usually the worst.  And so the one good spot on the horizon: the degree to which these abuses have been documented, it's unprecedented to have so much documentation so early in a conflict like this, which someday may lead to redress and accountability for those who perpetrated it. But right now, in the middle of these events, it's just a horror.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   What other human rights situations do we need to be taking more seriously now? And where has there been significant progress?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I'll talk about the problem spots if I may for a minute. Everyone points to North Korea as the situation without parallel, that's what a UN Commission of Inquiry said, without parallel in the world. The situation in Iran? Well, you just need to watch what's happened to the protesters, the women and others who have protested over 500 people in the streets have died because of this. 15,000 people imprisoned, and Iran's prisons are known for ill treatment and torture.  The situation in Afghanistan is atrocious. The activities of the Taliban, which they were known for in the 1990s are being brought back. They are normalizing discrimination, they are engaged in probably the most hardline gender discrimination we've seen anywhere where women can't work outside the home, girls can't be educated, political participation is denied. The constitution has been thrown out. All kinds of things. The latest is women can't go to parks, they can't go to university, and they can't work for NGOs. This continues. It's a major crisis.  Well, there are other countries, from Belarus, to Sudan to Uzbekistan, and China, that we could also talk about at great length, lots of problems in the world, and not enough effort to expose them, address them and try to ameliorate them.   Manya Brachear Pashman   So what do we do about that? What can our listeners do about that, when we hear this kind of grim report?   Felice Gaer:   Work harder. Pay attention when you hear about rights issues. Support rights organizations. Take up cases. Seek redress. Be concerned about the victims. All these things need to be done.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   I don't know how you maintain your composure and your cool, Felice, because you have faced so much in terms of challenges and push back. So thank you so much for all you have done for women, for the Jewish people, and for the world at large. Thank you, thank you, thank you.   Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.

If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You: A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42 (Academic Studies Press, 2020) is the first work in any language that offers both an overarching exploration of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews viewed at the macro level, and a personal history of one Soviet Jewish family. It is also the first study to examine Jewish life in the Northern Caucasus, a Soviet region that history scholars have rarely addressed. Drawing on a collection of family letters, Kiril Feferman provides a history of the Ginsburgs as they debate whether to evacuate their home of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and are eventually swept away by the Soviet-German War, the German invasion of Soviet Russia, and the Holocaust. The book makes a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Soviet Union, presenting one Soviet region as an illustration of wartime social and media politics. 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

If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You: A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42 (Academic Studies Press, 2020) is the first work in any language that offers both an overarching exploration of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews viewed at the macro level, and a personal history of one Soviet Jewish family. It is also the first study to examine Jewish life in the Northern Caucasus, a Soviet region that history scholars have rarely addressed. Drawing on a collection of family letters, Kiril Feferman provides a history of the Ginsburgs as they debate whether to evacuate their home of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and are eventually swept away by the Soviet-German War, the German invasion of Soviet Russia, and the Holocaust. The book makes a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Soviet Union, presenting one Soviet region as an illustration of wartime social and media politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You: A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42 (Academic Studies Press, 2020) is the first work in any language that offers both an overarching exploration of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews viewed at the macro level, and a personal history of one Soviet Jewish family. It is also the first study to examine Jewish life in the Northern Caucasus, a Soviet region that history scholars have rarely addressed. Drawing on a collection of family letters, Kiril Feferman provides a history of the Ginsburgs as they debate whether to evacuate their home of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and are eventually swept away by the Soviet-German War, the German invasion of Soviet Russia, and the Holocaust. The book makes a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Soviet Union, presenting one Soviet region as an illustration of wartime social and media politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You: A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42 (Academic Studies Press, 2020) is the first work in any language that offers both an overarching exploration of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews viewed at the macro level, and a personal history of one Soviet Jewish family. It is also the first study to examine Jewish life in the Northern Caucasus, a Soviet region that history scholars have rarely addressed. Drawing on a collection of family letters, Kiril Feferman provides a history of the Ginsburgs as they debate whether to evacuate their home of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and are eventually swept away by the Soviet-German War, the German invasion of Soviet Russia, and the Holocaust. The book makes a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Soviet Union, presenting one Soviet region as an illustration of wartime social and media politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You: A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42 (Academic Studies Press, 2020) is the first work in any language that offers both an overarching exploration of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews viewed at the macro level, and a personal history of one Soviet Jewish family. It is also the first study to examine Jewish life in the Northern Caucasus, a Soviet region that history scholars have rarely addressed. Drawing on a collection of family letters, Kiril Feferman provides a history of the Ginsburgs as they debate whether to evacuate their home of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and are eventually swept away by the Soviet-German War, the German invasion of Soviet Russia, and the Holocaust. The book makes a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Soviet Union, presenting one Soviet region as an illustration of wartime social and media politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies

If We Had Wings We Would Fly to You: A Soviet Jewish Family Faces Destruction 1941-42 (Academic Studies Press, 2020) is the first work in any language that offers both an overarching exploration of the flight and evacuation of Soviet Jews viewed at the macro level, and a personal history of one Soviet Jewish family. It is also the first study to examine Jewish life in the Northern Caucasus, a Soviet region that history scholars have rarely addressed. Drawing on a collection of family letters, Kiril Feferman provides a history of the Ginsburgs as they debate whether to evacuate their home of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia and are eventually swept away by the Soviet-German War, the German invasion of Soviet Russia, and the Holocaust. The book makes a significant contribution to the history of the Holocaust and Second World War in the Soviet Union, presenting one Soviet region as an illustration of wartime social and media politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

This week: About 100 years ago, in the wake of the Russian Revolution and the pogroms that followed, millions of Jews in Eastern Europe became Soviet Jews. But what really is a Soviet Jew? And how does that history affect Jews today? That's what I talk about with UW Professor Sasha Senderovich.To help Ukraine: https://tcjewfolk.com/resources-to-help-ukraine/Say hello! Lev@tcjewfolk.comCincy Jewfolk: https://cincyjewfolk.com/The Bagel Report: https://tcjewfolk.com/podcast/the-bagel-report/Our Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jewfolkincSenderovich's website for speaking info: http://www.sashasenderovich.comBuy "How The Soviet Jew Was Made": https://www.amazon.com/How-Soviet-Jew-Was-Made/dp/0674238192Gary Shteyngart's review: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/02/09/beyond-the-pale-how-the-soviet-jew-was-made-senderovich/Late Stalinism: https://www.amazon.com/Late-Stalinism-Aesthetics-Evgeny-Dobrenko/dp/0300198477Legacy of Blood: https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Blood-Pogroms-Ritual-Soviets/dp/0190466456?ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bcTranscript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_wLYKDQor6hKavfR_QItdQfhrEYx9j8Yq3VV0QHNDcw/edit?usp=sharing

Tom Sutcliffe talks to three historians about the crimes of WWII and the shifting geopolitics, and the lasting reverberations today with the war in Ukraine. Dan Stone's new book, The Holocaust - An Unfinished History moves beyond the concentration camps to reveal the true extent of the killing in towns and villages, and the depth of collaboration across the continent – from Norway to Romania. On BBC World Service and BBC Sounds Catherine Merridale uncovers the complex story of loss and silence about the murder of Soviet Jews during the Nazi invasion in 1941, and the extraordinary testimony of what was happening, detailed in The Black Book. Bernard Wasserstein's family originally came from Krakowiec and in A Small Town in Ukraine he traces the arc of history across centuries of religious and political conflict through the fortunes of its inhabitants – from the earlier invasions of Cossaks, Turks and Swedes to the horrors of WWII and today's war with Russia. Producer: Katy Hickman Image: Three Jewish women gather their belongings on Haifa dock, Palestine, after leaving the illegal immigrant ship Exodus. (Getty Images)

We talk to Sergey Serebryany, my uncle. He is a Doctor of Philosophy and a professor of Indian Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. He is also a Soviet Jew. We talk about his experience growing up in Moscow, about the myths of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, his relationship to Soviet and Jewish identity, and why unlike many others who became disenchanted with the Soviet project he didn't re-Jewify but stayed true to his Homo Soveticus origins.—EvgeniaA couple of notes.We mention a letter about Jewish identity that Sergey wrote to his South African Jewish colleague.You can check Yasha's The Soviet Jew book project here. The part of the history that deals with the western campaign to “save” Soviet Jews can be found here. Yasha mentioned Elie Wiesel and his trip to Moscow in the late 1960s, which resulted in a book that describes Soviet Jews as basically being on the brink of annihilation. You can read his write up of that book and the Israeli propaganda campaign that helped produce it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yasha.substack.com/subscribe

As the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union swept over vast areas of Ukraine and Belorussia from the summer of 1941, over three million Jews were deliberately targeted for annihilation. Shot, hung, butchered, a million and a half Jewish souls were buried in vast pits in Babi Yar, Rumbula, Mariupol, Minsk, Kyiv and Riga. Many accounts began to flood into the Soviet Union where journalist and writer Ilya Ehrenburg began gathering testimonies of the mass murder. This became The Black Book, a chronicle of the Nazi extermination of Soviet Jews. Historian Catherine Merridale travels to Riga, Latvia and Yad Vashem, where the Black Book was smuggled, to uncover this complex story of loss, silence and rediscovery.

Back in the 1970s, migrating from the Soviet Union was an unattainable dream for many, particularly Jews wanting to leave for Israel. To leave the Soviet Union for another country, it was necessary to obtain exit visas. In practice, many people found them impossible to get. On the morning of June 15, 1970, 16 Soviet Jews who had been refused exit visas appeared at  Smolny Airport near Leningrad to hijack a plane. They posed as a group going to a wedding — hence the name of the operation.The plan devised a year before the attempted hijacking, was quite straightforward. The hijackers would target a small aeroplane and book all the seats on it. They would commandeer the aircraft and leave the pilots unharmed on the landing strip, while one of the conspirators would take control of the aeroplane and fly it to Sweden.I speak with filmmaker Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov whose film “Operation Wedding” reveals the compelling story of her parents, the leaders of the group. Cold War history is disappearing; however, a simple monthly donation will keep this podcast on the air. You'll become part of our community and get a sought after CWC coaster as a thank you and you'll bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history.  One-off donations are also welcome.Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/If a monthly contribution is not your cup of tea, We also welcome one-off donations via the same link.I am delighted to welcome Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov  to our Cold War conversation…Episode notes and full film here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode258/ Support the showSupport the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter here https://twitter.com/ColdWarPodFacebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/Instagram https:/...