Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine — a podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. This week’s story begins with something as ordinary as the shirt on your back. Because the clothes we wear are never just fabric. They are identity. They are ritual. They are power. And sometimes, they are survival. This is the inspiring event I encount...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. This week, I want to talk about something in the news — but not in the way you’ve heard it elsewhere. The shooting of Charlie Kirk has sparked headlines, outrage, and theater. But this episode isn’t about him as an individual. It’s about the machin...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. This podcast asks one question: what would it take to genocide-proof a society? We’ve talked about scarcity, propaganda, obedience, solidarity. But today, I want to talk about something else. Something we don’t usually think of as infrastructure — ritual. And I want to start with a scene you already know. Image Source: ⁠ https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ce/87/...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine — a podcast of parables about the Holocaust, and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. This week, I want to try something unusual. Instead of telling a parable, I want you to close your eyes — unless you’re driving — and imagine something with me. Imagine a stage. The air is heavy, the floor cold beneath bare feet. In the beginning, the p...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Most of the time, I tell you stories from history or from my own life. But every ten episodes, we come back to the Thanos Thread. Because sometimes the clearest way to study genocide is through parables in fiction. And today, the parable comes from a meme. Image Source: ⁠ https://www.reddit.com/r/thanosdidnothingwrong/comments/8g1otc/thanos_doing_w...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. In the last episode, I told you about my Star of Dave moment — how visibility isn’t always chosen, how sometimes it’s imposed. Today’s story is about division. How authoritarian regimes survive not by fighting everyone at once, but by slicin...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. Today’s story comes from a wedding I once went to — a Punjabi wedding. It was colorful, joyful, enormous. And yet I found myself in a strange little moment of visibility. The kind of visibility that makes you wonder who you really are to the...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. Today’s story is about obedience. What makes ordinary people follow orders, even when those orders cause harm? And why is it so frighteningly easy for authority — even borrowed authority — to push people further than they ever thought they’d...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine, a podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. This time, instead of a parable, I want to invite you to imagine something. Close your eyes, listen to my voice — unless you’re driving right no...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. Today’s story is about a passage from the Torah that my rabbi shared with us recently. When you build a house with a flat roof, the Torah says,...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. Today’s story is about a song, a dinner table conversation, and my first real encounter with the idea of scapegoating. Image Source: https://www...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. Today’s story is about a rally I once went to — and how it helped me understand the difference between blaming individuals and analyzing structu...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Studying the most evil times in history can help us understand them, and understanding is power and freedom. In the last episode, I talked about blindness and propaganda. Today’s story is about suffering. How different traditions explain it, and why the...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Studying the most evil times in history gives us understanding. And understanding is power, and freedom. Today’s story isn’t a parable in the abstract — it’s something that actually happened to me. It’s about symbols, visibility, propaganda…and blindnes...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Most of the time, I tell you stories from history, or from my own life. But sometimes, I want to follow another kind of story — a parable from fiction. Because fiction can ask the wildest, most dangerous question of all: what if? And in our time, no fictional villain has gotten people talking about genocide more than Thanos. Image Source: https://ca.pin...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. A podcast of parables about the Holocaust — and what it would take to build a genocide-proof society. Studying the most evil times in history gives us understanding. And understanding is power, and freedom. In the last episode, I told you a story about bread — how Germany’s strength was built on borrowed grain, and how hunger made conquest thinkable. At...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Today’s parable is about bread. Because in Germany, in the years leading up to the Holocaust, bread wasn’t just food. It was weakness. And that weakness turned desperation into ideology, and ideology into genocide. Image Credit: https://dirtanddough.com/best-dutch-oven-for-bread/

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Last time, we talked about propaganda — how lies spread faster than truth, and how the Nazis turned disinformation into one of the strongest gears in their machine. Today’s parable is lighter on the surface. It’s a dance. The Jewish chair dance — the Hora. Maybe you’ve seen it at a wedding or bar mitzvah. It’s joyful, it’s loud, it’s unforgettable....

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. So far, we’ve talked about ghettos, scarcity, identity, and accountability. Today we’re shifting to one of the most powerful gears in the machine: propaganda. But instead of starting with World War II, I want to start with something that happened to me in a medical office, years ago. Image Source: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87226/8-hair-ra...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. The last episode was heavy — about love, critique, and nations that behave like drunk uncles. So today, let’s take a lighter detour. Because sometimes, the way we first stumble into questions of history and identity is…well, clumsy. And embarrassing. And funny. This one’s from when I was six years old. Image Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/d...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. So far we’ve explored parables about technology, cats, and sunrises. Today’s parable is about family. Because sometimes the best way to understand nations — including the ones we struggle with most — is to imagine them as the people sitting at our own dinner table. Image Source: https://stock.adobe.com/ca/images/happy-jewish-extended-family-toasts-...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. Last time, I told you about my two cats, and what their little turf wars can teach us about Lebensraum, ghettos, and the way scarcity fuels conflict. Today, I want to tell you another story — a quieter one. It’s about two women, two pregnancies, and one name. And it shows us something fundamental about human beings: that under similar conditions, w...

Welcome back to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. In the last episode, I told you a story without commentary. This time, I’ll tell you another story, but then I’ll unpack it. Because sometimes the smallest, most ordinary things — even two cats in a one-bedroom apartment — can teach us something about the machinery of genocide. Image Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/lebensraum-eastern-expansion-40...

Welcome to Circa 1945: Breaking the Machine. This podcast asks one question: what would it take to genocide-proof a society? Genocide doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not just ideology, not just a single evil leader. It’s infrastructure — housing, food, borders, propaganda, segregation — the machinery that makes atrocity possible. And just like a room can be baby-proofed, I believe societies can...