Grace For Impact

Talia Davood is an Iranian, first generation American, undergraduate student at UCLA and an elected USAC General Representative. This past year she has shown up with tremendous courage, clarity, and sheer resilience. In April, Talia organized an event where former Hamas held hostage Omer Shemtov came to share his story of captivity, an event attended by hundreds of people. While the event was taki...

Award-winning journalist and Zionist Yardena Schwartz returns to Grace for Impact to cut through the noise on two competing narratives: Nicholas Kristof’s largely unsubstantiated NYT op-ed alleging systematic Israeli prisoner abuse of Palestinians, and the just-released 300-page Civil Commission report documenting Hamas’s fully substantiated crimes against women and children on October 7th. She al...

A year after our first conversation, I reconnected with Tessa Veksler, the former UCSB student body president who navigated one of the most turbulent periods in recent campus history as a Jewish woman in the wake of October 7, 2023. In this follow-up, Tessa reflects on how far she’s come since graduating and the toll that year of relentless hate and harassment took on her personally. A reel from o...

As an aerospace engineer, Hilla Haddad builds at the intersection of survival and possibility. She was a member of the Iron Dome development team, working on systems that protect lives in real time. As former Director-General of Israel’s Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Technology, she helped shape national priorities at the highest level. Now, as founding partner and CEO of Moonshot Space, an...

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch is the senior Rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, in New York City, where he leads a reform congregation. In this episode, Rabbi Hirsch and I discuss his Zionism, which embodies liberal values, including the right of the individual to self determination, free speech, open debate and equality for all. He points out the illiberalism of many self proclaimed liberals today in the...

MEP Assita Kanko unapologetically describes how she worked her way from the repressive society in which she was raised in Burkina Faso to now being the Belgian Member of European Parliament. She’s not in the political business to be liked. She’s in it to fight for what’s right. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acas...

Türkü Avcı is a Turkish writer, commentator, and student of Political Science and Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Born and raised in Turkey, she developed a deep interest in Middle Eastern affairs from a young age and sought to experience Israel firsthand in order to understand the region beyond the narratives she encountered at home. In 2021, despite warnings that she might f...

Gadi Hitman returns to the podcast, nine months later, to discuss the current Iran war - Iran’s major miscalculations, what kind of leader Iran would need for actual progress, Israeli resilience and more.  For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tali Aynalem proudly carries many identities, including Jewish, Israeli, Ethiopian & American. We met to discuss the misconceptions and misinformation she is trying to clear up as it relates to people’s stereotypes of her and her heritage.  For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform...

Soraya Deen discusses her role in trying to combat antisemitism and Muslim extremism, through engagement in Muslim communities, through dialogue and education.  For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dalia Ziada is an Egyptian writer, Middle East geopolitics expert and Washington coordinater and research fellow at ISGAP. With the unprecedented rise of antisemitism in the West, Dalia works to preserve the values of the west. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Founder & CEO of IBSI, the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, dedicated to strengthening ties between people of African descent and the Jewish state through education and advocacy. Pastor Washington is also an, author & professional musician. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for m...

Aviva Klompas is the author of “Stand Up Nation.” In this extraordinary book, Klompas shares accounts and examples of the numerous individuals and organisations that have framed Israel’s resilience not merely as a reaction to crisis, but as the continuation of a national character defined by creativity, moral urgency, and a commitment to uplift communities far beyond its borders. For more, you can...

Grace for Impact podcast began as my response to October 7th, a day of unspeakable brutality that left me profoundly shaken, searching for solid ground beneath my feet. As an Israeli, American, and British citizen, my sense of place in the world was suddenly upended. As a mother, my sense of certainty about the world I was raising my children into was deeply destabilized. In the immediate aftermat...

Rose Abu Hamda discusses the complexities & nuances of being a staunchly proud Druze woman while simultaneously maintaining a strong identity as an Israeli Zionist. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eitan Chitayat is the CEO of Natie Branding Agency and Founder of the grassroots movement, “I’m That Jew.” Today’s episode is an updated conversation predominantly about the journey of the “I’m that Jew Movement,” and Eitan’s vision for the movement’s future. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for m...

Yardena Schwartz is an Emmy nominated producer, award-winning journalist and best selling author of  Ghosts of a Holy War: the 1929 Massacre in Palestine that Ignited the Arab-Israeli conflict . For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sara Alhosani, fearless advocate for truth in the Middle East. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tal Oran has dedicated himself to highlighting the rich, often overlooked diversity of Israeli society - amplifying voices from Mizrahi, Ethiopian, Druze, Samaritan, and Bedouin communities to name a few. Tal works to reshape the global image of Israel and combat disinformation from the ground up. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hoste...

Moumen Al-Natour is a Palestinian lawyer, human rights advocate, and political activist from Gaza For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yasmine Mohammed is a Canadian author, human rights activist, and founder of Free Hearts Free Minds , an organization that provides mental health support to ex-Muslims living under threat in Muslim-majority countries.  For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maryam Younnes is a 29-year-old Christian Lebanese–Israeli activist, advocate for minorities in the Middle East, and peace builder. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ateret Violet Shmuel is the founder and director of Indigenous Bridges, a nonprofit and nonpartisan international organization dedicated to the advancements of Indigenous communities across the world. For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Conversation with Gadeer Kamal Mreeh about the current massacres of Syrian Druze, living in the southern city of Sweida at the hands of Jihadist Muslims. This is an ongoing crisis experienced by different minorities in Syria under the new political leadership.  For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...

Matthew Nouriel, aka The Empress Mizrahi , is a nonbinary Iranian Jewish activist, digital creator, and unapologetic truth-teller.  For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast Produced by Peoples Media Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.