Israeli Trailblazers Show

As parents, we know math anxiety and frustration in some children is real.  Academic performance and self-confidence often suffer when kids struggle with attention deficits or grapple with foundational math concepts.  Dr. Lana Israel, the creative mind behind Muzology.com, explores methods to inject fun and high energy into math learning. Gain invaluable insights on effectively managing and suppor...

2022 was insane. Here's what you missed.  The gritiest. Most resilient. Most jaw-dropping stories from a year that refused to quit.    No fluff. No filler. Just bite-sized conversations that will completely rewire how you think about obstacles, limits, and what you're actually capable of. Warning: Your New Year's resolutions won't survive this episode.  Ready to make 2023 the y...

Tova Friedman was just a child in Auschwitz — one of the youngest to survive. Now in her eighties, she carries the memory of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust, and she has made it her mission to make sure the world does not forget.  In this episode, she shares her testimony: what she endured, how she survived, and why she believes telling these stories matters now more than...

For generations, Jewish communities have been an early warning sign of rising hatred — and since the October 7 Hamas attack, many feel the urgency to educate the next generation has never been greater.  In this episode of Never Again Is Now, brought to you by 3G Miami, you'll hear powerful stories from the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors — the generation now carrying these memories forwa...

🔥 From Tragedy to Triumph: The Comeback of a Champion Triathlete  If you're into grit, adrenaline, and real comeback stories—this one’s for you. Meet Diego , a rising triathlete whose dreams were nearly shattered after being hit by a truck during training in Spain (August 2021). But instead of giving up, Diego doubled down. After multiple surgeries and months of brutal recovery, he’s back—fi...

This isn't just a surfing story. It's about the idea that the ocean can connect people where politics can't.  In 2007, when crossings had been closed for months, Arthur Rashkoven and his crew did something almost no one thought possible: they got surfboards into Gaza. In this episode, he tells the story of how it happened, what drove them to do it, and what the waves meant to the pe...

Doctors told her she'd never walk again. She didn't just walk — she climbed to the top of the world.  Danielle Wolfson — Israeli lawyer, adventurer, and the first Israeli woman to summit Mount Everest — was once told her climbing days, and her walking days, were over. She refused to accept it.  In this episode, Danielle takes us to the most brutal place on Earth: Antarctica, and her asce...

In a world where hundreds of millions of people still live without electricity, much of rural Africa remains off the grid. Innovation Africa is working to change that.  In this episode, we explore how the organization uses solar power to pump clean water and bring electricity to remote African villages — drilling wells, building simple water stations, and delivering light to communities that have...

Every day, thousands of children in the developing world die from preventable diseases—because they lack soap.     In this powerful episode, I speak with Shawn Seipler , founder of Clean the World , whose mission is to deliver 75 million soap bars to 127 countries. Discover how recycled soap is saving lives—and how one simple idea sparked a global hygiene revolution.  _____________________________...

What if technology could give a voice to women who didn't survive?  That question drives "Listen to My Voice," the campaign led by social-tech entrepreneur Shiran Mlamdovsky Somech. Using AI, the project animates photographs of five Israeli women killed by their partners — voiced by Israeli actresses — so they can tell their own stories and warn others about the warning signs of an...

What happens when a foreigner is abducted in the Middle East — and who do you turn to when there's no one official to call?  In this episode, we talk with Daniel Levin, a lawyer turned armed-conflict negotiator who works in some of the world's most dangerous places. He's the author of Proof of Life: Twenty Days on the Hunt for a Missing Person in the Middle East, and he shares first...

Life Without Feet.  Meet Stephenie Rodriguez, the double-amputee CEO who beat a 97% death rate after a mosquito bite changed her life. She turned loss into strength with grit and determination, embracing her "augmented" reality. Don’t miss her inspiring journey of resilience and reinventions. _______________________________________________ Your life is better because of Israelis you&apos...

In the early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Israeli entrepreneur Guy Amar made a choice most people wouldn't: he sent his staff to safety in Poland — and stayed behind to help.  He turned his office into a shelter, funding food and supplies himself, and helped thousands of people find meals, showers, and safe passage out as rockets fell and others were leaving. He didn't ask...

Triumph Over Tragedy: Meet Diego Van Looy,  👉 Take 5 seconds — tap 5 stars right now. It's the only way new listeners find this show.  "The Comeback Kid," as he battles back to pro sports after a near-fatal accident. Witness the grit, resilience, and spirit of this 30-something Belgian triathlete in an inspiring 11-minute journey you can’t miss. @diegocomesbackstronger ____________...

Imagine cruising through life, full vision, everything dialed in—then BAM! At 26, total darkness. That’s the reality Pete Eckert got hit with when Retinitis Pigmentosa shut down his sight, derailing his Yale-bound architectural dreams. But here’s the kicker—he didn’t tap out. Instead, he became a badass photographer, using sound, touch, and pure instinct to create mind-blowing images. Even CNN too...

The Silent Killer: Fentanyl’s Devastation – Fentanyl fatalities are in every zip code, and even a patch can be deadly.  Join Kris Francoeur, a courageous mother on a global mission to raise awareness, as she shares her heartbreaking journey after losing her son Sam to a Fentanyl patch in 2013. A writer, educator, and school principal, Kris shines a light on the opioid crisis while finding healing...

At a house party years ago, Neta Schreiber's friend went missing. They found her in a room, half-naked, fighting off two men — and getting there in time changed everything.  That moment became SafeUP, the app Israeli entrepreneur Neta Schreiber built to put a network of trained women "guardians" in your pocket — reachable instantly, by phone, video, or in person, when a woman feels...

October 7 reshaped the Middle East, and it left a question hanging over the region: which direction does it go from here?  Rabbi Elie Abadie has spent years building Jewish-Muslim relationships in the UAE, on the ground where the Abraham Accords turned from a diplomatic agreement into daily life. In this conversation, he shares what that coexistence actually looks like, why he believes the Accords...

Retirement wasn't his style. So Gideon Ben Ami did something few expected: he turned corporate and hotel food surplus into a million meals, at around 32 cents each.  That's the idea behind Pesia's Kitchen. The ugly fruit nobody wanted, the hotel banquet leftovers, the corporate kitchen surplus — rescued, often the same day, and turned into meals for people who need them.  In this ep...

Danielle Wolfson became the first Israeli woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. A decade earlier, after a 2011 ski accident left her with multiple broken bones, doctors weren't sure she'd ever walk again.  She rebuilt herself from a hospital bed — running, swimming, and climbing her way back — until she stood on top of the world at 8,849 meters.  Danielle shares how she got there:...

Should a child's zip code determine the quality of their education? Steve Schuck doesn't think so.  A former candidate for Governor of Colorado, Schuck has spent years advocating for school choice and arguing that too many low-income kids are locked into underperforming schools. Through the Parents Challenge program, he works to give families more options and more say in where their chil...

What happens when a boy from modest beginnings in the 1950s insists on making art his own way — and becomes one of his generation's most recognizable artist? David Gerstein's brightly colored sculptures stand in cities around the world. For decades, much of the art establishment didn't quite know what to make of him. He kept painting, kept sculpting, kept creating anyway.  Now in hi...

Married at 15, Doris spent decades doing what she was told — first by her parents, then her husband, then her mother-in-law. For most of her life, the choices were made for her.  Then a film crew showed up in her Jaffa neighborhood, and something shifted.  At 50, Doris started over and launched Hello Doris Inc. In this episode, she tells the story of how a life with little room for her own voice b...

Ilan Dray kept landing in the same place. Different relationships, different startups — but the same patterns, the same crashes, the same disappointments.  Until he asked himself the question most people avoid: what if the problem is me?  Not bad luck. Not bad timing. Not the wrong people. Me.  In this episode, Ilan unpacks what shifted when he stopped blaming circumstances and started looking inw...

At 16, Nina Green weighed 300 pounds — and she was pulling drowning people out of the water for a living.  She didn't look like what people pictured when they imagined a lifeguard. She saved lives anyway. Her story didn't fit the mold anyone expected. She told it anyway.  In this episode, Nina shares what it was like to do a job the world didn't think she could do, what she learned...