Ordinary Jews. Talking

Recorded February 17, 2026   Photo: courtesy Yuval Rozanis father’s family traces back to the town of Castallvi de Rosanes, near Barcelona, in the 1300s, and then migrated to Italy and Bulgaria, arriving in Mandate Palestine in 1945. He is the first Israeli “ordinary Jew” to be interviewed here. Our conversation ranged widely, covering the role of thekibbutz, previously and now; the role of religi...

Recorded February 12, 2026   Photo: courtesy Sarah Villanueva is a Jew, a doula, a congregational leader, and an human with a passionate and compassionate heart. In graduate school she took a course on World Religions which the professor introduced by saying that the best case scenario would be that you want to convert every time you learn about a new one. Take a listen and you will hear how her o...

Recorded January 13, 2026   Photo: Liora & Circus Smirkus courtesy photo Miki describes himself as a circus performer, specifically, an acrobat and clown. It was in that capacity that he had his first encounter with Palestinians in a Jewish/Palestinian collective in the Galilee when he was in 5th grade. Today he provides an Israeli perspective on America – and an American perspective on Israel...

Recorded December 20, 2025   Photo: Shendi Copitman “ So I got an accordion, I put it on my back, and I went to Europe ... “ Do tune in to hear how Alan’s story intertwines music and speech with creativity, compassion, and being Jewish in today’s world. Listen in to hear how the “other” in Other Music Academy is not what you might think and how transcultural work is more about mycelium than bridge...

Recorded December 1, 2025   Photo: courtesy Fran Miller Fran moved up to Vermont from New York City in the fall of2019 to work at the Vermont Law School’s  Center for Agriculture and Food Systems . Outside her professional work she is active in pro-Palestinian causes including as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). In this interview, she discusses her turnaround from seeing Israel in an idea...

Recorded November 20, 2025   Photo: Sandy withbook, by Liora Among her many role, Sandra Gartner has been co-producer of Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre for 20 years, an actor with the company, and is co-producer with filmmaker Nora Jacobson on her latest project. Sandra also writes for RutlandMagazine and other publications. Not surprisingly, she has a wonderful way of telling stories. In this...

Recorded November 12, 2025 Courtesy Photo: Irit Irit Librot takes us through her early years in Haifa immediately following the creation of the State and the subsequent move to the US where “the streets are paved with gold” (spoiler: didn’t turn out that way). We get a strong andinspiring picture of Irit’s mother, Rachel Dziecholska Rotkovitch, who lived, studied, and worked in Poland, Palestine,...

Recorded November 7, 2025  Courtesy Photo: Keshaand baby, VT Statehouse Kesha Ram-Hinsdale, as we establish at the outset, is ourVermont Senate Majority Leader, and yet here, she is not talking state politics – she’s just an ordinary Jew. Her story, as a self-proclaimed HinJew, is awash with streams of migration and displacement on both sides of her family. Looking at the origins of Israel, we foc...

Hi! I’m happy to be back with a second season of OJT. Here, in Episode 0, I have a few words about the "why” of the podcast and some thoughts on this season in the short S2E0 audio. And let me tease Episode 1 – we start out with a great conversation with VT Senator Kesha Ram-Hinsdale. I’ve been asked a few times why I’m doing this podcast and I'd be glad to tell you. I felt from the begin...

Recorded September 3, 2025   Courtesy Photo: Roberta Berner, with her husband, Rich Abel Roberta has accomplished so much, one would think she lived three lives rather than lived in three places: the deep South, Midwest, and for 27+ years, here in the Upper Valley.  She didn’t mention, but I will, that she was awarded a Shem Tov award this year from the NH Jewish Federation. Roberta is a Board Tru...

Recorded August 6, 2025 Ilsa Pinkson-Burke and Briane Pinkson grew up going to “shula”, a Cooperative Jewish Children’s School teaching Jewish history, ethics, art, music, and politics – everything except Hebrew, liturgy, or religion. The school was in the tradition of their parents and grandparents, Yiddish-speaking “left-wingers from the twenties and thirties”. Most weekends they all went to pol...

Recorded August 12, 2025   Photo:  by LA Being a Jew is central to Gene’s identity. He seeks to be abetter Jew as a way to be a better person, practices kyudo, goes to sabbath services as a way of meditation, and attends to the little things. In this interview, he contrasts what was worth dying for prior to the nation state, and what is so valued today. Gene is also one of the organizers of the He...

Recorded July 29, 2025   Photo:  Courtesy, Joy Gaine Joy defines herself as a teacher, musician, and mother. Hersense of herself as a Jew rose post October 7th with questions on whether being Jewish makes her think differently about the conflict than her progressive friends? And why should that be true? Isn’t it enough to be pro-peacewith good will for all who believe in human rights for all? She...

I knew Daniel solely through a series of graphics projects, both professional and protest-related, that he supported at Gnomon Copy in Hanover, NH. It was the latter type of project that got us talking about the conflict in Gaza where he mentioned that he was Jewish and we quickly fell into a discussion that led straight to this episode of the podcast. Recorded July 19, 2025   Photo:  LA Episode 2...

Susan is a émigré, coming to Claremont in 1975 from Brooklyn where being Jewish was an effortless part of life, ethics, culture, and family politics. Finding herself and raising her children in a profoundly non-Jewish Upper Valley, her identity has been expressed in friendships, noodle puddings, and the rugelach she bakes and gives out at Christmas time. Her exposure to Israel and the contradictio...

To geo-locate me, Jewishly, I grew up in a WASPy suburb of Chicago, touched down in Pittsburgh for a couple years, then, at age 17, fled this country, my family, and lived in Israel for four and a half years, mostly in Jerusalem with the last year living in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, returning in December, 1972. These years colored my experience of Israel, and all who live there, and...