The Levantini Podcast

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Professor Dawn Chatty who is the former director of the Refugee Studies Center at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy and an internationally recognized expert on Bedouin culture and tribalism. She is the author of From Camel to Truck - The Bedouin in the Modern World. We spoke about her decades of experience researching the Bedoui...

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Professor Devin Naar who is the Sephardic Studies Program Chair, Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies, and an Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Washington. We spoke about the Ladino language, its history and cultural legacy and efforts underway at the university to preserve Ladino for future generations. Yo...

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Professor Emeritus Mina Weinstein-Evron of the University of Haifa who is the former head of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology. Her research focuses on the middle Paleolithic hunter-gather culture that lived in the Levant known as the Natufian Culture. Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with the founder of the Hebrew language learning website and Youtube Channel Hebrew with Teacher Mike. We had a great conversation about his journey mastering Hebrew, the methods he’s adapted for his own students, and the importance of learning and using non-violent communication in Hebrew Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Reem Makhoul, the co-founder and creator of Ossass, a publisher of children’s books written in Arabic dialect. In our talk, we discussed what drew Reem to begin writing children’s books in Arabic dialect, the importance of publishing materials in dialect v. Modern Standard Arabic,  and the impact the stories have made around the world. I had a great ti...

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Gary Rendsburg who is a professor of biblical studies, Hebrew language and ancient Judaism at Rutgers University. He holds the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair in Jewish History. Professor Rendsburg is an expert on the historical development of the Hebrew language and ancient Hebrew dialects, which was the focus of our discussion. We also discuss other...

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Matt Goldish who’s a professor at Ohio State University and a specialist in Jewish and European History, Messianism, and the Spanish Jews after the expulsion from Spain. He holds the Samuel M. and Esther Melton Chair in Jewish History. The topic of our discussion was his book The Sabbatean Prophets, which covers the 17th century messianic movement that...

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Erez Ben-Yosef who is an Associate Professor of Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University. He’s the director of the Central Timna Valley Project and the excavations that he has been leading in the Aravah Valley have raised the possibility that we need to rethink the social complexity and impact...

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with Ed Greenstein who is professor emeritus of Bible at Bar-Ilan University and a world-renowned scholar in biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. He recently published a new translation of the Book of Job which offers a new perspective on the story, which is speaking the truth to power no matter the cost. You can purchase Professor Greenstein's tr...

In this episode of the podcast, we spoke with Professor Paul M. Cobb about his book The Race for Paradise - An Islamic History of the Crusades. Professor Cobb's book offers a new perspective on the Crusades by telling this period of history through Muslim sources. The book can be purchased on Amazon . Professor Cobb is a Professor of Islamic History and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern...

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Dr. Marina Rustow who is the director of the Princeton Genizah Lab and the Khedouri A Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East at Princeton. She is also the director of the program of Near Eastern Studies. We spoke at length about the Cairo Genizah and what its findings can tell us about the everyday lives of people in Medieval Cairo, th...

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Professor Uri Bar-Joseph who is a professor of political science at the University of Haifa, an expert on Israeli intelligence, and the author of the book The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel. His book was recently adapted to a Netflix movie called The Angel and tells the story of Ashraf Marwan, who was the son in law of Egyptian President Gamal...

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with director Kamal Hachkar who made the film Tinghir-Jerusalem: Echoes from the Mellah. The film documents the story of the Berber Jews from the city of Tinghir who left in the 1960s with the majority of them winding up in Israel. In the film, Kamal travels to Morocco to interview the people of Tinghir about their past lives coexisting with Jews and he also...

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad who is the Sofia Chair in Arabic Studies and an Associate Professor at Ohio State University. He is one of the foremost authorities on early Arabic and his work focuses on the languages and writing systems of pre-Islamic Arabia and the ancient Near East. The focus of our discussion was his work researching the Safaitic inscriptions,...

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Dr. Peter Webb who is a university lecturer of Arabic literature at Universiteit Leiden. Dr. Webb’s research focuses on literature and culture of pre-modern Islam and in this podcast, we discuss the origins of Arabness and his book Imaging the Arabs – Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam.  Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Aaron Rubin, who is The Malvin and Lea Bank Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Jewish Studies, and Linguistics at Penn State University. Professor Rubin is one of the leading scholars of the Modern South Arabian languages and in this episode we discussed his research on Jibbali and Mehri.  In our talk we discuss the history and dev...

In this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Geoffrey Khan, who is the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge. Over the last few years, Professor Khan has been working to document the last native speakers of Neo-Aramaic around the world as the language inches toward extinction. In our talk we discuss the history of Aramaic, his efforts to document its last speakers, and the hist...

In this episode, I spoke with Ed Greenstein who is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Bar-Ilan University, where he served as Professor since 2006, headed the Institute for Jewish Biblical Interpretation and held the Meiser Chair in Biblical Studies. He also serves as Chair of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies. We spoke at length about his research...

In this episode, I spoke with Guy Sharett who is the host of the Streetwise Hebrew podcast presented by TLV1. The Streetwise Hebrew podcast helps students learn and connect with  Hebrew spoken in the streets of Israel, offering a fresh take on what Hebrew language learning can be. The Streetwise Hebrew podcast is available on Apple, Android, and other podcasting platforms. Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking again with Dr. Jonas Sibony who is a professor of Modern Hebrew at the University of Strasbourg and a Semitic languages expert. We discussed a recent lecture and paper he presented on Moroccan Arabic's influence on Modern Hebrew spoken in Israel and how peripheral Hebrew (Hebrew spoken by Jews of Moroccan descent) developed on the social and eco...

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Yossi Chajes who is an associate professor at the University of Haifa and the director of the Ilanot Project. The Ilanot Project, supported by the Israel Science Foundation, is a project to catalogue and describe all existing Ilanot, which are Kabbalistic cosmological diagrams that attempt to map the divine.  Send us Fan Mail

In this podcast, I spoke with Dr. Rick Strassman who is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medince. From 1990 to 1995, Dr. Strassman performed the first new human studies with psychedelic drugs in the United States in more than 20 years, focusing on the naturally occurring compound DMT. He extensively covers these trials and his findings in his b...

In this episode, I speak with Ami Steinberger who is the founder and CEO of Ulpan La-Inyan. Ulpan La-Inyan takes a unique approach to help Hebrew learners master the essentials of everyday conversation and functional Hebrew through a number of approaches, including the Pimsleur method. Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, I spoke with award-winning author, linguist, and journalist, Dr. Ruvik Rosenthal. Ruvik has published a number of works on the Hebrew language, including dictionaries on slang, idioms, and Israeli military language. He is an expert on the history and evolution of the Hebrew language, and in this podcast, we discuss his life, passion, career, and of course, the Hebrew language. Sen...

In this episode, I spoke with the founder of the Living Arabic Project (livingarabic.com), Hossam Abouzahr. This site is an effort to show Arabic as a living language by allowing users to search in both a Classical Arabic dictionary and a dialect dictionary at the same time. We had a great discussion about the project, his passion for the Arabic language, and the various challenges one faces on th...