The Thin Veil with Ezra Lipp

Ashira Darwish is a Palestinian investigative journalist, trauma healer, and former human rights activist whose work explores the relationship between occupation, resistance, trauma, and collective healing. After years working in journalism and advocacy, and following a spinal injury in 2012 that temporarily left her paralyzed, she developed Ashira Active Meditation, a trauma-integration practice...

For years, Palestinian activist Hamze Awawde worked inside the world of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue organizations, NGOs, international conferences, donor networks, and what he now calls the “industrial-peace complex.” Hamze Awawde Substack I Was The Good Palestinian - Hamze's Essay Hamze on Instagram In this conversation, Hamze offers an insider’s critique of a well-funded system that he argues o...

In this episode of The Thin Veil, I sit down with critically acclaimed British musician Alexi Murdoch for a wide-ranging conversation about art, activism, Western culture, and the personal and professional costs of speaking in support of Palestine. Alexi reflects on why he has found it increasingly difficult to simply retreat into the creative process while witnessing the genocide in Gaza, and why...

There is a common story that is told about Gaza that goes something like this: Israel dismantled its settlements and withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Gaza was then free to govern itself, make peace with Israel, and develop what could have become a “Singapore on the Mediterranean.” Instead, Palestinians elected a terrorist organization, Hamas, which began firing rockets at Israel and building terror tun...

Mo Hamzeh is a Palestinian American activist, content creator and author who has been repeatedly banned from Meta platforms—at the time of publishing now on his 45th Instagram account. In this conversation, he talks about growing up Palestinian in a heavily Zionist community, being bullied as a child for identifying as Palestinian, and finally visiting Palestine for the first time in September 202...

On this episode of The Thin Veil , Ezra sits down with Sam Avraham Stein, a Jewish anti-Zionist activist who, over the last five years, has repeatedly traveled to Palestine to do protective presence work in the occupied West Bank. They trace Sam’s ideological journey, from growing up in a right-wing Orthodox Zionist Jewish community in the U.S., to attending university in Tel Aviv, leading Birthri...

In this episode of The Thin Veil, Esther and Ezra tear apart the liberal Zionist talking points that claim that if Palestinians resisted better they would not be oppressed.  Haviv Rettig Gur one Middle East analyst at Bari Weiss', Free Press, known for his liberal zionist stance claims that the Palestinian problem comes down to not understanding that Israelis are here to stay and if Palestinians o...

In this episode of The Thin Veil , host Ezra Lipp speaks with Canadian anti-Zionist Jewish writer, activist and academic Aaron Kreuter , author of Lake Burntshore , a novel set at a Jewish summer camp that explores Zionism, settler colonialism, Jewish identity, and the complicated relationship between diaspora Jews and Israel. The conversation explores the strange and powerful world of North Ameri...

In this episode of The Thin Veil, Ezra sits down with Palestinian filmmaker, writer, podcaster, and storyteller Rolla Selbak for a wide-ranging conversation on propaganda, identity, Hollywood, and what collective liberation could actually look like. They explore Rolla's journey growing up Palestinian, the moment she began questioning dominant narratives, and how filmmaking and satire have become p...

Welcome to The Thin Veil Unfiltered —a new recurring conversation between Ezra Lipp and Rabbi Esther Azar that is meant to complement the long-form interviews on The Thin Veil . In this pilot episode, Ezra and Esther revisit one of the most nuanced and often misunderstood points from Esther's previous appearance on The Thin Veil: Is what we're witnessing best understood as Jewish supremacy—or West...

In this episode of The Thin Veil , Ezra speaks with Palestinian-American filmmaker, historian, and Sacramento City College professor of Contemporary Palestinian History and Culture, Riad Bahhur . After his parents were denied the right to return to Palestine following Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Riad spent his early childhood in Venezuela before his family settled in the United S...

Dr. Mark Brauner is an emergency physician who has spent his career responding to trauma, but nothing prepared him for what he encountered while volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Gaza. In this conversation, he reflects on the overwhelming conditions inside the hospital, the starvation crisis, the moral weight of treating mass casualties, and the profound relationships that changed him forever. Ra...

What does it take to leave an ideology that has shaped your entire identity? Daniel Klein was born and raised in a religious Zionist settlement in the occupied West Bank. From childhood through his service as a tank commander in the Israeli military, he was immersed in a worldview that framed Palestinians, security, history, and even morality through a single narrative. Today, Daniel writes and sp...

In this wide-ranging conversation I spoke with Hakham Esther Azar —a Syrian American rabbi, social worker, writer, and educator raised in Brooklyn's Arab-Jewish community—to explore the psychological, historical, and spiritual foundations of Zionism and the systems of domination that sustain it. Esther offers a deep framework rooted in collective shame, trauma, colonialism, and identity. She share...

In this episode of The Thin Veil, Ezra speaks with Israeli writer and activist Einat Temkin —a former United Nations communications officer (2008–2025) and former IDF member —about her journey from growing up in Israel in a liberal Zionist family to becoming an outspoken anti-Zionist Jewish voice. Together, they discuss Israeli society, military indoctrination, Zionism, Hasbara, the decline of the...

What happens when a Palestinian writer and an anti-Zionist Jew agree on the destination—but disagree about some of the language and tactics we use to get there? In this conversation, I sit down with Palestinian American filmmaker, writer, and speaker Mo Husseini for a thoughtful and challenging discussion, filled with agreement, but also some respectful tension. We explore Palestinian identity, Zi...

Rabbi Cat Zavis is a spiritual leader, activist, attorney, and rabbi at Beyt Tikkun — an anti-Zionist Jewish congregation in the Bay Area. In this episode, we explore the process of untangling Judaism from Zionism — and what it means to reconstruct Jewish moral and spiritual life in the aftermath of deep political and theological rupture. We discuss her personal journey through social justice work...

Yassar Dahbour is a Palestinian refugee from Haifa, a Sacramento-based political organizer, president of the Palestine American League , and co-founder of the Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestinian Rights . Born in a refugee camp in Syria after his family was expelled from Haifa during the Nakba, Yassar grew up surrounded by Palestinian political life, refugee memory, and the dream of retur...

Filmmaker, musician, writer, and abolitionist Matthew Solomon joins Ezra to discuss his new documentary Seeds for Liberation , a film that centers Palestine while tracing the connections between Zionism, U.S. imperialism, policing, Black liberation, the Chicano movement, Indigenous resistance, and broader anti-colonial struggle. Matthew’s previous documentary, Reimagining Safety , explored aboliti...

Julie Wolk is a facilitator, strategist, and creator of Ashkenazi Ancestral Journeys , a spiritual pilgrimage and heritage program that brings Ashkenazi Jews to Poland to reconnect with ancestral lands, Jewish memory, diasporic culture, grief, and political histories that Zionist narratives often teach us to bypass. In this conversation, Julie and Ezra discuss what it means to turn toward Eastern...

What does it mean to practice medicine in Gaza while hospitals collapse, chronic illness goes untreated, children carry water instead of going to school, and entire communities struggle simply to survive? In this episode of The Thin Veil, Ezra speaks with Dr. Musallam Abukhalil, a physician in Gaza and founder of United for Dignity Alliance, a Palestinian-led humanitarian organization providing em...

In this episode of The Thin Veil , Ezra sits down with musician, activist, and La Gente SF frontman Rafa Sarria Bustamante for a wide-ranging conversation on identity, decolonization, Palestine, diaspora, anti-fascism, and political awakening. Rafa reflects on growing up Colombian-Nicaraguan in San Francisco’s Mission District, navigating mixed cultural identity, confronting racism and colorism, a...

In this episode of The Thin Veil , Ezra Lipp speaks with Palestinian artist, musician, producer, and organizer MC Tarik "Excentrik" Kazaleh about diaspora grief, sumud, burnout, and what solidarity asks of people in the West. Tarik reflects on his family’s roots in Palestine, the emotional toll of watching the genocide in Gaza from the diaspora, and why performative empathy is not enough. He also...

In this episode of The Thin Veil, Ezra sits down with artist and organizer Dottie Lux . Dottie shares her journey from a Zionist upbringing to anti-Zionist activism, and how that shift reshaped her identity, her relationships, and her work. She speaks about her time in Palestine doing protective presence in the West Bank with the International Solidarity Movement, and her involvement founding Arti...

Ahmed Sarsour is a poet and artist currently living in Gaza, trying to survive through the ongoing effects of genocide and raise money for his extended family and community through Project Sarsour. After spending much of his life in Sudan as a telecommunications engineer and Palestinian exile, Ahmed fled violence there in 2023—only to return to Gaza just months before the genocide began. In this c...