Homeland: Ten Stories, One Israel

Homeland introduces another podcast from Unpacked: Unpacking Israeli History. Season 4 just launched, and we're running the first episode here, entitled Ma'alot: 30 Seconds That Devastated A Nation.

It was supposed to be a fun field trip. A little celebration in honor of Israel’s 26th birthday. Over a hundred religious high school students, exploring northern Israel and sleeping under the stars. But the three Palestinian terrorists who sneaked in from Lebanon had other plans. This is the story of the Ma’alot massacre. It’s a story of horror and blood. But it’s also a story of hope and resistance. A reminder that every hour of our lives matters.

Homeland introduces another podcast from Unpacked: Jewish History Unpacked. Whoever said history was boring clearly never heard these stories Join hosts Yael and Schwab each week as they take a dive into some deep cuts of Jewish history. From the Jewish Da Vinci Code to mass suicide pacts, explore true stories that feel larger than life.

This episode tells the story of Josephus Flavius. It's maybe one of the wildest characters in Jewish history, and that's saying something. That's largely because unlike most historians, he didn't just chronicle the story; as Yael tells Schwab in this week's episode, Josephus, or Yosef ben Matityahu, wrote himself into the story - and what a story it is. This week, we learn about Josephus and the siege of Yodfat, and they ask, what does it mean for us to write yourself into the story of Jewish history?

You asked, and we answered. This week, Homeland's writer, Adi Elbaz, and producer, Rivky Stern, do a special "behind the scenes" episode, where they answer some of your questions about Homeland. Some questions include: which character did you relate to the most? Why were there no Palestinian or Israel Arab characters? Do you think immigrants are really integrated into Israeli society? And much more.

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Emily Cohen isn’t shy about approaching strangers. But when it comes to telling her own story, she’s a little more skittish. In the final episode of the season, Emily grapples with what it means to be proudly Jewish and Zionist in the Diaspora.

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For more background on this episode, check out these resources:

• Film: Unsafe Spaces
• 2021 Online Antisemitism Report Card
• University of Texas and antisemitism
• “Diaspora,” West Side Gravy

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Eden has blue hair, an obsession with manga, and a rich family history. She’s the daughter of parents who survived unimaginable hardships to live in the world’s only Jewish state. But once they made it to Israel, things didn’t exactly go as planned…

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For more on Ethiopian Jews, check out these resources:

On Ethiopian Jews in General:

• Video: The Story of Ethiopian Jewry
• Fast facts
• Anu Museum Overview
• What Is Sigd?
• Ethiopian Jewish Women

On Operations Moses, Joshua, Solomon:

• Film: Exodus 91
• Before the operations
• During the operations
• Unpacking Operation Solomon
• Anu Museum Documentary: 1, 2
• Podcast: Ingathering of Exiles

On Discrimination:

• Overview
• Bloon donation scandal
• Birth control scandal
• Police brutality 1, 2

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Ortal Levy came to Israel from France because of a story.

The stories she heard at home. At school. The story of the Jewish people.

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Resources:

• Who is Making Aliyah?
• On Mizrahi Jews
• On the murder of Sarah Halimi
• On Tunisian Jews

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Amalia Bar-Oz never met her great-grandmother. But she knows that great-grandma Hesya was a fighter. That when the pogroms ripped her life apart, she found a new hope in her ancestral homeland…

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Resources:

On Life in the Shtetl and Pogroms in the Russian Empire:

• Article 1, Article 2, Article 3
• Podcast on Kishinev, Video on Kishinev
• Video on Shtetl Life

On Early/Proto-Zionist Movements:

• Article 1, Article 2, Article 3
• Video

On Kibbutzim:

• Video: What Life is Like on an Israeli Kibbutz
• Article 1, 2, 3, 4
• Homepage of the first kibbutz (in Hebrew)

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Roey Pinto’s family has been in Jerusalem for generations. They’ve lived under Ottoman rule and British administration and finally under an Israeli government. But self-determination takes sacrifice. This is the story of what one family gave up for a state.

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For more information on the events of this episode, check out these resources:

• Sykes-Picot and San Remo (1916 - 1920)
• The Balfour Declaration (1917)
• The Hebron Massacre (1929)
• Black Saturday (1946)
• The Altalena Affair (1948)
• The True Story Behind the Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

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• This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Shaya Silber is many things. Haredi. An IDF soldier. And tired of being constantly stereotyped. In this episode, he peels back the curtain on the vibrant and complex Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community in Israel.

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For more on the Haredi community, check out these resources:

• The Torah Dome 
• Is Studying Torah A National Service?
• Haredim and Israeli Society

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

As a teenager growing up in Australia, Nachi Gelman didn’t pay much attention to politics. Not even those Oslo Accords that everyone around him seemed to be talking about. But then he met Hadassah Even-Chen. And she pulled him into a life he couldn’t have imagined…

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To learn more about the topics covered in this episode, check out these resources:

• Understanding the Oslo Accords
• The Rabin Assassination: Podcast, Video
• What are settlements? 5-part video series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
• Settlement Evacuations: Yamit, Gush Katif

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Matan Berenbaum-Williams is Black and American by birth. Jewish by heritage. Israeli by choice. And a Zionist in his soul. His is a story of finding yourself in the most unexpected of places… and of building a home in a place where you belong.

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For more information on the Black Jewish community, check out these resources:

Connecting with Black Jewry in Israel 

The Unknown History of Black Jews in America

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Galina Abramovich-Azoulay has a story to tell. Specifically, the story of Jewish life in the Soviet Union… and the sometimes-difficult adjustment to a new life in Israel. Along with roughly one million other Jews, Galina’s family joined the Soviet Aliyah, transforming the world’s only Jewish state.

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To learn more about Soviet Jewry, check out these resources:

When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry https://g.co/kgs/qmSq4e

Welcome and Our Condolences: https://go2films.com/films/welcome-and-our-condolences/

Jewish Virtual Library Portal on Soviet Jewry: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-in-the-former-soviet-union 

Is Zionism Racism? Understanding Soviet Propaganda: https://jewishunpacked.com/is-zionism-racism-un-resolution-3379/ 

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

Alain Checroun has a story to tell. His birthplace, Morocco, was once home to nearly 300,000 Jews. But after the creation of the state of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews made their way to the world’s only Jewish state. Like all immigration stories, Alain’s is a story of resilience. Of challenges. Of triumphs. And ultimately, it’s about the joys of coming home.

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For more information on Mizrahi Jewry in general and Moroccan Jewry in specific, see the following sources:

The Jews of Morocco from the Jewish Virtual Library: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jews-of-morocco

Jews Under Moroccan Skies:

https://www.amazon.com/Jews-Under-Moroccan-Skies-Thousand/dp/1935604244

Inside Jewish Morocco (A JDC Video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ti-e2bY0mE

Moroccan Jews Celebrating Normalization Deal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXwF5IAurk

The Story of Israel’s Black Panthers:

https://jewishunpacked.com/the-story-of-israels-black-panthers/

Valley of Tears:

https://www.hbomax.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GX6rsqgAIJMPCwgEAAACB

On the Wadi Salib Riots:

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2013-06-16/ty-article/july-9-1959-wadi-salib-riots/0000017f-f7b1-d044-adff-f7f9dbb80000 and https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt21h4xqw.9?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Mizrahi Jews:

https://unpacked.education/video/mizrahi-jews-the-jews-of-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/

Mizrahi Music:

https://jewishunpacked.com/how-mizrahi-music-took-over-israeli-pop/

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This show was made possible by support from the Koum Family Foundation, the Crain-Maling Foundation, the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and the Skolnick Family Charitable Trust.

When a bus breaks down off an Israeli highway and leaves its passengers stranded, Emily, American journalism student, decides to put her skills to the test...much to the chagrin of her fellow travelers. As she eventually coaxes each person to share their story, Emily uncovers the rich and complex history that every Israeli holds. Each episode is a deep dive into a new character’s world; from Morocco to Russia, all paths lead to Israel in this narrative style pod.

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Thank you to our generous sponsors:

• Koum Family Foundation
• Crain-Maling Foundation
• Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation
• Skolnick Family Charitable Trust

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