Shows
Ordinary Jews. TalkingS3 Episode 1: Alan BernRecorded 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 bridges. Alan and I met in the courtyard of Etz Hayyim Synagogue and this episode was recorded in the city of Chania on the island of Crete. It is...
2026-01-2946 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingS2 Episode 4: Fran MillerRecorded December 1, 2025 Photo: courtesy Fran MillerFran 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 ideal light to upholding the social justice ideals of her father who supported Israel yet impressed on her the Jewish value of working on behalf of the underdog. S2 E4 Notes...
2026-01-0543 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingS2 Episode 3: Sandra GartnerRecorded November 20, 2025 Photo: Sandy withbook, by LioraAmong 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 conversation she picks up threads of her life in Vermont and New York City; her life in theatre, journalism, and the Rutland, VT Jewish community. Sandra was a Youth Ambassador to Israel in 1966, at 16 years old, and “came ba...
2025-12-1137 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingS2 Episode 2: Irit LibrotRecorded November 12, 2025 Courtesy Photo: IritIrit 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, Lebanon, Egypt, and the US. You can read aboutRachel in the alumni magazine of the American University in Beirut, photos p.51, write up p.64.Irit’s own experience of October 7 and the war is...
2025-12-0134 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingS2 Episode 1: Kesha Ram-HinsdaleRecorded November 7, 2025 Courtesy Photo: Keshaand baby, VT StatehouseKesha 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 focus often on the fallout from the mid-century dissolution of the British Empire. At the same time, Kesha’s family was uprooted by the divisions left on the Indian subcontinent by the British exit.Sh...
2025-11-1830 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingSeason 2 Episode 0Hi! 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 beginning of the Gaza War that I needed a better connection with other Jews. I had been p...
2025-11-1802 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingEpisode 6: Roberta BernerRecorded September 3, 2025 Courtesy Photo: Roberta Berner, with her husband, Rich AbelRoberta 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 Trustee and the immediate past President of the Upper Valley Jewish Community (UVJC) where she leads the Caring and Chesed (loving kindness) Committee and reportedly makes the best Saturday morning coffe...
2025-10-0637 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingOJT E5: Pinkson(-Burke) SistersRecorded August 6, 2025Ilsa 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 political demonstrations, andonce – once – they made a field trip to a synagogue. Today, both sisters feel a need to reenforce their sense of Jewish community and to learn more about the history of Israel, while distancing themselves from Zionism.Episode 5 Notes: · Rabb...
2025-09-2928 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingOJT E4: Gene KadishRecorded August 12, 2025 Photo: by LABeing 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 Healing Circles held by the Upper Valley Jewish Community since October 7. Episode 4 Notes: Peter Beinart appearing on Jon Stewa...
2025-09-1634 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingOJT E3: Joy GaineRecorded July 29, 2025 Photo: Courtesy, Joy GaineJoy 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 challenged me greatly on where to see a good outcome, all the while probing where and why “the Jews” are so often at fault. It was a great conversation, do tune in!
2025-09-1039 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingOJT E2: Daniel IntraubI 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: LAEpisode 2 Notes:Birthright Foundation: Founded to help give Jewish young adults the gift of a transformational and educational trip to Israel.Dates of the Second Intifada: roughly September 2000 through February 2005.Cli...
2025-08-2836 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingOJT E1: Susan RussoSusan 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 contradictions of that society were shaped by visits with a childhood friend who moved there to marry a Tunisian Jew. We discuss her experience of October 7, her shifting relationship to Judaism and to the post-October 7 conflict, and we...
2025-08-2842 min
Ordinary Jews. TalkingOJT E0: Liora AlschulerTo 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 in an oblique way – since I don’t recall ever setting foot in a synagogue – broadened immensely my experience of being a Jew. Since returning, I have found it profoundly diffic...
2025-08-2808 min
JAM Podcasts & AudiobooksOrdinary Jews. Talking. Episode 0: Liora AlschulerEpisode 0: 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 in an oblique way – since I don’t recall ever setting foot in a synagogue – broadened immensely my experience of being a Jew. Since returning, I have found...
2025-08-1408 min