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Israel Story

You Tell Us!

Season 6

We’re one episode away from the end of Season Six, and it's time for our annual listener survey. Understanding who you are, what you want to hear and what you think about our work is crucial to us. Your feedback makes our show better! Just click here.

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  • Wartime Diaries: Idit Ohel

    26:47
    Alon Ohel - a talented young jazz pianist - was kidnapped from the Nova party on October 7th, and has been held hostage in Gaza ever since. His family has spent the last five plus months sending him good vibes and good music. In today's episode, his mother - Idit Ohel - talks about the importance of energy, friendship and hope during these dire times.The end song is Shuvi Elay ("Return to Me") by Avishai Cohen and friends.
  • Wartime Diaries: Sharon Gutman Gilor

    14:46
    One of very few positive outcomes of this war is that the ongoing debate surrounding the participation of female soldiers in combat has been decisively answered. Women are, as the IDF’s Chief of Staff - Herzi Halevi - has said on multiple occasions, an integral part of the military effort. They serve in tanks and in field intelligence posts, as pilots and naval officers, infantry soldiers, engineering specialists, canine handlers, medics and more. In fact, out of the 625 doctors and paramedics operating in Gaza in late December, 73 - more than ten percent - were women. In today's episode we talk to one of them, First Lieutenant Dr. Sharon Gutman Gilor. The end song is Kol Sha'ah Neshika ("Every Hour, A Kiss") by Chava Alberstein.
  • Wartime Diaries: Aliza Raz-Melzer

    19:26
    There has been endless talk of the “Home Front” during this war. The "Home Front," as in what goes on here in Israel, as opposed to what happens on the battlefield - in the streets and alleyways of Gaza. But, there is - of course - also a home front, or rather many different kinds of home fronts: some are stoic, others less so; some are somehow managing, others not at all. Much to her dismay, Aliza Raz-Melzer's 50-year-old husband Amiad volunteered to go fight. She gave us a glance into her home front. A home front that is conflicted - proud and supportive on the one hand, divided and even furious on the other.The end song is K'She'Ata Kan ("When You Are Here") by Ninet Tayeb.
  • A Once-in-a-Decade Announcement

    04:55
    We have some truly exciting news: For the first time in almost a decade, we're launching a new podcast. Look for Sipur Yerushalmi wherever you get your podcasts. 
  • Wartime Diaries: Noam Tsuriely

    18:38
    Some 350,000 Israelis have been called up to reserve duty since the start of the war, in what has been the largest mobilization in the country’s history. These are people who were plucked out of their homes, families and daily lives, and inserted into a totally different world, one which is in most cases - just to add to the confusion - a mere car ride away. And those transitions back and forth, between the craziness of the frontline and the veneer of normalcy at home, can be dizzying and unsettling. We’re hearing more and more about that juxtaposition now that large numbers of reservists are being released from their service, and are returning to their regular lives. One of them is Noam Tsuriely from Jerusalem. Noam’s a rapper, who recently put out his debut album and had, pre-war, a string of big time gigs all lined up. He was summoned for reserve duty on Oct. 7th, and has spent most of the last four months in Gaza. We spoke to him just as he came out of Gaza, and began his readjustment to civilian life.The end song is Kshenetse Mize ("When We Get Out of This") by Noam Tsuriely, Shachar Nahari, and Eyal Mazig.
  • Wartime Diaries: Maya German and Benjamin Fainsod

    17:27
    Today's "Wartime Diary" takes us to a place that is, under normal circumstances, one of the most visited sites in the entire country - Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo, or as it's officially known, 'The Tisch Family Zoological Gardens.' Since the start of the war, the city of Jerusalem has welcomed more than 30,000 evacuees from both the North and the South. With such an influx of people, and especially of kids, there was a real need to create new programming and activities. The Jerusalem Foundation stepped in and launched “Double Impact,” an initiative that sent tens of thousands of evacuees (as well as the city’s school children) to various cultural and recreational institutions such as museums, theaters, the aquarium and, of course, the zoo. The result benefitted not only the kids themselves, who got a day of fun and enrichment, but also the city's struggling institutions. The end song is Noah by Matti Caspi.
  • Wartime Diaries: Hugo (Uri) Wolaj

    22:06
    The war has been going on for over three months, and many of us have settled into some sort of altered routine, a "new normal." But there are hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions, for whom nothing is normal. Hugo (Uri) Wolaj of Kibbutz Be’eri is one of them: everything about his life - his job, his friends, his family, his parenting style, everything - changed on October 7th. Uri spent more than 20 hours that day hiding with his wife and daughters in the safe room. They were evacuated to a Dead Sea hotel in the early hours of October 8th and have been there ever since. But last week he returned to Be’eri, for a rare and eerie visit to his own home.The end song is Lo Levad ("Not Alone") by Jane Bordeaux.
  • Wartime Diaries: 100 Days

    02:20
    Today is the hundredth day of the war. And, though our Wartime Diaries series continues, we want to stop, mark this day and share 100 seconds of the many voices we’ve been hearing among - and around - us, since October 7th.
  • Wartime Diaries: Charlene Seidle

    19:28
    Upwards of $1 billion in donations have been sent to Israel since the start of the war. For years Charlene Seidle, the Executive Vice President of the San Diego-based Leichtag Foundation, has been at the forefront of the Jewish philanthropic world. While the Leichtag Foundation supports various causes in the States and in Israel, their main local focus is bridging social and economic gaps in Jerusalem. They’ve given life to hundreds of grassroots initiatives and have created the ‘Jerusalem Model’ - a diverse network of social entrepreneurs, activists and leaders from all sectors around town - Jews, Muslims, Christians, religious, secular, etc. Since Charlene and her team have been nurturing and cultivating these relationships for so long, they were particularly well-situated to understand the needs on the ground in the immediate aftermath of October 7th.The end song is San Diego by Elisha Banai and the Forty Thieves.Image courtesy of the Leichtag Foundation’s Jerusalem Philanthropic Initiatives.