There and Back Again: the story of a small group of Israelis who - more than half a century ago - experienced their own exodus from Egypt, and their own journey from captivity to freedom. Stay connected with us on Facebook , Instagram , and by signing up for our newsletter at israelstory.org/newsletter/. For more, head to our site or The Times of Israel . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 11, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Season 7Ep. 84
In the impossible arithmetic of hostage transfers, how does it feel to be told that the terrorist who shattered your world will walk free? The end song is Achshav Tov ("Good Now") by Gilad Segev . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Mar 20, 2025•19 min•Season 7Ep. 83
After 477 days in captivity, Karina is home. Here's a look back to day 5, with her sister Sasha. Photograph courtesy of the Israel Defence Forces. The end song is Nekuda Tova (“Good Point”), by Shuli Rand with Ehud Banai . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 26, 2025•14 min
What do lovers do when under attack from both sides of an unimaginable war? The end song is Prayer of the Mothers by Yael Deckelbaum . Photograph by Yitz Woolf, courtesy of Sarah Tuttle-Singer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 22, 2025•20 min•Season 7Ep. 82
By supporting Israel Story, you’re saying that ordinary people matter, and that stories have the power to enter our hearts and change our minds. https://causematch.com/israel-story-24 For prizes and rewards during the campaign, check out our Facebook and Instagram feeds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 19, 2024•4 min
Grateful for his safety and relative comfort in this war, one man says goodbye to his personal paradise. The end song is Pizmon LeYakington ("Hymn to the Hyacinth") by Yehudit Ravitz . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 06, 2024•15 min•Season 7Ep. 81
A citizen runs to stop a terrorist, and is tragically shot by friendly fire. How does this happen? And what does his family do next? The end song is Karma Police , performed by Shefita , originally by Radiohead . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 28, 2024•31 min•Season 7Ep. 80
How do you raise a child who is on both sides of a war? The end song is Yalda Sheli Ktana ("Little Girl of Mine") by Idan Raichel . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 14, 2024•19 min•Season 7Ep. 79
When war needs you in two very different capacities, how on earth do you decide what to do? The end song is Ana Efneh ("Where Shall I Turn?") by Erez Lev Ari . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 31, 2024•19 min•Season 7Ep. 78
Today we’re releasing something new for us - a short video - in which we returned to Ariel Markose, exactly one year after profiling her on "Wartime Diaries." You can find the video here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 15, 2024•2 min
Families, lovers, fighters, and more: one year of Wartime Diaries. The end song is B'Shana Haba'ah ("In the Next Year") by Shiri Maimon . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 07, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 7Ep. 77
A parent being called to war impacts the entire family. So she stepped up. The end song is Imma ("Mom") by Shiri Maimon . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 09, 2024•15 min•Season 7Ep. 76
Two bus stops in two neighboring towns capture how war can unify, and how it can divide. The end song is Autobus Mispar Echad ("Bus Number One") by Shlomo Artzi . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 29, 2024•15 min•Season 7Ep. 75
Seeking love. Called to war. For our Tu B'Av special, we wanted to get a bird's eye view of the local, post-October 7th dating scene. So we went to visit Rebetzin Toby Einhorn, who runs a one-stop-shop for all matters of the heart. Image courtesy of Jenny Peperman. The end song is Shir HaShadchanit ("Matchmaker, Matchmaker") from the Hebrew adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 19, 2024•11 min•Season 7Ep. 74
Despite all the experts and pundits out there, few know Hezbollah as well as the members of a small, and often forgotten, community living in Israel. This community has found itself in an impossible position: Their adoptive country (Israel) is at war with their sworn enemy (Hezbollah), but is also - as a by-product - bombing their hometowns and villages in Southern Lebanon, where many of their friends and family members still reside. Welcome to the Middle East. As always, it’s complicated....
Aug 08, 2024•19 min•Season 7Ep. 73
On Monday evening Jerusalem lost one of its cornerstones, and we lost a very close friend. While you haven't heard Shai Doron - the President of the Jerusalem Foundation - on our show, he was a major force behind all that we do: He encouraged us, gave us a home, helped us build our studio, envisioned our series of live-storytelling events in Jerusalem, and enthusiastically supported our activity. Shai believed in Jerusalem's endless potential, saw its diversity as its main asset, and worked tire...
Aug 01, 2024•11 min
For the last nine-and-a-half months, we’ve been experiencing different kinds of battlefields: There are actual battlefields, where people fight and are wounded and killed. And then, of course, there are secondary battlefields - on college campuses, in the court of public opinion, on social media, on TV, in newspapers, via text messages. And while no one has, thankfully, been killed on those battlefields, they are - in disturbing ways - no less vicious. This reality is so pervasive that for many ...
Jul 25, 2024•16 min•Season 7Ep. 72
Arab-Israelis, or Palestinian Citizens of Israel, or Palestinian-Israelis - all these definitions are obviously complicated and personal and have hefty connotations - found themselves in a very difficult place following the attacks of October 7th. There was a lot of confusion, a lot of suspicion and mainly - a lot of fear. Any statement, any post, any tweet came under extreme scrutiny. Most people chose, therefore, to remain silent. They figured that the benefits of speaking up seemed to be...
Jul 10, 2024•24 min•Season 7Ep. 71
On Saturday, four hostages - Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov - were heroically rescued by the Israeli security forces, and safely brought home alive. Still, 120 hostages remain in Gaza - 43 of whom have already been declared dead - and the pressure to sign a deal that will bring them home is mounting from day to day. Such a deal, of course, has two sides: We tend to focus on what we stand to get, i.e. the hostages. To many, that’s really all that matters. But the...
Jun 10, 2024•25 min•Season 7Ep. 70
Lihi Lapid is a celebrated photojournalist, columnist and best-selling author - of children's books, cookbooks and award-winning novels. She’s also married to Yair Lapid, the former Israeli Prime Minister and current Leader of the Opposition. In 2021 Lihi published Zarot , a sweeping tale that explores a complicated mother-daughter relationship, the tolls of immigration and the reality of marginalized groups within Israeli society. When it came out, it received glowing praise, especially from th...
May 29, 2024•22 min•Season 7Ep. 69
It’s Yom HaZikaron again, Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror. Since the start of the war, 1511 Israeli civilians and members of the armed forces have been killed. That's 1511 families who have joined the dreaded circle of grief and bereavement. 1511 families whose lives will never again be the same. Today, we share the story of one such family. A small family. One that was just starting off, really. Thirty-year-old Yuval Halivni was a reserve officer who was killed...
May 12, 2024•25 min•Season 7Ep. 68
Forty-seven-year-old Tzvika Mor is from the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron. His son, Eitan, was kidnapped from the Nova Festival, where he had been working as a security guard. In fact, Eitan was only kidnapped in the afternoon of October 7th, after spending nearly nine hours evacuating injured party-goers to safe locations nearby. During that whole time Eitan heroically returned to the festival grounds again and again, under fire, to save complete strangers. At around 15:30 he...
May 06, 2024•19 min•Season 7Ep. 67
Next week, millions of Jews around the world will sit down at their Passover tables, for what will invariably be a very different kind of seder. The timeless question of how this night, or this Pesach, is different from all other nights, and all other Pesachs, has gained an entirely new - and tragic - dimension since October 7th. And few, if any, have thought about this matter more than forty-three year old Mishael Zion, a liberal Orthodox rabbi and Jewish educator from Jerusalem. In 1997,...
Apr 18, 2024•29 min•Season 7Ep. 66
The horrific events of October 7th reminded many people of the darkest chapter in Jewish history - the Holocaust. And indeed, for the past six months, there have been as many comparisons to the Shoah as there have been critiques of those comparisons. Of the roughly 130,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today, just under 10,000 reside in Jerusalem. Many of them participate in the Jerusalem Foundation’s Café Europa , which offers a physical meeting place, a wide range of social and cu...
Apr 11, 2024•22 min•Season 7Ep. 65
In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai - an Assistant Professor at Columbia University - became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak ...
Mar 31, 2024•27 min•Season 7Ep. 64
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Mar 19, 2024•27 min•Season 7Ep. 63
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 o...
Mar 05, 2024•15 min•Season 7Ep. 62
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...
Feb 23, 2024•19 min•Season 7Ep. 61
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 16, 2024•5 min
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 unsett...
Feb 07, 2024•19 min•Season 7Ep. 60
