Unpacked

Welcome to Soulful Jewish Living: Mindful Practices for Every Day with me, Josh Feigelson. I’m grateful you’re here, and I hope you benefit from our time together. My Dad used to say there were two vistas on the road that, when he saw them, he felt like he was coming home. One of them was on US-23 heading south towards our hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan. There’s a spot where you come over a hill and look down at the Huron River and the city rising on the other side.

Yael: The British patrolling the seas, they intercepted this letter with the Declaration of Independence in it. And because it was written in Yiddish, they thought it was a code. They had no idea what it was. and they spent some time trying to decipher it and were never able to. Yael: From Unpacked, this is Jewish History Nerds, the podcast where we nerd out on awesome stories in Jewish history. I’m Yael Steiner. Schwab: And I’m Jonathan Schwab.

When Dani Alter moved to Rahat, Israel’s largest Bedouin city, he entered a world few outsiders ever see. Living there with his wife, working along the city’s Cultural Mile, and becoming known as the only Jew in town, Dani’s story offers a rare look at daily life, identity, and community in Rahat, and what it means to build a home across one of Israel’s most unexpected divides. You can find this video on our YouTube channel Unpacked.

For nearly a thousand years, the Jewish Temple stood at the center of Jewish life. Inside were sacred objects unlike anything else in the ancient world: the Ark of the Covenant, the golden Menorah, perpetual altars, and more. Some disappeared thousands of years ago. Others still shape Jewish practice today. What made these objects so important, and why do their echoes remain in Jewish life?

1. Jewish friends reminisce in "Birthright" a new play at the MCC Theater in Manhattan. (Emilio Madrid) In a riveting scene from the Apple TV+ World War II series “Masters of the Air,” Nate Mann plays Lt. Robert Rosenthal, a Jewish American bomber pilot who discovers the bodies of Jews murdered by the Nazis.

Schwab: I’m picturing Asser Levy as like the guy. We all know this guy, right? Who like in your commun right, like Yael: He’s got five beepers. Schwab: he just like knows how to get everything done. You know? Asser Levy’s that guy. Yeah. The original Yeah. Yael: Yes, yes. He was he was a macher. To use to use a Yiddishism, because he was an Ashkenazi among Sephardim, he was a macher. From Unpacked, this is Jewish History Nerds, the podcast where we nerd out on awesome stories in Jewish history.

For much of Jewish history, freedom was fleeting. Across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, Jewish communities built synagogues, schools, businesses, and vibrant cultural lives. Some flourished for generations, even centuries. But again and again, the pattern repeated itself. A ruler changed. A war broke out. An empire fell. Jews were expelled, forced to convert, confined to ghettos, or killed. Jewish history often became a story of beginning again somewhere else. Then came the United States.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men gather for prayers and a reading from the biblical Book of Lamentations at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on August 2, 2025, during the annual Tisha B'Av (Ninth of Av) fasting and memorial day, commemorating the destruction of ancient Jewish temples some 2000 years ago.

America’s story has never been shaped by just one group of people. It’s a tapestry woven together by generations of immigrants, dreamers, innovators, activists, artists, and entrepreneurs, each leaving their own mark on the country. For much of history, Jews faced legal restrictions and persecution around the world.

A participant waves an Israeli flag and a rainbow flag with a Star of David above a crowd during the annual Pride Parade in Tel Aviv, Israel, on June 12, 2026. The event marks the 28th edition of the parade and the first since the October 7 attacks. Recognized as the largest Pride march in the Middle East, the gathering in the Israeli coastal metropolis was expected to draw around 150,000 people.