Join Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback as he talks with an eclectic variety of thinkers, artists, and change-makers about their experiences (Jewish or otherwise) and their own search for meaning and purpose in their lives.
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Episodes
Search for Meaning With Orly Erez-Likhovski
In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Orly Erez-Likhovski, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center. Erez-Likhovski is an expert in the Israeli judicial system and the reasonableness doctrine, which have been the target of a massive reform push by the far-right current ruling government. Erez-Likhovski helps listeners understand the controversy surrounding judicial reform, which has fueled massive protests and a historic level of civil unrest in the Jewish state over the last seven months. Having graduated from the Faculty of Law at Tel Aviv University, clerked at the Israeli Supreme Court, and earned her master's in law from Columbia, Erez-Likhovski is a member of both the Israeli and the New York bar, and has argued multiple cases in front of the Israeli Supreme Court. She is, then, perhaps better equipped than most legal [...]
Search for Meaning With Suzanne Horwich
In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts artist and educator Suzanne Horwich. Horwich, who hails from Rabbi Yoshi's hometown of Omaha, is the founder of Artists Giving Back, a program she started to bolster the spirits of Ukrainian refugees who have fled their warn-torn country for Poland. Horwich has long been drawn to the Syrian refugee crisis, but felt helpless as the world turned a blind eye to the horrors wrought by the Assad regime. When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, she resolved to take action. She eventually connected with Jonathan Ornstein, a friend of Wise and the head of the Krakow Jewish Community Center, which has pivoted from rebuilding the shattered Polish Jewish community to providing food, aid, medical supplies, and housing to those fleeing Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces. The former Director [...]
Search for Meaning With Ben M. Freeman
In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts Ben M. Freeman, author, educator, and founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement. Born in Scotland, Freeman rose to prominence during the Corbyn Labour Jew-hate crisis and quickly became one of his generation's leading voices against anti-Jewish racism. In February of 2021, he published Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People, which became known as the Jewish Pride manifesto. In October of 2022, he followed that book up with Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride, the second in what will become a groundbreaking trilogy when he publishes his finale in 2024. Freeman's journey to Jewish Pride marries two distinct identities and experiences. For a long time, his identity as a gay man and his Jewish identity were, as he puts it "totally separate." While he was raised in a [...]
Search for Meaning With Rabbi Dr. Michael Marmur
In this edition of his Search for Meaning podcast, Stephen Wise Temple Senior Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback hosts writer, educator, and human rights advocate Rabbi Michael Marmur, Ph.D. Until 2018, Rabbi Marmur served as the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Before that, he served as Dean of HUC-JIR's Jerusalem campus, where he hired a young Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback to be the Director of HUC-JIR's Year-in-Israel Program in 2009. A published author, passionate educator, and inquisitive historian, Rabbi Marmur thinks critically about the evolving role of spirituality and what it means to be religious in modern Jewish life. With his wry British sense of humor and a quick wit, Rabbi Marmur is an expert storyteller, using anecdotes and keen observations to illustrate philosophical ideas. A board member of Rabbis for Human Rights, Rabbi Marmur also shares what spurred him [...]