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About
Israel is often known through headlines steeped in strife. But the core realities of everyday life can be very different. In Israeli Voices: Who We Are, an eight-episode podcast, CITIZENARTS presents observations and heartfelt conversations with a wide spectrum of Israelis. These are not formal interviews but unvarnished moments – in homes, classrooms, on city streets, in businesses and in communities shaped by cultures rooted in history, myth, calamity – triumph.
As the series unfolds, common perspectives emerge — from people with widely varied backgrounds: Jewish and Palestinian citizens, native-born and immigrants from European and Muslim countries, the secular and the deeply religious.
What comes into focus is the humanity of a diverse, complicated, in some ways deeply divided society that is little or largely misunderstood by the world outside. Their voices blend into a truthful rendering of who Israelis are.
In the final episode, some of them come together in a forum to share opinions about their country — and to debate and ponder what comes next for Israel and its place in the Middle East and the world.
This podcast is available at Apple Podcasts, any of the platforms listed above, or wherever you get your shows. For your convenience, you can also listen to Israeli Voices: Who We Are, by clicking the episode links below. For more information, contact jeff.lewis@citizenartscreative.org
Listen to Israeli Voices: Who We Are
Israeli Voices: Who We Are - Trailer
Jill Gabbe, co-founder and executive producer of CITIZENARTS, introduces Israeli Voices: Who We Are, an eight-episode podcast of on-the-ground conversations across a spectrum of Israeli life. Perspectives emerge shaped by personal identity, history, and experience — revealing the humanity of a people striving to live freely with dignity and mutual respect in peace.
Israeli Voices: Who We Are - Episode One
In the Negev, a few kilometers from Israel’s border with Gaza, many come to reflect, remember, mourn at memorials on Blood Road and at the Nova Music Festival. There and at kibbutzim nearby on October 7, 2023, Hamas military forces and Gazan militants began attacks that killed 1200 Israelis.
In two of the attacked kibbutzim, Eyal, Nevo and their wives and children sheltered in their homes, the sounds of battle and massacre around them. They were rescued and evacuated by the Israeli Army. Settled in another community, Nevo and his wife remain uncertain they will return to their restored kibbutz. Eyal travels to his kibbutz from his temporary home to work and walk within sites and memories of the attack and the murdered. He and his wife and children await the day they’ll live there again and maybe, eventually, walk in peace from their home to the Gaza Strip and across to the Mediterranean Sea.
Israeli Voices: Who We Are - Episode Two
Families picnicking, playing, munching cookies and quiche at an outdoor café in the Judean hills. Carefree, joyful expressions in Hebrew and English. A seeming impossible scenario – especially for foreigners who think of Israel as mostly tempests. Looking closer, one notices the dads wearing holstered pistols frolicking with kids. Reminders of ever-present danger.
A few miles away, a serene community built around a vineyard. A lunch celebrating the end of Shabbat hosted by Nissim, an entrepreneur who discourses about Israel as a meritocracy of opportunity regardless of race or background. Where capitalism flourishes in a socialist system. But also where taxes and other mounting costs of daily life are magnified by war and costs of social welfare for the Haredim – Israel’s fast-growing ultra-orthodox Jewish community. And where parents worry and are challenged about guiding children through social media distractions and looming, life-altering commitments to military service.
Further along, Tel Aviv’s economic prowess, Mediterranean beachy, café vibe, incoming missile terrors, Hostage Square remembrance of the damaged and lost. And Noa, a groundbreaking, politically correct journalist, sharing family stories of racial inequity and of feminist influences on Israeli journalism, police brutality, gender harmony.
Israeli Voices: Who We Are - Episode Three
Considering the roots of the provocative slogan “From the River to the Sea” – and sensitivities about how Jews and Palestinians in Israel identify themselves and each other.
A small town famed for the first Aliyah – the first arrival of Jews in Palestine from Eastern Europe. And in a tree-shaded corner of the local cemetery a chilling interlude where early Jewish settlers rest beside Israeli soldiers killed in battles past and present.
Mount Carmel – where the Prophet Elijah brought fire on pagan worshipers, and Technion – Israel’s MIT – drives Israel’s technology chutzpah, and there are panoramic views of the Mediterranean port city of Haifa, noted for relatively harmonious coexistence of Jews and Palestinians.
At the Technion, a tech student dreams of his role in Israel’s self-proclaimed “start-up nation.”
In Haifa, Rasool – lawyer, grassroots activist – considers what it means to be Palestinian in a Jewish state in conflict with Muslims. How Palestinians and Jews can move past historic enmities, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination to build meaningful connections.
Credits
Jim Gabbe - Founder and director
Jill S. Gabbe - Executive producer
Jeff Lewis - Producer and artistic director
Hilik Wald - Israel field producer
Israeli Voices: What We Are is courtesy of gabbegroup Productions. All rights are reserved. CITIZENARTS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.