People Jew Wanna Know
by People Jew Wanna Know
Welcome to People Jew Wanna Know, a podcast sharing stories of remarkable Jewish people! Hosted by Margarita Lyadova, each episode features conversations with interesting Jewish guests of today and historical figures who’ve shaped Jewish culture and identity. Together, we seek answers to today's essential questions facing the Jewish people. New episodes every Wednesday.Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @peoplejewwannaknow for extras, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.Support our work here: buymeacoffee.com/peoplejewwannaknow
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Episodes
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Jeff Garlin Loves Being Jewish!
Jeff Garlin has been doing stand-up for over 40 years, played Larry David's manager Jeff Greene on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Murray Goldberg on The Goldbergs, and voiced characters in Pixar's WALL-E and Toy Story. What most fans don't know: he's also a serious photographer who waded through 20,000 of...
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Slam Frank: Andrew Fox on Satire Without Limits
Andrew Fox is the creator and composer of Slam Frank, the satirical hip-hop musical that reimagines Anne Frank's story. "Every woman is a Jew hiding in her own attic," the show proclaims. After going viral online, it made its off-Broadway debut in 2025 and was named one of the New York Times'…
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The Case For Liberal Zionism - Shanie Reichman
Shanie Reichman is a rising star in the NYC Jewish non-profit scene. Today, she directs strategic initiatives at Israel Policy Forum and hosts the new podcast, Disputed Territory, where she makes the case for liberal Zionism to people who think the phrase is a contradiction. In a conversation...
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Rabbi Wolpe - What Happened to Jewish Peoplehood?
Rabbi David Wolpe has been described as one of the most influential Rabbis in America. He's known for his pointed debates on the importance of religion, his outspokenness on current affairs, and a desire to shape today's Jewish leaders and their passion for Judaism. In this episode, Rabbi shares...
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Lindsay Pinchuk: It's Never Wrong to Do What's Right
Lindsay Pinchuk built a seven-figure company from scratch, sold it, and became a mentor to hundreds of women over 40 who thought it was too late to start. Then, October 8th, 2023 happened. She posted a video in the parking lot of Whole Foods about what it felt like to be a Jewish American woman,...
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Gila Pfeffer - The Jewish Way To Grieve
Gila Pfeffer lost her mother at 20 and her grandmother before that — both to cancers she carried the genetic blueprint for. So she did something very atypical at the time: a preventative double mastectomy in 2008, years before Angelina Jolie made the choice a norm. Unfortunately, Gila got breast...
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The Jews Are The Winningest Team in Human History — Rabbi Leor Sinai
Rabbi Leor Sinai changed Margarita's life before he ever met her. He ran Alexander Muss High School in Israel, the program that completely shaped Margarita's Jewish identity. Years later, they finally sit down together. Now, Leor is serving as the Senior Vice President at the Israel Innovation...
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Dara Horn - Why We Need More Courage, Not Knowledge
Dara Horn, by her own admission, hates arguing with people. So how did the author of *People Love Dead Jews* become one of the sharpest, most fearless voices confronting antisemitism today? Necessity, mostly. And a refusal to keep pretending. In her return to the show, Dara unpacks her new book,...
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Building NYC's Magic Empire - Nadav Roet
Nadav Roet started doing magic at 4 years old in Israel, moved to Amsterdam to live in his Holocaust-survivor grandfather's hometown, and landed in New York — where he now runs The Bluff, the city's underground magic show built for the young, cool crowd. He's an award-winning mentalist featured…
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Harrison Greenbaum: A Jewish Magician’s Guide to Reading People
Harrison Greenbaum does 900 shows a year. The Harvard grad turned comedian-magician has been called "the hardest working man in comedy." He's also the guy who wrote his college thesis on whether jokes can make people less racist. Turns out the answer is complicated — and there's one type of humor...
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Chloe Hechter - People's Jewish American Princess
Chloe Hechter calls herself "the People's Jewish American Princess," and she means it as a mission, not a punchline. Former child actor, recovering sorority girl, and now a comedy creator with 300,000+ followers, she's spent years reclaiming an insult and turning...
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The Power of Quiet Confidence - Yardenne Greenspan
Yardenne Greenspan is a Tel Aviv-born writer and Hebrew translator whose work appears in numerous publications and has earned notable awards. She's married to Shai Davidai (yes, that one — Activist, former Columbia professor, and Margarita's viral early guest), but she's built her own formidable...
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Eitan Levine - Looking For Allies Before Enemies
Eitan Levine - you know him, you love him. He's a popular Jewish comedian, political commentator, and the man behind the beloved "Jewish or Antisemitic" series. This episode goes deeper than expected. Eitan opens up about the sarcoma that shaped his teens and twenties. He also delivers a…
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"Zionists for Zohran" with Adam Malev
Adam Malev has performed at over 1,000 stand-up shows, built an app that maps every open mic in New York City, and once did a full minute of 9/11 jokes on Kill Tony. He's a proud Zionist, the self-proclaimed last Jew in his family's lineage, and — brace yourself — a genuine, non-satirical Zohran...
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Transcending Hate w/Arno Michaelis (former white supremacist)
Arno Michaelis is a former Neo-Nazi turned activist, writer, and tremendous ally to the Jewish people. He was a founding member of a racist skinhead crew, lead singer of a hate metal band, reverend in a violently antisemitic church — and then he walked away, worn down by exhaustion and undone by...
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Raheel Raza on Muslims and Jews in an Age of Tension
Raheel Raza is a Pakistani-Canadian author, journalist, and president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow. She'll help you understand everything you'd like to know about Radical Islam. She's testified at the UN, spoken at Harvard and Oxford, and visited Israel 14 times. She also happens to be one of the...
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Marina the Marathon Princess: All Miles, All Smiles
Marina the Marathon Princess has run 76 marathons, finished multiple Ironmans, and walked the entire length of Israel. Her running joke, pun intended, is that she's one of the slowest people doing some of the hardest races in the world. Marina is an activism trendsetter who printed "Stand With...
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Brianna Wu - It's Time To Change The Left
Brianna Wu is the voice of reason on the left. The video game developer turned political commentator turned Democratic insider has spent her career being first to name what other people are too scared to say out loud — and she brings that same clarity to one of the most uncomfortable…
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Everything Misunderstood About Iran - Shay Khatiri
Shay Khatiri grew up in an Iranian Communist household where his dad handed him Das Kapital at age 12 — and somehow ended up a neoconservative Persian researcher at CAMERA, fighting media bias against Israel. Shay knows more about Jewish life than most Jews, and will absolutely turn off your…
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The Office's Andy Buckley: On Comedy w/ Conscience
Andy Buckley is David Wallace. You know him. You love him. But before he was Steve Carell's perfectly straight-faced boss at Dunder Mifflin, he spent years as a Merrill Lynch wealth manager — which explains why his corporate deadpan hits so painfully right. He's also one of the most thoughtful…
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Goy You Will Enjoy Returns | SOLO EPISODE
Margarita returns for a solo episode to catch you up on the comeback of the “Goy You Will Enjoy” season — dedicated to the allies showing up for the Jewish community — and the current state of Jinsta. She also reads a powerful letter from a listener about intermarriage that sparked one of the…
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The Art of Looking Like Yourself - Dr. Monasebian
Dr. Monasebian is a board-certified plastic surgeon, and the man Margarita personally trusts with her own face. A Forest Hills native, Brandeis graduate, and proud half-Sephardic, half-Ashkenazi Jew, Dr. Monasebian has built a reputation not just for exceptional results, but for telling patients...
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Rebecca Brooks — PR, Presence & Power
Rebecca Brooks is the dark horse behind some of the biggest food and lifestyle personalities you know — Rachael Ray, Andrew Zimmern, Guy Fieri, Jacques Torres, Robert Irvine. She founded the Brooks Group at 25 out of her husband's family office in New York, and basically helped invent the...
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Ari’el Stachel - Playing the Other
Ariel Stachel—Tony winner for The Band's Visit—gets brutally honest about learning to “act” by hiding parts of himself, and what it took to finally stop. We get into his solo show Other, the identity whiplash growing up post 9/11, and why he’s willing to say the uncomfortable things—about…
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Neil Friedman: Hollywood's Quiet Powerhouse
Neil Friedman is the quiet powerhouse behind some of the most important Jewish cinema of the last two decades. As founder of Menemsha Films and ChaiFlicks — the world's largest Jewish streaming platform — he's racked up five consecutive Oscar-nominated films, championed hidden gems from six...
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The Mayor’s Jewish Guy - Moshe Davis
Moshe Davis was Mayor Eric Adams' Jewish liaison and architect of NYC's first-ever Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism — until he found out via tweet that the Mamdani administration was replacing him. He's the guy who handled everything from synagogue security to the "Israel Bombs Way" street...
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What Comes After Nova - Shye Klein
Shye Klein was just weeks into his new life in Israel when he drove into the Nova festival at 2 a.m. on October 7th. Before noon, he was back in Tel Aviv — alive, with five friends and a roll of film of people he might never see again. A Canadian-Israeli photographer who'd never owned a Hillel...
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L'Chaim Motherf*ckers with Jill Kargman
Jill Kargman is a New York Times bestselling author of 12 books, creator of Odd Mom Out, and a "shtetl chic" Manhattan Jewess. Margarita and Jill talk wig life, vaginal lasers, antisemitism in middle school, and why Jewish joy is the whole point. Jill found her voice the moment she stopped hiding...
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Antisemitism Is a Virus. Here's How It Spreads — Vlad Khaykin
Vlad Khaykin is the Head of North American Advocacy for the Simon Wiesenthal Center (and a former ADL veteran). He approaches antisemitism the way a scientist approaches a virus: studying its architecture, its mutations, and why it keeps infecting new hosts across centuries. This is an episode...
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Ham The Underwear Man
Sometimes you run into a guy in his underwear on the streets of NYC and do a mini pod with him! Ham is an artist best known for standing in his underwear & talking to strangers! Learn more about his art on Instagram @sweatpantcity Support our work: buymeacoffee.com/peoplejewwannaknow
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@Qveenjulia - Say It With Your Chest
This episode is NOT a joke ;). Julia Ain, also known as @qveenjulia, is a funny Jewish girl with big boobs who will make you laugh and blush at the same time. A viral content creator with over 1M followers online, she sits down with Margarita to share her story and reflect on being a proudly…
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Winning in the Court of Public Opinion — Scott Piro
Scott Piro is a communications strategist and Jewish advocate who has spent years shaping messaging around antisemitism, Israel, and Jewish communal response. After October 7, he went viral for sharing the moment he walked out of a recovery meeting when the conversation turned into the…
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Art From The Multiverse - Marc Dennis
Artist, Holocaust scholar, teacher, and devoted single dad, Marc Dennis joins People Jew Wanna Know with stories that sound almost unbelievable—from robberies to life on a Native American reservation and how it all led him to create hyper-realistic art. Follow Marc on Instagram @darcmennis and...
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What Brings Jews Back, And What Pushes Them Away - Rabbi Mark Wildes
Rabbi Mark Wildes of Manhattan Jewish Experience (MJE) joins Margarita to reflect on the debate from the People Jew Wanna Know 2 Year Anniversary Party, talk all things Kiruv, and discuss how young adults make sense of Judaism. Check out MJE at www.jewishexperience.org and follow them on…
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Bellamy Bellucci - The World Is Not Coming to Save You
Bellamy Bellucci is a sharp, self-aware Jewish activist who doesn’t shy away from calling herself “very insane” while asking some of the hardest questions facing our community today. In this episode, we learn about her incredible story straddling various identities - South-African, trans, Jewish,...
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Fleur Hassan-Nahoum - On Women, Power, & Zionism
Fleur Hassan‑Nahoum is an Israeli politician, policymaker, and diplomat currently serving as Israel’s Special Envoy for Trade & Innovation and Secretary‑General of Kol Israel in the World Zionist Congress, after completing her tenure as Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem. This episode is a communications...
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How To Tell Stories About War - Daniel Finkelman & Chaya Amor
HBO's One Day In October Co Creator and Producer Daniel Finkelman & Producer Chaya Amor, reconnect with Margarita to discuss the lasting impact of the show & their experience working closely with Oct 7th survivors along with Director and Co-creator Oded Davidoff and Producers Lee Kuperman and…
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Born to Debate, Chose To Do Naked Comedy - Omry Hananya
Traveling by plane, train, and carrier pigeon, comedian Omry Hananya joins People Jew Wanna Know to talk about his unusual upbringing, serving in the IDF, being a professional debater, and how all of that led him to comedy. Follow Omry on Instagram @the_angry_prophet and @omry_hananya_ Support…
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Live Taping: 2 Year Anniversary Event!
Inspired by the book The Condition of Jewish Belief, this first-of-its-kind event brings together 4 Rabbis from different Jewish movements for a bold public discussion—and likely some debate—on the most pressing questions facing Jews today: What are the most urgent spiritual or moral questions...
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Shabbat Schmooze: Ben Rozenshteyn
Bonus episode featuring Ben Rozenshteyn, co-owner of Suka Sushi and the entrepreneur behind Immunohealth and Normopharm. You will learn a ton about food insensitivity & welllness in this episode, as well as what it takes to run a viral sushi shop in Manhattan. Follow Suka Sushi on IG @sukasuhi_ny...
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Your Unhinged Is My Success — CEO of Lifeway, Julie Smolyansky
Julie Smolyansky is the immigrant founder and CEO of Lifeway Kefir, who turned a family business into a category-defining wellness brand—and did a some truly unhinged things along the way to make it work. In this episode, we talk about our shared Russian-speaking Jewish heritage, grit, raising…
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What Happens When Dating Apps Don’t Work - Adam Cohen-Aslatei
Adam Cohen-Aslatei — CEO of Three Day Rule and founder of the anti-superficial dating app S’More — joins People Jew Wanna Know to talks all things modern dating, why dating apps have failed us and how matchmaking and AI can save us. Together, we discuss how women need to get over their fear of...
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What Art Museums Leave Out - Beatrice Levine
Beatrice Levine, art historian, digital creator and graduate student pulls back the curtain on the art world - from Nazi-era restitution and Jewish art history to why museums are inherently political spaces. We talk art scandals, post-Oct 7th art, and what it's like for her to manage some of the...
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Benji Rosenzweig - Storied, Not Scared
Benji Rosenzweig - founder of Storied, special needs dad advocate, sobriety advocate, and proud Jewish atheist—joins People Jew Wanna Know for a conversation about parenting, faith, music, and Jewish continuity.What do people get wrong about special needs parenting? Why does Holocaust-centered...
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The Path To Conscious Content - Becky Tahel
Why be Jewish at all? Becky Tahel, writer, filmmaker, and conscious content creator helps us scratch the surface on this question. In this episode, Becky reflects on her vibrant creative career, the personal 180 that led her toward more intentional work, and what it really looks like to shift…
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Let Me Tell You Why Everyone Knows Jeremy Jacobowitz
Jeremy Jacobowitz is a New York–based content creator who is best known for his food reviews and iconic tagline - "Let Me Tell You Why." Margarita and Jeremy discuss why he chose to vote for Mamdani, what he makes of his 10+ year career, and how he's continuously evolving and improving as a…
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Noam Bardin - If There's A Will, There's A Waze
This week, Margarita sits down with Noam Bardin, the former Waze CEO whose ideas reshaped how the world moves. From his time serving in Gaza to the scrappy early days of Waze, Noam brings sharp opinions, unexpected stories, and a clarity that only comes from building something truly legendary. We...
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The Jewish Dating Game Debrief With Linnea Sage
Linnea Sage is the creator and host of The Jewish Dating Game, a live matchmaking show blending comedy, culture, and real connection. We talk about her path from voice acting to matchmaking, what she’s learned about modern dating, the AI lawsuit involving her and her partner Paul,...
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Shabbat Schmooze: Shimon Raskin
Bonus episode featuring Shimon Raskin, an entrepreneur in the college sponsorship and fraternity scene, and a Russian-speaking Jewish content creator with over 100,000 followers on TikTok. This is a real schmooze of an episode. Lighthearted, fun, and inspiring, Shimon and Margarita bond over…
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Press Play with Chantae Vetrice
Margarita sits down with Chantae Vetrice, a singer-songwriter and Black Jewish artist, to hear how her music and Jewish identity have evolved over time. Chantae traces how Judaism entered her life, how October 7 reshaped her experience as an artist, and what’s fueling the new music she’s about to...
About this show
Welcome to People Jew Wanna Know, a podcast sharing stories of remarkable Jewish people! Hosted by Margarita Lyadova, each episode features conversations with interesting Jewish guests of today and historical figures who’ve shaped Jewish culture and identity. Together, we seek answers to today's essential questions facing the Jewish people. New episodes every Wednesday.Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @peoplejewwannaknow for extras, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.Support our work here: buymeacoffee.com/peoplejewwannaknow
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