The Chutzpah Podcast

Join us for our final episode in Season 1 of the Chutzpah podcast with special guest, Adina Miles — a.k.a. Flatbush Girl. Miles made waves last year when she kicked off the #FrumWomenHaveFaces campaign, a social media effort to protest the trend among Orthodox media to remove or blot out photographs of women. And she hasn't slowed down since. This past summer, Miles ran for Democratic district leader in the 45th Assembly District. While she did not win, she garnered 3,000 signatures and an outpouring of support. Tune in here to hear Flatbush Girl talk about the "glamour" of politics, the pride she takes in her civic duty, the power of social media and the nearly-impossible task of surviving as a "feminist in Flatbush." Her determination to fight for women and other marginalized segments of the Orthodox community has lost her many friends (and even family members), but has been well worth the cost, she says. For inspiration on how to keep fighting the good fight — whoever and wherever you are — tune into the rebel rouser fighting to have her voice heard, no matter the consequences. You won't want to miss this episode.

Welcome back to Chutzpah — we hope you survived the High Holidays. This episode, we sit down with David Halperin, executive director of the Israel Policy Forum, a non-profit working to shape the discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Halperin, a former journalist at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, speaks about developing his sense of Jewish identity (and audacity) as the "only Jewish kid" growing up in a suburb of Phoenix, A.Z. We talk about what it takes to represent the complex international gridlock in the Middle East and take-aways from his most recent trip to Israeli communities near the Gaza border. Oh — and the time neo-Nazis tried to beat him up in high school for wearing a Magen David necklace, and the unlikely group that came to his defense — this and more, on the latest episode of Chutzpah.

In this episode of The Chutzpah Podcast, we chat with Lani Santo, Executive Director of Footsteps, a non-profit organization that assists those leaving the Ultra-Orthodox community. The organization, which remains a source of controversy within the Orthodox world, was most-recently featured in "One Of Us," a 2017 Netflix documentary that follows three ultra-Orthodox individuals as they part ways with their pasts. Here, Santo opens up about the process of collaborating on the poignant film, the intricate ways in which gender continues to play a role in the lives of those breaking with the ultra-Orthodox community and how her own Modern Orthodox upbringing impacts her work. Chutzpah guaranteed.

This week on Chutzpah, meet chasidic activist — and feminist — Layah Kranz Lipsker. An outspoken advocate for women navigating their way out of lapsed Orthodox marriages, Lipsker is the founder of GetYourGet.com, an initiative that aims to educate women about the often-entangled Orthodox divorce, or get, process. Lipsker is also the director of the Boston Agunah Taskforce, a project that advocates for women seeking a Jewish divorce, an (unconventional) rebbetzin and a mother of six. Tune in for a frank conversation about the tremendous challenges, and hard-earned triumphs, of a committed, tenacious and often-conflicted Orthodox feminist.

This week on Chutzpah, meet Peter Shankman -- author, entrepreneur, licensed skydiver and Ironman triathlon veteran. Shankman — who helped found AOL Newsroom and founded HARO (Help A Reporter Out), a listserv database that helps reporters get the information quickly — also has ADHD, and he's not quiet about it. Over the past few years, he has worked to reframe the conditions commonly thought of as "disorders" as gifts. On his podcast, "Faster Than Normal," Shankman interviews people who succeed not despite neuroatypical conditions like ADHD or dyslexia, but because of them. If you want to know more about Shankman's simple rules for life-success, outrageous physical feats and how to rise against the odds, you're in the right place.