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The Upfront Podcast

Thought-provoking, in-depth talks with incredible people, thinkers, experts, change-makers, leaders & community influencers from around the world.

Listen wherever you usually get your podcasts. Send us your comments, remarks, questions, and opinions in writing or as an audio recording through one of these channels:
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E-Mail [email protected]

19/09/2025

My guest today is Roy Barkan , a writer, performer, and public figure from Israel. He is the son of the late prominent Israeli actor and pop culture phenomenon Yehuda Barkan. Roy wrote a book based on his life experiences that touches on many topics that you don’t usually hear much about.

We are talking about his life’s story, including having celebrity friends with addictions to drugs, and how this ultimately landed him in prison. Roy is also talking about how his life unfolded, all while living under the scrutiny of being in the public eye, his experience with overcoming addiction, and ultimately, we’ll get to hear about the relationship with his late father.

Find more information on Roy along with resources for help with addiction in the show notes.

12/08/2024

The new cover for The Upfront Podcast is finally up. 🙌🏼
Catch up on previous episodes before the next episode airs!

17/05/2024

Eitan Chitayat is a creative director, copywriter and brand-builder, and founder of the Natie Branding Agency in Tel Aviv. Eitan has been delivering branding campaigns for B2C and B2B clients for over 25 years. He has lived in Hong Kong, London, Tel Aviv, New York, and Boston, working with clients such as Google, Volkswagen, American Express, and Toyota, as well as Israeli companies like Amdocs, NICE, The Jewish Agency for Israel, and Taglit. In 2015, he created the viral video “I’m That Jew” which has been viewed over 15 million times on various platforms. He also gave a TED talk about why he created the piece. He’s consistently been an advocate for Israel and the Jewish People, gaining a following on social media, but since October 7th he has dedicated all of his time to fighting Jew hatred and anti-semitism, focusing on building Jewish pride.

We are speaking about his advocacy work, how we as a minority need to get better at advocating for ourselves to change the current narrative, and how we should be talking to our Jewish kids about how to deal with what’s going on and how to explain this spreading hatred. Eitan and I are also talking about the value and importance of integrity, as we attempt to find a reason behind so much misinformation being spread about Israel, the war, and the Jewish people, with age-old blood libels resurfacing, holocaust inversion and relativization and other forms of antisemitism, as well as who is leading, driving and funding the pro-Hamas/anti-Jewish, supposedly pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

👉 Listen to the full conversation on all podcast platforms or at the link in the bio 🎧

Join the conversation and leave us your comments, remarks, and opinions below.

14/03/2024

My guest today is the eloquent Yirmiyahu Danzig, known as on social media. Yirmiyahu is an educator and activist for Jewish and indigenous rights. He holds a degree in Political Science, Homeland Security, and Public Diplomacy. Yirmiyahu will tell us how his own family background led to him inherently feeling and thinking more intersectional and realizing that there is a need for social justice and education overall.

Today, we are talking about Jewish identity, values and visibility, our own personal feelings about the hate we are being subjected to as a people, the danger of antisemitism and anti-jewish caricatures and stereotypes festering and remaining unchecked, as well as about why and how antisemitism differentiates from other forms of xenophobia.
Yirmiyahu and I are addressing the identity crisis and dichotomy of Jewish people in the diaspora trying to fit in while attempting to reconcile with the increasingly apparent becoming feeling of never truly belonging, what the current situation is like for Jewish students, specifically on university campuses in the United States, and we’re also addressing even the short-term dangers of aligning ourselves with politically right wing ideologies due to a supposed solidarity with the Jewish people and Israel as an extension,.. Yirmiyahu is also speaking on how terminology is a determining factor of how a narrative is formed, the Jews returning to their ancestral homeland being the most successful project of Decolonization, and how the diverse society of Israel, including, Muslims, Arabs and Druze are feeling. Yirmiyahu also speaks directly to our listeners who are parents of Jewish kids about how to talk to them about who and what they are, and why we as Jews owe it to our people and our ancestors to speak up.

👉 Listen to the full episode at the link in the bio.

Unpacked on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/
On instagram

08/02/2024

My guest is Matan Peretz, who makes a living as a comedian in Israel, and as an Israeli citizen he also serves in the IDF when called up for reserve duty. Matan has been using his platform to advocate for Israel, and against terrorism and will be sharing some important points of his activism and the social media information war. Based on his own experience, Matan will tell us about what life is like in Judea and Samaria, otherwise referred to as “settlements” in the West Bank, and how they have had to experience similar violence to what Hamas perpetrated on October 7th, 2023, long before any antisemites on social media caught wind of it that are now calling for the eradication of the entire Jewish people.

Matan graciously took time out of his busy schedule between serving in defense of our country and performing comedy to talk about various points in this war between Israel and Hamas. We are touching on the United Nations‘ countless antisemitic resolutions, history revisionism running rampant online on social media platforms, and how Israel is held to a different standard than any other sovereign country ever that has come under attack by terrorists. Matan and I are also discussing gun ownership in Israel in comparison to the United States, and why there are no school shootings in Israel. We are also talking about how far indoctrination of hate and brainwashing can go, or whether evil could be a basic human trait that just needs to be activated, whether there is a difference between the motivation of the N***s and the Islamic terrorists of Hamas, and what the aftermath of this war could look like.

👉 Listen to the full conversation at the link in the bio or wherever you listen to podcasts.

10/01/2024

Have you listened to the latest episode with Cécile Nebbot .cecile on The Upfront Podcast yet? Stay tuned for the next one where we continue our conversation and deliver the ultimate reckoning!
👉 Listen to this and all other episodes for free on all streaming platforms or at the link in the bio.

Photo credit & rights: Christian Werner

12/10/2023

This is not the time to be silent. Stand up, speak up, stand with 🇮🇱.
This is the time to unequivocally make your stance known.

24/08/2023

My guest today is Raul Krauthausen . He lives in Berlin, Germany, and is a well-known activist and author who advocates for the inclusion of disabled people, basing his work on his own life and experience because Raul was born with Osteogenesis imperfecta and is therefore using a wheelchair. Raul is a published author of several books about inclusion, disability, and activism, with his latest book being “Whoever wants inclusion, finds a way. Whoever doesn’t want it, will find excuses”.

Raul and I are talking about his work as an activist, what parents should consider teaching their kids about people with disabilities, and how we as adults can learn to reflect on our own behavior or how we can unlearn prejudicial thinking patterns. Once again, we will be hearing about the issue of people making decisions about a community that they are not part of without including or hearing any people from the community to base these decisions on.

👉 Listen to the full podcast episode at the link in the bio.

Join the conversation and leave us your comments, remarks, and opinions.

10/08/2023

Ainhoa Martinelli .ginia.ainhoa._ is from Switzerland and is 19 years old. She works in a Montessori school and will begin to study geography in the fall. Ainhoa started her activist work in her early teenage years with Fridays for Future. She is now an active part of various international climate movements such as the Global Climate Strike, Debt4Climate, and the Global Youth Biodiversity Network, making her the perfect person to talk to about the issues we will all have to face.

Ainhoa and I will be talking about activist burnout, the dark side of volunteer tourism, what the climate movement has to do with the exploitation of formerly colonized countries, the climate crisis overall, and how Eurocentrism, privilege, and inequity are often disregarded factors that should be taken into account in environmental discussions. We are also talking about how our consumerist ways are hindering environmental protection efforts and what we can do to decrease the pace at which this planet is dying.

👉 Listen to the full episode at the link in the bio.

10/02/2023

The first episode of season 2 is out!

My guest is Rabbi Akiva Weingarten , born and raised in the Jewish ultraorthodox “Satmar” community in New York. He decided to leave the community, lived abroad for many years, then studied “Jewish Studies” in Germany and eventually became the Rabbi for two liberal Jewish communities in Switzerland and Germany. His own book by the title “Ultraorthodox” has recently been published.

We are talking about Judaism specifically, other religions, spirituality, and also what it was like for him to leave his old life behind. How he dealt with the struggles of entering a whole new world, redefining himself, and how his stance on identity, religion, and spirituality has changed. He will also tell us what he thinks of pop culture depictions of ultraorthodox Jews, such as the Unorthodox series on Netflix.

👉 Listen to the full episode at the link in the bio or wherever you listen to podcasts.

07/02/2023

The Upfront Podcast has been listened to across 32 countries in 2022! I am so grateful for the support you all have shown this podcast, and for the people that were open to sharing and discussing their stories, talking about important societal matters and their convictions to making a difference. ✨
Let‘s spread this podcast even farther in this new season, airing this coming Thursday!

Send in your story, topic, observation or commentary via email to [email protected] and make sure you are subscribed to The Upfront Podcast on your preferred podcast platform, so you know right away when new episodes are available to listen to. I‘d greatly appreciate it if you could leave a review wherever you are usually listening to the podcast, so that it will reach even more people.

09/12/2022

Have you happened to listen to Episode 22 yet?

My guest Naftali Aklum is a public speaker and lecturer from the Beta Israel, the community of Ethiopian Jews. He tells us of his family’s harrowing journey to Israel and what Ethiopian Jews are facing, the split between forced assimilation and respecting one’s own identity while dealing with systemic discrimination and racism.

Find Naftali on Instagram at
The Yerus Project at www.jewsofethiopia.com

👉 Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at the link in the bio.

You can join the conversation and leave us your comments, remarks, and opinions down below. If you have an important topic, thought-provoking observation, or experience to share that needs more awareness and should be discussed, reach out to us at [email protected].

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