 JULY 23 • 2020 | 29

viewed celebrities such as bas-
ketball player Amar’
e Stoudemire 
and Arab-Israeli news anchor 
Lucy Aharish. Additionally, the 
Zoom festival featured a live 
concert, a cooking class and a 
self-portrait workshop. Inman 
said the event garnered huge 
support and attracted people 
from all over the world, includ-
ing Americans, Australians and 
South Africans. 
“Everything came together in 
this very magical way,
” Inman 
said. “People were reaching out 
to us for weeks afterwards saying 
how bright a light it was.
” 
In addition to their impromptu 
Zoom festival, Israel Story has 
had to adapt their fifth season 
to a world under COVID. The 
show now includes a COVID-
19 mini-series, entitled “
Alone, 
Together.
” The first episode of the 
fifth season, released on June 30, 
shares moments of celebrations 
in Israel during a health crisis 
quarantine. The episode features 

the story of a Chabad rabbi and 
the extraordinary lengths he 
went to for his newborn son to 
have a bris, which included char-
tering a private jet to Ben Gurion 
Airport. 
Inman said that all podcasts 
are having to figure out how to 
weather the current health crisis 
and economic climate. But she 
added that the show’
s response 
to the pandemic, including the 
mini-series and other online 
events facilitated through the 
Israel Story Facebook page, has 
come with some silver linings. 
“It’
s been bringing our show clos-
er to our audience in a way that I 
wouldn’
t have expected,
” Inman 
said. 

THE FUTURE OF ISRAEL STORY 
Though the podcast has shifted 
course during the health crisis 
to tell the story of Israel during 
COVID, Harman said he looks 
forward to the opportunity to 
continue to share more narratives 

through the podcast. He said 
his work on the show has given 
him an eye-opening perspective 
on the limitations of his own life 
experiences and presumptions 
about others. 
“You feel that you know so 
much about someone that it 
almost obviates the need to talk 
to them,
” Harman said. “Having 
worked on this project for near-
ly a decade, if I’
ve learned one 
thing, it’
s how rarely people actu-
ally conform to stereotypes.
”
In the future, Harman said he 
is excited to continue to expand 
the diversity of the podcast’
s 
audience. He explains that orig-
inally, Jews composed about 
90% of Israel Story’
s listeners. 
Now, that figure is closer to 75%, 
indicating a broader diversity of 
listeners. 
Inman said the diversity of 
voices on the show remains 
paramount as well. She said the 
podcast’
s multidimensional nar-
ratives take listeners outside of 

their comfort zone and beyond a 
“Birthright version” of Israel. 
“I think it’
s good for people 
who love Israel, and I think it’
s 
good for people who are critical 
of Israel to have their conception 
of the place expanded each time 
they listen to one of our stories,
” 
she said. 
In the end, Harman hopes 
these narratives will help listen-
ers expand beyond their own 
echo chambers. While he tries 
to avoid overtly political content 
on the podcast, he noted that 
ultimately, the deeper premise of 
Israel Story, and the original goals 
behind the show, are inherently 
political ones. 
“The idea is that a person is 
a person,
” he said. “
And we will 
only benefit as a society if we 
listen to each other and if we 
open our minds to seeing what 
life is like through someone else’
s 
eyes.
” 

Download episodes at israelstory.org.

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