Our Friend From Israel

Mark Ivanir wanted to be an actor since he was five-years-old, but he made several pitstops along the way. First, he served as an Israeli spy who went undercover on a secret mission to rescue Jews out of Ethiopia. Then he took some time off and joined a circus – juggling and performing pantomime on the streets of Paris. Eventually, he returned to his first love and his start in Hollywood couldn't have gone better: One of his first roles was in Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." Since then, he has worked non-stop, appearing in more than 50 movies and television shows – and has starred alongside Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon and Robert De Niro. His latest role pairs him with yet another A-list star: two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank. They make up two of the five astronauts on the first human mission to Mars in a compelling new Netflix series called "Away." The journey is set to keep the astronauts 20 million miles away from their families for three years. Jason Katims, the show's executive producer, said that when the team first met Ivanir, he made everyone fall in love with him on the spot. “He has this humor, he has heart, and he also has this bravado," Katims explained. "It was so great because the show is dealing with big, high stakes issues. Mark has all of that, but he also brings humor to almost everything that he does and everything that he says. He has done everything from great comedic work to really wonderful dramatic work and we were just so excited to have him be part of this.” Ivanir found an unlikely muse for his role as a cocky, know-it-all astronaut with a sense of humor. “Someone I took inspiration from was my contractor,” Ivanir said, laughing. “He has nothing to do with space, but he cracks jokes all the time. That's his default. That's where he goes. He is emotionally armored. The character was written like that from the beginning and then I realized that that's the guy. It's funny, but it's true. No pilots or astronauts, just my contractor.” His previous career as a spy also helped, since he was able to completely embody a new character. And his time doing summersaults in Paris aided his work in the scenes where he's floating in zero-gravity. “We had to try to figure out how to move in space in terms of the speed and your ability to go forty-five degrees or to do a full circle on the wire. Luckily, I have a background as a circus performer so by the second day I was doing all kinds of backflips!” "Away" is a workplace drama set in outer space, but it's also a poignant tale for the historic moment in which we find ourselves. It's a story of flight, of possibility and of hope. The first season of the show debuts on Netflix on September 4th. In this new episode of our podcast, we caught up with Ivanir to talk about the new Netflix series, as well as his previous career as both a circus performer and an Israeli spy. Of all three of those careers, he told us he enjoys acting the most. "In many ways, it gives you an opportunity to do all of these things in a somewhat safe capacity. So, you can be a spy, and then the director says 'Cut!,' and you go and have a snack. It gives you the opportunity to get into so many characters and then leave them and be yourself. It's lovely."

Ira Glass single-handedly invented a radio genre with his audio documentary series "This American Life." Now in its 25th year, the show has more than 5 million weekly listeners. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When Mishy Harman, a Jerusalem native, first heard "This American Life," he knew the format was ripe for adaptation. And so he launched "Israel Story." The podcast has grown from a hobby between a few friends to a production that now includes 16 people – including musicians and editors. It boasts listeners from 194 countries and has upwards of two million downloads a year. The show recently kicked off its fifth season with stories from Israel including a mysterious clock heist that went unsolved for a quarter-of-a-century and nationwide protests over cottage cheese. Any culture is best explained by the stories people tell about it. Mishy Harman and his team are doing just that. We had a great conversation with Harman about the cross-country road trip that inspired his popular show, what his goals are for the future, and the story behind a circumcision that involved a luxury yacht, a private jet, and international intrigue befitting a James Bond movie.

Hagar Ben-Ari is an Israeli bass player who stumbled into one of the most sought-after gigs in television. As if that wasn't enough, she's also opened for Prince and the Rolling Stones. So how did a girl who grew up in a small town in Israel end up hanging out on a nightly basis with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks? You're about to find out. In this episode, we chatted about: - Her musical upbringing and how she used to harmonize with a telephone ringtone - How she got the gig at James Corden's show just two days before it launched - Her favorite part about working on the show - Her longtime girl of opening a music academy for girls - And much more... Just a quick note: We recorded this interview shortly before the corona outbreak, when Hagar was still going into the studio to tape the late night show. Earlier this spring, James Corden and the band started working remotely from home, with Hagar and her bandmates video conferencing in to play music each night. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

If you ever watched Oprah, you know she's a dog lover. And one of the reasons Oprah loves her dogs so much? They're well behaved. And she has Tamar Geller to thank for it. Oprah calls Tamar a life coach for dogs and their people. The talk show icon convinced Tamar to write a book about her dog training techniques and it instantly shot up the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into multiple languages. Once she appeared on Oprah, Tamar was everywhere – even becoming the resident dog expert for the Today Show. Tamar has since become a dog trainer to the stars. Her list of celebrity clients reads like a who's who of Hollywood: There's Ellen DeGeneres, Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron, Natalie Portman, Jennifer Aniston, Ryan Seacrest, Kelly Ripa, Owen Wilson, and Reese Witherspoon. Drive by her Los Angeles home and you might see Kyle MacLachlan picking up his Jack Russell-poodle mix or Pat Sajak dropping off his Australian sheepdog. In addition to her hourly training, pet owners can also send their dogs to her Hollywood home for a doggie vacation. In her free time, she also gives back – with non-profit initiatives that help juvenile prisoners and those with PTSD overcome their challenges through dog training. In today's episode, you'll hear how studying wolves in Israel led Tamar to become a dog behavior expert, how the relationship with our dogs can help us become better humans, and how a desperate housewife introduced Tamar to Oprah. All that, plus find out how Tamar can train your dog over Skype. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

The California-born Brian Blum moved with his family to Israel in 1994. Once there, he merged his twin loves of technology and writing and became a business journalist, and his work appears throughout the country. In 2012, he and his family became enamored with an Israeli electric car startup called Better Place. The company had an ingenious idea. Ten years ago, Better Place CEO Shai Agassi was on list after list of the world's most innovative young entrepreneurs. He appeared on magazine covers and was invited all over the world to present his vision for the future of electric cars. In a sense, Shai Agassi was Elon Musk before Elon Musk. Agassi's company had an audacious plan. At the time, people were reluctant to buy electric cars because they were afraid the battery wouldn't last all the way to their destination. Sure, they could do short errands, but what if they wanted to drive long distances? How would they charge their car? And more to the point, even if they could charge their car, they'd have to wait several hours for the battery to work again. (Plug-in technology for fast charging at an affordable price didn't exist yet.) Agassi's Better Place company had a solution. Brian Blum was a Better Place customer and decided to write a book about the company. In this week's episode, we visit Blum's Jerusalem home to discuss the Better Place story. Plus: The bizarre reason why most people who bought the car – including Blum – had to return it. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Dr. Avi Loeb is the chair of Harvard's Astronomy Department. The Israeli-born theoretical physicist is a graduate of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, a school that was founded by one of his heroes, Albert Einstein. Indeed, he followed Einstein's path to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Loeb has published more than 500 scientific papers. Time magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space. Loeb is the chair of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee. That's a $100 million project to find a new Earth for humans. Yep, you read that right. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is an advisor as was physicist Stephen Hawking, before he passed away in March of this year. The heavily funded group is actively searching for alien life with the hopes of asking the aliens if we could move to their planet in the event that something happens to ours. Crazy stuff, we know. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

In 2016, Dr. Ayelet Fishbach, a social scientist who researches human behavior, published a study that showed that people who eat the same food are more likely to get along. So if you're on a date, order the same dish as your companion. Or if you're at an important business lunch, look at what your colleague is eating. That's just one of the many of Dr. Fishbach's studies that have made headlines. Almost all of her research falls under the category of motivation and incentives. How can we better stick to our New Years resolutions? What's the best way to cope with deadlines? What's the best way to convince someone to give to charity? Why do good people sometimes to bad things? It's this wide breadth of topics that has made her psychology classes some of the most popular at the University of Chicago business school. She's now taken her show on the road, and is spending the year teaching at Yale University. On today's episode, we chat with Dr. Fishbach about her many fields of research including how to impress your boss, how to make new friends, and why donating blood is better than donating money. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Inna Braverman was named one of "10 of the most influential women of the 21st century," alongside Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey." Her story starts in the Ukraine on April 11, 1986. Two weeks after her birth, the nearby Chernobyl Power Plant exploded and sent radioactive material across the landscape. To this day, it remains the biggest nuclear disaster worldwide. Less than 200 miles away, baby Inna had trouble breathing from the pollution and went in respiratory arrest. She was announced clinically dead. Luckily for Inna, her mother is a nurse and rushed to the crib to help. She gave her baby mouth to mouth resuscitation until the ambulance arrived just in time. Inna survived. She's is now doing something quite remarkable and is using her second chance at life to give back. Learning from the Chernobyl disaster, Inna has launched a company that harnesses energy from a totally unique place. Sure, we've heard of wind energy and solar energy, but Inna has found something she claims is even better: Wave energy. She launched Eco Wave Power, a company that has figured out a way to take the energy from ocean waves and convert it into electricity. Her drive, passion and clever thinking have made her a celebrity. She's given a Ted Talk and was named to Wired Magazine's list of “Females Changing the World." CNN chose her for their "Tomorrow's Hero" series and she named one of the world’s “100 Makers and Mavericks." On today's episode, 32 years after the seminal disaster that forever changed her life, we chat with Inna about her upbringing, about wave energy and about the responsibilities of being a role model for today's young female entrepreneurs. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Oz Pearlman is an Israel-born mentalist and magician. While he had some measure of success in the early part of his career, he became instantly famous during the 2015 season of "America's Got Talent" on NBC. Week in and week out, he impressed the judges – Howard Stern, Heidi Klum, Mel B and Howie Mandel. His routines, where he read their minds and baffled the audience, left everybody gobsmacked. Out of the more than 10,000 acts that applied to be on the show that year, Oz Pearlman would continue in the competition all the way to the finale – coming in third place. And while he may not have won the grand prize, the adoring TV coverage propelled him into the pop culture stratosphere. After the show aired, he became a regular on daytime TV, appearing frequently on The Today Show, the Rachael Ray show, Dr. Oz's show and much more. NBC is even considering giving him his own show. He's now in high demand, performing hundreds of shows a year all across the globe. On today's episode we visit Oz at his home in New York City to discuss the meteoric rise in his career, how running marathons helps his magic and the way his performance style is like jazz. Plus, he reveals why he sends his wife a postcard from every city he visits. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Michael Pasikov spent his childhood in Chicago and began playing the piano when he was just 5 years old. He started with Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16, learning it by ear and eventually mastering it like someone way beyond his years. Juilliard came calling, but he instead chose a career in math and computer science. He got married and became busy raising a family. He moved to Israel in 1999. Fifteen years went by and he barely played the piano. Then he got cancer, and while lying in his bed at Hadassah Hospital in Israel, he made a promise: If he survived this, he would give 100 concerts for charity. Which he did. But then something unexpected happened... One night, more than a year after recovering from cancer, Pasikov suddenly fainted in his home. He landed on his right hand, practically paralyzing it. He was unconscious for days. When he finally recovered and left the hospital, he was unable to use his right hand – his dominant hand for playing piano. But Pasikov is not a quitter. He re-wrote famous classical compositions to be played one-handed. And he began giving one-handed concerts. Close your eyes, and you can't even tell he's playing one-handed. In this week's episode, Michael tells us about his incredible, life-changing journey. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Oded Brenner is a modern-day Willy Wonka. In 1996, he launched a small chocolate shop called Max Brenner in Israel. That one location was such a success, he eventually expanded the concept to dozens of chocolate restaurants all across the globe – including in Israel, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Russia and in the United States. Max Brenner shops are inspired by “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" – even down to the chocolate pipes circumnavigating their way through the restaurant. It takes a whimsical approach to food and everywhere you look is chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. There's even chocolate pizza. He sold a majority stake in his company to an Israeli confectionary company called the Strauss Group. But then something happened that would change the course of the chocolate shop's history. Oded tried opening a new chain of coffee shops on the side, and the food and beverage giant sued him. Oded lost his job and the company he founded, and as part of the settlement he was banished from the chocolate business for five years. He spent those years in exile planning his comeback. And now, he's finally returned. He recently opened a new chocolate shop in New York City called Blue Stripes. Throughout the space – on the walls and on the gift boxes – are short pieces of text that Oded has written to his daughter, to share his entrepreneurial journey with her. To explain to her how he went from worldwide chocolate icon to being in exile. The new eatery offers a more refined menu, featuring variations on the cacao fruit, although you'll still find hints of the decadent. Their signature drink is known as "The Cloud" and is basically drinkable chocolate mousse served from a tap. In this episode, we visit Oded's new restaurant to chat about Max Brenner, his years away from the chocolate business, and what he hopes to accomplish next. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Dean Kremer is not just any pitcher. In June 2015, at 19 years old, he became the first Israeli to ever be drafted by a Major League Baseball team. This past summer, he made news again when he was part of a blockbuster trade. The Los Angeles Dodgers picked up superstar shortstop Manny Machado and, in exchange, sent five up-and-coming prospects to the Baltimore Orioles. One of those players was pitcher Dean Kremer. In addition to his major league play Kremer, who holds dual citizenship with Israel and the United States, pitched for Israel's national baseball team at the 2014 European Championships and in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, a tournament where Israel stunned the international baseball community with four straight wins. Kremer is now finishing up his first season playing for the Baltimore Orioles Double A minor league team in Bowie, Maryland. The life of a minor leaguer is not all glitz and glamour – playing a grueling schedule of around 150 games each year. What's more is he doesn't have many days off, and even if he did, Kremer doesn't have a car. On today's episode we catch up with him to chat about the big trade that brought him to the Orioles, what it's like sleeping on a bus most nights and why baseball is gaining popularity in Israel. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Daniella Rudoff is a professional matchmaker and relationship coach based in Israel. In a world full of online dating apps, she offers a boutique service. She's worked with hundreds of singles with a singular goal in mind: helping them find that one needle in a haystack. When you think of matchmaking, you're likely taken back to an old world society – centuries before the invention of dating apps. But we've entered a new era of matchmaking. In a time when so many people are meeting through swiping right on an app, many are looking for more authentic connections. So they're turning to that tried and true gold standard – the matchmaker. The dating industry is estimated to be worth more than one billion dollars in the U.S. Personal matchmaking services account for about 500 million of that according to the Matchmaking Institute in New York City. That same group estimates that there are now more than 2,000 professional matchmakers in the U.S. and thousands more worldwide. There's even a matchmaking reality show. So what goes into the job of being a matchmaker? How successful at making matches are they? And are there tips they can offer to help those singles still searching for that perfect mate? In this week's episode, we pull back the curtain on the business of matchmaking with Daniella Rudoff. For behind the scenes access to our show, including sneak peeks of future episodes, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

If you've been to Israel in the past few years, you already know Gil Hovav. That's his voice over the loudspeaker, welcoming you to Ben Gurion International Airport, and wishing you a pleasant stay. It's no surprise, considering Gil's great-grandfather is credited with reviving the modern Hebrew language, writing one of the first-ever Hebrew dictionaries. Gil Hovav is a leading culinary journalist in Israel, a restaurant critic and the author of several best-selling books. His latest book, called "Candies From Heaven," is a memoir about what food and family recipes meant to him as a boy growing up in Israel. His dark and witty essays about family are likely what David Sedaris would sound like if he was from Israel. Often dubbed Israel's first foodie, Gil Hovav's outsized personality has made him a staple on TV. He was involved in creating, producing and presenting some of Israel's most viewed and beloved television food shows. He travels the world giving lectures about Israeli cuisine in the U.S., Europe and Asia. On today's episode, we catch up with Gil Hovav from his home in Tel Aviv, to discuss his career, why Israeli cuisine is the perfect food to photograph on Instagram, the craziest experience he's had at restaurants and one of the biggest food fights in American history. For behind the scenes access to our show, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

In the summer of 2017, Niv Rabino had just wrapped up a mission helping with the refugee crisis in Greece. He flew home to Israel, hoping to relax. But when he landed, news of Hurricane Harvey's devastation compelled him to rush back to the airport, and head to Texas. What's more, he had a personal connection to the tragedy: His niece had been visiting Houston, and was stuck for days on the second floor of a flooded house. Rabino hasn't left Houston since. For the past year, he's made the city his home. He's now working on long-term relief efforts, and helping the community rebuild and be better prepared for the next storm. Rabino works for the Tel Aviv-based humanitarian relief agency IsraAid. Like the Red Cross and Americares, IsraAid travels to the scenes of natural disasters. They've been busy in recent years. After a cyclone roared through Vanuatu, and an earthquake rattled Nepal, and a flood ravaged West Virginia, IsraAid ran to the rescue. They've gone on missions to the South Sudan, Japan, India, Sierra Leone, and the Philippines, just to name a few. They send teams of Israelis to help with rescue efforts, clean up and to help victims with the psychological toll of surviving a natural disaster. On today's episode, we catch up with Rabino to chat about the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey, other global spots where IsraAid is on the ground and a unique program the group operates to train the next generation of Humanitarians. For behind the scenes access to our show, please join the "Our Friend from Israel" Facebook group. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.