Our Friend From Israel

Dan Ariely a tenured professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University. If an academic could be a rockstar, then Ariely is certainly one. His books – like "Predictably Irrational" – are New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has close to 200,000 Twitter followers. His numerous TED talks have been viewed 13 million times. Millions more read his advice column each week in the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times has called his research "revolutionary." Following in the footsteps of his mentors – Israelis Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky – Ariely has become one of the world's leading experts in decision-making, which, in essence, makes his talent of enormous interest. Why do humans make the decisions that we do? Ariely translates what could be a ho-hum topic like behavioral economics into mainstream morsels of wisdom. He studies everything from income inequality and pizza delivery to dating advice and IKEA furniture. He's launched several startups and has invented technologies that were later sold to Google, including a time management app that the search giant acquired. On today's episode, we visit with Dan Ariely to talk about what he's researching now, a strange experiment involving clowns in traffic and how a new scale he invented may actually help you lose weight. 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.

Did you miss this hidden gem of an episode when it first aired? Now's your chance to hear it. A geography professor at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, Dr. Eran Ben-Elia has devoted the bulk of his research to studying people's parking and traffic habits. A niche field, for sure. He has turned his laboratory into an arcade. He believes that video games are unique ways to test his theories. Visitors to his lab strap on virtual reality glasses, sit down in front of a steering wheel and are instantly transported to a city street. He watches as they make parking and traffic decisions in critical environments. Is there a way to make people's commutes to work less traffic-clogged? We visited Ben-Elia's lab to find out more about his research and to find out the answer to that existential question: is there such a thing as a perfect parking space? 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.

Tal Ben-Shahar, the professor of happiness, is famous for teaching the most popular course in the history of Harvard. It was called "Positive Psychology" and in it he teaches the secret to living a happy life. It's no wonder that at its peak, close to 1,000 students would pack into his lecture hall twice a week to hear his words of wisdom. He has since gone on to write several bestselling books including "Happier" and "The Pursuit of Perfection" and now travels the world giving seminars on leadership, happiness and gratitude. "Expressing gratitude on a regular basis – writing what you're grateful for before going to bed, can help us become not just happier and more optimistic, but also more generous, kinder toward others, and interestingly, physically healthier," Ben-Shahar told us. On today's episode, Tal reveals several ways that we can teach ourselves to be happy in our everyday life. Plus, find out why he quit playing squash to become a professor, and hear about the happiness project he's working on that's open to everyone, not just students at Harvard. 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.

High-tech entrepreneur Jon Medved is one of Israel's leading high-tech venture capitalists. He's the founder and CEO of OurCrowd, a company that has invested in more than 100 Israeli startups. What makes OurCrowd unique is that it's made up of 25,000 members from around the world, who all pool their resources together to fund these startups. They have 10 offices around the globe, from Tel Aviv to Toronto, and from San Diego to Singapore. Forbes called OurCrowd one of the largest crowd-funding organizations on the planet. To date, they've raised nearly a billion dollars. "We are risk takers here," Medved told us. "We're also delusional; have been since Abraham. I think that combination of risk, acceptance, and delusion makes for great entrepreneurial excitement." On this week's episode, we sit down with Jon Medved in his Jerusalem office to discuss his career, his favorite startups and why Israel is such a fertile place for launching a high-tech company. For additional notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Israeli fashion designer Danit Peleg, a graduate of Israel's Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, has created the world's first 3D printed fashion line without the use of a single sewing machine. She whipped up a homemade video about her unique collection and it went viral overnight. Soon, she was being asked to give a Ted Talk and the calls haven't stopped since. That initial burst of publicity led to stories about her work in the New York Times, Forbes, Wired Magazine and even Vogue just to name a few of the many media outlets that fawned over her fashion. In today's episode, we chat with Danit from her studio in Tel Aviv to find out why she created the 3D printed fashion line, what inspires her and what she has planned next. For extra notes, photos and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com

Ron Ben-Israel has appeared on "Good Morning America," David Letterman's show and has baked cakes for Oprah Winfrey and President Obama. He made a cake for the wedding of Robert Downey, Jr., Britney Spears' new album party, and Elton John's birthday. His cakes are nothing short of extraordinary. The cake he made celebrating the Plaza Hotel's 100th birthday was an exact replica of the iconic building. It included 1,199 windows, 75 balconies, 58 planters and 23 street level lamps, painted with real 24 karat gold. The cake was 8 feet tall, six feet wide, and five feet deep. The cost of the two ton confection? $120,000. In addition to his cake business called "Ron Ben-Israel Cakes" he also teaches at the prestigious International Culinary Center in New York and is an active member of City Harvest Food Council, a non profit food rescue organization. On today's episode, we visit with Ron Ben-Israel to discuss his storied career including: how he was discovered by Martha Stewart, what it's like being a judge for baking competitions on TV and the best advice he'd give to brides and grooms searching for the perfect wedding cake. For extra show notes, photos and a transcript from today's episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

If you're a fan of the HBO hit "Curb Your Enthusiasm," you're likely familiar with actress Iris Bahr. The Israeli comedian has appeared on a number of episodes, including in a now-famous scene where she gets stuck on a ski lift with the show's star, Larry David. Besides "Curb Your Enthusiasm," she's been in a number of sitcoms: "Friends," "Blunt Talk" and "The King of Queens." She was a series regular on the Israeli TV show, "Irreversible." But what she spends the bulk of her time doing is standup comedy, mostly in New York where she lives with her son. Her talents go beyond the comedy world. She's done neuroscience and cancer research at both Stanford and Tel Aviv University. She's written and performed one-woman plays and she's written books, one of which chronicled her travels through South America and is called "Machu My Picchu." In today's episode, we catch up with Bahr to discuss her career, what it's like acting with Larry David and what she's working on next. For extra notes, photos and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Dr. Israel Hershkovitz, a professor at Tel Aviv University, is one of Israel's leading archaeologists. More than that, he studies ancient bones with the eye of an anthropologist, hoping to discover some insight into evolution and the plight of the human condition. Why are we the way we are and what lessons can we learn from our past to pave a better future? Today we head to Dr. Hershkovitz' lab to chat with him about what it's like to be an archaeologist in the world's most fertile place for finding artifacts. For extra notes, photos and a complete 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 extra notes, photos and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

The Jerusalem-born Sarah Berkowitz is the resident chef at our Israeli Kitchen channel. Since 2015, she's been cooking up hundreds of recipes and sharing them with our readers. When she's not in the kitchen, she's traveling across the country to food shows to check out the latest trends. In addition to her work for us, she also writes a monthly food column for an international magazine that gets translated into multiple languages and distributed around the world. She's also worked as a personal chef and we hear she has plans to publish a cookbook. In this episode, we chat about her favorite meals and how cooking creates bonds between friends and family. For show notes, additional information, and a complete transcript of today's episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

For more than a decade, Dr. Roni Grosz has served as curator of the Albert Einstein Archives, bequeathed by the Nobel Prize winner to Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In that capacity, Grosz oversees the largest collection of Einstein related material in the entire world. Visitors can see and touch the actual books that lined Einstein's home. There are thousands of documents, unfinished math equations, drafts of lectures, not to mention the many letters Einstein received during his lifetime – from dignitaries like President Roosevelt to questions sent to him by children all around the world. In today's episode, we travel to the campus of Hebrew University to chat with Dr. Grosz about what it's like to take care of the legacy of the world's favorite genius. For complete show notes from today's episode, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

A geography professor at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, Dr. Eran Ben-Elia has devoted the bulk of his research to studying people's parking and traffic habits. A niche field, for sure. He has turned his laboratory into an arcade. He believes that video games are unique ways to test his theories. Visitors to his lab strap on virtual reality glasses, sit down in front of a steering wheel and are instantly transported to a city street. He watches as they make parking and traffic decisions in critical environments. Is there a way to make people's commutes to work less traffic-clogged? We visited Ben-Elia's lab to find out more about his research and to find out the answer to that existential question: is there such a thing as a perfect parking space? For show notes, please visit www.ourfriendfromisrael.com.

Karni Ziv is the head of Drama and Comedy at Keshet Broadcasting. She is widely recognized as one of the most experienced women in the television industry. One of the show's that she shepherded to success is "Homeland," which is based on an Israeli TV show that won the Israeli Academy Award for Television for Best Drama Series. The meteoric success of "Homeland" has led Hollywood to come knocking on Keshet's door. Networks like HBO, Showtime, AMC, Hulu, NBC, CBS – they've all traveled to Israel hoping Keshet could provide them with television's next big hit. With popular shows like 'Homeland' and 'Fauda' coming out of Israel, Karni Ziv pulls back the curtain on why so many American TV networks are looking to her for the next big hit.

Michael Pasikov was a classically trained pianist with hopes of going to Juilliard. But instead, he chose a career in computer science. Then he was diagnosed with cancer and made a life-changing decision: If he was cured, he would give 100 concerts for charity. Which he did. But then something else happened and he lost the use of his dominant, piano playing right hand. So Pasikov did the only thing he could: He taught himself to play one-handed.

Dr. Loeb is the chair of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee. That's a $100 million project to find a new Earth for humans. 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.