In this episode of Behind the Bima, the Rabbis sit down with educator and author Yael Leibowitz to explore a question that is becoming harder to ignore: what happens when the Jewish people around the world are living in fundamentally different realities? Drawing on both her personal experience making aliyah and her deep engagement with Tanach, Yael examines how Ezra-Nehemiah grapples with a partial return to Israel, and what that model might suggest for today.
If Israel is so central to Jewish life… what does that mean for the millions of Jews in the diaspora?
In this episode of Behind the Bima, the Rabbis speak with Yael Leibowitz about the growing tension between Israel and the diaspora, and the deeper question of what holds the Jewish people together. Drawing from her own journey from the United States to Israel, Yael reflects on how lived experience reshapes identity, perspective, and even the way we read Tanakh.
Through the lens of Ezra-Nehemiah, the conversation explores a moment in Jewish history when not everyone returned, and what that meant for leadership, community, and continuity. Rather than offering simple answers, the episode examines how Jewish life has always required holding competing realities at once, and what happens when that balance begins to strain.
This season of Behind the Bima is sponsored by Julie Charlestein & Darryl Benjamin in honor of their grandparents, Morton & Malvina Charlestein, and their children, Ruby and Maccabi Benjamin.
This conversation explores: