By Jamie Spock
When you think of Israel what are the first three words that come to mind? They’re probably synonyms of: terror, camels, and falafel. To social entrepreneur Mishy Harman, that’s a big problem. For starters, Jerusalem is probably safer than Los Angeles, camels only really exist here for the sake of tourists and while falafel is delicious, there is so much more to Israeli food and culture than that. Israel unfortunately doesn’t have the best public image. This is partly due to those three words that seem to go hand in hand with Israel. When we look at popular media we see Israel as being a hotbed of conflict and how can Israelis possibly lead normal lives with so much terror and destruction going on?! The fact of the matter is that Israelis do lead normal lives for the most part and interesting ones at that.
Mishy Harman is a born and bred Israeli but he spent seven years living and studying in the United States. During that time he began listening to and fell in love with the popular podcast This American Life. He really enjoyed the storytelling on the podcast and how it tackled the topic of everyday life in America. He began to wonder why no such thing existed in Israel. It bothered him that most people outside of Israel were ignorant as to what life in Israel was like besides the fact that people join the army, eat falafel, and are for the most part Jewish. Mishy decided that when he returned to Israel he would make an Israeli version of the podcast he had grown to love while he was in the states. He started out small, with a few friends and limited equipment. He posted his first episode and, as Mishy says, really only their parents and close friends listened to it. Not to be deterred, they put out a few more episodes and they started being shared more and more and before they knew it, Israel Story (Sipur Yisraeli in Hebrew) was gaining more success. They eventually got a deal to start broadcasting on Israeli national radio and found even more success. They decided after a while of broadcasting in Israel that they would partner with American companies to bring Israel Story to American and English-speaking audiences. The rest, as they say, is history and today Israel story is a very popular podcast in Israel and the United States and they often go on tour and bring live shows in both countries.
Israel Story has been broadcast in English since the beginning of 2014. Since then they have down shows on a variety of topics from book forgers, Yiddish book collectors, Israeli veganism, Yitzhak Rabin, a transgender orthodox woman, and even about the public buses in Israel. Each episode can have as many as three or four smaller stories all about the same topic or sometimes a story is so compelling that entire episodes are based around that one story. I have listened to every available episode in English and I can’t say that I have a favorite episode. We’ll see if this changes when my Hebrew gets better and I can listen to the original Israeli version. What was so inspiring about Mishy was how humble he was. He doesn’t necessarily think of Israel Story as a way to change people’s minds about Israel or to promote any kind of political or religious affiliation. All Mishy wanted to do was change the way that people thought about Israel and to tell them stories that had nothing to do with terrorism, camels, or falafel. After meeting with Mishy and listening to Israel Story, I know that all I have to do when I return to the states and feel homesick for Israel is turn on my phone, put my headphones in, and press play on an episode of Israel Story.
