Brian K Barber's new book, No Way But Forward: Life Stories of Three Families in the Gaza Strip, is a heart-wrenching piece of nonfiction. Barber, a psychologist and researcher, has cultivated real relationships with three families in Gaza since 1995, allowing him to tell their stories with rare depth and authenticity.

Read the book: https://www.amazon.com/No-Way-but-Forward-Families-ebook/dp/B0DMCV9BRB

Learn more: https://bkbarber.com/

This is a recording of an NJN webinar on April 24th, 2025

Drs. Shibley Telhami and Marc Lynch, co-chairs of the Middle East Scholar Barometer, say that they have seen a “chilling effect" on the working atmosphere for Middle East scholars. Many US-based academics and scholars already felt an increasing need to self-censor when addressing the Israeli-Palestinian issue professionally. The Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on higher education. Now, scholars face an environment in which the intensity and pace of campus protests have subsided, but the overall environment has remained oppressive and uncertain as political pressure from above has increased. Self-censorship remains rampant while actual censorship appears to be increasing.

To talk about and make sense of this frightening scenario, Dr. Telhami sat down with our President and CEO Hadar Susskind for a conversation.

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, the Director of the University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll, and a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science. He has authored and edited numerous books, including one forthcoming book: Peace Derailed: Obama, Trump, Biden, and the Decline of Diplomacy on Israel/Palestine, 2011-2022 (co-authored). His most recent book is a co-edited volume with contributions, The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine?, which was published in March 2023 with Cornell University Press. He has advised every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama. Washingtonian Magazine listed him as one of the “Most Influential People on Foreign Affairs” in both 2022 and 2023.

Recording of a NJN webinar on April 16, 2025 

Yair Golan is the leader of The Democrats, a political party formed last year when the Labor and Meretz parties merged. Before entering politics, he had a distinguished military career, retiring as a Major General and serving as Deputy Chief of Staff of the IDF. 

His actions on the morning of October 7th – in which he rushed on his own accord to the area around Gaza and rescued people from Hamas attacks – have earned him a special status in Israel.

This conversation, hosted by NJN President and CEO Hadar Susskind and NJN Co-Chair Nomi Colton-Max, covers the political situation in Israel, the developments in the war, and the World Zionist Congress. 

Cast a vote in the WZC elections here: https://azm.castiron.votem.net/election/037548cb-4cbb-4a94-aa9a-8aef017d4ddf

Learn more about the Hatikvah Slate: https://www.hatikvahslate.net/

Give to NJN: https://www.newjewishnarrative.org/give

Recording of an NJN webinar on April 3, 2025.

The conversation, anchored by NJN President & CEO Hadar Susskind, features Hagit Ofran and Lior Amihai from Peace Now. Our guests are on the ground, leading the push against settlements and the fight for for peace. 

Lior Amihai is the current Executive Director of Peace Now as well as a previous Executive Director of Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. He also previously served as co-director of Settlement Watch.

Hagit Ofran is the co-director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch program. With two decades of experience tracking developments in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, she is widely recognized as Israel’s foremost expert on Israeli settlements. 

Hadar Susskind is New Jewish Narrative’s President and CEO. He is one of the American Jewish community’s leading progressive advocacy voices with more than 25 years of experience working in Washington DC on both foreign and domestic policy. 

To make a (matched!!) donation to Peace Now, click here: https://www.newjewishnarrative.org/give?comments=2025%20Donor%20Match

NJN Deputy Communications Director Maxxe Albert-Deitch and Director of Development Karen Paul spoke with Dr. Elana Sztokman about her new book, In My Jewish State. In this book, Dr. Sztokman uses her professional skills of rhetorical analysis cultivated from years of anthropological research, and unpacks the language and ideas that drive the pro-Israel advocacy movement and are used to justify cruel actions and attitudes. In the process, she makes some drastic personal changes, shifts her own Jewish identity, and advocates for a different vision of what it means to live in a Jewish state. 

Dr. Elana Sztokman is an anthropologist, educator, feminist, peace activist, speaker, consultant, podcaster, and two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Council Award. She has spent 25 years writing about issues of gender, language, power, politics, education, and society, especially around Israel and Jewish culture. Her previous book, When Rabbis Abuse, won the Best Jewish Non-Fiction of the Year from Hey Alma. 

Between March 10 and May 4, 2025, American Jews will vote for their delegates to the 39th World Zionist Congress, the “parliament of the Jewish people,” which will convene in Jerusalem in October 2025. Every vote determines how money is spent, how resources are allocated, and contributes to policies in Israeli society and in Jewish communities around the globe. New Jewish Narrative proudly co-leads the Hatikvah Slate, working towards progressive change within the Jewish community here in the U.S.

This discussion answered questions ranging from "what is the World Zionist Congress in the first place?" to "what is the Hatikvah platform and why should my vote go there instead of somewhere else?"

In addition to our President and CEO Hadar Susskind, our panel featured Nomi Colton-Max, co-chair of NJN and Vice President for Programming of the American Zionist Movement, and Kenneth Bob, board member of NJN and chair of Rozana USA.

Recording of a New Jewish Narrative webinar with NJN President and CEO Hadar Susskind, Director of Government Relations Madeleine Cereghino, and Hassan El-Tayyab of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL).

We dug into what the new Congress and administration will mean for New Jewish Narrative, our community, and our work. We spoke about initial signals from incoming government officials, what projects we’re already gearing up for, and generally put together a picture of what to expect from both Congress and the incoming administration. 

Hassan El-Tayyab is an author, songwriter, and the legislative director for Middle East policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL) Hassan leads FCNL’s work to end U.S. military involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen, advocate for Palestinian human rights, and advance diplomacy with Iran. Hassan was honored by Arab America Foundation as an awardee of its 2022 “40 under 40” initiative, for his policy work on Capitol Hill.

Recording of our November 20, 2024 webinar with Yonatan Mizrachi from Shalom Achshav's Settlement Watch team. This webinar was co-produced with our colleagues at Shalom Achshav, Canadian Friends of Peace Now, and La Paix Maintenant. The conversation was anchored by Hadar Susskind. 

Yonatan Mizrachi, a leading expert from the Settlement Watch team, presents new insights from Shalom Achshav's latest annual report, "War and Annexation: How the Israeli Government Changed the West Bank During the First Year of War."

In the wake of a year-long war in Gaza and nearly two years under a far-right, pro-settler government, the Israeli government's agenda in the occupied West Bank is clearer than ever: to advance annexation policies and further reduce Palestinian presence in Area C.

Yonatan (“Yoni”) Mizrachi, who joined Shalom Achshav two years ago, co-leads the Settlement Watch team. He is also a co-founder and the former executive director of Emek Shaveh, an organization dedicated to protecting archaeology from misuse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

View the report HERE- https://peacenow.org.il/en/war-and-annexation-how-the-israeli-government-changed-the-west-bank-during-the-first-year-of-war

Recording of our November 14, 2024 webinar. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind.

Along with special guest Allison McManus, we discussed what a second Trump administration may hold for Israel-Palestine peacebuilding work. We covered Trump's recent appointee nominations, the effects of potential policies on our agenda, as well as how the US-Israel relationship could shift with Trump back in the White House.

Allison McManus is a managing director for the National Security and International Policy department at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, she was the managing director at the Freedom Initiative, where she advocated for political prisoners in the Middle East and North Africa. She also served as the research director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy from 2014 to 2019.

Recording of our October 29th, 2024 webinar with Joshua Leifer. This conversation was hosted by Maxxe Albert-Deitch and Karen Paul.

We spoke with Joshua Leifer about Tablets Shattered, his lively and personal history of the fractured American Jewish present. Formed in the middle decades of the twentieth century, the settled-upon pillars of American Jewish self-definition (Americanism, Zionism, and liberalism) have begun to collapse. The binding trauma of Holocaust memory grows ever-more attenuated; soon there will be no living survivors. After two millennia of Jewish life defined by diasporic existence, the majority of the world’s Jews will live in a sovereign Jewish state by 2050. Against the backdrop of national political crises, resurgent global antisemitism, and the horrors of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Leifer provides an illuminating and meticulously reported map of contemporary Jewish life and a sober conjecture about its future.

Joshua Leifer is a journalist whose essays and reporting have appeared widely in international publications, including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Haaretz, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing a PhD in history at Yale University.

Recording of our September 24th, 2024 webinar with Sarit Michaeli. This conversation was hosted by Madeleine Cereghino.

Gaza and the Occupied Territories in general are at the forefront of conversations around the world– horrific medical scenarios, inhumane treatment of Palestinian civilians, and utterly abhorrent forms of abuse taking place in Israeli prisons and on the ground in Occupied land. B’Tselem is among the leading organizations serving as a resource for facts, figures, and personal stories and putting together the picture of just how dire the circumstances have become. To discuss the “humanitarian disaster zone” of the current Israel-Gaza war, we spoke with Sarit Michaeli, the International advocacy lead for B'Tselem. 

Sarit has been at B’Tselem since 2004 and coordinates the organization’s work with international policymakers, diplomats, and civil society. Prior to her current role, Sarit was B’Tselem’s media spokesperson and director of public outreach. Sarit documents demonstrations in the West Bank, with a focus on Israeli security forces and misuse of crowd control weapons, and is active in Israel’s anti-Occupation movement. Sarit has an MA (Distinction) in Gender Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a BA in graphic design from Camberwell College of Art, the London Institute. Prior to joining B’Tselem, Sarit worked as a journalist, graphic designer, and translator in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, London, and New York.

Recording of our September 16, 2024 webinar with Amir Tibon. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind and Maxxe Albert-Deitch.

We spoke with author Amir Tibon about his new book, The Gates of Gaza, as well as his experience as a journalist in Israel over the last 11 months. This webinar was coordinated in partnership with our colleagues at Canadian Friends of Peace Now.

About the book: In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells the harrowing story of his family’s survival on October 7th at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades. Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original interviews: with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the peace process. More than one family's odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, Occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.

More about the book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amir-tibon/the-gates-of-gaza/9780316580960/?lens=little-brown

Recording of our August 21, 2024 webinar with Dr. Gershon Baskin. This conversation was hosted by Madeleine Cereghino.

It is clear that people around the world– and the mediators sent to the table in Doha– want an agreement to stop the violence in Gaza and to bring the Israeli hostages home. But the general understanding of how to get from point A (calling for a deal) to point B (getting the Israeli government and Hamas to agree to a deal) remains murky. To shed some light on the circumstances surrounding this round of negotiations, we sat down with Dr. Gershon Baskin, a veteran peace activist and longtime researcher of the Israel/Palestine conflict and peace process.

Recording of our August 7, 2024 webinar with Lior Amihai. This conversation was hosted by Madeleine Cereghino.

Our Director of Government Relations, Madeleine Cereghino, sat down with Lior Amihai, the executive director of our sister organization, Shalom Achshav. Our colleagues there recently released a report detailing what they call the Israeli government’s “Annexation Revolution.” 

Since October 7th, the Israeli government has launched a massive annexation effort– displacing Palestinians, expanding existing settlements, and doubling the resources available to settlements– “legalizing” more than 70 illegal outposts along the way. Under Netanyahu and Smotrich’s governance, emboldened settlers have essentially been granted carte blanche for land seizure, crop and livestock destruction, and violent altercations with Palestinians– all with minimal consequences. 

Lior Amihai is the executive director of Peace Now. Before taking on this position, he was Executive Director of Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization that focuses on violations of Palestinians’ human rights in the West Bank. Prior to that, he was the co-director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project.

In this episode of PeaceCast, Maxxe Albert-Deitch is joined by APN's Director of Government Relations, Madeleine Cereghino, for a discussion of PM Netanyahu's DC visit. The discussion covers PM Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress, that speech's implications, and the general optics of the PM's DC visit. 

Recording of our July 25, 2024 webinar with Rebecca Abou-Chedid. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind.

Hadar Susskind and Rebecca Abou-Chedid analyze Netanyahu’s visit to DC (and his address to Congress on July 24th). They delve into the impact on American and international politics, the American Jewish community, and the Arab American community.

Rebecca Abou-Chedid serves on the board of directors of the IMEU Policy Project, Anera, the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and SEED for Change. Rebecca also served for five years as co-chair of the board of directors of Just Vision. She is a partner in the Projects group at Norton Rose Fulbright and previously served as a law clerk in the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the US Department of Justice, as National Political Director at the Arab American Institute, and the Director of Outreach at the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force. 

Ten brave New Story Leadership alumni -  Muslim, Jewish, and Christian -  from Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, decided to move forward together in the aftermath of October 7th. First, the group negotiated and crafted a joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire and hostage release. But they also realized that this was not nearly enough.

After months of research, discussion and an intense week together in Geneva, these alumni-- the Phoenix Ten-- negotiated and drafted the Phoenix Plan. In this episode of PeaceCast, we spoke with some of these peacebuilders about what the plan is and what their vision for a peaceful future looks like.

Learn more about NSL and the Phoenix Plan: https://www.newstoryleadership.org/

Make a contribution to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate

Recording of our June 20, 2024 webinar with Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon. This conversation was hosted by Hadar Susskind and Maxxe Albert-Deitch.

Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon feel the loss and pain of October 7th and the carnage in Gaza that has followed especially keenly: both have lost family to the conflict.

Since October 7th, the two have appeared on various international forums regarding their partnership in establishing peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Most recently, they traveled together to Verona, Italy to meet Pope Francis and share their vision for the future: one where Israelis and Palestinians can move forward and live side by side. 

Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian peacebuilder, entrepreneur, and international speaker. He is the co-founder of InterAct International and MEJDI Tours, and the former executive director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University.

Maoz Inon is an Israeli social entrepreneur and peace activist. He has founded several tourism initiatives in Israel and in the Middle East, including the Fauzi Azar Inn and Abraham Hostel and Tour brands.

Harvey Price is the founder of the Peace Drums Project, an organization that connects children of multiple faiths by having them play together in a steel drum band. In this episode of PeaceCast, Maxxe Albert-Deitch speaks with Harvey about steel drums as an instrument of peace and the logistics of running a people-to-people music-oriented peacebuilding program in Israel and Palestine in the current challenging times. 

Recording of our May 22, 2024 webinar, with Anat Saragusti. This conversation was hosted by Naomi Paiss. 

“The media” has come to mean many different things– broadcasters, social media, a euphemistic descriptor for spreaders of misinformation, or simply the news. But in the haze of war in Gaza and protests in the U.S., the media has itself become a source of polarization and debate. To analyze why coverage seems to slant one way or another politically, how nationalism and government disinformation find their way into the newsroom, and how journalists source their reports, we spoke with one of Israel’s foremost media experts.

Anat Saragusti is perhaps best-known for her work as a print and broadcast journalist and her documentary photography. She worked as a reporter for Channel 2, the first and leading commercial TV station in Israel, and is among the founders of Ta Ha'Itonaiyot (a group of leading Israeli women with media orientation) and Merkaz Media Nashim (Gender Media Center). She is also a dedicated advocate for peacebuilding work and human rights activism. 

Recording of an APN webinar from May 2, 2024. 

A conversation between APN's President and CEO Hadar Susskind and Senator Chris Van Hollen. We discussed the role of Congress in shaping US-Middle East policy and how conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have changed on Capitol Hill. Senator Van Hollen is a Congressional champion for peace and justice.

Sandy Tolan is the author of The Lemon Tree, which is a widely known microhistory of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and Children of the Stone, which focuses on one Palestinian’s dream to build a music school in the midst of the Occupation. He’s also a journalism professor and an award-winning radio and print journalist. We spoke with Sandy about his books, the protests currently springing up at college campuses across the country, and generally, what it's like to be a journalist with a strong background on Israel/Palestine issues in the current climate.

Make a contribution to APN: https://peacenow.org/donate