What Came After

I met Jeffrey Weiss earlier this year at his office on the Tel Aviv waterfront, in one of the old, ramshackle buildings at Kikar Atarim that look out over the marina. I’d been drawn to the memorial stickers that have changed public space in Israel over the last three years. They’re tributes to people who've fall on and since October 7th, usually no bigger than a bumper sticker, on lamp posts, benches and whole walls of train stations. Each has a face and a name.. Almost always, there’s also a motto written on the sticker, something the person lived by.Jeff made aliyah a few months before October 7th. In the rmonths that followed, he started stopping to read the stickers. He has since photographed more than four hundred, reached out to the families one by one, and built an organization called Stickers of Meaning. It’s an archive that is now being deposited with the National Library of Israel.What surprised me was how little of our conversation was about death. Jeff ran his first 10K at 48 and has since done ultramarathons and two Ironmans. He reads these stickers the way he reads the signs along a race course, as instructions for how to keep going. This is one of the more hopeful conversations I’ve recorded. I think Jeff would say that’s the point.   Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Graphic Design: Aman Agarwal Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "עד שהלב חוזר" | Elnatan Listen on ⁠Spotify⁠  or ⁠Apple Music⁠ Support our work ⁠here⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one.

Whenever I’m in Israel to work on this show, I message a few people when I arrive and say, “I’m back! Tell me who I’m interviewing.” In this case, my dear friend (and former WCA guest) Samantha Robinson pointed me in the direction of Molly Livingstone. Molly grew up in Los Angeles, the daughter of a British dad with a gift for complaint and an American mom. In July 2002, her beloved camp counselor Marla Bennett was killed in the bombing at Hebrew University. Molly promised herself she would go see the Israel Marla loved. She went, and she stayed. She later found out at the Ministry of the Interior that she had been an Israeli citizen all along.) Today Molly is a comedian, the founder of the Jewish Comedy Center, and the mother of four. Her husband is a Golani combat medic who has served more than 400 days in reserves since October 7th. We sat in her Jerusalem kitchen and talked about Viktor Frankl, Holocaust jokes, shiva houses, and why Israelis laugh in bomb shelters.   Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Graphic Design: Aman Agarwal Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "Cry For Me" | Ester Rada Listen on ⁠Spotify⁠  or ⁠Apple Music⁠ Support our work ⁠here⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one.

I met Sharon Grinker at the marina in Herzliya. It’s a beautiful marina, and a big one, at least for someone who's never spent time at a marina. By the time I found him, I was a little late and a little sunburned. He was standing on the boat, talking with two women. I later learned that these two women were part of a program Sharon founded called Breaking Waves.  Both of them had lost their husbands on October 7th. They were laughing together, easy and light, despite what had brought them there. I knew quickly that this was a special place.  Breaking Waves is a trauma treatment program that takes people with PTSD out to sea in a yacht and teaches them to sail. I’ll admit it sounded like an odd idea for therapy. Then I got on the boat, and it made sense. There’s the open water, where no one can reach you, allowing you to tune the external world out. There’s also the work of learning how to operate the yacht.  And there’s a group of people who slowly learn how to share their pain with one another, all while learning how to keep the boat (and themselves) afloat.  Sharon is a retired IDF colonel. Years ago, during the Second Intifada, he was the IDF Spokesperson for the Foreign Media. That job has only gotten harder since October 7th, as Israel tries to explain itself to a world that has grown increasingly hostile. These days Sharon's mission is to help the growing number of Israelis living with PTSD.  ​     Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Graphic Design: Aman Agarwal Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "Deep Blue Sea" | Yehezkel Raz, Sivan Talmor Listen on ⁠Spotify⁠  or ⁠Apple Music⁠ Support our work ⁠here⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one.

I sat with Israeli-American literary translator and writer Yardenne Greenspan in Tel Aviv this past July. I’d fallen in love with her translation of Yishay Ishi Ron’s novel “Dog” while preparing for my conversation with Ishi (which was featured in last week's episode), Yardenne was born and raised in Israel and has lived and worked in the US for the past 16 years. She translates novels, short stories, and plays by Israeli writers from across the country’s religious and ethnic spectrum. After October 7, she took on whatever came her way, often pro bono. That included parts of Kibbutz Be’eri’s memorial website, survivor testimonies, a memoir by a Nova survivor, and the civil commission’s report on kinocide, led by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy. We talked about craft, particularly translating “Dog” during a moment when every word about the IDF is being weaponized. She spoke so beautifully about what she's been living as a Jew outside Israel—a Jew at a remove—that at moments it felt like she was giving voice to my own thoughts. This is a very special conversation.      Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Graphic Design: Aman Agarwal Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "Diaspora" | Yehezkel Raz Listen on ⁠Spotify⁠  or ⁠Apple Music⁠ Support our work ⁠here⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one.

I sat with Israeli author, Yishay Ishi Ron, at his home in Kfar Saba this past summer. To prepare, I read his novel ⁠Dog⁠, which was deft, spare, and deeply moving in Yardenne Greenspan's beautiful translation. (Yardenne joins me later this season.) Dog follows Geller, a decorated soldier who returns from Gaza, descends into heroin addiction, and ends up on the streets of Tel Aviv. Ishi wrote it before October 7. It's fiction — but Ishi calls it psychologically autobiographical, and it opens a real portal into the subjects that define his work: trauma, post-trauma, addiction, family, and what moving on can look like from the very bottom. The Hebrew edition of Dog was longlisted for the Sapir Prize. The English edition won two National Jewish Book Awards — for Book Club and Hebrew Fiction in Translation — and the National Library of Israel named it one of the most important contemporary works on post-trauma. It's now being adapted into a feature film by Eran Riklis. I highly recommend Dog and Ishi's new novel, The Girl Who Rode the White Lion, and I hope you enjoy this conversation.    Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Graphic Design: Aman Agarwal Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "DABOOMJIGGLE - Short Version" | Out of Flux, Eyal Talmudi Listen on ⁠YouTube⁠   Support our work ⁠here⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one.

Welcome back to What Came After. This episode with guest Eden Einav comes out just days before the third anniversary of October 7th, and I think Eden is exactly the right person to spotlight as this anniversary approaches.  Eden Einav is an IDF veteran who served with Yasar Darom, the unit tasked with recovering fallen soldiers and hostages. I want to reiterate: Eden's job was to recover fallen soldiers and hostages. Take a moment to sit with that.  This is a difficult interview, especially toward the end, and Eden is remarkably vulnerable throughout. In a piece he wrote about his experience, Eden talks about bringing the fallen home — and then about the immense task of bringing himself home, after everything he's been through.  I think about that daily. I wonder how to bring myself home, and what home even is now: where I live outside Chicago? The homeland of the Jewish people? The new communities I've leaned into after so many I valued rejected me for being a Zionist—and, I suspect, for being a Jew? Before the episode begins, I want to say a quick word about this work. Sometimes I wonder, with all the suffering in the world, whether what we're doing is important. Then I think about the countless times I've been told — by survivors of October 7th, by descendants of Holocaust survivors — that when they thought they could hang on no longer, a voice inside them said: "You have to survive so you can tell the story." That's what we're doing. That's the archive this show is making, and I hope you'll consider supporting it at wcamedia.org/support/ Thank you for being part of this.     Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "Some Days Are Harder" | Kami Maltz Listen on YouTube

Support our work ⁠⁠here⁠⁠! WCA Media relies on your support to bring you episodes like this one.   This past June, I sat down in Tel Aviv with Rita Yedid. Before October 7th, Rita's friends called her "Wonder Rita." Now the nickname is also the title of a ⁠documentary film⁠about what she lived through at the Nova Festival, and the process of intense self-discovery that's taken place since.  Rita and her husband survived the Nova massacre together, but they didn't experience it the same way. Rita speaks about the strain that those differences put on their marriage. The couple had a second child after Nova, but at the time of this interview, they had separated. Rita speaks about the immense toll that October 7th has taken on her life. But she also talks about something surprising, something built into a name she'd given herself even before the catastrophe: wonder. Wonder at the mystery of suffering. Wonder at the winding road of her own recovery. Wonder that October 7th, of all things, has come to illuminate her sense of purpose. Wonder at being alive. To learn more about Wonder Rita and her film, see the film link above, and learn more⁠ here.⁠   Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "חי בים" | Noam Banai and Anat Malamud Listen on ⁠Spotify⁠  or ⁠Apple Music⁠

Welcome back to What Came After. In this episode, Joseph Gitler welcomed me into his home—we recorded in March of 2026. Fortunately, our conversation wasn't interrupted by a missile attack but Israel's war with the Iranian regime was still very much raging. Joseph is the founder of Leket Israel, the organization that rescues cooked meals and agricultural surplus from across Israel to feed over 470,000 Israelis every week. He and I spoke about the enormous numbers of international volunteers who came — as quickly as they could enter the country after October 7 — to step into the breach for farmers who'd lost nearly everything, including the workers they'd depended on. We also spoke about a very painful personal loss Joseph experienced during the war. Throughout it all, he ponders this question: given the Jewish people's long history of near-collapse, and our equally long history of improbable survival — is there any calamity the Jewish people face that can truly be described as "existential"? On another note — I want to apologize for our long hiatus. Here's our big announcement: What Came After is no longer a standalone podcast. It's now a production of WCA Media, our new nonprofit audio studio. WCA Media will keep bringing you What Came After, and we have several other projects in the works. Please stay tuned — and if you're able, consider supporting us so we can keep this work going.     Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editor: Alexandra Yelderman Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "Where We Go - Instrumental Version" | Elijah Aaron Listen on Spotify  or Apple Music

Please Support What Came After Media: Donate here. Your donations make this work possible. For months, Yoni Heilman and I kept missing each other. When I was in Israel, Yoni was serving in reserve duty. When Yoni was available for an interview in Israel, I was back in America. Finally, this past April, we were both in New York City and managed to sit down for this conversation. Yoni is an American-Israeli reservist and the CEO of TAMID Group, a nonprofit that fosters relationships between Israeli businesses and bright, motivated college students, as well as other emerging business leaders around the world. We talked about the many roles Yoni has found himself playing since October 7th — as an American, an Israeli, a reservist, a CEO, a parent, a partner, and someone deeply invested in the relationship between young people and Israel. He shared why TAMID Group is so intentional about creating meaningful relationships between young people and Israel that transcend religion and politics, and what he has learned from serving in his particular reserve unit, where he has witnessed some of the very best of humanity. I hope you enjoy this conversation.   Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Associate Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editors: Keren Glicksman and Alexandra Yelderman Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "Not Over" | Israel Wasserman Listen on Spotify or Apple Music

Please Support What Came After Media: Donate here. Your donations make this work possible. On March 18th of this year, I'd been back in America for a few days after getting stuck in Israel during the war with Iran. I still felt scattered, jet-lagged and wrung out. So I decided to treat myself to the ultimate comfort food: an authentic bagel. I ran into a friend at (the kosher and delicious) Emma's Bagels in Skokie. She was sitting with a table of women I didn't know. After I explained why I looked so bedraggled, I learned they all worked for Sharsheret, an organization supporting Jewish women facing breast and ovarian cancer. One of them, Elana Silber, turned out to be the CEO — and that night, it happened, was Sharsheret's annual gala. She invited me on the spot. I decided to push past that not-quite-myself feeling and attend. I saw an art installation by a breast cancer survivor, heard several incredible speakers, and got a chance to hear about Sharsheret's work, which is now reaching Israel also. Elana and I decided to meet a few months later in New York for an interview. As you'll hear, she's learned a lot about building in the aftermath of a crisis. I hope you enjoy this episode. Credits: Host and Creator: Manya Marcus Editor and Producer: Ben Wallick Associate Editor and Producer: Keren Glicksman Content Editors: Keren Glicksman and Alexandra Yelderman Logo Design: Samuel Vilemar Outro Music: "נקייה" | Anat Malamud Listen on Spotify or Apple Music