Ayin Press – To produce and launch the pilot season of the Four Questions podcast, an educational interview series that will bring together voices from diverse disciplines, backgrounds, and traditions for conversations across difference.

How do you plan to create interfaith dialogue with your podcast?

The Four Questions podcast is inspired by the archetypal questions of the Passover Seder and the layered, intergenerational dialogues that unfold around the table. We wanted to create a show that celebrates the Jewish practice of intergenerational storytelling and collaborative meaning-making by bringing a wide array of guests from within and beyond the Jewish world.

We facilitate interfaith dialogue through thoughtful curation of guests and collaborators. Rather than staging debates between presumed opposites, we bring together people whose perspectives are distinct enough to open unexpected pathways into human thought and spirit. Guests will include artists, educators, writers, activists, and theologians from diverse Jewish backgrounds, as well as voices from other traditions—including Muslim, Christian, Yoruba, and Lakota lineages, among many others.

What are some examples of questions you’ll ask as the center of each episode?

In one episode, Ayin’s founding Managing Editor Penina Eilberg Schwartz joins her father, the award-winning Jewish Studies scholar Howard Schwartz, for an intergenerational conversation about the transmission of Jewish wisdom. Reflecting on Howard’s experience being pushed out of academia for his political views and Penina’s role shaping Ayin Press, they explore the costs of intellectual and spiritual integrity and what it means to carry these values forward to future generations. Two noteworthy questions Penina asks her father during the episode: “How did your Jewish identity, or your relationship to Jewish identity, grow painful?” and “What do you want to pass along to future generations?” 

Is there a guest you’re most looking forward to?

We’re excited to share an intimate conversation between Ayin cofounder and Editorial Director, Eden Pearlstein, and award-winning Lakota artist, Cannupa Hanska Luger (whose notable works include The Mirror Shield Project and Future Ancestral Technologies), on time, intersectional friendships, and ancestral wisdom. As dear childhood friends and ceremonial brothers, Eden and Cannupa reflect on the nature of time, their art, and the gifts of both their indigenous and Jewish ancestral wisdom traditions.