2008 College graduate Jonah Platt spoke at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History on Sep. 17.
Credit: Justin Abenoja
The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History hosted a live podcast taping with 2008 College graduate Jonah Platt on Wednesday.
The Sept. 17 live recording of Platt’s podcast “Being Jewish with Jonah Platt” marked his first live show in Philadelphia, after previously recording the first live episode in Los Angeles in January. The podcast aims to “[illuminate] the vast, beautiful, and often unexplored tapestry of Jewish identity, through deeply honest and personal conversations with notable Jews and non-Jewish allies alike.”
“The Museum is actually the perfect location for tonight’s conversation,” Platt said in his introduction. “My show, like the Weitzman, is all about who Jews are, how we feel, what we think, [and] how we live.”
Platt spoke with actress Sarah Podemski and advocate Lani Anpo about the intersectionality of Indigenous and Jewish individuals. Podemski is Anishinaabe and Ashkenazi Jewish, and Anpo is a member of the Sahnish, Hidatsa, Lakota tribes and an Ashkenazi Jew.
“I actually meet native Jews every once in a while, and it is this mitzvah, and you’re just like, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is wild,’” Anpo said. “It’s a special little celebratory thing, because it feels very rare, but then it also feels so in alignment sometimes.”
Anpo added that she sees herself as “100% Native and 100% Jewish,” and noted that “being mixed has been a huge challenge.”
“I started reconnecting with my Jewish side and as well as my Native side, it was really important to me to represent the connection in myself as being whole, because I know that there’s so many other people who face that same challenge every day,” Anpo said.
She also discussed her experience with antisemitism from the Indigenous communities she is involved in. Anpo argued that very few Native Americans have experienced “anything beyond the Euro-Christian or Eurocentric narrative,” which results in a “very distorted” view on Judaism and Jewish “peoplehood.”
Podemski similarly mentioned her family history and how it has shaped her life today.
“The lens that I live and work and exist from is so much tied to this legacy that I feel from both sides, like the fact that my mother’s parents survived residential school in Canada, and my grandfather survived the Holocaust,” Podemski said. “It’s a big responsibility to say, ‘there’s a reason that you’re here,’ and don’t take that for granted.”
Podemski also addressed her relationship with Israel, where she lived, and how her views have changed in the time since.
“It’s such an incredible place, but living and growing up in a family that’s all about peace, understanding what was happening in the settlements in Gaza with Palestinians, I always held very close to me as well, knowing that just like every other country, [Israel’s] not perfect,” she said. “We have a lot of trauma, and there’s many people that have a right to live peacefully with integrity, the same with any country we speak of that’s riddled with history and trauma.”
Referencing Podemski’s comments on Israel, Anpo shared her view that that Indigenous communities can look to Israel as a model for their own sovereignty.
“I think a lot of Native Americans struggle to recognize the State of Israel as a sovereign Indigenous nation, which it is, partly because of the history surrounding the reestablishment of Israel, because it happened during a time that is referred to as the postcolonial era,” Anpo said.
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She pointed to the “connection” that Jewish people have maintained “to their homeland the culture, language, and peoplehood for 2,000 years” — despite facing similar types of colonial violence and culture erasure.
“Instead of villainizing Israel for having to operate on the global stage with historically colonial or colonial countries, we really need to recognize the amount of strength and intelligence and strategy that went into Jewish people reclaiming their homeland after that long,” Podemski continued.
Platt, a former Broadway actor, launched the podcast in late 2023. The podcast, described on the Weitzman Museum’s website as the “#1 Jewish podcast in America,” seeks to “[illuminate] the vast, beautiful, and often unexplored tapestry of Jewish identity.”
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