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Your Stories
Here you can listen to some of our productions, each of them captures a different family's unique stories and history.
Family members can come here to listen to their stories and you too can browse and get an idea of the special work we do!
Fish or Cut Bait - The Michael (Micha) Balf Story
Each of us is given a name at birth.
I was born as Michael Balf, in a smalll fishing village in the US. Yet l lived my adult life as Micha Balf, on a kibbutz in Israel.
For reasons that will become apparent during the podcast, this is a moment of reflection for me. This is a time to look and reflect. This is a time to focus my eyes, and those of others, on my legacy as a person who has always lived between worlds.
This is a chance to hear from many who have been impacted by my acts and attitudes. The narrative of my life touched others. What do they have to say? How are some of the ways that their lives have been impacted by their interaction with me?
This podcast tells a tale that will give insights into my world - one in which we can sense how I tried to step up and make changes by actively influencing the people and the surroundings of the worlds that I am a part of.
By living my life as I have and in the manner that I have chosen, I hope to have made a difference.
This is my story.
- Micha Balf
A Life Full of Mazal - The Gucia and Szlamek Melnik Story
Gucia Fried and Szlamek Melnik were born in 1918 in the Polish town of Pultusk. There they went to school, the shtiebel and local jewish youth groups, where they met and fell in love.
A few months after the Holocaust began, they were married in the Siauliai ghetto in Lithuania. It was from this unholy place that they were taken, in 1944, to separate concentration camps and it was there that they last saw their two year old son Moshe.
But despite their harsh beginnings the Melniks’ life was a life of perseverance, happiness and joy. Through sheer willpower, determination and optimism, the Melniks began their life anew in Melbourne Australia, where they raised their two daughters Ray and Betty, and built a small knitwear empire.
This is their story.
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Ask Good Questions - The Avi Seidmann Story
Abraham (Avi) Seidmann is the Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar of Information Systems and an Associate Research Director for Health Analytics and Digital Health at the Questrom Digital Business Institute of Boston University. He is the author of over one hundred research articles and has over 9,300 research citations.In 2012 he was named a “Distinguished Research Fellow” by the prestigious Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Information Systems Society of INFORMS; the Fellow award was given to him in recognition of his outstanding scholarly leadership contributions to the information systems discipline.In addition to his prolific research, he has consulted and worked together with Israel's and America’s foremost companies.In February 2022, and again in January 2023, Professor Seidmann was named a part of the world's top 2% active scientists by two recent Stanford University studies.Prior to joining Boston University, Avi taught at the University of Rochester, Tel-Aviv University, Ben Gurion University, the Technion, and Yale University.Avi has also been the president and co-founder of several commercial companies dealing with real estate, management consulting, medical imaging CME, hospitals’ business management, and Medical Residents recruiting software development.
He is also a son, a lover, a husband, a father and a learned man, who chose hope and perseverance in the face of adversity. This is the story of one man’s joys, sorrows, fortitude and resilience. Of a life fully lived.
A Fully Lived Life - The Story of Bob Magid
It is said that it is better to master your passions than conquer cities. Such is the practice of Robert - Bob - Magid, who travelled across continents to discover his passions - and lived them.
From making toys for little children to creating a documentary film, from leading a nuclear disarmament movement to nursing the wounds of war victims in Israel. From living the life of a refugee - to becoming a real estate tycoon in Australia… not many people get to live a life so full of adventures. This is the inspiring story of Bob Magid, an entrepreneur, a businessman, a father - and a proud Jew.
When History Comes Knocking at Your Door - Rabbi Moshe Sachs
My grandfather Rabbi Moshe Sachs was the Jewish Forrest Gump. He participated in all the big moments of Jewish history, always playing a really small role. My favorite job as a child was walking him home on Friday nights in the cold Jerusalem air when he would tell me stories of his life spent between America and the budding state of Israel.
- Rabbi Mishael Zion
A Story on Two Fronts - The Birnbaum’s Story
Today we’re telling you a story out of Israel. But like most stories from Israel, it doesn’t begin there. This story centers around Ervin and Hadassa Birnbaum. It’s a story that includes at least five countries, several languages and one very big war, World War II.
Building Roads, Bridges & Family - Carlos Jinich
Few people are capable of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. Carlos Jinich did it at age 70. How? With a drive that, perhaps, came from his grandmother: an immigrant who went faced off against and then befriended the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. With the same drive that led him to build some of Mexico's biggest infrastructure projects.