Talia Davood is an Iranian, first generation American, undergraduate student at UCLA and an elected USAC General Representative. This past year she has shown up with tremendous courage, clarity, and sheer resilience. In April, Talia organized an event where former Hamas held hostage Omer Shemtov came to share his story of captivity, an event attended by hundreds of people. While the event was taking place, a condemnation letter from a fellow student council member was published, framing the event as insensitive to the Palestinian cause, and questioning the security presence that was there to protect over 350 attendees, security that any event of that size is fully eligible.

Talia responded with her own letter, one that she read aloud at a subsequent student council meeting that was direct, rational, and completely dismantled every allegation. Talia doesn’t just push back, she’s pushes toward. She is doing the work to build real bridges across faith communities, finding common ground with students who want to move forward together, even amidst deep divides.

For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast

Produced by Peoples Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Award-winning journalist and Zionist Yardena Schwartz returns to Grace for Impact to cut through the noise on two competing narratives: Nicholas Kristof’s largely unsubstantiated NYT op-ed alleging systematic Israeli prisoner abuse of Palestinians, and the just-released 300-page Civil Commission report documenting Hamas’s fully substantiated crimes against women and children on October 7th. She also makes a compelling case for why West Bank annexation would be, in her own words, the unraveling of the Jewish state.

For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast

Produced by Peoples Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A year after our first conversation, I reconnected with Tessa Veksler, the former UCSB student body president who navigated one of the most turbulent periods in recent campus history as a Jewish woman in the wake of October 7, 2023. In this follow-up, Tessa reflects on how far she’s come since graduating and the toll that year of relentless hate and harassment took on her personally. A reel from our interview went viral, but not without consequence, as a subsequent “sitch incoming” reel stripped it of context, distorted her words, and weaponised her message to push a narrative she never espoused.

Tessa breaks down the experience through the lens of the Three D’s, a framework for identifying and understanding antisemitism, and explains why incidents like this are exactly why media literacy and honest dialogue matter. Despite facing ongoing hostility, she remains deeply committed to bridge-building, believing that connection, not division, is the only path forward.

For more, you can follow the show on Instagram @Graceforimpactpodcast

Produced by Peoples Media

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.