Meet Joseph Bendahan, a nuclear physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. Joseph details his family’s Sephardic roots in the Moroccan cities of Tetouan and Ouezzane before their migration to South America. Reflecting on the endangerment of his ancestral language, Haketia, he describes how the mix of Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic thrived in Venezuela’s unique social environment. Joseph highlights vivid folklore like the chicken-footed dembajos and expressive phrases like se te caiga el mazzal, illustrating how even his Ashkenazi friends adopted these colorful Sephardic words on the playground.

Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

Editor: Avishay Artsy

Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

Today we want to introduce you to another podcast that we think you’ll like, Ayuni: Voices of our Jewish Grandmothers. On Heritage Words we discuss Jewish culture that's passed down through the generations. Ayuni does that too, taking us into the homes of Jewish families from the Middle East and North Africa. Dalya Arussy Di Veroli, Sarah Sassoon, and Dr. Drora Arussy have delightful conversations around rituals, holidays, food, and, yes, heritage words. Even their title is a heritage word. As their description says, "Ayuni, a term of endearment meaning “my eyes,” passes from grandmother to granddaughter, carrying worlds of memory, longing, and love." Check out Ayuni on YouTube and wherever you listen to your podcasts. As a taste, here's a sample episode we think you'll like: Food As Memory. The hosts share the foods they grew up on and the stories surrounding them. Enjoy this bonus episode!

Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

Editor: Avishay Artsy

Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

• Sarah Bunin Benor interviews Nora Lacey, founder of the Assyrian Arts Institute, and Alan Niku, a filmmaker and scholar of Mizrahi culture. Together, they explore the connections between their endangered Neo-Aramaic dialects: Nora’s Christian Assyrian and Alan’s Jewish Hulaulá from Sanandaj. Nora details her work revitalizing the language through the arts, including the first Assyrian opera, Gilgamesh, while Alan discusses documenting his heritage through his Dreamy Kalimi video series. The guests test their mutual intelligibility and share heritage words.

  Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

  Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

  Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

  Editor: Avishay Artsy

  Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

  Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

Sarah Bunin Benor interviews Sam Miller, a computational linguist of mixed Ashkenazi and Nash-Didan heritage. Sam details his maternal roots in the cosmopolitan city of Urmia, Iran, where his family navigated a multilingual world of Aramaic, Farsi, and Kurdish. Driven by a childhood desire to shoulder the “burden” of his endangered ancestral language, he discusses his documentation work with the Jewish Language Project. Sam highlights Nash-Didan heritage words for traditional foods like shifteh and tava, and shares creative revitalization projects, including a Lishan Didan cover of “Country Roads.”

Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

Editor: Avishay Artsy

Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

Sarah Bunin Benor interviews Ashton Kahen, a Baruch College student and researcher dedicated to Iranian Jewish history and endangered languages. Ashton details his family’s diverse roots across Iran, including Tuyserkan, Damavand, and Kashan. Driven by a desire to preserve his heritage, he discusses his work documenting his ancestral language, Judeo-Tuyserkani, which has led to a partnership with the Jewish Language Project. Ashton highlights common Persian Jewish heritage words like kenisa and Ben Ebri, while also exploring the Farsi-English language mixing prevalent in his Great Neck community.

Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

Editor: Avishay Artsy

Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

Sarah Bunin Benor interviews writer and journalist Lauren Hakimi, whose family roots trace back to Mashhad, Iran, via Tehran. Lauren recounts the unique history of Mashhadi Jews, including the forced conversion, which led her ancestors to practice Judaism in secret for a century. She discusses the social separation of Mashhadi Jews from "Tehrani" (non-Mashhadi Persian) Jews in Great Neck, New York, a major center of Persian Jews. Lauren shares how her father integrated the Yiddish word tuches into their family and also shares Farsi terms like gabool boshe and delbozorg. She also discusses her reporting on Persian Jewish languages re-emerging in relatives with dementia.

Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

Editor: Avishay Artsy

Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

Sarah Bunin Benor interviews comedian Ariel Elias, who discusses her unique background as a Jew growing up in Kentucky and her move to the Jewish comedy scene in New York. Ariel discusses her mixed Ashkenazi and Sephardic heritage, explaining why she prioritizes the Spanish connection and how she obtained Spanish citizenship. Ariel explores the contrasting experiences of her ancestral languages, from inheriting some Yiddish words like yenta and shaina maidele from her maternal side to feeling the "hurt" of losing her paternal side's Ladino.

Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

Editor: Avishay Artsy

Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

This Heritage Words episode features Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of the new Netflix series Long Story Short. Bob-Waksberg discusses his Ashkenazi roots, noting that his primary exposure to Yiddish came from American pop culture such as Mad Magazine and Mel Brooks. He also discusses his show's use of overlapping dialogue and Yiddish heritage words such as tsures and ungepatchke, sharing that this specificity allows audiences to find universal connections.

Heritage Words - conversations about the words we inherit and the meaning they bring to our lives - is produced by the HUC Jewish Language Project and HUC Connect.

Host and producer: Sarah Bunin Benor

Assistant producer: Kyle Elbaz Fingerhut

Editor: Avishay Artsy

Video editor: Talia Ehrenberg

Theme music: Maurice El Medioni’s French and Algerian Judeo-Arabic album “Cafe Oran,” featuring the Klezmatics’ David Krakauer and Frank London, courtesy of Piranha Records.

Clips in this episode are courtesy of The Tornante Company.