People of the Pod Creators & Guests

Allison Kaplan Sommer is a journalist, currently writing for Haaretz. She is the former Washington DC correspondent, feature writer and critic for the Jerusalem Post, and her work has appeared in the New Republic, Politico, The Forward, and JTA.Kaplan Sommer was raised in Rhode Island. She received her B.A. in English and Theater at Wesleyan University and her M.A. from the Columbia School of Journalism.

Odette Yousef is a reporter whose work focuses on issues of race and class. Currently, she is reporting for the Race, Class and Communities team at WBEZ in Chicago.Prior to joining WBEZ, Yousef was a reporter at WABE FM in Atlanta.Yousef received her B.A. in Economics and East Asian Studies from Harvard University.

Haviv Rettig Gur (Hebrew: חביב רטיג גור) is an Israeli journalist who serves as the political correspondent and senior analyst for The Times of Israel.

Walter Russell Mead is an American academic, James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College. He previously taught American foreign policy at Yale University, former editor-at-large of The American Interest magazine, columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and a scholar at the Hudson Institute.

Soraya McDonald is a writer and culture critic. She was previously a reporter at The Washington Post and has been the culture critic for The Undefeated since 2016.