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Episode: Mandana Dayani – ON BEING JEWISH NOW: Two Years After 10/7

Aired: December 10, 2025
Host: Zibby Owens (with guest interviewer Stacey Eagle)
Guest: Mandana Dayani

Overview

This episode is part of a special “On Being Jewish Now” series in which Mandana Dayani – business leader, activist, and co-founder of I Am a Voter – reflects on Jewish identity, activism, and resilience in the two years since October 7th, 2023. Guest host Stacey Eagle (author of Finding the Calm and the Chaos) leads an intimate discussion exploring Mandana's journey from Iranian immigrant to influential advocate, her foundational work combatting antisemitism, and her hopes for building Jewish pride and unity in a polarized world.

Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Foundation Stories: Kalanet and One Mitzvah Day

[05:00 – 08:57]

• Origins of the Kalanet Foundation: After October 7th, Mandana felt a deep compulsion to act against antisemitism. Drawing from her background in combating misinformation and brand-building, she shifted focus from just countering negative narratives to proactively celebrating Jewish resilience.
  • “We pivoted and created the Kalanet Foundation... The idea that the flower of Israel is this red anemone. And after October 7th, all the fields where the Jews were massacred, these beautiful red anemones blossomed. And I just kept thinking like, that is who we are as a people.” [06:04]
• One Mitzvah Day: Inspired by the need for gratitude-based activism, this digital initiative encourages daily thank-you messages to individuals and organizations supporting Jewish causes.
  • “How beautiful would it be to build a movement centered on gratitude?... We started end of January. We've now sent over 5 million messages.” [08:39]

2. Personal Refugee Experience & Shaping Activism

[08:59 – 12:44]

• Escaping Iran as a Child: Early memories include forced chants of “death to America/Israel” and fear under the morality police. Mandana and family resettled in the US as religious refugees, aided by HIAS.
  • “As a child, every morning I started preschool with chanting, death to America. Death to Israel. And so many of my earliest memories were of the morality police... And when we arrived to the US... I understood how lucky I was to be one of the girls that got to leave.” [09:15]
• Rebuilding in America: Profound gratitude for safety, democracy, and the Jewish community’s support, which later fueled her dedication to civic initiatives like I Am a Voter.
• Family Traditions: Despite losing all possessions, family unity and rituals like Shabbat grounded the family through adversity.

3. Building for Impact

[12:45 – 16:19]

• Careers Spanning Industries: Fashion, media, politics, tech – for Mandana, the connective tissue is a love for incubation and a drive to connect authentically with audiences.
  • “I love to build, so I think the incubation is probably just very exciting for me. And I love, and I think I generally understand consumers and how to connect to them. And so to me, that was sort of the through line.” [13:03]
• Starting I Am a Voter: Born from outrage at US family separation policies, Mandana called on a network of women to create a nonpartisan voter engagement platform.
  • “I actually called 25 amazing women and asked them to help me start. I'm a voter. And so they became our founding team... And in aggregate, we had hundreds of millions of dollars of donated media.” [15:14]

4. Empowering Students & Jewish Voices

[16:26 – 19:27]

• Our Campus United and OCU Chronicle: Created as direct responses to rising antisemitism and student censorship on campuses, these initiatives elevate Jewish student perspectives and solutions.
  • “The courage that I have seen in these students is unlike anything I could have ever expected... I flew out, I want to say 10 or 12 of them to LA. We convened a two day summit and I just looked at them and said, what do you need?” [16:41]
  • Shift from begging for space in traditional campus media to launching their own platforms.

5. Echo Chambers, Bridge-Building & The Pace of Change

[25:16 – 27:24]

• Jewish Diaspora’s Engagement: Acknowledges value in both insular (echo chamber) and outreach work.
  • “In some ways igniting, exciting, informing the Jewish Diaspora is actually very important. So that is a priority that we have to continue to maintain.... I think it's going to be a lot of work for a very, very long time. I think the hardest part right now is helping people understand how long change takes.” [25:23]
• Multiple Forms of Activism: Silent support, private conversations, and “showing up” beyond social media are all valid and impactful.
  • “I think calling your uncle and telling him that the thing that he said at the table was racist is activism… We show up in so many ways... sometimes we have to give people a little bit of grace. Like, I think everyone is so eager to just be mad because we're all so hurt.” [27:25]

6. Motherhood, Legacy, and Feeling at Home

[29:53 – 33:17]

• Parenting with Purpose: Mandana involves her two daughters in her activism, teaching them leadership and empathy through action.
  • “I realized the most important thing I could do is include our kids. So they've just come with us for everything … they get to meet everyone and they get to sit at the table and they get to ask people questions.” [30:10]
• Full-Circle Jewish Pride: Emotional moments of pride witnessing her daughter participate at the White House Hanukkah celebration, and her father installing a mezuzah at the Vice President’s home.
  • “I fled my country because it wasn't safe for me to be Jewish or a woman. And now, within one generation, my daughter is standing, telling the President of the United States that she's gonna be president at a Hanukkah party at the White House.” [32:26]

7. Hope, Integrity, and Redefining Jewish Identity

[33:21 – 39:16]

• Protecting Hope: Activism requires a kind of “hopeful idiocy”—the radical optimism that change is possible, supported by integrity and community.
  • “You just have to wake up a hopeful idiot. You know what I mean? I wake up every day... I believe that I can make a difference. You have to believe. You have to believe that change is possible.” [33:31]
• What Being Jewish Means Today: Deep pride, gratitude for global Jewish kinship, and cherishing traditions—especially the ritual of Shabbat.
  • “I feel so lucky to be Jewish. I feel so lucky to know that I could walk into the home of any other Jewish family in the entire world and be, like, hugged and loved by them… and there's so much within the Jewish culture that has defined all of the values have defined me so much and how we raise our kids.” [36:47]
• Shabbat Traditions: Vivid, loving portrait of her Persian-Jewish family’s lively Friday night dinners.
  • “Persian Shabbats are really different. They're really loud. There's so many people... There's so much food. I love, like, chaos, and it's just so much love and so much fun.” [38:17]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Jewish Resilience and Symbolism:
  “There’s a quote that says, you know, they tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds… the flower of Israel is this red anemone.” — Mandana Dayani, [06:04]

• On Starting Over in America:
  “I understood how lucky I was to be one of the girls that got to leave, that didn’t have to wear hijab every morning, that had safety, that had democracy.” — Mandana Dayani, [09:55]

• On the Humility of Leadership:
  “My life is a series of phone a friends.” — Mandana Dayani, [16:19]

• On Responding to Student Censorship:
  “You don’t need to beg your lame newspaper that no one reads … We’re just gonna make the things that they're gonna try to take away from us.” — Mandana Dayani, [18:00]

• On “Hopeful Idiocy” in Activism:
  “To be an activist … you just have to wake up a hopeful idiot.” — Mandana Dayani, [33:31]

• On the Joy of Shabbat:
  “I always define our life as, like, a cross between my Big Fat Greek Wedding, Everybody Loves Raymond, and, like, a little hint of Borat … So that is Shabbat. That is life. That is every day.” — Mandana Dayani, [38:17]

Suggested Listening Timestamps for Key Segments

• Kalanet/One Mitzvah Day & Digital Activism: [05:00 – 08:57]
• Refugee Journey & Early Experiences: [08:59 – 12:44]
• Career Transition Reflections: [12:45 – 16:19]
• Campus Advocacy & Student Journalism: [16:26 – 19:27]
• Echo Chambers, Patience, and Bridge-Building: [25:16 – 27:24]
• Motherhood, Jewish Pride, Intergenerational Moments: [29:53 – 33:17]
• Defining Jewish Identity/Shabbat Traditions: [36:47 – 39:16]

Tone & Takeaways

• Mandana speaks with candor, humor, compassion, and sharp insight—balancing vulnerability about loss and disillusionment with an infectious, dogged optimism about the power of stories, tradition, and community.
• Rather than dwell in indignation or despair, the episode demonstrates how the Jewish response since 10/7 has been one of collective action, gratitude, and relentless hope.

For listeners looking for inspiration on identity, activism, and building bridges in turbulent times, Mandana’s journey offers stirring clarity, warmth, and actionable wisdom.