Listen
Naki Radio, the kosher audio service for Jewish families, has turned several of Yaakov’s stories into audio series. Stranger Than Fiction tells true stories from history, narrated with music and sound and made for the whole family. Lost in the Amazon is the first, and Titanic is next. Miracles with Meaning, adapted from Awaken Your Emunah, is for children (although adults like it too). You can hear a full episode of each series here for free. The rest are on Naki.
Lost in the Amazon
In 1981 a young Jewish man walked into the Bolivian rainforest and did not come out.
Lost in the Amazon
Three weeks alone in the Bolivian rainforest, and how he came home.
Listen on NakiTitanic
Titanic
Two officers on the Californian stared at a stopped ship’s light for an hour. Ten miles away, the Titanic was sinking.
Miracles with Meaning
One wonder. A whole new way to see the world.
Short, true stories about the world Hashem built — made to be read out loud at the Shabbos table.
The Tiny Creature with a Secret Factory
Pound for pound, spider silk is stronger than steel — and one small spider can spin over four hundred feet of it in a single afternoon, from seven different silk “factories” inside its own body. This issue takes that apart: how the silk is made, why engineers still can’t copy it, and what a brain smaller than a pinhead is quietly telling us.
Front and back: questions to predict before you read, a “test yourself” corner, and a thought to bring to the Shabbos table. Adapted from Yaakov Astor’s Awaken Your Emunah.
Read Issue 1 PDF · opens in a new tab
The Bird That Isn’t Allowed a Cushion
Run at a tree and hit it with your head. Once. That’s it, you’re done. A woodpecker does it ten thousand times a day, and it hits so hard that if that were your head you’d be finished long before the tenth. Now the strange part: it has no cushion in there. It isn’t allowed one.
Front and back: questions to predict before you read, a “test yourself” corner, and a thought to bring to the Shabbos table. Adapted from Yaakov Astor’s Awaken Your Emunah.
Download Issue 2 PDF · saves to your deviceListen to complete episodes
Complete episodes you can play right here, free. The rest of the series is on Naki.
The Tiniest Engineer
A spider spins a thread thinner than a hair and, for its size, stronger than steel — with no plans and no one teaching it how.
Listen on Naki Read Issue 1 (PDF)
The Smashing Bird
A woodpecker slams its head into a tree twenty times a second, all day long, and never gets a headache.
Listen on Naki Download Issue 2 (PDF)
Hear the whole series on Naki
Every issue begins as a six-minute episode — one wonder, taken apart in a conversation. The rest of the series is on Naki, with new ones added regularly.
Listen on Naki
These wonders started in Yaakov Astor’s Awaken Your Emunah — the same ideas at an adult’s depth, with the sources. Two volumes from Judaica Press.