Davidi Jonas went from being a high school rebbe and shul rabbi with no college degree to running Straight Path Communications, a company that sold to Verizon for $3.1 billion.

In this episode of Depends on the Context, Davidi and I explore his unlikely journey into telecommunications, the emergence of 5G, navigating the FCC, and the extraordinary bidding war between AT&T and Verizon- including what happened over Shabbos.

Along the way, we discuss opportunity, family connections, hard work, and Hashgacha Pratis- and how much of our success is really in our hands.

Today marks the first yahrzeit of my grandmother, Suri Lichtschein z"l, aka Babi Yaya.

In this special episode, my brother Elie and I look back on Babi's extraordinary 99 years of life — from surviving Auschwitz and rebuilding her life after the Holocaust to becoming the beloved matriarch of our family.

We share childhood memories, funny stories, and reflections on her remarkable sense of humor, unwavering emunah, and the legacy she left behind.

Originally recorded last year for our podcast An Excuse to Talk to My Brother, I'm republishing this conversation here on Depends on the Context in honor of her first yahrzeit.

May her neshamah have an aliyah.

My kids never asked me to buy them 340+ Peppa Pig toys.

I did it anyway.

It started with two Afikoman presents. Six months later, I had made 201 separate purchases and spent $1,377.90 on Peppa Pig.

Along the way, Peppa became part of bath time, Shabbos, learning Navi- and somehow I ended up drawing faces on actual potatoes from the bodega.

This is the story of how something genuinely good got completely out of hand and what my kids understood about it before I did.