Bestselling Author Dani Shapiro on Family Secrets and the Religion She Left Behind

In this deeply personal episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers is joined by Dani Shapiro, the bestselling author and host of the podcast Family Secrets.

Dani shares the stunning revelation that changed her life: learning through a DNA test that the man who raised her was not her biological father. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family with deep cultural and religious roots, Dani takes us through the unraveling of family secrets, the discovery of a new biological lineage, and the complex emotional terrain of love, loss, and identity.

She reflects on what it means to belong—to a culture, to a religion, to a family—and how nurture, nature, and narrative intertwine. From her father’s hidden marriages and a poetic Aunt Shirley who preserved generations of Jewish family history, to the new “sister-friend” she never knew she had, Dani's story expands the idea of what family can be.

Together, Dani and Nabil explore the paradox of knowing and unknowing, and the quiet power of claiming your own truth in a world full of assumptions.

 

Guest: Dani Shapiro

Host: Nabil Ayers

Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji

Produced by Palm Tree Island

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