Author, Tell Me I Belong: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations
What does it mean to belong—to a family, a faith, a history?
In this episode of “Ira’s Everything Bagel,” Ira sits down with Dr. David Weill, author of Tell Me I Belong: A Journey Across Faiths and Generations, for a personal conversation about identity, spirituality, and the moments that force us to ask life’s hardest questions.
The son of a Jewish father who escaped Nazi Germany and a Southern Baptist mother, David grew up in New Orleans where religion was rarely discussed. Instead, medicine became his calling. But it was inside the hospital—amid life, death, and uncertainty—where his spirituality first ignited.
After Hurricane Katrina, David began reading the Bible cover to cover… for three years. His journey took him through Catholicism, then back to Judaism—after discovering that his mother had converted before marrying his father. That revelation sent him searching through generations of family history, ultimately leading him to Germany, where his connection to Judaism and his ancestors took on new meaning.
David also opens up about the politics and pressures of hospital life that led him to step away from his role as a transplant surgeon, and how his family supported him as he searched for a spiritual home.
This is a conversation about faith found later in life, identity reclaimed, and the courage it takes to ask: Where do I truly belong?
David Weill, MD, is the former Director of the Center for Advanced Lung Diseases and the Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center. A sought-after advisor to various transplant programs across the country, he also serves on the Board of TransMedics, a company focused on improving availability of donor organs. David has also served on several non-profit boards including the Tulane Medical School, Xavier University of Louisiana, SFJAZZ, the Isidore Newman School, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) Foundation, NextGen Personal Finance, and the Bellevue Literary Review. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Salon, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, STAT, the Washington Post, The Hill, LitHub, Tablet, The Times of Israel, TODAY.com, and the Los Angeles Times. David’s previous books include the memoir Exhale: Hope, Healing, and Life in Transplant (2021) and a novel, All That Really Matters (2024). He lives in New Orleans.