Times Will Tell: Recent Episodes
The Times of Israel
From The Times of Israel, a weekly deep dive into the past, present, and future of the Land of Israel, the Jewish people, and beyond.
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with leading economist Prof. Dan Ben-David.
Ben-David heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research and is a senior faculty member in the Department of Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University.
Before Israel heads to the ballot box on October 27, Ben-David is on a crusade to raise awareness of just how crucial these elections are to stave off an almost inevitable "spiral of collapse."
In economics, a "spiral of collapse occurs when a country starts to collapse economically; the first to leave are the most educated, the most skilled, the people with options, which means that there's a greater burden on those who remain," explains Ben-David. Right now, due to decades of sectoral politics, Israel is headed towards such a cliff, he feels.
But through careful planning and a complete overhaul of Israel's education system, the country can still bounce back. Ben-David explains how the Jewish state needs to create one unified core curriculum for all of its citizens -- and teach it well.
And so this week, we ask Dan Ben-David, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, the director of the Israel Democracy Institute's Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for Shared Society and head of the Religion and State Program at the center.
Ahead of the upcoming October 27 elections, Israel is looking increasingly stratified, with each segment fighting for its own electorate and particularist needs.
In this week's conversation, we focus on two pivotal Israeli societies: the Religious Zionist and Haredi or ultra-Orthodox communities.
Ravitsky Tur-Paz, who earned two degrees from the Hebrew University's law school, has spent much of her professional life dealing with the question of how religion can coexist with modern civil society.
In the first half of the episode, we learn about the Religious Zionist community and how the party of the same name does -- or does not -- reflect it.
We delve into the settler movement and new patterns of extremist, violent behavior within it. How do these actions align with Jewish theology, or is a new theology being forged?
In the second half, we turn to the Haredi sector and learn about its own mosaic of communities.
Ravitsky Tur-Paz describes the growing resentment facing the society as it chooses to prevent the vast majority of its men from serving in the IDF and from participating in the workforce. We hear what demographic, security and financial concerns this lifestyle presents to Israel today, and in the near future.
And so this week, we ask Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
Alkhatib gives us an overview of the conditions on the ground right now in the Gaza Strip. We learn about an uptick in diseases such as chicken pox due to extreme unsanitary conditions and lack of vaccinations. There are new efforts to allow residents to open bank accounts -- but where is the money to be found even as paper bills are so worn they are disintegrating?
Khalil al-Hayya has been elected to be the new leader of Hamas, the terror group announced Monday after months of speculation following a vote in the General Shura Council. We learn how, following the subjugation of protests in the Gaza Strip in late June, al-Hayya's annointing is another signal that the terror group is entrenching its ties with Iran and continuing consultations with Hezbollah.
In the second half of the program, we discuss the intensity of support for Hamas in three population centers: the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority, and Jordan. Alkhatib's comment on the Palestinians living in the Hashemite Kingdom may surprise.
Finally, Alkhatib describes his new short book, "Hamas and its Two Million Hostages." Part memoir, part explainer, the work is an attempt to offer an approachable take on the past almost three years of war and how Hamas's stranglehold is only tightening on the people in the Strip.
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
With the sudden death of US Sen. Lindsey Graham this week, Rettig Gur is asked to expound on the loss of this staunchly pro-Israel politician who was able to rally both sides of the aisle.
We then turn to the recent visits of two Democratic wannabe presidential candidates -- Rahm Emanuel, most recently the US ambassador to Japan, and US Rep. Ro Khanna.
We hear how both politicians came with distinct messages and very different goals.
And finally, as America turns 250, we learn about Anglo Jewry's inability to foresee the new phenomenon of antisemitism hitting the US's teeming shores. Does the vilification of Israel change their hypothetical plans for escape?
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Deborah Gilboa, MD, an expert in resilience and navigating change.
The Pittsburgh-based family physician and author of "From Stressed to Resilient: The Guide to Handle More and Feel It Less" begins the program by defining what is -- and what is not -- resilience. We learn that it can be exercised and strengthened to be employed when we are presented with unexpected choices, positive or negative.
Gilboa, whose son served and was injured as a lone soldier in Gaza, shares how she personally found inner fortitude following his deployment in October 2023 and was able to be the mother he needed when called upon.
We also hear about Dr. G's Squirrel Hill community and its coping mechanisms in the wake of the October 27, 2018, shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, in which 11 people were killed by a white supremacist terrorist. We learn that the community's response to US President Donald Trump's visit lines up with resilience tactics, including drawing boundaries and uniting through tragedy.
Finally, Gilboa gives quick tips for how listeners may hack their own resilience muscle in times of stress.
And so, this week, we ask Dr. Deborah Gilboa what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was edited by Yitzchak Ledee.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with acclaimed chefs and restaurateurs Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook.
Solomonov and Cook, the trailblazing chefs behind Philadelphia hospitality group CookNSolo Restaurants, are known champions of the Israeli culinary landscape, a history that began with their first restaurant, Zahav, which is considered their flagship and was established 17 years ago.
The James Beard Foundation award-winning restaurateurs speak about how they met as line cooks in Philadelphia, when they ran to a tiny Middle Eastern market to stock up on freekeh, silan and spices for their developing menu.
Solomonov, the son of a Bulgarian-Israeli father and American-Israeli mother, and Cook, the son of an American rabbi, speak about the Jewish and Israeli influences in their lives.
They discuss how Zahav came to be, in an unlikely corner of Philadelphia, an upscale version of an Israeli grill restaurant, eventually branching into additional restaurants and cafes in the city, in New York, and in Florida.
Their take on Israeli cuisine has been at the forefront of the American discovery of creamy hummus and tahini, roasted meats and fresh salads, a concept they discuss during the podcast.
Cook and Solomonov review the last two and a half years since the bloody October 7 Hamas onslaught and the concurrent wave of anti-Zionist sentiment, when it became much more challenging to run a chain of Israel-influenced restaurants.
With nearly 500 employees at their 18 restaurants, the pair say they feel proud to be an Israeli restaurant group, knowing that it is inspiring to some and a reason for others to express hate and vitriol.
Solomonov and Cook agree that they won't apologize for their identity, for their culture or community, and will continue to prepare and develop their dishes and restaurants to represent their roots.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Celebrated restaurateurs and chefs Steve Cook (left) and Michael Solomonov (right) speak to What Matters Now host Jessica Steinberg for this week's podcast (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with celebrated writer Etgar Keret.
Etgar Keret, a leading voice in Israeli literature, with books published in over four dozen languages, talks about how his perception of writing has changed since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught.
Using typical Keret metaphors and description, he explains the challenges of the times, how he once wrote about ethics and ideas and community, and finds that those more abstract ideas have evaporated.
Keret speaks at length about the disadvantages of being an Israeli artist in the public sphere, as audiences wait to hear something they don't like.
He also discusses social media in this time period and the shifts in the artist-audience relationship. Keret's Substack newsletter, Alphabet Soup, has become a more amenable space in which to share his short stories and ideas.
Keret, who teaches creative writing at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, now directs a new MFA program at the Jewish Theological Seminary and he speaks about his students and his desire to make a small but important change by leading the group of nascent writers.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Acclaimed author Etgar Keret speaks to What Matters Now host Jessica Steinberg for this week's podcast (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, we hear from former prime minister Naftali Bennett in conversation with founding editor David Horovitz and political correspondent Tal Schneider.
Speaking with ToI on June 11 at the campaign headquarters of Together, the new, merged party he now leads with former prime minister Yair Lapid, Bennett said Israel is facing “an existential moment,” and warned that another term under the current government would leave the country without a functioning economy, society or international position.
“Another four years with this government, we won’t have an economy, we won’t have a society,” he charged. “The Haredi issue will just crash us all. We won’t have an international standing anywhere. We have to act now.”
And so, this week, we ask Naftali Bennett, what matters now.
For further reading:
Bennett to ToI: ‘We’re at an existential moment. Another four years with this government, we won’t have a society’
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was edited by Yitzchak Ledee.
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett (ToI) / Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men scuffle with police during a protest against military recruitment and call for the release of detained draft resisters outside a military prison near Kfar Yona, Israel, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Israel Democracy Institute senior fellow Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler.
Shwartz Altshuler, the head of the IDI's Democracy in the Digital Age Program, weighs in on the nefarious ways in which AI is being used to manipulate hearts and minds -- from elections to smear campaigns.
She breaks down in practical terms how AI is now able to flood the public sphere with noise and confusion. We discuss the ripple effects of increased reliance on chatbots versus Google-type searches and how information can easily be poisoned by bad actors.
The technology law and policy expert gives an overview of the potential possibilities for regulation -- and the chaotic Wild West reality we're living in.
Turning to Israel's upcoming elections, we learn how the delegitimization of the results has already begun.
And so, this week, we ask Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was edited by Ari Schlacht.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and journalist Matti Friedman.
On May 31, 2026, President Isaac Herzog attended the memorial ceremony for the fallen soldiers of the First Lebanon War (Operation 'Peace for the Galilee'), held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. On the same day, the IDF announced that Israel had captured the historic Beaufort Castle and the surrounding strategic ridge as it pushed deeper into Lebanon.
This week, we call upon Friedman to delve into the cultural resonance of this Crusader fort for Israelis. He shares his perspective on the site based upon his personal experiences as a soldier before the IDF pullout from the security zone in 2000, which he recounted in his book, "Pumpkin Flowers."
After Friedman gives us the historical background to understand the conflict, we discuss the catch-22 Israel is again sucked into in southern Lebanon.
And so, this week, we ask Matti Friedman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was edited by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Author Matti Friedman (Jonathan Bloom) / A view of he Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan, speaking with author and scholar Dara Horn.
Horn visited ToI's Jerusalem studio while on a break from this year’s International Writers Festival in Jerusalem, taking place May 25-28 at the city’s Mishkenot Sha’ananim cultural center
An author of novels and non-fiction, including “People Love Dead Jews,” “Eternal Life,” “A Guide for the Perplexed,” Horn's latest book -- her first for young readers -- is “One Little Goat.”
Her newest nonfiction work will be published by Simon & Schuster in September under the title, "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living."
We hear about how, after Horn published her bestselling work, "People Love Dead Jews," readers asked her for the solution to this problem. This week, she speaks about her new education initiative, Tell, which is bent on teaching American schoolchildren about real, living Jews, and Jewish culture.
To launch the wide-ranging conversation, Horn defines terms, explaining that Jews are not a religion, but a people with a religion. This difference, she states, is massive and must be internalized to understand the millennia of hate experienced by the Jewish people.
Since the Hamas onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and the resultant retaliatory war in Gaza, there has been an outsized focus on the trend of "non-Zionist" or "anti-Zionist" Jews. Who are these Jews -- and are they significant in the chronicles of Jewish history?
And so, this week, we ask author Dara Horn, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.
IMAGE: AP
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with author Yishay Ishi Ron.
Ishi Ron's award-winning 2023 book, "Dog," is about an Israeli combat officer returning from Gaza, grappling with PTSD and heroin addiction until a stray dog enters his life and helps save him.
The novel became a bestseller in Israel, was long-listed for the Sapir Prize, and is currently being adapted into a film by director Eran Ricklis.
After "Dog" was translated into English, it won two 2026 National Jewish Book Awards, in the Book Club and Hebrew Fiction in Translation categories.
A former commando in the elite Duvdevan unit fictionalized in the Netflix series "Fauda," Ishi Ron wrote "Dog" before he was diagnosed with PTSD, while he was self-medicating with alcohol and drugs.
Ishi Ron talks about writing books as part of his healing process and what has become his mission to help others in his situation.
He also discusses his latest book, a Holocaust drama called "The Girl Who Rode the White Lion," inspired by his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Yishai Ishi Ron, author of the award-winning novel 'Dog,' appears on the May 19 What Matters Now podcast (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, founding editor David Horovitz speaks with CEO of the British Board of Deputies Michael Wegier.
Wegier has been the CEO of the Board, the umbrella organization representing Anglo-Jewry, for the past five years -- an increasingly fraught period, especially since October 7, 2023. Anti-Israel demonstrators routinely march through central London, Palestine Action activists have attacked Israeli targets, a cultural boycott of Israel has picked up steam...
We discuss how things have changed for Britain's Jews, especially amid a stream of antisemitic attacks, including deadly terrorism at a Manchester synagogue last Yom Kippur and the stabbing of two Jewish men in northwest London's Golders Green neighborhood last month.
Wegier talks about who is behind the violence, how the police are facing up to it, and the role of Keir Starmer's Labour government. We also look more widely at British politics from a Jewish context, with this month's local elections marked by the dramatic rise of the hard-right UK Reform party, and unprecedented gains by a Green Party engulfed in antisemitism scandals, under a Jewish leader who made vicious criticism of Israel a centerpiece of the campaign.
Finally, we look at the relationship between Anglo-Jewry and Israel, and the degree to which what Wegier describes as the "anxiety" in the community about day-to-day life is prompting thoughts of potential emigration to Israel.
So this week, we ask Michael Wegier, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.
IMAGE: Michael Wegier (courtesy) / Protesters gather near Downing Street during a 'national emergency' rally organized by the Campaign Against Antisemitism following a knife attack in Golders Green, in London, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with legal expert Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy.
Almost immediately following Hamas’s murderous onslaught on southern Israel, humanitarian law expert Elkayam-Levy established and now heads The Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children.
On May 12, the commission released a massive report that documents and chronicles Hamas’s systemic use of rape and sexual violence against women -- and men -- on October 7, while taking hostages and during their captivities.
Elkayam-Levy visited The Times of Israel's Jerusalem studio for this wide-ranging conversation. Listener discretion is advised.
Since the Hamas onslaught on southern Israel, Elkayam-Levy and her team of forensics and legal experts, alongside professional archivists and others, have carefully gathered witness testimony and over 10,000 pieces of visual evidence that prove the terrorists' use of sex abuse as a tactical war crime.
We hear about 13 categories of abuse perpetrated on people from over 50 nationalities. We learn that the tactic of broadcasting the crimes via livestreams has made Hamas heroes in the eyes of some fundamentalists who are already importing the terror group's sadistic methods, as seen in Syrian attacks on Druze in July.
Elkayam-Levy discusses the impossible mission of providing a voice for the voiceless and creating a historical database that accurately portrays the scope of the horror. She has faced unfathomable blowback and is clear-eyed about how the commission's report will be received.
So this week, we ask Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.
IMAGE: Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy (Muki Schwartz) / On October 13, 2023, Israeli soldiers inspect the site of the Nova music festival where at least 340 Israeli festival-goers were killed during the attack by Hamas militants on Oct 7, near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
This week, the Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, is in Israel in an attempt to kick-start the Trump peace plan. He has previously urged the international community to pressure the Hamas Palestinian terror group to disarm and prevent another cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip.
This week, we hear why Alkhatib believes the current stalemate in Gaza is being embraced by both Hamas and official Israel.
But first, Alkhatib paints a dismal picture of life in the Strip -- rat infestations, sewage in the streets and a strong Hamas presence on the ground.
We learn about the recent elections for Hamas leadership and hear background about the leading candidates.
Finally, among all the darkness, Alkhatib shares pinpoints of light from among the people who are still not cowed by the terrorist regime.
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
On Sunday, former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced a joint run for this year's Israeli elections.
Immediately, polling showed that the combined electoral slate, dubbed “Together,” would win a total of 26 seats if elections were held Monday, placing them ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud as the Knesset’s largest party, according to Channel 12.
Later in the week, Opposition Leader Lapid told Bennett that he was willing to take third place, rather than second, on their joint electoral slate if it would help secure a broader merger with Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot.
On this week's episode, in the spirit of the newly completed NFL draft, we play fantasy football and weigh the merits of the current parties and politicians vyying for the Knesset in this year's election.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Haviv Rettig Gur (courtesy) / Green Bay Packers quarterback Taylor Elgersma (19) throws during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, August 16, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with author Rachel Goldberg-Polin.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin began writing her new book, "When We See You Again," as a way of finding some relief from her pain after she buried her son, 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was executed by his Hamas captors in August 2024, after being held captive for 330 days in a Gaza tunnel.
Goldberg-Polin speaks about the process of writing the book, urged by her husband, Jon Polin, and how the book became a kind of answer to people asking her how she was.
The bulk of the book takes place after the Goldberg-Polins buried Hersh on August 31, 2024, and is an accounting of their lives in what Goldberg-Polin terms the Before and After.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Author Rachel Goldberg-Polin joins host Jessica Steinberg for an episode of What Matters Now
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with journalist and debut author Aron Heller.
Some 1.5 million Jewish soldiers fought for the Allies in World War II, and 250,000 of them died in battle. One of those who fought and returned was Heller's grandfather, Mickey Heller.
In his new book, "Zaidy’s Band," Heller attempts to trace his grandfather's military service, but is met with resistance by his patriarch whenever the subject is broached.
However, before we learn about Heller's grandfather and his friends, we delve into the longtime journalist's vast experience covering Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day and hear how the concepts of "hero" and "survivor" have shifted over the years.
And so this week, we ask Aron Heller: What matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Author Aron Heller (courtesy) / Background: Mickey Heller (far left), Ralph Oren (second from right), and friends in front of a bomber plane. (Courtesy of the Heller family)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with comic Shahar Cohen.
Comedian Shahar Cohen, raised in Jerusalem and living in Tel Aviv, spoofs Israeli life and society.
He dons wigs and plays a cast of mostly female characters who represent the range of Israeli society.
In a wide-ranging interview, Cohen discusses how each character represents part of him as well as what Israelis are feeling, particularly over the last two and a half years of war, first with Hamas, and now during the war with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Cohen thinks of himself as the comic who is expected to walk Israelis through war and trauma, offering a form of therapy. He talks about the need for escapism and relief following the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 people taken hostage.
With an upcoming tour in the US, and one million views and counting on his most recent videos about his Nofar character as a soldier in the IDF Home Front Command, Cohen joked, "I actually manage the war now."
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Comic Shahar Cohen from 'That Girl in the Alert Room,' March 2026 (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl.
Buchdahl speaks about being a rabbinic figure and representative of the mainstream American Jewry, particularly while on book tour for her recently published memoir, "Heart of a Stranger, An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity and Belonging."
Buchdahl weighs in on the current rise in antisemitism entering the workplace and discourse, and how it has made Jewish identity rise to the fore as a kind of primary identity.
Speaking to the Times of Israel right before Passover, Buchdahl discusses the master narrative of Passover and the need to have faith in Jewish continuity and to hold on to resilience and grit in the face of oppression.
Buchdahl speaks about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the conversations she's held with people deeply connected to the mayor about her concerns.
The Central Synagogue rabbi talks about her congregation's Zionism, their reactions after the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and their deep connections to hostage families over the course of the two years of the war in Gaza.
She also speaks about her own connection to Israel as a second home, even when she takes issue with some of its policies and actions of the government.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: The sanctuary of Central Synagogue in Manhattan, New York, photographed in 2010, and where Rabbi Angela Buchdahl is senior rabbi (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
This week, the Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov revealed the principles of the disarmament proposal submitted to Hamas earlier this month. He urged the international community to pressure the Palestinian terror group to accept the offer in order to prevent another cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip.
But before diving into what these principles entail, we place Hamas and the Gaza Strip into the context of the current US-Israel war on Iran.
Hamas, argues Alkhatib, triggered this war -- and potentially the downfall of the Islamic Republic -- through its murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Will it now be the last terror proxy standing?
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 27, 2026. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and journalist Matti Friedman.
The first half of our episode is dedicated to an in-depth discussion of Friedman's newest book, "Out of the Sky," set for publication next week. The book is a deep dive into the meaning and myth surrounding a team of Jews living in British Mandate Palestine who -- after escaping the Holocaust -- parachute back into Nazi Europe in 1944.
The most famous of the unit is Hannah Senesh, whom readers will know as the tragic young woman who heroically attempted to save Jews and left behind Hebrew poetry, including "Eli, Eli." In his new book, Friedman busts myths surrounding the mission's participants and then tells their even more stunning real tales.
In the second half of the program, we draw upon Friedman's personal experiences in Lebanon, which he recounted in a previous book, "Pumpkin Flowers."
We discuss the crossroads Israel again finds itself as it contemplates a large ground maneuver on a road too well-traveled in southern Lebanon.
And so, this week, we ask Matti Friedman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Gabriella Jacobs and edited by Yitzhak Ledee.
Matti Friedman / Troops of the 300th 'Baram' Regional Brigade operate in southern Lebanon, in a handout photo issued by the military on March 18, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Bret Stephens, a The New York Times columnist and the editor-in-chief of Sapir magazine.
Recent polling indicates that only roughly half of Americans support the US-Israel war against Iran's Islamist regime. Stephens weighs in on why the current conflict can be both "Trump's war" and a just war.
Far from feeling that Israel dragged the US into this war, he says that for the first time in recent history, the US has a partner with whom to wage a war. "This war is different, not because it's a war for Israel. It's a war with Israel," says Stephens.
But is the American public capable of internalizing the Iranian regime as an existential threat? In answer, Stephens asks whether a patient with stage II cancer should be advised to wait to treat it until it develops into stage IV. "Thank goodness we're acting now rather than just waiting on events," says Stephens.
Assessing today's global dynamics and the authoritarian axis of Iran, Russia, North Korea and China, he turns to the 1930s, when the world was experiencing a series of conflicts that eventually led to World War II. He warns there is no Hollywood ending in sight.
And so this week, we ask Bret Stephens, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Gabriella Jacobs and edited by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (YouTube screenshot) / Beirut, Lebanon, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Einat Wilf, a former MK, author and CEO of the newly formed Oz party.
Wilf describes the potential fall of the Iranian Islamic Republic's regime as a shift in the magnitude of the fall of the Soviet Union.
We discuss the seismic ripple effects on Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. Wilf proposes that this moment is a window of opportunity for Israel to end the ideology of "Palestinianism" -- the end to the Jewish state -- that could quickly shut again.
She talks through Israel's need to create firm civil borders of its control in the West Bank and to maintain military control of the remaining areas and have what she calls, "an active occupation."
And in the final portion of our conversation, we hear why Wilf formed her new party at this time and what it stands for.
And so this week, we ask Einat Wilf, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Gabriella Jacobs and edited by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Motorbikes drive past a billboard depicting Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, handing the country’s flag to his son and successor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, as the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stands at left, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and public intellectual Micah Goodman.
In the sixth day of the United States and Israel's joint war against the Iranian Islamic Republic, Goodman takes stock and allows himself to wonder: What if we actually won this war against the evil regime?
We discuss the trickle effect on the Iranian people, the Mideast region and the world at large.
At this historic juncture, Goodman is hopeful that not only will World War III be averted, but peace may come to the region as Israel's existential threats are neutralized.
And so this week, we ask Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Eli Katzoff and edited by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Dr. Micah Goodman/ A billboard showing a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Oscar film nominee Meyer Levinson-Blount.
“Butcher’s Stain" is nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the 2026 Oscars, after winning second place in the narrative category of the Student Academy Awards in the fall.
The film follows Samir, an Arab butcher in Tel Aviv, who sets out on a journey to prove his innocence after he’s accused of removing posters of the hostages kidnapped to Gaza.
Levinson-Blount discusses his own background as the inspiration for the making of the film during his studies at Tel Aviv Film School, which he describes as a "paradise," particularly during the two years of war.
He talks about the themes of the film -- which draws on Levinson-Blount's own experiences working in Israeli supermarkets -- and revolves around a general thread of suspicion regarding the Arab community in Israel.
The debut director also discusses how the film's story builds suspicion, then breaks that expectation, showing that people tend not to know that much about one another.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
We begin the conversation with a bleak update on how Gazans are faring on the ground and hear anecdotes of poor hygiene and price gouging in the Strip. As the festive holy month of Ramadan begins, the lack of basic necessities becomes more stark for those who must fast all day but cannot feast at night.
We then turn to the sudden announcement this week from Doctors Without Borders that it has suspended non-critical medical activities at Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis due to the presence of armed men at the medical facility and “a recent situation of suspicion of movement of weapons.”
Alkhatib brings multiple examples of prior knowledge of the "armed men" in the hospital since Hamas's October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel. He accuses the NGO of looking the other way as the terror organization took over hospital wings and turned them into prisons and torture chambers. So why did the international humanitarian group in Gaza decide to take notice now?
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Palestinians hang decorations beside the rubble of destroyed homes as they prepare for the holy month of Ramadan in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Alice Miller, the CEO of Natan Worldwide Disaster Relief.
Miller is nationally known for her landmark Supreme Court case in 1995, which opened the gates of the Israel Air Force to female fighter pilots. This decision paved the way for today's female combat soldiers and made Miller a household name.
However, that was just the start of Miller's incredible journey that has taken her around the globe -- and her work as an aeronautical engineer may even reach the moon.
Today, Miller serves as the head of an NGO that brings volunteer medical staff and therapists into international disaster zones. In the past year alone, teams have landed in Syria, Mexico and are shortly taking off for Mozambique.
Following the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel, the organization began work in Israel for the first time -- and eventually, also in the Gaza Strip.
We learn about the principled decision that has Israelis serving Gazans as we ask Miller, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Unholy podcast hosts Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland.
In this episode, Channel 12 news anchor Levi and Guardian columnist and BBC Radio 4's Jonathan Freedland look back on five years of podcasting together on "Unholy: Two Jews on the News," their weekly show that offers the perspectives of a Jewish Israeli and a Diaspora Jew.
Freedland and Levi discuss their intention to foster dialogue between Israel and the diaspora at a time when those conversations have become increasingly difficult.
They delve into the types of conversations carried out on "Unholy" following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, and how the podcast became a lifeline for them as much as their listeners, as the Jewish community worldwide has grappled with the massacre, bereavement, hostage crisis, and the war in Gaza.
The two hosts discuss their own approaches as Levi is a Jewish Israeli who spent a portion of her childhood in the US, and Freedland is a British Jew who views Judaism and Israel through his own lens.
They also chew over the intimacy of the podcast medium for them, particularly given Levi's usual role as a popular news anchor, with her face and voice familiar to most of the Israeli public. The podcast has created a setting that offers a different kind of opportunity for Levi and Freedland, their guests, and their listeners, with the capacity to foment real conversation and debate.
Levi and Freedland reminisce about earlier, favorite episodes and the years when the podcast tackled other subjects, such as musicals or literature, and with different kinds of guests, including Etgar Keret, Howard Jacobson, and Helen Mirren.
They talk about the books they each published this past year, including Freedland's 14th, a non-fiction historical thriller, "The Traitors Circle: The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany—and the Spy Who Betrayed Them."
Levi's book, her first, was written with her friend and CNN anchor Bianna Golodryga. "Don't Feed the Lion" is for middle-grade readers and Levi talks about how young people grapple with antisemitism.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Jonathan Freedland, left, and Yonit Levi are the hosts of podcast 'Unholy: Two Jews on the News' (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
The body of the final hostage, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, was recovered from the Gaza Strip this week and buried on Wednesday in his hometown of Meitar.
Rettig Gur delves into the deep Jewish roots and societal promise to bring every last person home that led to this moment of relief.
We then hear about the likelihood of realizing the vision that US envoy Jared Kushner laid out last week about a flourishing, reconstructed "New Gaza."
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: A man walks through tents sheltering displaced Palestinians amid the ruins in Gaza City, January 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
This week, we dive into the 12-member National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
The technocratic council is headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy planning minister Ali Shaath. It is tasked with running daily affairs on the ground and providing services for Gazans in place of the Hamas terror group.
The committee held its first meeting in Cairo on Thursday, but is currently barred by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip and its work remains in limbo as the Board of Peace begins its activities in Davos this week.
We hear how the names on the technocratic council are relatively consensus figures -- among Gazan Palestinians -- and learn about Israel's objections to this committee and Trump's naming of Qatar and Turkey to the Gaza Executive Board.
Alkhatib delves into the lack of popular Hamas support throughout the Strip, but points out the massive enforcement problem that the committee will face as the armed terrorist group maintains its hold.
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (courtesy) / A tent camp for displaced Palestinians stretches across Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, January 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Israel Story producer Mitch Ginsburg.
On February 20, 1979, the last 33 Israelis returned from Tehran upon the forced closure of the Israeli embassy. After the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khoumeini's new regime, the Israeli trade mission's location was given over to the Palestine Liberation Organization, whose supporters immediately stormed the building.
In today's episode, we relay the untold saga of the derring-do that saw these final Israeli officials back to the Jewish state.
A story of four chapters, Ginsburg narrates the tale through the eyes of the Tehran embassy's military attache, Brigadier General Itzik Segev.
Hear how they walk the plank, assume false identities and eventually meet up with the American delegation, which was also fleeing the country.
Our conversation is followed by the complete episode of Ginsburg's recent Israel Story installment, "Frankly, My Deer," which tells the tale of the final and frantic days of the Shah’s regime, when an unlikely Israeli envoy — a cross between David Attenborough and Jason Bourne — landed in Tehran. His secret mission was to bring back something certain powerful people in Israel sorely wanted.
And so this week, we ask Mitch Ginsburg what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: In this December 10, 1978 file picture, demonstrators hold up a poster of exiled Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini during an anti-shah demonstration in Tehran at the Shayah monument which was built to commemorate the monarch's rule and symbol of his power. (AP Photo/Michel Lipchitz)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with stand-up comedian Liz Glazer, who is coming soon to Israel as part of the annual Comedy for Koby tour.
On stage and off, the former law prof -- a graduate of New York's stalwart Modern Orthodox Ramaz high school -- is loudly and proudly out about her life as the spouse of a female rabbi. Perhaps more unusually, since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on Israel, she's also made no secret of her support for the Jewish state
In our conversation, we hear which of Glazer's identities -- lesbian or Jew -- is trickier for her to navigate on stage. We learn how being the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors has shaped her personality -- and career choice.
And finally, we hear how becoming a mother two years ago has shifted Glazer's comedic sensibilities.
Comedy for Koby is a fundraiser for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which was founded by Seth and Sherri Mandell, whose son Koby and his friend Yosef Ishran were murdered in a terrorist attack in 2001.
Jumping off from the foundation's motto, "From tragedy to community," the comedy tours have brought 88 comedians to Israel since comedian Avi Liberman began hosting and organizing them in 2008. From January 5-12, Glazer will be joined by Andy Pitz and Rich Shnyder throughout Israel.
And so this week, we ask Liz Glazer what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
This week, we dive into the five likely scenarios that could play out in Gaza during 2026, which Alkhatib recently proposed on his social media channels.
According to Alkhatib, the five proposals all "undermine Hamas severely and massively change the calculus and geostrategic landscape following the Trump-sponsored ceasefire in October, which has temporarily halted the war."
The five proposals include: A mutiny from Hamas’s ranks within Gaza due to economic and cost-of-living pressures; a significant rise and empowerment of anti-Hamas militias in different areas of the Gaza Strip; mass protests and large-scale uprisings against Hamas throughout the Gaza Strip by civilians; a mass exodus of civilians, from the Red Zone controlled by Hamas behind the "yellow line" into the Israeli-controlled Green Zone; and a successful international stabilization force (ISF) deployment with the mandate of battling and demilitarizing Hamas.
We go through each scenario point-by-point throughout the conversation, leaving time for a reader's question or two.
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Palestinians walk along a street past a tent camp in Gaza City, December 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with cookbook author Adeena Sussman.
In this conversation with the bestselling author of "Sababa" and "Shabbat," Sussman discusses the intersection of cooking, culture, and personal experiences as she continues melding her American Jewish background with her current Israeli life in her recipes.
She reviews aspects of her latest cookbook, "Zariz," which emphasizes quick, easy recipes with shorter lists of ingredients, and how working on it during the war offered a therapeutic outlet during troubling times.
Sussman talks about her various Hanukkah recipes, tips for frying potato pancakes and sufganiyot, and how to streamline the latke-making and doughnut frying processes, if one decides to make their own.
Adeena Sussman's Sheet Pan Latke Board
For the latkes:
1½ - 1¾ lbs skin-on Russet potatoes, scrubbed (depending on your sheet pan size)
1 med-large onion, peeled
2 eggs
2 tsps kosher salt, plus more to taste
½ tsp freshly cracked black pepper
3-4 tablespoons potato starch, cornstarch or flour
¼ - ⅓ cup olive oil
Toppings ideas:
Gravlax, sour cream, dill, lemon zest, capers
Sour cream + fish eggs + green onion
Avocado + chili crisp
Horseradish sour cream + quail egg
Pear Gorgonzola
Pomme persimmon
Labaneh + jam
Apple butter
Instructions
Arrange a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat to 450°F.
- Grate the potatoes and onions on the large holes of a box grater into a large bowl. Using both hands, squeeze out and discard as much of the liquid from the potatoes as possible; transfer them to a second bowl.
- Add the oil to a quarter-sheet pan (or 9 x 13 inch glass metal baking dish); place in the oven and heat until the oil is very hot but not smoking, 7 to 8 minutes.
- During the last two minutes of the oil heating, stir the eggs, salt, pepper, and potato starch into the potato-onion mixture.
- Carefully remove the sheet pan from the oven.
- Quickly pour and spread the latke batter across the pan; tip and spoon any excess oil over the top.
- Bake until deep golden brown and crisp, 23 to 25 minutes (or longer as needed). Cut into squares and top with the toppings of your choice.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Cookbook author Adeena Sussman with her latest, 'Zariz,' in December 2025. (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with James Pasch, the Anti-Defamation League's vice president of litigation.
Pasch, is currently in Israel to meet with the plaintiffs in a massive lawsuit the ADL initiated against Iran, North Korea, Syria and Hamas, for their part in the October 7 massacre.
In a new strategy, the legacy Jewish organization's work in fighting antisemitism is moving to encompass lawfare and since the Hamas onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the ADL has filed more lawsuits than in all the years of the existence of the organization.
In this podcast, we discuss how the ADL and other legal organizations are being creative in repurposing laws and redefining terms. We also hear about the struggle to remain firmly inside the Constitution and Bill of Rights when taking on the campus protests that test the boundaries of Freedom of Speech. And we learn how the ADL is preparing for the next big wave of campus hate.
And so this week, we ask James Pasch, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: James Pasch (courtesy)/ People hold US and Israeli flags as they gather before the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, outside a military base near Re'im, southern Israel, October 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Dr. Gilad Malach, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
Malach's research focuses on public policy related to Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, including issues critical to its integration into Israel's economy and society.
This week, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is debating a new bill aimed at regulating Haredi draft exemptions.
Starting with the foundation of the state in 1948, Malach takes us through the evolution of the ultra-Orthodox community's refusal to serve in the IDF. We hear of previous efforts to entice the population to join the army and how badly they failed.
Malach takes us through the unique make-up of the ultra-Orthodox household, in which women generally are more educated and go out to work, while men form a "community of learners."
As this new legislation is being debated, we learn what is at stake for the community, as well as the frustrations from the majority of Israelis who are shouldering the national burden.
And so this week, we ask Dr. Gilad Malach, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Ultra-Orthodox Jews from the two rival factions of the Ponevezh Yeshiva stand outside the yeshiva following a mediation session held at the place, in Bnei Brak, November 19, 2025. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.
This summer, Alkhatib flew over Gaza as part of the last days of the United Arab Emirates's aid drop missions. It was the first time since he had seen his former home since leaving the enclave in 2005 for what was meant to have been a high school year abroad. To begin the program, Alkhatib relates how he felt viewing the swaths of destruction two years of war had left in its wake.
An outspoken anti-Hamas voice, Alkhatib promotes what he calls “radical pragmatism” through his work with the Atlantic Council and his speaking engagements around the world. No short on considered criticism for Israel's prosecution of the war sparked by Hamas's murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, we learn of concrete steps that could be taken to drive out the terrorist organization.
We hear how Hamas is re-rooting itself into all aspects of the Strip's governance. Now that the terror regime has been reestablished, so has law and order, says Alkhatib, leaving Gazans stuck in a "safe-ish," but abusive relationship.
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: A tent camp for displaced Palestinians stand amid the destruction left by Israeli strikes north of Gaza City, November 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with the past president of The Hebrew University, Prof. Asher Cohen.
During the eight years Cohen served as university president, Israel encountered numerous challenges, including the coronavirus epidemic from February 2020, the uproar over the Judicial overhaul and, most seriously, of course, the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel that left 1,200 murdered and 250 taken hostage to the Gaza Strip. It also meant a major call-up of reserves, which greatly impacted the pool of students over the past two years.
Even more threatening to Israel's future, argues Cohen, is that following the beginning of the war, Israeli academics began facing boycotts and funding drops. Without collaborations with institutions abroad, the Ivory Tower will quickly crumble, we hear.
But we’re also going to look to the future, because Cohen is spearheading a national AI infrastructure initiative which the government has approved, to the tune of $500 million.
And so this week, we ask Prof. Asher Cohen, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Prof. Asher Cohen (Igor Farberov)/ The Albert Einstein privet library, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, March 19, 2012. (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
BBC director-general Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, stepped down this week after being in the firing line for months over allegations of bias — including the national broadcaster’s coverage of antisemitism, the war in Gaza, and Israel more generally. Rettig Gur is just back from London and we hear his disheartening impressions of how that corner of the Jewish Diaspora is faring.
US President Donald Trump sent a letter to President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday formally asking Israel’s head of state to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption. Herzog's office issued a statement that a pardon request must go through the proper channels.
We first ask whether a pardon is even possible, if, as Opposition Leader Yair Lapid stated Wednesday, it would require the premier to admit he broke the law.
Regardless of admissions of guilt, Rettig Gur explains why he has some hopes that Netanyahu will be pardoned. Spoiler: It's not because Rettig Gur is especially a fan of Israel's leader.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: President Donald Trump talks with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, October 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI film reviewer Jordan Hoffman.
The duo beta-tests their soon-to-be-launched podcast series — so new it does not yet have a name — in which they will deliver entertainment news from a Jewish angle (aka Jangle) and review one new or noteworthy film.
This week, in episode zero, the pair first discusses the growing boycott of Israeli filmmakers at international festivals. Hoffman weighs in on how this is misfiring when it comes to some of the more prominent -- and very left-wing -- Israeli artists.
Next, we hear about "Nuremberg," the Hollywood treatment of the Nuremberg Trials, which began in November 1945, launching the field of international law.
In the film, psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) is ordered to evaluate whether Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) is fit to stand trial. As the highest-ranking surviving Nazi military commander, to the Allied lawyers, Göring is the "big fish" that must be landed.
Borschel-Dan and Hoffman give their differing opinions of the movie and agree to disagree.
And so this week, we ask Jordan Hoffman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Jordan Hoffman (courtesy) / Rami Malek and Russell Crowe attend the 'Nuremberg' AFI Fest red carpet premiere screening at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 24, 2025, in Hollywood, California. (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Sony Pictures Classics/AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with former hostage Eli Sharabi.
Sharabi, whose bestselling book, "Hostage," was recently translated into English, spoke to What Matters Now a few days before burying his brother, Yossi Sharabi, whose body was recently released home to Israel after he was taken hostage on October 7 from Kibbutz Bee'eri, the community where both brothers lived with their families.
Sharabi speaks about reuniting with recently released hostage Alon Ohel, his fellow captive from months in a Gaza tunnel, and the joy of realizing that reunion.
He talks about how work, the book, and public speaking have been therapeutic acts for him, after his wife and daughters were killed on October 7.
Sharabi speaks about Kibbutz Be’eri, where he lived for 35 years, his chosen community that can no longer be a home for him, but that he hopes will be rehabilitated and rebuilt.
And so this week, we ask Eli Sharabi, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: At the October 27, 2025 Kibbutz Be'eri burial for Yossi Sharabi, whose body was brought back from Gaza captivity, with his brother, former hostage Eli Sharabi, center, eulogizing him (Paulina Patimer/Hostages Forum)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Orna and Ronen Neutra, parents of Omer Neutra, a tank platoon commander who was killed on October 7, 2023, his body taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.
The Neutras, Israeli-born Americans who have been living in the US for the last 20 years, talk about the last days since the start of the ceasefire, the joyous return home of 20 living hostages, as the bodies of 13 hostages are still held in Gaza.
Orna Neutra discusses how they knew they would never hug their son again, but how difficult it is to reconcile his death until they can bury his body.
Ronen Neutra offers more details about October 7, 2023, his son's heroic final moments as a commander on the so-called White House IDF post near the Gaza border.
The Neutras discuss their alliance with both the Biden and Trump administrations over the last two years, their more than 40 visits to Washington, DC, and how each US administration embraced the hostage families.
Yet, says Orna Neutra, there is still the challenge of explaining that a deceased hostage is still a hostage, and can't remain in Gaza.
Ronen Neutra talks about the gray zones of the ceasefire agreement concerning the deceased hostages, and how this war is not over until the last hostage is back.
And so this week, we ask Orna and Ronen Neutra, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Ronen and Orna Neutra, parents of Omer Neutra, killed on October 7, 2023, his body still held in Gaza, at the October 18, 2025 rally at Tel Aviv's Hostages Square (Tzachi Dovrat/Israeli Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and public intellectual Micah Goodman.
Looking to the French for historical framing, Goodman proposes that Israel is on the brink of a new epoch -- the third Israeli republic.
The author of influential works such as “Catch-67” hypothesizes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's signing on to US President Donald Trump's 20-point plan signals a tectonic shift in political alignment -- away from extremism.
Today, says Goodman, as most Israelis turn their eyes to a horizon of normalization with Arab and Muslim countries, the fundamental division in Israeli politics is not between the left and the right, but rather the right and the far-right, he says.
As the war winds down and grassroots activists prepare for the October 2026 elections, Goodman proposes that most Israelis are not far apart in their key values, and unity can prevail to bring to fruition a new political era.
And so this week, we ask Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Micah Goodman (courtesy) / Israeli excavators work in the Gaza Strip as the sun sets, seen from southern Israel, October 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, marking two years since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel.
To gain a sense of the Israeli public sentiment after two years of war, Rettig Gur analyzes a new survey conducted by Agam Labs and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, led by Nimrod Nir and Dr. Gayil Talshir.
The researchers found, in surveying 2,170 Jewish Israelis and 459 Arab Israelis, that there is a drastic shift in Israelis' perceptions of their society and politicians.
In one of the more dramatic findings, the report states that the initial unity found in the early months of the war has flipped to a division: from 77% in 2023 saying the war “united society” to 66% in 2025 saying it made society more divided.
Pointing to Israel's strengths and human capital, Rettig Gur leaves us with an optimistic framing of the internal work that needs to be done, even as Israel has largely defeated its greatest enemies.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: On October 7, 2025, thousands assemble in Hostages Square, Tel Aviv, to watch the broadcast of the Bereaved Families Memorial Ceremony marking two years since the October 7, 2023, massacre. (Paulina Patimer)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin.
Goldberg-Polin, who has become a well-known voice in the Jewish and Israeli world since October 7, 2023, when Hersh was taken captive by Hamas terrorists, speaks about the challenge of being active, present, and even thankful in the aftermath of Hersh's death.
She speaks about the public nature of the family's mourning, as she and her husband, Jon Polin, remain active advocates for the remaining hostages, but grapple with their deep mourning in the public eye.
Goldberg-Polin shares anecdotes about her life, including her extended Jerusalem community during the high holiday period, and her desperate hope to grow from the challenges she's faced during the last two years.
She speaks about the need to help repair herself and the world around her and the need for some relief from the pain and suffering of this time period.
And so this week, we ask Rachel Goldberg-Polin, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: People walk next to a mural of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin in central Jerusalem, August 18, 2025. (Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Yossi Klein Halevi.
This week, we speak with Hartman Institute senior fellow, author and thinker Yossi Klein Halevi from his Jerusalem home overlooking the back of the Mount Herzl National Military Cemetery.
With that backdrop, we delve into a recently published Klein Halevi essay, "Our season of reckoning: Israel’s moral crossroads in Gaza," which he said was the hardest piece he's ever written -- and the one that has received the most response.
We learn why Klein Halevi felt it important to chart this moment of ethical dimension, as it is unlike any other the IDF and the nation has faced.
While Klein Halevi may not have the answers to the multitude of questions facing the world's most moral army, he believes the struggle and questioning are imperative for both Israelis and Diaspora Jews.
And so this week, we ask Yossi Klein Halevi, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Yossi Klein Halevi (courtesy) / People take part in a protest demanding the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas and calling for the end of the war in the Gaza Strip, in Jerusalem, September 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Daniel Gordis.
Gordis, an author, scholar, rabbi, activist and sometime Times of Israel blogger, is the creator of the popular Substack blog and podcast, "Israel from the Inside." He recounts how he began the blog in 2021 to pull the curtain back on the Jewish state for those living abroad.
In this episode, we discuss the evolution Gordis's decision to be a pro-Israel, yet critical voice in a tricky global environment of rising antisemitism and uncertainty.
Wearing his rabbi hat, he speaks about how existential loneliness is a part of the experience of this season of High Holy Days and he further describes the loneliness of being Israeli at this time in history.
Gordis challenges American Jews to consider that Israelis are fighting for their homeland -- both in Gaza and during the ongoing protests in the streets.
And so this week, we ask Daniel Gordis, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Daniel Gordis (courtesy) / A California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer detains a protestor while clearing a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel encampment after dispersal orders were given at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, on May 2, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (MARIO TAMA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
There are still lots of questions and not a lot of answers after a bold Israeli airstrike targeted a meeting of Hamas’s top leaders in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on Tuesday. According to some reports, the leadership had gathered to discuss a new US-sponsored hostage-ceasefire proposal aimed at ending the war in Gaza. At publication, reports still differ as to whether the attack was successful.
And just before recording on Wednesday, the IDF confirmed it had carried out strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, saying it struck military camps where operatives were gathered, the headquarters of the terror group’s propaganda division, and a fuel depot, in both Sanaa and in the al-Jawf area north of the capital.
Borschel-Dan asks Rettig Gur: Is Israel acting like an unpredictable "Middle Easterner" to restore deterrence on all fronts?
In a quick-take conversation, we hear why Rettig Gur doesn't put much weight into diplomatic theatrics as Israel fights its existential war against the Hamas terror group that launched the war on October 7, 2023.
We ask: What does it mean to fail in a daring op? Has Israel burned all of its allies' goodwill?
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Illustrative image: The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Astana, Kazakhstan, October 13, 2022. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Australians Tamar Paluch and Deborah Conway, the editor and a contributor to "Ruptured, Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life Post-October 7," a book of essays.
Paluch, who edited the book with Lee Kofman, discusses how the idea came from a painful place, after the events of October 7 brought a deluge of antisemitism upon Australia's Jewish community.
She talks about putting together a book written and edited by women, as it was the silence of women's organizations regarding the sexual crimes committed by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 terrorist attack that prompted her and her co-editor to launch the project.
Conway, one of the contributors and a well-known Australian musician and performing artist, speaks about the antisemitism and hatred she experienced in the wake of October 7, as many of her appearances and performances were canceled and sometimes interrupted by virulent pro-Palestinian protestors.
Both women discuss the historical background of Australian Jewry and the sense that the dream of a Jewish paradise has ended, and how they plan on moving forward.
And so this week, we ask Tamar Paluch and Deborah Conway what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Palestinian supporters wave flags as they march to the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at the Sydney Opera House, which was planned to be illuminated in the colors of the Israeli flag following the weekend Hamas attack on Israel, while police advised the Jewish community to stay away. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with legal expert on genocide Menachem Rosensaft.
Rosensaft is an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School and lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches the law of genocide -- since 2008 at Cornell and since 2011 at Columbia. A dedicated pro-Israel US Jewish leader, Rosensaft is the general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress and has been part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, most notably sitting with PLO leader Yasser Arafat alongside four other American Jewish leaders in 1988, after which Arafat said he recognized the State of Israel's right to exist.
Rosensaft discusses the important legal and rhetorical distinction between genocide and crimes against humanity or war crimes, feeling that the definition's precision is being diluted in popular use. We learn about the history and evolution of Raphael Lemkin's definition of genocide and the ripple effect it has caused.
He emphasizes that Israel cannot be held out as the sole villain in the ongoing war, and explains how Hamas exhibits genocidal intent and ideology. However, the statements from a handful of far-right Israeli politicians is making South Africa's December 2023 legal case accusing the Jewish state of genocide much harder to win.
Finally, he rails against the Israeli government's weaponization of the word "antisemitism" for all dissent against the Jewish state, but doubles down on the need for an ongoing peace process leading to a Palestinian state.
And so this week, we ask genocide legal expert Menachem Rosensaft, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Menachem Rosensaft (courtesy) / Palestinians stand on the edge of a crater after Israeli military strikes in a tent camp for displaced people near Al-Aqsa Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, August 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with former US negotiator, adviser and ambassador Dennis Ross.
Today, Ross, an author and the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization.
But for over a decade, he was the US point man on the arduous Israeli-Palestinian peace processes in both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. We close the program by hearing thoughts on the current talks to end the Gaza War from a negotiator who was in the room "when it happened" -- or didn't.
However, we begin the episode by asking Ross, who has decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, for his analysis of this week's Alaska summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and the subsequent meet-up between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders.
We then spin the globe and focus on Israel and the region -- present and past, including the two milestones of the 2005 Disengagement and the 2000 Camp David Summit.
And so this week, we ask Ambassador Dennis Ross, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Dennis Ross (Courtesy)/ Demonstrators march during a protest demanding the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas and calling for the Israeli government to reverse its decision to take over Gaza City and other areas in the Gaza Strip, in Tel Aviv, Israel, August 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Prof. Dan Turner, the head of a pediatric gastroenterology unit at one of Israel’s most respected hospitals located in Jerusalem and Deputy Dean of the School of Medicine at the Hebrew University.
Turner, alongside his work as a physician, educator and researcher, is also an ardent activist in a variety of fields concerning human rights and dignity, inside and outside of medicine.
Our podcast conversation was spurred by his response to images of Muhammad al-Mutawaq, a severely emaciated 18-month-old living in Gaza, which were published on the front pages of newspapers around the world, prompting a global outcry about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Following an independent journalist's investigation, it was revealed that al-Mutawaq suffered from severe illnesses, including neurological and muscle disorders.
For Turner, al-Mutawaq's underlying medical conditions don't excuse his appearance -- quite the contrary. The malnourished child is emblematic of Israel's inhumane treatment of all Palestinians, from security prisoners handcuffed in hospital beds to babies who require special medical care in Gazan tent cities, he says.
In a wide-ranging interview, Turner explains how he was "awoken" to his duty to advocate for Palestinians' basic medical care and treatment with dignity.
He shares the blowback he has received -- and why he now sparks conversations about the ongoing war in Gaza by "looking like a caveman."
And so this week, we ask Prof. Dan Turner, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: The transfer of Palestinian men arrested during a military raid on Jenin, January 22, 2025. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
During the Tisha B'Av fast on Sunday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir again made headlines for going up to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. There were two big differences this time: One, he led a prayer service out loud, and two, he called for the Jewish resettlement of the Gaza Strip.
Both aspects of Ben Gvir's trip were highly documented, including his statement on the ongoing war in Gaza.
Ben Gvir said, “I am saying, davka [intentionally] from here, from the Temple Mount — the place from which it was proven that it is possible to have sovereign rule — davka from here, we are relaying a message that from today on, we are conquering the entire Gaza Strip, announcing our sovereignty on the entire Gaza Strip, and taking down every Hamas member and encouraging voluntary emigration. Only in this way will we return the hostages and win the war.”
Ben Gvir's semi-messianic vision may come partially true as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears poised to announce an IDF operation aimed at conquering the entire Gaza Strip.
Resettlement of the Palestinian enclave, says Rettig Gur, is a completely different matter.
We hear how this latest publicity stunt is a disservice to the Temple Mount movement, which stresses that Jews may have freedom of worship at Judaism's most holy site.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Haviv Rettig Gur (courtesy) / Illustrative: Jews visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, on Jerusalem Day, May 26, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author Daniel Taub.
Taub is an Israeli diplomat, international lawyer and author born in Britain in 1962. He moved to Israel in 1989, later serving in the IDF as a combat medic and as a reserve officer in the international law division. He started his path in diplomacy in the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 1991 where he held many legal and diplomatic posts, including as Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2011 to 2015.
In his new book, "Beyond Dispute: Rediscovering the Jewish Art of Constructive Disagreement," Taub synthesizes his years spent at negotiating tables as a diplomat with his lifelong learning of Talmud.
Drawing on techniques from both spheres, Taub argues that disagreement can be even more constructive than easy consensus -- and is necessary for treaties to last.
We begin the program speaking about the Tisha B'Av holiday marked this weekend and how Israeli society today -- specifically, the painful ongoing debate over universal draft -- is coming close to the senseless hatred that tradition ascribes as a reason for the fall of the Temples.
We then hear how one must pick a ripe time for negotiations, and how Taub's experiences on negotiation teams with Palestinians and Syrians make him think that Israelis, at the very least, are not ready to discuss a practical peace -- yet.
And so this week, we ask Daniel Taub, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Author Daniel Taub (courtesy) / Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man pray as they gather for the mourning ritual of Tisha B'Av, in the Old City of Jerusalem, August 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with leading economist Prof. Dan Ben-David.
Ben-David heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research and is a senior faculty member in the Department of Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University.
Earlier this month, he wrote an op-ed in The Times of Israel with the provocative headline, "‘Just not Bibi’ is not an action plan for a national pivot." In it, he lays out the need for a complete overhaul of swaths of Israeli society and institution -- and insists that this is the pivotal moment that it must be done.
“The demographic-democratic window of opportunity is closing at an exponential pace. This is the time for leaders who demonstrate that they grasp the gravity of this moment and what is required of them at the crossroads that we’ve now reached,” he wrote.
We drill down into Ben-David's vision for Israel 2.0 and its four cornerstones — educational overhaul, budgetary overhaul, a change in our system of government, and a constitution.
We also dive into the role that the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi community plays in implementing — or torpedoing — his vision.
And so this week, we ask Dan Ben-David, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Ultra-Orthodox Jews gather at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at Mount Meron during the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer, which marks the anniversary of the death of the Talmudic sage in Meron, northern Israel, on May 15, 2025. (Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Guri Alfi, comic, actor and producer of "The New Jew."
Recorded before the conflict with Iran, Alfi speaks about his experiences filming the second season of "The New Jew," a series he first created with public broadcaster Kan 11 in 2021 that had him looking at the Jewish community in the United States.
For these latest episodes, Alfi traveled to the US to speak to Jews in the wake of October 7 and the intense antisemitism and anti-Zionism that exploded across college campuses and American cities.
Guri discusses his conversations with a range of Jewish leaders, including Reform Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl, student leaders from Columbia and Harvard universities, and bereaved parents whose dual-citizen children became Israeli lone soldiers and were killed in the line of duty on October 7 and during the ongoing war.
Guri says he wanted to show the bonds between the Israeli and American Jewish communities, and to show the hope and future that still exist despite the terrible events and trauma of the last 21 months.
He also talks about one of his latest projects, “Speeches Against Despair” during the upcoming Israel Festival, in which he, along with actress Noa Koler, musician Noga Erez, actor Norman Issa, actress Maya Landsmann, screenwriter Galit Hoogi and others offer new interpretations to historical speeches.
And so this week, we ask Guri Alfi what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and public intellectual Micah Goodman.
Just ahead of this week's What Matters Now recording, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump sat in the White House for a celebratory meal.
The table was set for a grand announcement -- a sealed hostage release-ceasefire deal -- but the guest of honor and his terrorist counterparts have yet to come to terms.
Goodman looks back at the two huge "double gambles" made during these 21 months of war. The first was by former Hamas leader Yahye Sinwar, who launched the invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, after viewing the intense divisiveness in Israeli society. His double-or-nothing bet was that Iran and its proxies would immediately join in the onslaught -- they didn't.
Goodman compares Sinwar's double gamble to that of Netanyahu, who launched a surprise preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear program on June 13 and wagered that the United States would join.
Now that Netanyahu's bet has paid off, Goodman describes how the region is ripe for a realignment -- if tough compromises can be made to end the Gaza war.
And so this week, we ask Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
IMAGE: Shiite Muslim mourners hold portraits of Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a religious procession held to mark Ashura, on the 10th day of the Islamic holy month of Muharram in Karachi on July 6, 2025. (Asif HASSAN / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Dozens of Jewish extremists set fire to a security installation and rioted outside a West Bank base overnight Sunday-Monday, days after an officer in the Israel Defense Forces was assaulted by settlers, who threw rocks and attempted to harm other IDF soldiers.
If there’s one institution that a majority of Israelis still get behind, it’s the IDF. So this attack, to many, was a wake-up call to the bubbling issue of settler extremists.
In this week's What Matters Now, Rettig Gur describes the origins of the settler movement and how there were several visions that at times competed with each other -- and overlapped.
He explains how the extremists who are repeatedly attacking neighboring Palestinian villages -- and now IDF soldiers -- are disenfranchised and largely shunned by the diverse settler communities.
And we learn how politicians, some of whom serve as role models for these "hilltop youth" -- are finally also waking up to the problem. But while the leaders are changing their tunes, the youth are no longer listening.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
IMAGE: Illustrative: Young Jewish protesters throw rocks as Israeli police forces arrive at the illegal outpost of Amona, on February 1, 2017, on the morning of the settlement's evacuation. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Daniel Syrkin, director of the acclaimed TV series "Tehran."
Recorded on Monday amid the ongoing conflict with Iran, Syrkin discusses the impact of the current geopolitical events on the storytelling of "Tehran" and the challenges of producing a series that reflects the most recent realities of life in Iran.
The "Tehran" director shares insights from his background in military intelligence and how it shaped his understanding of the Iranian regime and the making of the series, created with Israel's Kan 11 and Apple TV.
He also discusses the cultural authenticity of the series, the emotional responses from Iranian actors to their Israeli costars and crew, even during the last 10 days of the conflict.
Syrkin notes that sometimes the only way for him to cope as an Israeli is by working on the show, and notes that whatever happens next, it will be reflected in the next season, Season 4.
And so this week, we ask Daniel Syrkin, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
IMAGE: 'Tehran' director Daniel Syrkin with actor Niv Sultan from 'Tehran' (Credit: Tully Chen)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Since 3 am on Friday morning, Israel has been at war with Iran. We begin the program with a pause to look at how each of us sees this Israeli moment.
Rettig Gur weighs in on how this war with Iran was inevitable ever since Hamas's murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and began the ongoing war in Gaza.
The IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir told Israel's political leaders in the past day that the campaign in Iran is essential to ensure "the existence of the Jewish people," according to Israel's Channel 12. "The operation in Iran is an operation to defend the existence of the Jewish people. History will not forgive us if we do not act now."
We discuss the tipping point of launching the operation and the international media's cynicism that it was begun in part as a ploy for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stay in power. A constant critic of Netanyahu, today, Rettig Gur applauds his courage in taking on Iran.
Finally, we hear Rettig Gur's thoughts on Netanyahu's hopes that the Iranian people will use this opportunity to shake off their shackles of oppression and overturn the regime.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
IMAGE: Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei, February 7, 2025. (OFFICE OF THE IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER via AP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Rabbi Noa Sattath, the head of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
For Pride Month, we discuss the history of the openly gay community in Israel and the connection between the LGBTQ+ struggle for equal rights and the broader struggle for democracy in Israel.
Sattath, an ordained Reform rabbi who until recently served as Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), was also previously the Executive Director of the Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance.
We hear Sattath's thoughts on the intersectionalism expressed by many members of the global gay community in their support for Hamas and condemnation of Israel during the war.
For Sattath, the current visibility of the LGBTQ+ community once seemed like a farfetched dream. In seeing what has been accomplished in a relatively short time, she is inspired in her work at ACRI, including the struggle to maintain human rights for Palestinians detained on and after the murderous Hamas onslaught on October 7, 2023.
And so this week, we ask Rabbi Noa Sattath, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
IMAGE: NYC Pride float calling for a 'Free Palestine' rides through the annual Pride March into the West Village on June 30, 2024, in New York City. (Alex Kent/Getty Images/AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI editor David Horovitz.
How do you cover a war when no objective, proven journalists are allowed to report independently in the war zone?
And when one side of the conflict -- a terrorist regime -- floods international media with its narrative while the other side -- an attacked sovereign nation -- provides no narrative, guess which side's story makes front pages?
This week on What Matters Now, Horovitz lays out the challenges of penetrating the fog of this war within the constraints of an Israeli information vacuum.
"The hardest challenge for journalists, and it's certainly never been harder for us in the last 19-20 months, is to get the facts first... Getting to the facts has never been harder," said Horovitz.
And so this week, we ask ToI editor David Horovitz, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
IMAGE: Palestinians run following an Israeli strike in Gaza City, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Hebrew University Prof. Elie Podeh.
Podeh, the Bamberger and Fuld professor in the History of the Muslim Peoples, recently published a research article, "Israel’s 2005 Disengagement from Gaza: A Multilateral Move Under Unilateral Façade."
In the article, we learn that while the Gaza Disengagement was a unilateral decision, it was carried out in partnership with the United States, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
Among other revelations in the paper, we hear about the committees formed among the partners and their work on arrangements for border control, economic transition, and security cooperation. All elements were negotiated behind the scenes, especially under the guidance of American envoys and Egyptian mediators.
Podeh weighs in on prime minister Ariel Sharon's decision not to allow the PA to take credit for any part of the diplomatic cooperation and the question of whether delegitimizing the PA's authority in Gaza may have contributed to the Hamas takeover in 2007.
We speak about -- today, as the IDF is poised to retake the Gaza Strip, what the reasons were for the Disengagement 20 years ago -- and, in Podeh's opinion, why the Strip shouldn't be resettled by Israel.
And so this week, we ask Prof. Elie Podeh, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Last week, US President Donald Trump completed a four-day trip to the Middle East, his first official state visit of his second term.
He struck economic deals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and, in lifting sanctions against Syria, made a bold move that could reboot the wartorn country.
On May 13, Trump delivered an almost hour-long speech at the Saudi-US Investment Forum at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that gives deep insight into his plan for the Middle East and beyond.
Rettig Gur examines this speech and explains its significance. We hear how it reflects Trump's diplomacy, which in many ways harkens back to an earlier style of US policy. And we hear how, while the speech only names Israel once, it is actually a leitmotif.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
IMAGE: US President Donald Trump speaks during the Saudi-US investment forum at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center in Riyadh on May 13, 2025. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Eurovision mega-fan Tal Dahan, straight from Basel.
Dahan is a volunteer reporter with the Hebrew-language EuroMix website, which has been the number one source for Israelis about the Eurovision for decades.
This year marks Israel's 47th time participating in the Eurovision, a song contest that was established 69 years ago to unite Europe through music.
We are recording just after the first semi-final and ahead of Israel's participation in the second semi-final on Thursday night. It is expected that Israel's candidate, Yuval Raphael, will make it to the finals on Saturday night with her song, "New Day Will Rise."
Dahan talks about the betting favorites going into Saturday's final and also discusses the politics of the competition.
And so this week, we ask Tal Dahan, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Elana Kaminka, peace activist and bereaved mother.
On October 7, 2023, Elana's firstborn son, Lt. Yannai Kaminka, 20, a commander in the Home Front Command, was killed battling against Hamas at the Zikim IDF training base. His efforts and those of his fellow officers there saved the lives of almost 100 recruits, as charted in a recently released IDF probe into the failures on and leading up to October 7.
In a frank and open discussion about what it means to choose a path of peace after losing her first child to terrorists bent on destroying her nation, Kaminka speaks with The Times of Israel just after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down in refusing to hold a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 disasters.
Kaminka made aliya from California as a lone soldier at age 18 and later married Eyal with whom she had four children. Prior to October 7, she was already active in groups committed to fostering empathetic, respectful and nuanced dialogue. After losing her son, she redoubled her efforts to promote engagement between Israeli Jews and Palestinians -- and to protest the Netanyahu government, which she holds accountable for her son's death.
She is an active member of Tag Meir and the Parents Circle Families Forum and speaks tirelessly about the need to counter extremism and develop empathy and compassion among all levels of Israeli society.
While advocating for a future of dignity and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike in the Land of Israel, she is also a mother of three additional children, including her son who was conscripted to a paramedics unit a mere six weeks following his older brother's death.
And so this week, we ask Elana Kaminka, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with the coordinator of The Times of Israel's Those We Have Lost project, Amy Spiro, for this special episode in honor of Israel's Memorial Day to Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror.
We explain about the genesis of our Those We Have Lost project, and how we aim to tell the stories of individuals slain in Hamas's brutal attack on October 7, 2023. The first entry was written on October 11, 2023, when the number of the murdered was still unclear and funerals were held around the clock.
Today, with 1,100 individual entries covering almost every single person killed by Hamas, our Those We Have Lost project paints a picture of each of their lives and the ongoing ripple effects of their deaths.
Spiro speaks to the challenges she's faced -- including the mundane issue of how to write names in Latin letters -- and where she draws her information from.
The Those We Have Lost project works to ensure that despite the massive scale of the loss, no one is forgotten. On behalf of The Times of Israel, Borschel-Dan urges listeners to visit the project's home page this Memorial Day and keep the fallen's memories alive.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Prof. Manuela Consonni, director of Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.
Consonni, a leading scholar of Holocaust memory, gender, and post-war European culture, decided to mark Yom Hashoah, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, with an exhibition at the Mount Scopus campus called, "Faces of Women's Resistance."
The exhibition looks at how women -- Jewish and non-Jewish -- resisted the Nazi regime. Like men, many were fighters, partisans and rescuers, but also the sheer survival of their family was put on the shoulders of many mothers.
We discuss definitions of resistance and what means were available to women during the Nazi regime.
And finally, we delve into the use of Holocaust language when discussing the hostages kept by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
So this week, we ask Prof. Manuela Consonni, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Two young women who managed to survive over a year in the concentration camp at Belsen, Germany, are shown, April 30, 1945. (AP Photo)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Mitch Ginsburg, a producer at the Israel Story podcast.
Ginsburg, a former military reporter for The Times of Israel, brings us a special episode from Israel's flagship podcast series, called The Hebrew Hobbit: A Passover Special.
In it, Ginsburg charts the tale of a number of Israeli POWs who took upon themselves the unlikely task of translating JRR Tolkien's "The Hobbit" while imprisoned together in an Egyptian jail.
In a vivid soundscape, Ginsburg brings a 360-degree account of life before, during and after their detention -- for the soldiers and those they left behind.
This Passover holiday, we hear the improbable story of a group of Israeli men who formed a mini-kibbutz in the heart of an enemy country's prison and what happened after their exodus from Egypt.
So this week, we ask Israel Story's Mitch Ginsburg, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: An undated photo of the POW group who together translated 'The Hobbit' into Hebrew prior to their release from an Egyptian prison in November 1973. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg speaking with Idit Ohel, mother of hostage Alon Ohel.
Ohel talks about her son, who was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival.
Ohel discusses what she knows about the injuries sustained by Alon on October 7, including shrapnel in his eye, and she firmly demands that he receive medical attention.
She says she deeply believes that despite his injuries and captivity, he is surviving and will continue to do so until he's released home.
She explains what she's heard from released hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Eliya Cohen, who were kept captive with Alon, and we hear how Alon endures, playing imaginery piano on his chest as a musician, whistling favorite songs and talking about his family.
Ohel says that her son, like her, has always meditated, and she assumes he is still doing so as one of the many methods that has allowed him to survive so many months underground.
She discusses what it's like to mark another Passover without her son, and the need for the entire country and Jewish nation to rally behind the remaining hostages, in order to push the government toward an extension of the hostage deal.
So this week, we ask hostage mother Idit Ohel, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Idit Ohel, mother of hostage Alon Ohel, speaks during a rally calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, March 8, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and scholar Dara Horn.
Horn is the author of novels and non-fiction, including “People Love Dead Jews,” “Eternal Life,” “A Guide for the Perplexed,” and now her first book for young readers, “One Little Goat.”
A graphic novel, "One Little Goat," was dreamed up by a young Horn and written decades later alongside the uniquely grungy illustrations of Theo Ellsworth.
The program's first half delves into the book's trippy storyline and how she arrived at it. As Horn remarks on her website, "'One Little Goat' is a quirky, dryly funny, Passover-themed graphic novel featuring a lost matzah, a never-ending seder and a time-traveling talking goat."
In the second half of the program, we hear some about the ideas Horn proposed in her bestselling work, "People Love Dead Jews," and she speaks about her new education initiative, Mosaic Persuasion, which is bent on teaching American schoolchildren about real, living Jews and Jewish culture.
We hear about how the Hamas massacre of 1,200 in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has -- and has not -- shifted American discourse. And Horn points out the Jews' driving counter-culture DNA that has been passed down from generation to generation, much like the rituals of the Passover seder.
And so this week, we ask author Dara Horn, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg hosting and speaking with Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of released hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen.
Dekel-Chen, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was a vocal and visible hostage parent throughout the months of his son's captivity. Sagui Dekel-Chen was taken hostage on October 7, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz, while his pregnant wife and two young daughters were hiding in their safe room.
He talks about the relief that he and the family felt upon seeing Sagui released home to Israel, the challenges that Sagui and the rest of the family and Nir Oz community still face, and the sense of rebirth that Sagui feels post-captivity.
For 496 days, Sagui didn't know if his own family had survived, as well as extended members of his family and friends.
Dekel-Chen also reflects on the sense of abandonment felt by many hostage families from the Israeli government throughout the months of the war, and particularly now, as the army has returned to fighting in Gaza, leaving 59 hostages still in captivity.
He speaks about the tremendous support he and the other hostage families received from the US government, from both the Biden and Trump administrations and his surprise that American Jewish organizations didn't join together to support the hostage families.
And so this week, we ask history professor Jonathan Dekel-Chen, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Freed hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen with his father Jonathan aboard an IDF helicopter en route to the hospital soon after his release from 498 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza, February 15, 2025 (IDF)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel editor David Horovitz.
Recording at noon in ToI's Jerusalem office ahead of a planned fateful cabinet vote on the firing of Shin Bet head Ronen Bar tonight, Horovitz attempts to summarize this fraught Israeli moment.
As the Israel Defense Forces troops are again entering the Gaza Strip for ground operations, fears of a crumbling Israeli democracy are bringing thousands to the streets, alongside others who reject the notion of a renewed war in Gaza without a hostage deal first.
Horovitz takes us through a litany of issues fueling the domestic strife and assesses how Israel again finds itself at a crossroads.
"All of us want Israel to survive and to thrive and we have two things simultaneously: We have terrible threats from without and we have tremendous division from within," says Horovitz. "This is extremely dangerous for Israel."
And so this week, we ask ToI editor David Horovitz, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Israelis march in a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with philosopher and author Dr. Micah Goodman.
As 24 living hostages languish in Gaza, Israel finds itself at a crossroads: Will the nation sign a deal with the terrorist group the Jewish state is bent on destroying or return to war against Hamas to apply pressure for the captives' release?
Goodman explains how both sides of this dilemma see their arguments as protecting the nation. We hear, however, how the quests for national security and solidarity may appear to be in conflict with each other -- and how to overcome that paradox.
And as Goodman pushes for Israel to sign a deal to release the hostages -- living and dead -- he explains how we must trust Hamas "to give Israel 17 reasons to restart the war." He cautions it must be a war that is launched at Israel's discretion, backed by national consensus and with the determination to realize the goal of destroying Hamas.
And so this week, we ask Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Illustrative: A Palestinian boy carries a toy gun while standing with members of Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, during a rally in Gaza City on May 24, 2021. (AFP / Emmanuel DUNAND)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
At a Cairo summit of Arab leaders on Tuesday, a consensus of states adopted an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza that would cost $53 billion and avoid displacing Palestinians from the enclave -- in contrast to US President Donald Trump’s “Middle East Riviera” vision.
The over 100-page “Early Recovery, Reconstruction, Development of Gaza” plan envisions a Gaza Administration Committee, made up of independent technocrats, to manage an initial six-month transitional phase. It also urges elections in all Palestinian areas within a year, if conditions support such a move.
The rub? The plan doesn’t explicitly tackle the issue of Hamas and how the terror group will be disarming -- if at all. It also pushes for a Palestinian state before addressing any of the armed Palestinian factions.
Rettig Gur dissects elements of the plan and weighs in on its seriousness.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: In this photo provided by Egypt's presidency media office, Arab leaders pose during the emergency Arab summit at Egypt's New Administrative Capital, just outside Cairo, March 4, 2025. (Egyptian Presidency Media Office via AP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with film critic Jordan Hoffman.
Ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards on Sunday night, The Times of Israel's film critic gives his predictions on which of the five films related to Israel or the Jews will have any chance of taking home a statue.
We hear about how the ongoing war in Gaza is creating off-screen drama for a film, "September 5," that has nothing to do with the current conflict but dares to show Israel as a victim after the country's athletes were massacred in the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Hoffman weighs in on the merits of "A Real Pain" and pronounces it an excellent addition to the pantheon of Jewish film. About "The Brutalist," he has some reservations, although he applauds the film overall.
We learn how the Bob Dylan bio-pic may not have anything really overtly Jewish about it, but that it's not a slam to Members of the Tribe.
And finally, Hoffman discusses the Palestinian/Jewish Israeli co-production that is hardly a coexistence project, but rather a "From the River to the Sea" production.
And so this week, we ask Jordan Hoffman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: This image released by A24 shows Adrien Brody, left, and Guy Pearce in a scene from 'The Brutalist.' (Lol Crawley/A24 via AP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Ahead of a fateful day for Israelis in which Hamas for the first time will release the bodies of hostages who died on October 7, 2023, or in captivity, including potentially the Bibas family, Rettig Gur discusses how the iconic little red-haired boys have entered all Israelis' heart to become everyone's children.
We hear how the series of staged hostage-release ceremonies are a way for the terrorists to mock Israelis and show Gazans who is in charge. He wonders what could make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continue with this farce into a second phase of the hostage release-ceasefire deal.
We hear about a recent poll from the Israel Democracy Institute on support for proceeding to the second stage of the ceasefire agreement and learn that an overwhelming majority of Arab respondents -- and a large majority of Jewish respondents -- support continuing with the second stage if the first stage is completed as agreed.
But for a prime minister who wants to remain in power, is the will of the people enough for him to take a step that is unpopular with his coalition? What could be on the horizon that is a grand enough gesture to secure the next election?
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Graffiti of Shiri and Yarden Bibas and their sons, Ariel, left, and Kfir, right, who were taken captive by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, February 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
On February 4, 2025, US President Donald Trump made a bombshell proposal to resettle the population of Gaza. The announcement caught the world by surprise and over a week later, no one is entirely sure what Trump intends beyond restarting and resetting the discussion of Gaza after the war.
We discuss Israeli comedian Reshef Levy's biting Hebrew-language assessment of politicians' responses and how they reflect the ambivalence the plan has aroused in the Israeli public.
We wonder if the Trump proposal is based on previous historic plans such as the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan.
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Displaced Palestinians wait at a security checkpoint in the Netzarim corridor while traveling from central Gaza to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, February 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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Welcome to a bonus episode of What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
This week, we answer a slew of listeners' responses to our conversation last week, "Excruciating dilemmas as murderers set to be released," about the painful issue of the release of Palestinian security prisoners as part of the hostage release-ceasefire deal.
We received dozens of emails from listeners who asked how an Israeli implementation of the death penalty for mass murderers may shift future terrible negotiations as the nation currently reels from the reality that terrorists with blood on their hands are being freed.
We speak about the two cases in which Nazis were sentenced with the death penalty and one case in which an Israeli IDF officer was executed by a firing squad in 1948 after being falsely accused of treason.
The death penalty is still on the books in Israel, ostensibly. If it were enacted for terrorists who are serving multiple life sentences, could it reduce the "exchange value" for Israeli hostages?
And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, a Palestinian prisoner and former a top commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades who was released by Israel, waves a Palestinian flag as he is cheered by people after arriving in Ramallah aboard buses of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), on January 30, 2025. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
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Welcome to a bonus episode of What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Dayan is leading Yad Vashem's delegation to Auschwitz to observe the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the death camp's liberation on January 27, 2025, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Ahead of his trip, Borschel-Dan sat with Dayan in his Jerusalem office to speak about the role of the institution in the past 15 months, following the murderous Hamas onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Following the massacre of 1,200 and hostage-taking of another 251, Dayan quickly experienced a betrayal from leaders he once considered "friends," such as António Guterres, the current Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Pope Francis, a fellow Argentine, with whom he had previously felt a warm rapport.
This week, Dayan came out against Elon Musk for comments he made to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in which he said there is “too much focus on past guilt” in Germany. “Contrary to Elon Musk’s advice, the remembrance and acknowledgment of the dark past of the country and its people should be central in shaping the German society,” Dayan wrote on X on Sunday, the day before the world marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In our recent conversation, Dayan explained when he feels it is appropriate to take a public stance, and when there is likely less chance that his message will be heard.
We also speak about new global political realities -- especially in Europe -- and why Yad Vashem is set on opening its first satellite campus in Berlin.
And so on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we ask Yad Vashem head Dani Dayan what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Chairman of Yad Vashem Dani Dayan at Auschwitz to observe the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the death camp's liberation, January 27, 2025, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Yad Vashem)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with comedian/filmmaker Adir Miller and his mother Marianne Miller, a child Holocaust survivor.
On January 27, Marianne -- a well-known Israeli speaker and educator -- will address the United Nations General Assembly on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Born in wartime Budapest, Marianne will speak in New York about her survival story, surrounded by three generations of her family, as she was last year while leading a March of the Living delegation from the city of her birth to Auschwitz.
As a baby, Marianne was saved by her mother, who tore off her yellow star and, holding her daughter, ran away from a transport for mothers and children to certain death. They evaded capture after Marianne's mother bribed an Arrow Cross Hungarian Nazi soldier with a simple golden ring.
Son Adir, one of Israel's most celebrated comedians and artists, used his mother's stunning survival story as the basis of his recent movie, "The Ring," which he wrote, directed and starred in. "The Ring" is playing now in Israeli theaters with some 240,000 viewers so far. It will be screened in New York on January 28 at a special screening hosted by the Israeli-American Council (IAC).
This year marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, where over 1.2 million people, including 400,000 Hungarian Jews, were murdered.
So this week, we ask Adir and Marianne Miller, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst, Haviv Rettig Gur.
When this podcast conversation was recorded, the deal between Israel and Hamas for a hostage release and temporary ceasefire in Gaza had not actually been signed and sealed. Despite jubilant announcements by mediators on Wednesday night, by Thursday morning, claims of last-minute demands from Hamas had prevented a formal announcement.
Whether or not the deal will go through, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new flexibility on several previously immovable points is noteworthy.
In our conversation, Rettig Gur postulates that there’s a reason Netanyahu seems to be struggling to speak clearly to his coalition partners and the electorate about his reasons for supporting the deal — and about what’s going on in the talks. Much of it may have to do with a potentially watershed moment -- the Trump inauguration on January 20 -- or maybe there is a secret second deal that Trump is already forwarding.
Hamas's very survival is its victory, acknowledges Rettig Gur, who mourns the tragic fate that awaits Gazans as the agents of destruction again return to power.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur: What matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: People celebrate along a street in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on January 15, 2025, as news spread that a ceasefire and hostage release deal had been reached between Israel and Hamas, aimed at ending more than 15 months of war in the Palestinian territory. (BASHAR TALEB / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst, Haviv Rettig Gur.
This week, a committee appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to examine defense spending and IDF military force design for the future announced that the election of Donald Trump as US president offers an unprecedented opportunity to remove the threat Israel faces from Iran.the
Trump’s return to the White House, said the Nagel Committee on Monday, “creates, for the first time, the potential for a fundamental change, and the removal or meaningful reduction of the Iranian threat.”
Likewise this week, the incoming US envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff announced that he would travel to Doha, saying a hostage deal being mediated by Qatar is on the verge of completion, as US President-elect Donald Trump again warned “all hell will break loose” in the region if an agreement between Israel and Hamas is not reached by his January 20 inauguration.
We all know that Trump is one to talk tough, but the question is -- how much of this rhetoric will translate into action? And will he aid Israel in its aid to prevent a nuclear Iran?
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur: What matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: US President Donald Trump (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, May 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's founding editor David Horovitz.
Five years ago this week, The Times of Israel launched its Daily Briefing podcast to keep listeners updated on the latest news out of Israel and the region, from Sunday through Thursday. Starting from October 7, 2023, the podcast has moved to seven days a week in an effort to broadcast fair and accurate news from Israel during wartime. We discuss the locations of some of the podcast's more unusual listenership.
Horovitz delves into ongoing efforts on the part of the government to limit the freedom of the press, from the banning of Al Jazeera to halting paid ads in Haaretz. He explains the "gentleman's agreement" that is the nature of the relationship of Israeli press with the military censor -- and how frustrating it can be.
We learn about the inescapable blindsides in reporting this war that see unverifiable narratives out of Gaza be taken as truths, and how dangerous this situation is.
So this week, we ask editor David Horovitz, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Newspapers and magazines for sale at a shop in the center of Jerusalem. November 10, 2013. (Nati Shohat/FLASH90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with stand-up comedian Yochay Sponder.
After the 2012 Gaza War, the comedian began using his talent to make people laugh as a tool for pro-Israel advocacy in his heavily Hebrew-flavored English. This work has only ramped up since the October 7, 2023, murderous Hamas onslaught, where thousands of terrorists infiltrated southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking another 251 hostage to Gaza.
Initially after the attack, Sponder, whose soldier cousin fell in battle on October 7, thought it may be inappropriate to take to the stage and make people laugh. Today, he considers it his reserve duty and Sponder uses his brand of truth-telling to remind the world who started this ongoing war and that Israelis still hope for peace.
With a personal genetic background that would put a Benetton poster to shame, Sponder uses a brusque uber-Israeli persona to counter politically correct norms and spotlight hypocrisy.
Sponder has toured his English-language show, "Self-Loving Jew," extensively this year. In our conversation, he discusses a performance in the United States in which a group of pro-Palestine activists showed up. The result was not what he expected.
So this week, we ask Israeli comedian Yochay Sponder, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Check out the previous What Matters Now episode:
https://omny.fm/shows/times-will-tell/wmn-what-matters-now-to-andrew-fox-cynical-use-of
IMAGE: Stand-up comedian/Israel advocate Yochay Sponder. (Limor Azran Garfinkle)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Andrew Fox.
Fox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, served in the British Army from 2005 to 2021, completing three tours in Afghanistan, including one attached to the US Army Special Forces. At the transatlantic think tank, he specializes in Defense, the Middle East, and disinformation. He holds degrees in Law and Politics, Modern War Studies and Psychology.
This week, Fox and a team of researchers published a report that made international headlines titled, "Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza."
According to the report, the Palestinian death toll for the Gaza war appears to include thousands of people who died of natural causes as well as incorrect figures — partly in an effort to inflate the toll of women and children.
Worse, international media outlets are too quick to accept the figures from terror group Hamas -- usually without the scrutiny and rigor that are applied when reporting numbers supplied by Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry's figures, the report claims, are being manipulated for propaganda needs.
The Gaza health ministry, under Hamas, “has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began,” the report said.
We discuss the report and hear Fox's assessment of how the IDF's operations in Gaza have played out, as well as the one arena Israel has neglected -- the fight for world opinion.
So this week, we ask London-based defense analyst Andrew Fox, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: The IDF operates in the southern Gaza Strip's Rafah in this hand out image from December 16, 2024. (IDF)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Middle East expert Ksenia Svetlova.
As the rebel factions in Syria continue to fight to wrest control -- from the fallen Assad regime as well as from each other -- one of the ways to measure how the country will emerge is to look at the factions' treatment of women: On Tuesday, for example, the Biden administration said it will recognize and support a new Syrian government that renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons stocks and protects the rights of minorities and women.
In 2020, Svetlova published a Hebrew-language book, "On Heels in the Middle East," depicting her travels throughout the Middle East as a female (and sometimes overtly Jewish) journalist. Born in Moscow, Svetlova immigrated to Israel at the age of 14. She is a journalist and analyst and was a member of the 20th Knesset for the Zionist Union party. Today she is the executive director of ROPES, which works to connect "forward-thinking Israeli and Palestinian emerging leaders with like-minded peers from across the Middle East and North Africa."
In our conversation, she draws on her experiences reporting from inside the region's Islamic countries to evaluate and rank their women's rights and freedoms. We discuss which country most supports women's rights -- Tunisia -- and the many countries that vie for the least free.
Later, we hear Svetlova's thoughts on future Russian influence in Syria and the region.
So this week, as all eyes are on Syria and the rebels that hope to rule it, we ask Ksenia Svetlova, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: A woman holding a rifle borrowed from a Syrian opposition fighter poses for a picture, next to a government forces tank that was left on a street, at the Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, December 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, an Iranian career diplomat who participated in the previous round of nuclear talks, is currently Iran's Vice President for Strategic Affairs since August 2024. In that role, he wrote an op-ed in the bi-monthly Foreign Affairs journal. The century-old magazine focuses on international relations and policy and can serve as a platform to float ideas and hear reasoned responses.
In Zarif's article, "How Iran Sees the Path to Peace," among the arguments raised was the idea of a "referendum" voting on the governance of the territory that largely includes the Jewish state.
"Iran can continue to play a constructive role in ending the current humanitarian nightmare in Gaza and work with the international community to pursue a lasting and democratic solution to the conflict," writes Zarif.
"Iran will agree to any solution acceptable to Palestinians, but our government believes that the best way out of this century-long ordeal would be a referendum in which everyone living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — Muslims, Christians, and Jews — and Palestinians driven to diaspora in the twentieth century (along with their descendants) would be able to determine a viable future system of governance. This is in line with international law and would build on the success of South Africa, where an apartheid system was transformed into a viable democratic state."
To Rettig Gur, Zarif's op-ed -- filled with posturing and warnings to the Western world -- is a sign of Iran's faltering regime and he explains why.
So this week, we discuss this new era of Iranian potential weakness and how the West needs to handle it wisely, as Haviv Rettig Gur weighs in on what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Masoud Pezeshkian, center, flashes a victory sign after casting his vote in Iran's presidential election as he is accompanied by former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, left, at a polling station in Shahr-e-Qods near Tehran, Iran, July 5, 2024. (AP/Vahid Salemi)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Tuvia Book was honorably discharged as a combat medic in the Israel Defense Forces following the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Like most Israeli reservists, however, he stashed a uniform in his basement, "just in case."
That emergency occurred on October 7, 2023, when Book, learning of the Hamas murderous onslaught on southern Israel, pulled out that uniform and, hearing a rumor that some units based in the south were lacking combat medics, packed his car and drove. He arrived, without enlistment papers and no longer even registered in the draconian IDF bureaucracy.
He was accepted into the Palmar Asaf Medical Extraction Unit and fought his way back into the IDF system.
Book, who in "real life" is a Times of Israel blogger, a tour guide, author and Jewish educator," has served in the reserves for the past 12 out of 14 months of war.
At the end of November, the Medical Corps reported that some 5,300 wounded soldiers had been treated amid the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and another 700 in Lebanon.
Book describes his unique reservists unit, and how a combination of speed, professionalism and technology is resulting in a vastly lower case fatality rate — the proportion of wounded who end up dying -- than in any previous war.
So this week, we ask Tuvia Book, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Reservist Tuvia Book, a combat medic in the Palmar Asaf Medical Extraction Unit, in Gaza, 2024. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Inspired by an op-ed by David Brooks in the New York Times called “Why We Got It So Wrong,” the pair discuss how a similar misconception of the political landscape may afflict Israel's center-left as it did the Democratic party.
Rettig Gur discusses a newer face on the political landscape -- October 7-hero and Democrats head Yair Golan -- and talks about how his rise is in many ways a return to "classic" Labor. But, he adds, the classic Labor electorate is rapidly aging -- or fleeing that party.
We hear about a party so far-left as to be an anomaly -- Hadash -- and how extremely controversial comments from its "token" Jewish member MK Ofer Cassif have recently seen him suspended from the Knesset for six months.
We learn that Israel's many parties are a remnant of Israeli tribalism -- which may or may not be how Israelis are voting today.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Head of the Democrats Yair Golan at the Knesset in Jerusalem on November 6, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
At the start of the war in retaliation for Hamas's murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces reported that more than 100 percent of reservists called up for duty had shown up — nearly 300,000 reservists in total, marking the largest-ever call-up of reservists in Israel’s history.
This week, we learned that there has been a significant decline in the rate of reserve soldiers showing up for duty and the turnout rate in the reservist units currently fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip has varied between 75% and 85%.
In an effort to bolster the standing army, over the summer, the IDF Personnel Directorate sent out 3,000 draft orders to Haredi men aged 18-26. Out of those 3,000 men, only around 10% have shown up to be drafted into the military.
The IDF’s overall goal for the just concluded draft period — about four months — was 1,300 ultra-Orthodox soldiers. Ultimately it reached just over 900, including those who were drafted outside of the 3,000 new orders.
This means that the IDF has seen an 85% increase in the number of Haredi soldiers joining the army, compared to the same draft period in previous years. However, the military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — 75% of whom will be combat troops.
In our conversation this week, we hear personal anecdotes about the service of Borschel-Dan and Rettig Gur's family this year and how they fit into the broader Israeli experience. We also learn about rising resentment among many segments of Israeli society over the entrenched refusal of Haredim to draft in necessary numbers -- and what could be a way out.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: An IDF soldier walks among Haredi Jewish men during a protest against a potential new draft law that could end their exemptions from military service in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, we hand the mic over to Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and an author, thinker and writer for The Times of Israel and many other outlets.
Recently, Klein Halevi shared with us his longtime interest in interviewing Rabbi Irving Yitz Greenberg, whom he called one of this generation's most important Jewish theologians.
Greenberg has been a central figure in the creation of a post-Holocaust Jewish identity and in establishing Holocaust commemoration projects like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. He is a leader in inter-denominational Jewish pluralism and in Jewish-Christian interfaith dialogue.
Now, at age 91, Greenberg has published his magnum opus, “The Triumph of Life,” which, according to Klein Halevi, offers a brilliant and original argument for a new understanding of Judaism.
So this week, we ask both Yossi Klein Halevi and Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Image: Left to right: Author Yossi Klein Halevi. (Shalom Hartman Institute); Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
The United States is electing its next president on November 5 and according to a poll published this week, Israelis massively favor Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.
So ahead of next week's results, we take a closer look at exactly how Israelis are polling, which candidate they favor -- and some reasons why. We also learn how the current polling matches previous surveys of Israelis ahead of past US elections and who was actually elected in the end.
We also hear from Rettig Gur, who has been touring Jewish communities over the past week, what concerns he's gathered about both candidates from the American Jews he's spoken with.
And finally, we look at the recently published AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of Americans which, among other things, drills down into the US population's partisan divide on all things Israel and Middle East.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: This combination of pictures shows US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaking during a Get Out the Vote rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on October 30, 2024, and former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024. (Angela Weiss / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
This week, a sukka that was reportedly put up by the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace caused a social media storm because of the cynical use of Palestinian iconography on a hut that was plastered with symbols of the Sukkot holiday and phrases in English and Yiddish. Rettig Gur weighs in on why this misuse of a (not kosher) temporary hut so irks many Jews.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated during a meeting with President Isaac Herzog and in other forums in his whirlwind Israel trip this week that the death of Hamas head Yahya Sinwar offers a window of opportunity to shift the course of the war.
We discuss how the US's input wouldn't have allowed the IDF to enter Rafah, where Sinwar was eliminated, and the frustrations felt by Israelis for a perceived shackling of Israel's capabilities.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: A sukka reportedly put up by Jewish Voice for Peace on a US campus that caused a social media storm, October 2024. (Social media/X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
This week we speak with the editors of a new prayerbook -- "Az Nashir - We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need" -- written by women, for women, in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel.
The anthology was compiled and edited by Shira Lankin Sheps, Anne Gordon, and Rachel Sharansky Danziger, and it was published by The Layers Press, an imprint of The SHVILLI Center.
The three editors join Borschel-Dan in The Times of Israel's Jerusalem office this week and explain their impetus to tackle such an ambitious project and the decisions they made while putting it together, such as the inclusion of "visual prayer" -- 30 colorful illustrations by female artists.
According to the editors, the Hebrew-English tome is a prayerbook companion that emulates a long tradition of Jewish women writing prayers, supplications and liturgical poems in their own mother tongues.
So this week, we ask Shira Lankin Sheps, Anne Gordon, and Rachel Sharansky Danziger, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: The editors of 'Az Nashir - We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need,' (from left to right): Anne Gordon, Rachel Sharansky Danziger and Shira Lankin Sheps. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Shortly after October 7, when the murderous Hamas onslaught on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza, Israel was pulled into defending itself and fighting Iran or its proxies on seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the West Bank and of course Iran.
But there is an eighth front that has emerged and is no less pernicious: the battle for public opinion and legitimacy.
Since war broke out, Israel advocate Aviva Klompas has used her robust social media platforms to provide a counter to the onslaught of anti-Israel hate.
As co-founder and CEO of Boundless, Aviva says she aims to reshape Israel education and confront antisemitism head-on. This war is affording her great opportunity. We speak about this advocacy work and her new book, "Stand-Up Nation."
So this week we ask Aviva Klompas, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Author and Israel advocate Aviva Klompas (Zev Fisher)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, US bureau chief Jacob Magid is joined by journalist Joshua Leifer to discuss his new book Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life."
Tablets Shattered made some extra headlines upon its release when a rogue Brooklyn Bookstore employee cancelled a rollout event because the emcee slated to interview Leifer identified as a Zionist.
The incident highlighted one of the critiques Leifer makes in the book regarding antisemitism on the American left.
But Tablets Shattered looks more broadly at American Judaism, arguing that it has peaked, in its current form. But it also offers a blueprint for putting the pieces back together.
While a product of the Conservative denomination and an ardent left-winger, Leifer maintains that it is ultra-Orthodox Judaism that offers much of that blueprint, and we discussed why that is.
So this week, we ask Joshua Leifer, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Journalist and author Jusha Leifer. (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan.
This week, ahead of the one-year mark of the October 7 massacre, we check in with philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman.
Best-selling author Goodman revisits a theory he discussed with Borschel-Dan on October 9, mere days after Hamas infiltrated Israel's south and slaughtered 1,200 and abducted 251 hostages back to Gaza. We hear about Goodman's idea of the "zero-sum game" that Israel must play to restore deterrence and maintain legitimacy and its results so far.
Now, a year into this ongoing war, we learn how the Israeli narrative of the war is shifting from perceiving it through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Today, two other narratives are increasingly gaining steam: One states that October 7 was an opening salvo to a regional war and the other zooms out even further and places it in the context of a realignment of the global axis.
We hear how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "right" in warning against Iran, but his coalition just may obstruct efforts to solve the conflict once and for all.
"We need new politics in order to defeat Iran," said Goodman.
So this week, we ask Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman. (Yonit Schiller)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Last week, three women were arrested after distributing flyers with six hostages' faces in MK Yuli Edelstein’s synagogue in Herzliya, including a picture of him as a Prisoner of Zion alongside and the famous "Let My People Go" slogan used to support the refuseniks in the Soviet Union before being allowed to emigrate to Israel in 1987.
After a week of backlash to their arrests and his apparent support for them, Edelstein clarified that while he understands the hostage families' protests, he does "not forgive people who turn the hostages into currency to promote goals that have nothing to do with them.”
At the same time, there already are efforts inside most -- if not all -- synagogues throughout Israel to release the hostages: the longstanding prayer for the release of hostages that is found in most standard prayerbooks.
Rettg Gur and Borschel-Dan discuss the two sides' stances and question whether they are all that far apart on the issue of the hostages.
The two then turn to the question of whether or not Israel is basically experiencing an undeclared, low-burn regional war after a week in which a ballistic missile from the Yemenite Houthis reached Tel Aviv, a drone from Iraq was downed over the Sea of Galilee, along with the "usual" rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. Rettig Gur argues that even if Israel isn't currently in a regional war, it's time for one, but with one specific target.
And so this week we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, center, meets with Iraqi community members during his visit to Basra, Iraq, September 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Nabil al-Jourani)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan.
This week, we're joined by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, a leading voice in Conservative Judaism, who has served as head rabbi of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue since 2008.
We speak about his soon-to-be-published book, "For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today" (Harper Collins), which was written after the October 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 and abduction of 251.
The book is a blend of memoir, Torah study and reflection on what it means to be a Jew in the Diaspora today even as Israel continues its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Using the October 7 onslaught as a touchstone, the book is roughly divided into past, present and future and examines the connection between American Jewry and Israel throughout the decades. Cosgrove addresses concerns such as a new generation of young Jewish Americans who are proud of their religious heritage, but repudiate the nationalism exhibited by the Jewish state.
So this week, we ask Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, head rabbi of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue, holding his new book, 'For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today,' September 11, 2024. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
This week, Israel was shattered by the news that six hostages, all previously thought alive, were discovered dead in a Gaza tunnel. The six hostages whose bodies were recovered over the weekend — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi — were killed just days before troops found them, according to autopsies and the IDF.
They were all buried this week and hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Sunday demanding a hostage release deal, now.
Rettig Gur and Borschel-Dan have an open, painful conversation about what may be the two sides of Israel's Sophie’s Choice: between live hostages and, potentially, the military deterrence to prevent more Israelis from being taken.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: A display of 27 coffins of the hostages who were killed while in captivity in Gaza set up at Habima Square in Tel Aviv. (Zohar Ben Yehuda)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan.
This week, as campuses across North America open their doors for their fall semester, we speak with New York Times Opinion columnist Bret Stephens.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer recently wrote a column called, “What I Want a University President to Say About Campus Protests,” in which he channels a university president presenting his foundational principles, including, “the spirit of inquiry.”
In this week's episode, we hear Stephens's take on concepts that have evolved and flourished on campuses in the past several decades, including how critical theory has shifted faculties and the role of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI).
So this week, as students return to campuses, we ask Bret Stephens, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: The New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens. (Jason Smith via JTA)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
This week, we speak with Hebrew University in Jerusalem Prof. Aron Troen for a deep dive into two powerful issues facing him since October 7.
One draws upon his professional expertise: Troen is a professor of Nutrition Science and Public Health. His most recent research is dealing with whether or not there is a state of famine in the Gaza Strip during this war that Hamas launched on October 7 with the massacre of some 1,200, mostly civilians, in southern Israel.
But Troen is also an Israeli who was personally affected by the Hamas onslaught and among those killed on October 7 were his sister and her husband, who were murdered in their home on Kibbutz Holit, leaving three children, Troens nieces and nephew orphans. His nephew, who survived the murders of his parents, now lives with him.
We discuss in depth Troen's professional work and how he and his team dispelled reports of famine. And in the second part of our lengthy interview, we talk about his sister and how he and her children still believe we can work for a day in which the Palestinian and Israeli peoples can live side by side.
So this week, we ask Prof. Aron Troen, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Check out the previous What Matters Now episode:
https://omny.fm/shows/times-will-tell/what-matters-now-to-yossi-klein-halevi-will-israel
IMAGE: Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. Aron Troen (Louis Weil)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
This week, we speak with Israeli thinker Yossi Klein Halevi for a deeply intense probe into what it means to be part of the existential Israeli struggle.
We discuss how, as the war in Gaza continues, the different forces in Israeli society are caught up in a destructive push-pull dance even as Israel is losing its moral capital during this long war.
During this time of existential schism in the Jewish state, we hear how to weave threads of unity.
So this week, we ask best-selling author Yossi Klein Halevi, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Author Yossi Klein Halevi (Shalom Hartman Institute)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Israel awaits an expected retaliatory attack from Iran and Hezbollah for the assassinations of Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh in Teheran and Hezbollah chief of staff Fuad Shukr in Beirut.
We don’t know what’s going to happen: The potential strike could be tonight, could be tomorrow -- or could be never.
During this period of uncertainty, we discuss with good humor, "How do you prepare for a potential 'Armageddon' -- both physically and metaphysically?"
So this week we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: A bomb shelter in Nahariya painted by Lidia and Igor Katliarski (Lidia Katliarski)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
"Ex astrophysicist now Hobbesian realist." Not many people can pull off that social media profile moniker. In fact, there’s likely only one: Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the founder of NGO Monitor.
Today, Steinberg is an emeritus professor of Political Studies from Bar Ilan University. Among his realms of interest, he is an expert in human rights, soft power and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). He’s delved so deeply into NGOs that in 2002 he founded one himself, the Institute for NGO Research, which is a recognized organization in Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council since 2013.
NGO Monitor states that it aims to promote accountability and discussion on the reports and activities of NGOs claiming to advance human rights and humanitarian agendas in Israel. Steinberg often targets the bigger "corporate" NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and a word that came up several times in our discussion is “hypocrisy.” But during our conversation, he also names several smaller groups that are going fair-minded work.
So this week, we ask Prof. Gerald Steinberg, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Prof. Gerald Steinberg, the founder of NGO Monitor, at The Times of Israel's Jerusalem office, July 30, 2024. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/ToI)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan, speaking with ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Israel’s national anthem, "Hativkah," was loudly jeered before its soccer team kicked off play at the Paris Olympics against Mali on Wednesday night. To the relief of all, the game passed without major security incidents as the match ended in a 1-1 draw.
Since the 1972 Munich Games, Team Israel has been closely protected by the Israeli Security Agency. However, as rhetoric and activism against Israel heats up during the ongoing war with Hamas, it is the only national team with an extra round-the-clock security detail provided by the host country France.
As Israel is increasingly battered on the global stage and called a "pariah state," could protests turn violent?
Rettig Gur discusses how to maintain a true north concerning the Gaza war and indifference to world opinion, while still holding vast empathy for the suffering in the Strip.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Will Israel survive until 100? And if so, which Israel will remain: A democratic Jewish state or a Jewish state, with a side of democracy?
These are questions posed by Prof. Eugene Kandel, who served as the Head of the National Economic Council and Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister of Israel from 2009-2015, and is today the founder and the Chairman of the independent think tank, RISE Israel Institute.
In our in-depth discussion, Kandel breaks down Israel’s current societal problems and how they could affect our children. Finally, we hear an out-of-the-box idea to change that divisive trajectory.
So this week, we ask Prof. Eugene Kandel, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Prof. Eugene Kandel, today the founder and the Chairman of the independent think tank RISE Israel Institute. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Since Wednesday afternoon, 100s if not 1,000s of Israelis are marching in support of the hostages in Gaza and their families from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They’re meant to finish their march at the end of Shabbat, Saturday night, with a massive protest in Jerusalem.
We look at when protests in Israel have achieved their goals in the past 50 years and how these outcomes shifted Israeli society. And we examine how the current protests staged by families of hostages held in Gaza may have shaped the war.
So this week, we ask Rettig Gur, What Matters Now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Check out the previous What Matters Now episode:
https://omny.fm/shows/times-will-tell/what-matters-now-to-rachel-gur-lowering-the-cost-o
IMAGE: Families and friends of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza call for their return as they begin a four-day march from Tel Aviv to the Prime Minister's house in Jerusalem, in Tel Aviv, Israel, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with Rachel Gur, the deputy CEO of the grassroots Lobby 99.
Today, as part of the "what is good for Europe is good for Israel" import reform, the Knesset ministerial committee for tackling the high cost of living unanimously approved that European standards will apply automatically and will override the need for domestic regulatory standards approval.
This comes after a recent report that food and beverage prices in Israel are 52 percent higher than the average among developed countries, second only to South Korea, according to comparative consumer price data released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in June and reported by Channel 12.
Prices for bread and grains in Israel were found to be among the highest in OECD countries, at 49% above the average, with only Swiss prices coming in higher. Similarly, Israeli prices for dairy and eggs were the second most expensive among the 38 OECD countries, at 64% more expensive than the average, second to South Korea.
And while some of these costs are linked to the ongoing war against Hamas, most are not and are rather linked to a dearth of competition in Israel's "free market" economy.
Currently serving as the deputy CEO of Lobby 99 -- "the people's lobby" -- Gur moved to Israel from the United States at age 17 and served in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. After demobbing, she earned an L.L.B. and B.A. in political science from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and an L.L.M. in Legal Theory from New York University Law School. (She also married The Times of Israel’s senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur and had four children.)
So this week, as there is some optimism that the cost of living just might will be lowered for the little guy, we ask Rachel Gur, What Matters Now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Deputy CEO of Lobby 99, lawyer Rachel Gur. (Inbal Marmari)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
Ultra-Orthodox men of military age have been able to avoid being conscripted to the IDF for decades by enrolling in yeshivas for Torah study and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption.
This week, a historic High Court ruling — which found that there is no legal basis for excluding Haredi men from the military draft -- brought the need for a true Haredi draft law into focus.
So when Likud MK and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein delayed a vote on a Defense Ministry-backed “draft Security Service Law” due to what he said was a failure to reach a “broad consensus” on the matter, political pundits paid attention.
Likewise, polls indicated this week that a "fantasy" political party of former prime minister Naftali Bennet, Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman, New Hope head Gideon Sa’ar and former Mossad director Yossi Cohen would be the largest faction in the Knesset if elections were held today, winning 25 seats.
So this week, as more murmurings of discontent are heard by Likud MK -- and their voting block -- we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, What Matters Now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Illustrative image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves to his supporters after the first exit poll results for the Israeli parliamentary elections at his Likud party's headquarters in Jerusalem, March. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with Holocaust historian Prof. Jan Grabowski, the author of "The Hunt for the Jews."
We discuss how in recent decades the lexicon associated with the Holocaust has been usurped and recycled for any number of political purposes. Most recently, the terminology is showcased during Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and accusations against the Jewish state of genocide have led international news.
We ask Grabowski, who is currently conducting research in Israel, about the use of terms such as "genocide" and "Nazi" during a period that the University of Ottawa professor calls "a-historic."
He speaks about the challenges of educating at western universities today -- especially as some students are calling for their Jewish peers and faculty to “go back to Europe.”
So this week, we ask Prof. Jan Grabowski, What Matters Now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Prof. Jan Grabowski (Katarzyna Markusz)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
On Tuesday, the United Nations published an annual report on children in armed conflict, which for the first time added the Israeli military, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to its list of worst offenders. The decision to add the IDF to what has become known as “the list of shame” was due to what the report said was its killing and maiming of children and attacking schools and hospitals. Israel asserts that it operates according to international law, taking steps to avoid civilian casualties.
And on Wednesday, a UN inquiry alleged both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, saying Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses, and that they included acts of “extermination.”
This week, we discuss the use of international bodies to delegitimize Israel and how international law -- developed in part by Jews -- no longer protects the little guys.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, What Matters Now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Israel's legal team waits to hear the arguments of South Africa's legal team as part of South Africa case against Israel over Rafah offensive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, on May 16, 2024. (Nick Gammon / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with archaeologist Prof. Jodi Magness.
This Wednesday, Israel marked Jerusalem Day, which celebrates the reunification of Jerusalem following the 1967 Six-Day War.
But the capital has a rich and fascinating history of rulership changes since its foundation in circa 1000 BCE.
Magness just published her latest book, "Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades," through Oxford University Press. She stopped by The Times of Israel's Jerusalem offices to speak about the ancient eternal city's rulerships and populations throughout the eras.
“Jerusalem Through the Ages” is a 700-page weighty tome that delves into the city’s history through archaeological evidence and also texts, including the Bible and extra-biblical material such as the Egyptian Amarna Letters.
Magness is Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of 11 books, including "Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth," "Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus," and "The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls." From 2011 until 2023, Magness directed excavations at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee and uncovered its breathtaking mosaics.
So this Jerusalem Day, we take a quick break from our current war and ask archaeologist Prof. Jodi Magness, what mattered then?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Prof. Jodi Magness in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on April 11, 2022. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/The Times of Israel)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with law professor Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy.
October 7 was not the first time that rape was weaponized in warfare. If history teaches anything, it also won’t be the last.
Almost immediately following Hamas’s murderous onslaught on southern Israel, humanitarian law expert Elkayam-Levy established and now heads The Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children.
In addition to lecturing at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Reichman University, Elkayam-Levy, along with her staff, has poured over thousands of pieces of documentation that chronicle Hamas’s systemic use of rape and sexual violence against women.
The silence and lack of condemnation of this violence from international bodies, including the 30-year-old United Nations office of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, has been deafening to Israeli women. But domestically, Elkayam-Levy was recently awarded the Israel Prize, the highest honor the state of Israel bestows, as well as other honors.
Borschel-Dan visited the headquarters of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children for a wide-ranging conversation. Listener discretion is advised.
So this week, we ask Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Law prof Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy (Martine Hami)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
A month before the Hamas onslaught on Israel's south that would claim the life of his son, Rav Doron Perez inked a deal to translate to Hebrew his English-language book, "The Jewish State From Opposition to Opportunity: A Vision for Unity in Israel and Why the World Needs It."
In the book, the Johannesburg-born Executive Chairman of the Mizrachi World Movement, also a member of the board of the World Zionist Organization, aims to use an "old-new spiritual approach to the Jewish state," in part to help bridge the country's widening gaps.
And then, on October 7, the Perez family suffered a double blow in learning that eldest son Yonatan was injured and second child Daniel was missing. It was only after 163 days of uncertainty that the family learned that Daniel was indeed killed on that bloody Saturday after a heroic battle for the protection of Nachal Oz.
Now, Perez is reconciling this unmeasurable loss with his staunch Religious Zionism, even as some in Israel would give in to a very understandable anger and blame.
This week on What Matters Now, we talk about the past almost eight months in which the family incrementally learned of Daniel’s fate.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: In this 2021 image, Rav Doron Perez (center) poses with his two soldier sons Yonatan (left, then 22) and Daniel (then 20), who was slain on October 7, 2023, and his remains captured by Hamas and taken to Gaza. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines "optimism" as "the quality of being full of hope and emphasizing the good parts of a situation, or a belief that something good will happen." Looking at war-torn Israel today, it is a quality that appears to be in short supply.
But in this week's What Matters Now, The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur points out that while things look bleak now, there are several reasons for optimism.
We begin the program by discussing Israel's 5th place on the annual World Happiness Report, which, in addition to self-assessed evaluations of life satisfaction, is also based on GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption. Incredibly, the self-reported Israeli data was collected following the October 7 massacre of 1,200 individuals and hostage-taking of 252 by Hamas terrorists and the resultant, ongoing war in Gaza.
Even faced with a "negative outlook" by ratings agency S&P Global and Moody’s Investors Service on the Israeli economy, Rettig Gur finds signs of economic optimism -- stemming from the Haredi community.
So this memorial week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. IMAGE: People celebrate Israel's 76th Independence Day at Saker Park in Jerusalem, May 14, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Last week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene -- a Georgia Republican who has been criticized in the past for her dalliances with antisemitic tropes and influencers -- explained her vote against a bill defining antisemitism by saying that the bill rejects the “gospel” that “the Jews” handed Jesus over to his crucifiers.
When the Georgia Republican stated these "facts," she echoed thousands of years of blood libel used to excuse the antisemitic massacre of Jews.
In this week's What Matters Now, The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur explains some of the history behind this statement and how antisemitism differs from "regular" racism.
We see how antisemitism plays out in the ongoing anti-Israel protests on North American university campuses and discuss how a majority of the over 2,000 arrested in recent weeks have not actually been college students.
On Monday, we in Israel marked Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and for next week are looking ahead to Memorial Day and Independence Day. Rettig Gur looks at how these days affect Israelis -- and why they are observed day-after-day.
So in a week in which US President Joe Biden denounces rising antisemitism, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: A woman wears a hat that reads 'Curb Your Antisemitism' during a rally against campus antisemitism at George Washington University on May 2, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Police cleared 30 to 40 people from inside Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall on Tuesday night after protesters against Israel occupied the administration building in New York earlier in the day. Hundreds of New York Police Department officers acted after the school’s president said there was no other way to ensure safety and restore order on campus and sought help from the police.
The confrontation occurred more than 12 hours after the demonstrators took over Hamilton Hall shortly after midnight Tuesday, spreading their reach from an anti-Israel tent encampment elsewhere on the grounds that’s was there for nearly two weeks.
This week we speak with two Jewish student leaders from Columbia University, Eden Yadegar, the president of Columbia's chapter of Students Supporting Israel, and Elisha H. Baker, a senior editor at the Columbia Political Review.
We speak about the pro-Palestine encampment that has sparked a wave of copycat protests throughout campuses in the United States. But we also set the scene on the Columbia campus, which led up to these protests and hear about an atmosphere in which latent antisemitism was released from its cage after the October 7 Hamas onslaught on southern Israel in which terrorists massacred 1,200 and took 253 individuals hostage.
We also hear about how Yadegar, after speaking at a congressional roundtable about on-campus antisemitism organized by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce alongside students from eight other universities, returned to campus to face derision.
So this week, we ask Columbia University students Eden Yadegar and Elisha H. Baker, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Columbia University students Eden Yadegar and Elisha H. Baker lead songs in support of Israel on October 12, 2023. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
This week, we speak with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur about the controversial Netzah Yehudah battalion that is on the docket for blacklisting by the United States under the 1997 Leahy Law.
In August 2022, Israeli troops from the religious Netzah Yehuda battalion were filmed beating two Palestinian detainees in the West Bank in a video posted to the TikTok video-sharing site. Three soldiers were seen repeatedly kicking two Palestinian men near Ramallah as a fourth soldier stands nearby. They were suspended and investigated.
This well-publicized beating came months after the death of Omar As’ad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American who died after being detained, handcuffed, blindfolded, and later abandoned in near-freezing conditions by soldiers of the battalion.
As Washington is increasingly clamping down on extremist Jewish settler violence in the West Bank, the State Department probed Netzah Yehuda and several of the other units in the Israeli security forces for well over a year due to alleged human rights violations.
While the State Department looks into thousands of allegations of Leahy Law violations each year, it created a special panel known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum that exclusively vets allegations against the IDF and Israel Police due to the political sensitivity of the issue.
So this week in which an IDF unit may be defunded by the United States, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
With contributions from Jacob Magid.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Israeli soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion patrol near the Israeli-Gaza border, October 20, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
In a post-October 7 Israeli reality, is any new security threat outside the realm of imagination?
This week, when over 300 projectiles were sent from Iran to Israel, we pose this question to journalist and hit Israeli drama "Fauda" co-creator Avi Issacharoff.
Legions of fans around the world know of Issacharoff’s fiction writing from the popular television series, loosely based on his experiences in the IDF’s elite Duvdevan unit, that is written alongside "Fauda" star Lior Raz. (We'll hear a story of their post-October 7 real-life bravery during our conversation.)
But Issacharoff is first and foremost a long-time, die-hard journalist and analyst of the Arab world -- one who has put his life on the line in the past to cover a story.
We pick Issacharoff’s brain as we unpick the knotty situation Israel is currently facing with enemies on our borders, and Iran as a puppet master who is coming increasingly closer to a nuclear bomb.
So this week, we ask journalist Avi Issaharoff, What Matters Now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Mideast analyst Avi Issacharoff, one of the co-creators of the Israeli TV drama 'Fauda,' (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Speaking in our Jerusalem office, The Times of Israel editor David Horovitz offers a rare in-depth look at the professional challenges and personal conflicts he’s faced in covering the war against Hamas for the past half year.
Horovitz gives a candid survey at what it is to run a site that, following the surprise October 7 Hamas infiltration of southern Israel and massacre of 1,200 people, jumped 600% in its readership to become, according to news site Press Gazette, the fastest-growing news website in the world in October and November.
The Times of Israel's 24/7 coverage remains unabated as we mark six months of war.
So this week we ask Times of Israel editor David Horovitz, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: David Horovitz, editor, The Times of Israel (Amanda Borschel-Dan/ToI)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
In six months of war, Israel has systematically broken down Hamas’s battalions in the Gaza Strip. But in achieving terrible success in its aim to defang the terrorist army, the Jewish state is no longer seen on the world stage as the attacked underdog David, but increasingly reviled as a cruel Goliath.
According to many in the West, it is up to Israel to immediately stop the war regardless of Hamas’s clear ability to regroup and again attack, just as the terror group has publicly vowed to do.
This week, What Matters Now again speaks with public intellectual and philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman. We revisit the raw conversation we held six months ago, mere days after Hamas’s murderous attack, and see just how right Goodman’s predictions were.
In our conversation this week, Goodman explains the completely different framings of the war held by the West and Israel, and how they influence both sides’ actions and words.
And we hear about how Israelis, forever changed by the war, are now standing at a crossroads. Can civil society regroup and reemerge from this war stronger, saner and more united?
Goodman spent the past six months writing his seventh best-selling book, "Hayom Hashmini" ("The Eighth Day"), which was published in late March. He sees the end of this war as an opportunity for restructuring and revitalizing Israelis, as long as they embrace a new paradigm.
So this week, six months to the war, we ask Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman. (Yonit Schiller)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration of one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Days after his 32nd birthday, on Saturday, October 7, Hayim Katsman was killed by terrorists from Gaza in his neighbor’s home in Kibbutz Holit while shielding her with his body.
His body was identified and the family was notified the next day. He was buried on Thursday of that week.
Born to American immigrant parents and one of six children, Hayim was a scholar of philosophy and earned a PhD in political science. He was active in several local peace organizations. He was also a musician, mechanic and a gardener.
Hayim’s mother, Hannah Wacholder Katsman, a writer and women’s rights activist, joined Amanda Borschel-Dan this week in The Times of Israel’s Jerusalem office for this week’s What Matters Now.
As Hannah wrote in an essay for The Times of Israel, “I realized early on that because Hayim’s death was part of our national story, the mourning would be public.”
We hear about her way of openly mourning and how it has helped others with their national grief and of the continuing ripple effect of Hayim’s murder.
As the world increasingly forgets what spawned the ongoing war in Gaza, we focus on one son and ask his mother, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
Check out the previous What Matters Now episode:
https://omny.fm/shows/times-will-tell/what-matters-now-to-haviv-rettig-gur-is-netanyahu
IMAGE: Hayim Katsman, left, and his mother Hannah Wacholder Katsman, in Tel Aviv in 2018. (Tamar Abramson)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration of one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
In his US Senate floor speech last week, Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer called for new Israeli elections as the war winds down and branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as one of four obstacles to peace along with Hamas, the Israeli far-right and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Throughout the past week, Times of Israel podcast listeners have shared their views on Schumer's speech -- and offered overwhelming support for the most senior elected Jewish politician's "hard truths."
For context, a 2020 Pew Research Center survey shows that among the US population, Jews are among the most consistently liberal and Democratic groups with about 70 percent voting Democrat. As Netanyahu increasingly becomes a partisan issue, the prime minister is also increasingly the face of all US Jews detest in how Israel is prosecuting the war in Gaza.
This week on What Matters Now, ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur explains how, to a very strong degree, most Israelis don't disagree with Schumer on several of the points made in his 45-minute speech.
However, in many key areas, Israelis sharply diverge from liberal US Jewry's thinking, including the need for humanitarian aid in Gaza even as the Israeli hostages are still held by Hamas.
A distrust of Netanyahu is hampering the war effort -- especially on the international stage -- but also fraying domestic cohesion, argues Rettig Gur.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a gathering of Jewish leaders at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, February 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration of one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
On Tuesday, aid for 25,000 people reached Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip for the first time in weeks, according to the UN World Food Program.
“With people in northern Gaza on the brink of famine, we need deliveries every day and we need entry points directly into the north,” tweeted the UN agency after the aid's successful entry.
Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) confirmed that a convoy of six aid trucks entered the northern Gaza Strip through the new military road. The route, stretching from the border near the southern community of Be’eri to the coast of the Strip, is used by the Israel Defense Forces to carry out operations in northern and central Gaza.
The successful delivery of the aid was “part of an experimental pilot in order to prevent Hamas from taking over the aid,” said COGAT.
UN World Food Program chief Cindy McCain said on Monday that WFP had paused aid deliveries for three weeks “for the safety of our staff and due to the complete breakdown of law and order.”
As Gazan gunmen raid aid trucks and abscond with necessary supplies, what is Israel's legal obligation to protect the conveys?
This week, as humanitarian aid is being brought into the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: File - Yahia al-Sinwar, the Gaza Strip chief of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, greets supporters as he arrives to attend a rally marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, April 14, 2023. (Mohammed Abed / AFP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur recently gave a series of lectures at North American college campuses. At some, including Harvard, his lecture was met with a performative walk-out from a contingent of pro-Palestinian protesters.
Since Hamas's October 7 murderous onslaught, accounts of campus antisemitism have filled the pages of newspapers, from The Times of Israel and to mainstream international media.
On this week's What Matters Now, Rettig Gur and host Amanda Borschel-Dan look at a series of data sets, analyses and essays on the topic of campus antisemitism to get a fuller picture of what's happening on the ground.
One large-scale study was started in August 2023 by the ADL Center for Antisemitism Research (CAR), in partnership with Hillel International and facilitated by College Pulse. The groups conducted a nationally representative survey of over 3,084 American college students -- of which 527 were Jewish -- from 689 campuses in the United States to assess the climate on campus for Jewish students.
Following the October 7 terror attacks, the researchers conducted a follow-up survey with the same respondents in November 2023. We learn how the campus climate changed between the first and second rounds of polling.
So this week, we focus on antisemitism on campus and ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: Demonstrators rally during a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rally outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, March 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This year, in what is reportedly a record-high number, some 66,000 young men from the ultra-Orthodox community received a deferral from military service. Of those tens of thousands of military-age men, following Hamas's murderous October 7 onslaught on Israel and the war it launched, 540 men voluntarily signed up for military service.
On Monday, the High Court of Justice determined that the state has until March 24 to explain why its June 2023 resolution -- which instructed the IDF not to draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students for nine months -- is legal.
The court determined in 1998 that executive action cannot be used as a legal basis for something so far-reaching as military service exemptions for an entire sector of the population. But of course, in June 2023, the government appears to have done just that.
That resolution expires on March 31.
Will Israel's haredi society begin to shoulder the national defense burden? And what does the IDF need to do to create the proper conditions for increased religious conscription?
And if the community is not willing to take up arms, what are other alternatives that it could take on to serve the nation?
So this week, as all eyes are on the question of ultra-Orthodox conscription, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.
IMAGE: ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the conflict is giving all appearances of turning into a "forever war." But in other parts of the world, Russia's influence has arguably grown.
This week on What Matters Now, former MK Ksenia Svetlova, an expert in the Middle East and Russia, speaks about how Russia's forces remain throughout the Middle East and how its reach has deepened in Africa.
Born in Moscow, Svetlova immigrated to Israel at the age of 14. She is a journalist and analyst and was a member of the 20th Knesset on behalf of the Zionist Union coalition.
Unlike most Western countries, Russia sees Hamas as a legitimate political player on the global stage. Next week, Moscow is potentially set to host a peace summit in the hopes of a reconciliation between the terrorist rulers of Gaza and the leadership of the West Bank's Palestinian Authority. Why?
Svetlova also shares how Russian citizens are faring after two years of Western sanctions.
So this week, after two years of war in Ukraine, we ask Ksenia Svetlova, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Former MK Ksenia Svetlova, an expert on the Middle East and Russia. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
The Israel Defense Forces revealed this week that beneath the Gaza Strip headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the controversial aid organization known commonly as UNRWA, the Hamas terror group hid one of its most significant assets, a subterranean data center.
As witnessed by ToI military reporter Emanuel Fabian, cables were discovered running from a UNRWA server room to the Hamas data center underground.
According to ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, however, Hamas's infiltration of UNRWA should be taken as a given. The great "evil" behind the United Nation's outfit, the only humanitarian aid on the ground, is the fact that it is more of an ideology than an aid organization.
We hear about UNRWA's origin story and how its mission will only be fulfilled when the State of Israel no longer exists.
So in this week of proof of UNRWA workers' collaboration with Hamas, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image: Senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur and deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan at The Times of Israel's Jerusalem office. (Eli Katoff)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he told visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel is “within touching distance of absolute victory,” and that Hamas’s defeat will be the “victory of the entire free world.”
In a rebuttal to the prime minister, five women released from captivity in Gaza during a weeklong truce in late November stated that "absolute victory" for Israel would only come with the release of the remaining 136 hostages.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia is hosting a summit of foreign ministers from five countries in the region -- Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, along with a representative from the Palestinian Authority -- to advance a united Arab stance regarding the war in Gaza as well as political initiatives for when the fighting ends. The united front that Israel’s Arab partners and potential allies are building is increasingly at odds with the Israeli government.
And finally, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday warned Israel that it does not have “a license to dehumanize others,” the harshest criticism from the United States to date.
So in this week of statements and conflicting stances, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image: Times of Israel senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Israel often prides itself on being the most moral army in the world. Whether you subscribe to that or not, there is a long history of ethical thinking that influences its operations on the ground.
This week on What Matters Now, we speak with Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody, the author of the new and extremely timely book, “Ethics of Our Fighters: A Jewish View on War and Morality.”
With rabbinic ordination and a PhD from Bar-Ilan Law School, Brody is the executive director of Ematai, an organization dedicated to helping Jews navigate dilemmas regarding aging, end-of-life treatment, and organ donation. His previous book, "A Guide to the Complex: Contemporary Halakhic Debates,” was a National Jewish Book Award winner.
In our wide-ranging conversation, we speak about the history of Jewish military ethics, starting from the Bible, through rabbinical literature and the blossoming of thinking from just before the foundation of the State of Israel and onward.
The applications of military ethics in the current Israel-Hamas War are unprecedented. We hear about how taking a stance of self-defense may help guide Israel as the conflict continues, and potentially spreads.
So this week, we ask author Shlomo Brody, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week we're bringing excerpts from a Behind the Headlines video interview with author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi, conducted exclusively for our Times of Israel Community.
A senior fellow and the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Klein Halevi is the author of books including, “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor” and “Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist.”
Drawing on themes from both of those books, as well as his other work, we asked Klein Halevi to answer five big questions about the war. We touch on topics including, what "Never Again" means to Israelis today and how the Jewish community should relate to the anti-Zionist Jewish youth protesting on university campuses.
So this week, we ask thinker Yossi Klein Halevi, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Author Yossi Klein Halevi (Shalom Hartman Institute)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, over 24,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel declared war on Hamas in retaliation to the bloody invasion by 3,000 terrorists from Gaza who massacred 1,200 -- mostly civilians -- and took over 240 hostages to Gaza.
And while it is clear that Hamas began the war, it's also clear that Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are being used as human shields to tactically and cynically generate public outcry against Israel.
In a difficult and sensitive conversation, ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur delves into Israelis' awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the death toll, and how much this is taken into account by Israelis, who are still overwhelmingly supportive of the stated goal of toppling Hamas.
Rettig Gur shares conversations he's had with staunch pro-Israel supporters in the United States and United Kingdom and an interesting idea that came out of them in which Israel could be an active player in ameliorating the suffering of the people of Gaza.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week on What Matters Now, we're again handing the mic to Mishy Harman, the co-founder of The Times of Israel’s podcast partner, Israel Story, the premiere narrative English-language podcast from Israel.
Since the October 7 massacre across southern Israel by Hamas of some 1,200 individuals, mostly civilians, Harman and his team at Israel Story have pivoted from their long-form, carefully nurtured episodes to producing almost daily Wartime Diaries.
We at The Times of Israel asked the Israel Story team to compile a few episodes and after much deliberation, together we selected three:
Wartime Diaries: Shira Masami
More than 200,000 Israelis – from both the South and the North – have been forced to leave their homes since the start of the war. Some have relocated to hotels or kibbutzim, others have opted to move in with family or friends, or else even rent apartments in entirely new surroundings. In today’s episode we get a glimpse of what that reality feels like. Shira Masami is one of nearly 30,000 residents who have left the southern city of Sderot – a city that suffered a horrendous attack on October 7 – and who are now dispersed around the country.
Wartime Diaries: Charlene Seidle
Upwards of $1 billion in donations have been sent to Israel since the start of the war.
For years, Charlene Seidle, the Executive Vice President of the San Diego-based Leichtag Foundation, has been at the forefront of the Jewish philanthropic world.
While the Leichtag Foundation supports various causes in the States and in Israel, their main local focus is bridging social and economic gaps in Jerusalem. Leichtag has given life to hundreds of grassroots initiatives and has created the ‘Jerusalem Model’ – a diverse network of social entrepreneurs, activists and leaders from all sectors around town – Jews, Muslims, Christians, religious, secular, etc.
Since Charlene and her team have been nurturing and cultivating these relationships for so long, they were particularly well-situated to understand the needs on the ground in the immediate aftermath of October 7th.
Wartime Diaries: Omer Ohana
The war has brought many new people into the limelight: For nearly three months we’ve been hearing countless stories of casualties, hostages, survivors and family members, many of whom have entered our hearts and never left. In some cases we feel like we’ve gotten to know these unsung heroes personally.
One of the first big stories of the war, in that initial crazy week after October 7, was that of 30-year-old Sagi Golan from Herzliya – a decorated officer in an anti-terrorism unit who was killed in action in Be’eri in the early hours of October 8. His story made headlines because Sagi was supposed to have married his partner, Omer Ohana, two weeks later, and his death brought to the fore – once again – the matter of the army and LGBTQ rights.
Though the IDF has recognized same-sex partners of fallen soldiers as eligible for full financial and emotional support since the mid-1990s, the matter had never been enshrined in law. So in the weeks after Sagi’s death, Omer led a successful campaign to legally secure the rights of same-sex and common-law partners of fallen soldiers.
So this week, we ask Mishy Harman, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: (Clockwise from top right) Shira Masami; Sagi Golan (left) and Omer Ohana; Charlene Seidle (courtesy Israel Story)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week the Supreme Court delivered a long-awaited decision on whether or not it would repeal the one piece of judicial overhaul legislation passed by the so-called pure right coalition under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Held on September 12, the hearing in front of a full bench of all 15 Supreme Court justices made for a day-long media event. Citizens across the country became armchair legal experts and held watch parties.
Since the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, the existential discussion about Israel's democracy has been sidelined. But with this ruling, along with a second Supreme Court decision this week, the judicial overhaul and all of its surrounding debate have again made headlines.
To parse out the ruling and how it may — or may not — rekindle fears of a societal schism, Times of Israel senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur joins this week's podcast for an informal, but hopefully informative chat.
So this week, as the Supreme Court redefines its own powers, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
Photo: ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. (courtesy)
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Within days of the murderous October 7 Hamas invasion of Israel, William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, headed a mission of 50 heads of Jewish legacy organizations back to Israel, where he was when the massacre occurred.
In conversation with The Times of Israel this week, he describes how following the brutal slaying of 1,200 mostly citizens and hostage-taking of dozens of others, a second punch in the gut awaited him back in the United States.
"While we were punched in the gut by what you experienced here, we get punched in the gut by what we experienced in America -- an incredible disconnect, a moment of cognitive dissonance where our allies, our neighbors, the people we work with, the people that we have marched with -- seemed to not get it, seemed to not understand the tragedy that had occurred. And continue to not get it.”
We speak about the November 14 March for Israel rally, which brought an unprecedented 290,000 to the Washington, DC, National Mall. And how, at this moment, pernicious TikTok algorithms may dictate how the next generation of American Jewry views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This week, we ask long-time American Jewish leader William Daroff, where American Jews can go from here and what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations William Daroff at the site of the October 7 Supernova rave massacre, December 25, 2023. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
The past several weeks have seen the publication of a slew of high-profile opinion surveys on the war with Hamas. They include deep looks into the psyche of the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and Gaza and a probe into how Israeli Jews and Arabs differ in perspectives. Out of the United States, there are a few surveys that take the temperature of the American electorate during the war with Hamas.
Among those with findings featured in the podcast is the poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR). Between November 22 and December 2, questions were asked of 1231 adults, of whom 750 were interviewed face to face in the West Bank and 481 in the Gaza Strip. The findings are eye-opening.
Next, we speak in depth about the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, an online survey within the United States from December 13-14 among 2,034 registered voters. Rettig Gur notes that on several questions, voters in the 18-24 age group seemed to express contradicting or muddled views. He explains why.
We also speak about The New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,016 registered US voters that was conducted by telephone from December 10 to 14. With similar, yet different questions about the war with Hamas, it is interesting to compare findings with the previous survey.
Finally, we discuss the Israel Democracy Institute's seventh flash survey that was carried out between December 11–13, with 503 men and women interviewed via the internet and by telephone in Hebrew and 101 in Arabic. The schisms in Israeli society are made crystal clear.
This week on What Matters Now, ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur sits down for a frank discussion of some of the polls' findings in the first of an ongoing series of bi-weekly conversations on varied topical issues.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Is the IDF acting legally and ethically in Gaza? We at The Times of Israel recently held an hour-long webinar on this topic for our Times of Israel Community with Prof. Amichai Cohen of the Israel Democracy Institute.
Cohen is a recognized expert in the International Law of Armed Conflict, National Security Law, and Civil-Military Relations.
International pressure is building on Israel to lessen the impact on Palestinian civilians while the IDF prosecutes this war against Hamas in all of Gaza.
During this webinar, we ask Cohen about the legal legitimacy of Israel's right to self-defense, the international bodies that determine laws of warfare and how to try Hamas for international war crimes.
It’s a long and fascinating discussion as we ask Prof. Amichai Cohen, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
Illustrative: Prof. Amichai Cohen at a ToI Live event in Jerusalem's Israel Democracy Institute, December 15, 2022. (Oded Antman/IDI)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week on What Matters Now, we're again handing the mic to Mishy Harman, the co-founder of The Times of Israel’s podcast partner, Israel Story, the premiere English-language podcast from Israel.
Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas of some 1,200 individuals, mostly civilians, Harman and his team at Israel Story have pivoted from their long-form, carefully nurtured episodes to producing almost daily Wartime Diaries.
We at The Times of Israel asked the Israel Story team to compile a few episodes and after much deliberation, they selected three:
Wartime Diaries: Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin
Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, the parents of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped from the Supernova Party, have in many ways emerged as the face of the hostage families. They’ve met with US President Joe Biden and the Pope, they were on the cover of Time Magazine, and Rachel has spoken at the UN and at the March for Israel Rally in Washington, DC.
In all those places, as well as in countless other interviews, speeches and meetings, they’ve told the heartbreaking tale of the two text messages Hersh sent on the morning of October 7, one saying, “I love you,” and the other, “I’m sorry.” He wrote those messages from within a shelter where he was hiding with 28 other partygoers. Eighteen of them were killed, and Hersh was badly wounded when his left arm was blown off. Shortly thereafter, Hersh and three others from the shelter were loaded onto Hamas pickup trucks and taken into Gaza. At recording time, it was 55 days since their abduction.
Wartime Diaries: Datya Itzhaki
In the summer of 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza under the leadership of premier Ariel Sharon. The roughly 8,000 residents of the 21 Jewish settlements within the Gaza Strip were forced to leave their homes and their communities, which for decades they had actually been encouraged and incentivized to inhabit.
The move brought the country to the brink of a civil war. This was especially palpable in the tense relations between the residents of Gush Katif (as the main block of Gaza settlements was known) and their neighbors from the other side of the fence — the largely left-leaning residents of the same kibbutzim that 18 years later suffered most in the October 7 Hamas atrocities.
Now, many of the former residents of the Gaza settlements who never stopped dreaming of returning to the sand dunes of the Strip feel at least partially vindicated. Had their communities not been dismantled back in 2005, they claim, the army would have still been in Gaza, and none of this calamity would have occurred. One such voice is that of 63-year-old Datya Itzhaki, who used to live in the Gush Katif settlement of Kfar Yam.
Wartime Diaries: Sahar Vardi
During this terrible moment, many people can’t make space for anyone else’s pain -- and that’s understandable. But for those who are open to it, Israel Story’s motto is that everybody's story matters. Without pointing fingers or making equivalencies, we're trying to stay true to our mission of sharing stories from different perspectives to complicate, humanize, and insert shades of nuance into what can often feel like a black-and-white, us-versus-them reality. In our 21st diary, we hear from Sahar Vardi, a Jewish-Israeli peace activist who lost a dear friend, Khalil Abu Yahia, in Gaza.
So this week, we ask Mishy Harman, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: What Matters Now hosts the Israel Story podcast, with three episodes featuring: Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin (upper right), Datya Itzhaki (lower left) and Sahar Vardi. (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
For Israelis, there is before October 7 and after. So the idea of a book called “The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World” written during those “before” times may not feel like the most relevant reading material.
But it is.
“Start-Up Nation” authors Saul Singer and Dan Senor have again joined forces to dissect what makes Israelis tick — and keep on ticking.
One conclusion? It’s all about the unity of purpose. If that unity was once what made us strong, well, “Now it’s become existential. If we don’t stay unified, we’re just going to go into a downward spiral,” says co-author Saul Singer.
So this week, we speak with bestselling author Saul Singer and find out, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image: 'The Genius of Israel' co-author Saul Singer. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Several entire families were slaughtered during the Hamas onslaught on southern Israel on October 7 which left 1,200 dead. They were killed by terrorists together, so why shouldn’t a father, mother and their children be buried together?
When the father is not Jewish, the question becomes more complicated, at least in the Jewish state.
"In today’s modern state of Israel, we need a new tool kit in many ways. It doesn’t have to deny Halacha, it doesn’t have to ignore it, it doesn’t have to say it’s irrelevant, it just has to find those moments in Jewish legal history that enable us to live together with our communities,” said Rabbi Seth Farber, the head of ITIM on Thursday.
ITIM is an organization that helps Israelis navigate the country’s religious bureaucracy. In its mission statement, the NGO says it is committed to increasing participation in Jewish life by making Israel’s religious establishment respectful of and responsive to the diverse Jewish needs of the Jewish people.
During this current war with Hamas, ITIM found itself helping on the issue of burials for those who are not considered halachically Jewish, as well as the idea of preemptively preventing anchored women, the wives of soldiers who may be taken captive.
So this week we hear from Rabbi Seth Farber, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
iMAGE: ITIM head Rabbi Seth Farber (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
The destruction wrought by Hamas on October 7 at the small Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza border was so complete that in many cases, only microscopic remnants of those 1,200 who were killed there can be found today.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is accustomed to searching for such human remains — albeit for people who lived hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. Today, some 30 volunteers from the IAA are working in shifts, sifting through the rubble — in Be’eri, in Kfar Aza, in the cars that were torched fleeing the Supernova rave.
“We're searching for things that are so small that if it's not using archaeological methodologies, they're not possible to be found,” the IAA's Dead Sea Scrolls unit head Dr. Joe Uziel told The Times of Israel this week.
He honed his CSI skills on, for example, remains of the Babylonian conquest in Jerusalem’s City of David. Today, he is volunteering to help identify those killed near Gaza with the same techniques.
The team of volunteers has so far found the remains of some 60 people who were killed. But identifying who they are is difficult because some of the small bone fragments are from the terrorists that came into the kibbutzim, others are from foreign workers and young children whose DNA is not on file.
So this week, archaeologist Dr. Joe Uziel tells us, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: IAA archaeologist Dr. Joe Uziel (left) in a home destroyed by Hamas during its murderous rampage on October 7, 2023, sifting through the rubble in search of human remains. (Shai Halevi/Israel Antiquities Authority)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
No one knew what to expect on October 7 when the initial rocket barrages from the Gaza Strip began pounding Israel.
But veteran, war-hardened residents of the Gaza envelope sensed immediately that something was different this time. They had no idea what was to come.
Adele Raemer has lived on Kibbutz Nirim since 1975. Just 2 kilometers from the Gaza border, on the morning of October 7 she hosted several Facebook live sessions, beginning at the start of the Hamas barrage, and her social media posts document the evolution of the Israeli awareness of the horrifically brutal invasion.
Five Israelis were murdered at Kibbutz Nirim on October 7 and another five are missing.
Today, Raemer and the rest of Kibbutz Nirim are now in a hotel in Eilat. The former teacher is a cherished Times of Israel blogger -- and a trained medical clown who always has a red nose in her bag. She has now made it her life’s mission to tell the world about what happened on October 7.
This week on What Matters Now, we speak with Kibbutz Nirim member Adele Raemer about the events of October 7 and how she and her community are faring now.
Blogs written by Adele Raemer on and since October 7:
I hear massive shooting. I have never been this scared in my life
Painful homecoming
PHOTO ESSAY: My people of Kibbutz Nirim, in black and white
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out the previous What Matters Now episode:
https://omny.fm/shows/times-will-tell/what-matters-now-to-israel-storys-mishy-harman-war
IMAGE: Kibbutz Nirim member Adele Raemer in a self-portrait taken in the Kibbutz Nir Oz pomegranate orchard, September 2023. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week on What Matters Now, we're handing the mic to Mishy Harman, the founder of The Times of Israel’s podcast partner, Israel Story.
Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas of some 1,400 individuals, mostly civilians, Harman and his team at Israel Story have pivoted from their long-form, carefully nurtured episodes to producing almost daily Wartime Diaries.
We at The Times of Israel asked the Israel Story team to compile a few episodes and after much deliberation, they selected three:
Wartime Diaries: Sasha Ariev
Karina Ariev, a 19-year-old corporal, was stationed at the Nahal Oz military base on the border with Gaza. Her family hasn’t heard from her since the morning of Saturday, October 7, when she was – most likely – abducted to Gaza. Karina’s sister, Sasha, shares what life has been like since that fateful day.
Wartime Diaries: Sivan Avnery
For months Sivan Avnery -- a physical therapist from Kfar Shmaryahu -- was active in the demonstrations against the judicial reforms. Like hundreds of thousands of other Israelis, he felt he was fighting for his home, for the very nature of his country. But he had no idea how true that was about to become.
On Saturday morning, October 7, Avnery received a message that is every parent's worst nightmare: His 18-year-old son Tal was -- unbeknownst to him -- at the Supernova party in Re’im, and was now fleeing for his life. Without a second of hesitation, Avnery knew exactly what he needed to do.
Wartime Diaries: Mor Maisel
This war has forced many people to reevaluate their identities and political sensibilities—not an easy task during these shocking and painful days. Mor Maisel’s opinions are complicated and don’t conform to the norm, which may be challenging for some listeners, and reassuring for others.
So this week, we ask Mishy Harman, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Clockwise from top right: Sasha Ariev, Sivan Avnery and son Tal, and Mor Maisel. (Israel Story)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
The ripple effects of Hamas’s massacre of 1,400 people in Israel on October 7 are still being felt. The dead were mostly civilians — many entire families — whom Israel continues to identify and bury.
Israelis were the primary target of the barbaric attack, but their pain is shared by Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, just as, five years ago this week, Israelis shared the shock and pain of the deadly shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue.
Here this week from New York to show his love and solidarity with Israelis is Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism which represents some two million Jews in North America. He sat with The Times of Israel after touring the country and getting briefed on the situation here on the ground.
We speak about how Jews -- even some from the most progressive edges -- are pulling together today, with some humanitarian caveats.
“This is a moment when we have to be leaning into the kind of response that the world doesn't like to see from us — when we have a strong military response to protect our community, our families, our country. And at the same time, can we hold, in whatever portion of our moral stance in the world, that we do not look at the suffering of innocents, not the suffering of those who are bringing this assault? That's part of us retaining our Jewish religious sensibilities, which we can't lose ever,” said Jacobs.
So this week, we ask Rabbi Rick Jacobs, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, in Jerusalem on June 27, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
It is nearly two weeks since parents Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg have heard from their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, missing since October 7, when Hamas terrorists descended upon the Supernova desert rave and proceeded to massacre at least 260 people, taking others captive.
Goldberg-Polin was last seen in a field shelter where he and other partygoers had fled, trying to escape the falling rockets and Hamas gunmen.
For the last 13 days, Hersh's parents have veered from horror and fear to a calm determination as they, assisted and supported by a cadre of family and friends, launched an international media campaign to find out every detail available about Hersh, and hopefully save him, and the other nearly 200 Hamas hostages.
Times of Israel culture editor Jessica Steinberg, a personal friend of the family, visited their home -- turned into a campaign headquarters and war room in the drive to find any and all details about their son, Hersh.
As news of the Hamas atrocities continues to unfold, we ask Rachel Goldberg, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: This undated photo provided by Rachel Goldberg shows her with her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin. (Courtesy of Rachel Goldberg via AP)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Israel is at war. And, while we are fighting on our southern, and increasingly, our northern borders, one of the biggest battles is global — for the hearts and minds of those who could support Israel in this time of need.
Because the battle is international, it’s not only about the Palestinians versus the Israelis. It goes far beyond that.
“Hamas is just a forefront of Iran. It’s one large, organic monster. So we weren’t attacked by the local militia, we were attacked by the Persian Empire," according to Dr. Micah Goodman.
The author of influential works such as "Catch-67" has appeared on What Matters Now in the past, speaking on politics and on the judicial overhaul.
But on a morning in which we both received terrible news of fallen loved ones, we had a raw and very real conversation in which Goodman makes a unique plea for help.
In this week of terrible tragedy, we ask Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Dr. Micah Goodman (Yonit Schiller)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
A small agile nation takes advantage of an unprecedented window of opportunity. As that start-up nation’s influence quickly spreads throughout the Holy Land, it gains the begrudging admiration of its neighboring frenemy states.
Sound familiar? But of course, we're not talking about the modern state of Israel’s hi-tech scene, rather the period in which ancient Israelites founded the biblical United Monarchy some 3,000 years ago.
“It’s exactly the time when things changed dramatically. The Egyptian empire that was the ruler of the region collapsed, so the stabilizing force that was here to make sure that these nomads do not interfere and do not disrupt trade and the livelihood of the city-states, this force was not here anymore,” Tel Aviv University Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, the head of the ongoing Timna Valley Archaeological Expedition, told The Times of Israel this week.
While excavating at Timna, Ben-Yosef realized that it was not the commonly thought ancient Egyptian empire that ruled the copper mines at their prime, but rather the Edomites, a nomadic biblical kingdom.
This led Ben-Yosef to propose a theory that the beginnings of the United Monarchy under King David — as described in the Bible — was also nomadic, but equally complex. If true, his theory of a nomadic, largely tent-dwelling kingdom would explain why there is a general paucity of architectural evidence of grand palaces during this Iron Age era.
So this week, as the Jewish people return to temporary dwellings during the festival of Sukkot, we ask Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to the United States for a series of meetings, including a long-awaited face-to-face with US President Joe Biden. He was met by anti-judicial overhaul protesters at every possible stop.
But are these protests the right move for Diaspora Jews? Do they actually serve their purpose or are they, as the prime minister himself insinuated, fodder for the BDS movement?
This week I bring you a second webinar with a panel of experts who discuss the role of global Jewry during this time of intense internal conflict in the Jewish State.
So this week, we ask former US ambassador David Friedman, Israel’s Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism Michal Cotler-Wunsh and leading Zionism expert Prof. Gil Troy, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Protesters wave flags and chant slogans near the site of a planned meeting between United States President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Sept. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
It’s July, just after the end of Shabbat and about 100 people have gathered in the Likud-majority West Bank city of Ma'ale Adumim. Hebrew University law Prof. Benjamin (Benny) Porat, a resident of the city, is addressing the crowd.
During his 10-minute speech, Porat — standing next to the police headquarters in Maaleh Adumim — said statements such as, “The Israeli majority has risen up and will no longer be silent” — even as a few of the West Bank city’s residents attempted to drown him out.
Porat is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the director of the Matz Institute for Jewish Law. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. He is also a settler who is vocally in opposition to the coalition’s judicial overhaul.
The Times of Israel sat with Porat in his home this week to discuss Tuesday’s long-awaited and explosive High Court hearing over the first piece of the judicial overhaul legislation. We also talk about how Jewish legal tradition may help solve parts of this clash of the titans crisis.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Hebrew University Prof. Benny Porat (Israel Democracy Institute)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
“To Israel’s friends in North America, we are taking the unusual step of directly addressing you at a moment of acute crisis in Israel. We write with a sense of anguish and anxiety for the future of our country.”
With these words, authors Yossi Klein Halevi, Daniel Gordis and Matti Friedman began a February oped on The Times of Israel that they titled, “An open letter to Israel’s friends in North America.”
The Times of Israel hosted the trio this week in a webinar and this week’s What Matters Now episode is a very lightly edited recording of the event. It’s rather long, so we’ll get right to it.
So this week, we ask Yossi Klein Halevi, Daniel Gordis and Matti Friedman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image: Anti-overhaul activists protest against the government's judicial overhaul outside the president's residence in Jerusalem, on July 29, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week, we're taking a brief break from the headlines and turning to a topic we covered last summer, hearing the experiences of a young Israeli staff member at a Jewish summer camp.
This week's What Matters Now guest, Yishai Mogilner, is royalty of a sort at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, where his late grandfather, Rabbi David Mogilner, was a revered director who helped shape the camp and tragically died of a heart attack, at the age of 42, while at camp one summer.
Yishai Mogilner's father, the late Eitan Mogilner, also worked at Ramah Poconos, and Yishai Mogilner, 19, now spent a summer at the same Ramah, ahead of being drafted into the army and following a year spent in a mechina preparatory program.
He speaks about being in the place that was shaped by his grandfather, that then shaped his own father's life and in turn, has been formative for Yishai and his siblings back home in Israel, where they were raised.
Mogilner talks about being an Israeli in such an American Jewish space, and what that's been like this summer.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Yishai Mogilner (Courtesy Ella Goldberg)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords in which Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to establish the Palestinian Authority, what was supposed to be a temporary body responsible for limited Palestinian self-governance over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip -- a body that would serve as the foundation of a future Palestinian state.
Three decades later, we’re about as far away from that vision as ever. While the PA still exists, and one of the leaders who signed the Oslo Accords, Mahmoud Abbas, remains at the helm, the mechanism he operates largely fails to deliver for its people.
But should the Palestinians’ problems be Israel’s as well?
This week's What Matters Now guest, journalist Adam Rasgon, appeared to argue as much: “It ultimately is in Israel's interest to have a transparent and effective Palestinian Authority because when you have that, it will bring greater stability to the West Bank and to the region more broadly," he told the podcast.
Rasgon has almost a decade of experience covering Palestinian Affairs for The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Now a member of the New Yorker’s editorial staff, he recently co-wrote a tour de force profile of one of Mahmoud Abbas’s closest aides, Hussein al-Sheikh.
The story is about Sheikh, but it’s also a larger one about a PA that was born out of support from the masses but that, like Sheikh, has gradually distanced itself from the people and their struggles.
We discussed what can be learned from Sheikh’s career, what his and the PA’s futures look like as well as Israel’s role in it all.
So this week, we ask journalist Adam Rasgon, what matters now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Journalist Adam Rasgon. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Jewish-American journalist Norman Cousins once said, “History is a vast early warning system.” This week we speak with Oren Kessler, the author of “Palestine 1936,” who would likely agree. But as we see in Kessler's new book, history can also be a collection of missed opportunities.
“David Ben-Gurion, starting in about 1933-34, had a series of meetings with a man by the name Musa Alami and he and Ben-Gurion met again and again throughout the early mid-1930s and they come tantalizingly close to some sort of an agreement before everything goes wrong, as tends to happen,” Kessler said this week in Jerusalem's Nomi Studios.
Kessler’s new book is about the Arab Revolt that took place from 1936-1939. He argues, quite convincingly, that these years in British Mandate Palestine form the roots of the Middle East conflict. The book attempts to illuminate all three sides of the complex relationship between the British, Jews and Arabs attempting to occupy the Holy Land during these formative years.
Kessler is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv. He spent five years researching and writing “Palestine 1936” and it’s clearly a labor he loved.
There are many lessons that have yet to be learned as we see this bloody history repeating itself in Israel, even today. So this week, we ask author Oren Kessler, what mattered then and why does that matter now?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Journalist Oren Kessler, author of 'Palestine 1936' (Hadas Parush)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week, a Tel Aviv bus driver shouted at 20-year-old passenger, Romi Inbar, for wearing a tank top, which he considered to be immodest, telling at her repeatedly to put a shirt on. “You can’t walk around like that,” the driver said.
She told Israeli television that the whole bus remained silent except for a mother who told the driver that Inbar can wear whatever she wants. She said she felt totally humiliated and she posted what happened to Instagram so it doesn’t happen to others.
The bus company apologized, but this is hardly the first time this public shaming of women is happening in today’s Israel. The fact that Inbar is speaking up and publicizing her story is the glass half full here.
But, according to this week’s What Matters Now guest, attorney Susan Weiss, men are increasingly emboldened to marginalize and sexualize women -- even as avenues for the protection of their rights, such as the Supreme Court, are being shut.
"We do have this dichotomy in this country, we have this situation where women can be fighter pilots but they can’t get divorced,” said Weiss.
The founder of the Center for Women’s Justice joined The Times of Israel this week in Jerusalem to analyze how the status of women has changed since the current, right-wing, and highly religious, government has taken office. Spoiler: it’s not good.
We also talk about the new “Barbie” movie and what message Weiss took away that makes her feel bold.
So this week, we ask attorney Dr. Susan Weiss, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Center for Women's Justice founder attorney Dr. Susan Weiss. (Rachel Markowitz Bader)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Over 30 years ago, American political consultant, James Carville quipped during former US president Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Today, a growing chorus of Israeli economists are echoing this phrase while attempting to pause the government’s judicial overhaul legislation in the hopes of maintaining Israel’s up-till-now flourishing growth.
“We are now at a crossroads and I’m extremely concerned. But when I look back I think we’ve done tremendously well and that’s why I think we have so much to lose," Prof. Karnit Flug, a former governor of the Bank of Israel, told The Times of Israel this week.
Today, Flug is a Vice President of Research and the William Davidson Senior Fellow for Economic Policy at the Israel Democracy Institute and a professor in the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University.
Flug is hardly alone in her concerns: This week, the Bank of Israel issued its Financial Stability Report for the first half of 2023. It warned that growing and prolonged uncertainty around the implications of the controversial legislation poses a threat to the country’s financial system and economy.
In our talk, Flug gives concrete examples of what she and other analysts are seeing, right now.
So this week, we ask Prof. Karnit Flug, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Karnit Flug is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, vice-president at the Israel Democracy Institute and former governor of the Bank of Israel (courtesy Israel Democracy Institute)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week, the Knesset passed the first contentious judicial overhaul bill into law. So, six months after getting perspective from philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman in the inaugural What Matters Now episode, I went back for more.
“Two constitutional instincts have been unleashed and are clashing with each other: The Israelis who want to be empowered through government versus the Israelis who want to be protected from government. I think that’s what’s happening in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and all over Israel as we’re talking,” says Goodman, the author of the best-selling “Catch-67” and “The Wondering Jew.” His book, “The Last Words of Moses” recently hit shelves in English.
For much of the past six months, Goodman has been performing a unique kind of reserve duty: speaking with people from all sides of the judicial overhaul conflict, from teams of politicians during the negotiations at the President’s Residence — at the request of President Isaac Herzog — to squadrons of pilots who are on the brink of refusing service -- again, at the request of the IDF.
In keeping with this Tisha B’Av week, this is an in-depth and quite sober conversation. But, as you will hear, Goodman is, as always, a dedicated optimist.
“I think the cynics will determine what happens tomorrow and next week, but I think it’s the optimists who will determine what will happen next year and two years from now,” he says.
So this week, we ask philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman (Yonit Schiller)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.
What is the tipping point between democracy and dictatorship? Why do some nations fall under one supreme leader’s sway? And what actually is the perfect storm that can turn a thriving democratic nation into a totalitarian nightmare?
“Economic ruin, war, massive immigration, no money, no water, no nothing... this is a recipe for a strong leader to take over and for the army to have a coup d’etat,” according to Dr. Yonatan Freeman, our guest on this week's What Matters Now.
Freeman is an international relations and media expert, who lectures at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem on national security, government and politics, Israel’s relations with the world and civil-military relations.
This week, the Brothers in Arms protest group is signing on thousands of IDF reservists to a document objecting to the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, stating “We will not serve in a dictatorship.”
At the same time, hundreds are marching from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to build a tent city near the Knesset ahead of next week’s fateful vote on the Reasonableness Bill.
All of this is to prevent what they see as steps leading to a dictatorship.
However, unlike most Israelis you meet today, Freeman is passionately optimistic about the strong state of Israel’s democracy. So this week, we ask Dr. Yonatan Freeman, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: International relations expert Dr. Yonatan Freeman lectures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (Jenny Pepperman)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.
Since 1981, the archetypical image of an archaeologist has included a wide-brimmed brown hat, a brown leather jacket — and, of course, a bullwhip.
This week, with a new Indiana Jones film having hit screens across the globe, we wondered how this Hollywood legend has affected the careers of the actual, digging-in-the-trenches excavators here in Israel today.
So we met up in Jerusalem with Prof. Aren Maeir, who recently published an essay, “On My ‘Colleague’ Dr. Jones and His ‘Publications’” and discussed how archaeology has shifted from the first Indiana Jones installment until today.
“I think this has nothing to do with archaeology, and if anything, I would say it’s almost anti-archaeology in many ways, but, it has brought archaeology to the public’s interest in a very very significant manner and numerous archaeologists in the field for the last several decades have come to the field of archaeology because of the Indiana Jones movies," said Maeir, the head of Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Archaeology and the longtime director of The Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project.
After watching the new Indiana Jones film, "Dial of Destiny," we ask Prof. Aren Maier, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Prof. Aren M. Maeir at the Tell es Safi/Gath excavation, summer 2021. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.
This week, the Knesset’s Constitution Committee restarted deliberations over pieces of judicial overhaul legislation after compromise talks in the President’s residence broke down.
75 years after its foundation, Israel’s rules of procedural governance are still unclear, and clearly hot-button issues as the country heads into a 26th week of judicial overhaul protests.
But from the first announcement of the judicial overhaul in January, our guest this week, Prof. Yedidia Stern got to work: In cooperation with other former heads of law schools and under the aegis of President Isaac Herzog, they came up with a first compromise solution — which was turned down.
Today, he’s bring to the podcast a partial solution, what is called a thin constitution. Stern, who is now the head of the Jewish People Policy Institute, talks about the procedural constitution as well as earlier attempts in Israeli history to write a constitution and why they didn’t work out.
But when, several months ago Stern brought the first potential judicial overhaul solutions to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, he didn’t receive the welcome he’d been expecting.
"I formed a group of 10 law professors, trying to figure out a professional solution to this situation and we met with Simcha Rothman, and we met also with [Justice Minister] Yariv Levin. So when Yariv Levin, first meeting, entered the room, he gave us a big smile... he looked at me, pointed with his finger and told me, 'The whole thing is because of you, Prof. Stern.'"
Find out how Levin's former teacher was an impetus for his judicial overhaul work today as we ask Prof. Yedidia Stern, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: JPPI head Prof. Yedidia Stern, a leading Israeli legal scholar. (Courtesy JPPI)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.
On March 22, 2022, four Israelis were murdered in a stabbing attack in Beersheba. In the same week, a terrorist shot and killed five civilians in Bnei Brak. Days later in Hadera, another terrorist attack occurred in which two Border Police officers were killed and 12 civilians were injured.
After this bloody week, the IDF initiated Operation Break the Wave, which the army defines as “a counterterrorism operation conducted to thwart future attacks and apprehend those involved in terrorist activities against Israeli civilians.”
It’s been 15 months since the operation's launch and again this week Israel was rocked by a bloody week, including the killing of four more citizens in a terrorist shooting.
So we reached out to Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser. He is the former head of the research division in the IDF’s Military Intelligence division and former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs.
Among his other current roles, Kuperwasser heads up The Institute for the Research of the Methodology of Intelligence. And at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) think tank, he specializes in the security dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
According to Kuperwasser, the current flare-up of Palestinian armed violence is not coincidental, but the fruit of a carefully cultivated extremism that surrounds Palestinians on all sides. And the region's many terror groups are all too ready to embrace any volunteer.
“That’s why I’m totally against this idea of lone wolves. These are not lone wolves. These are wolves that were bred by the incitement that comes from all these places. And once you prepare them mentally to be a wolf, eventually they are going to carry out a terror attack,” said Kuperwasser on Wednesday.
In this week of yet another surge in terror, we ask security expert Yossi Kuperwasser, what matters now.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the research division in the IDF’s Military Intelligence division and former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs outside the Nomi Studios in Jerusalem, June 21, 2023. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.
This past weekend, Israel marked a tragic milestone: In the first half of 2023, over 100 Arab citizens have died by violence.
Just like its manifestation in every community throughout the world, this scourge has many faces — organized crime, domestic violence, random acts of anger, and more. But according to polling by the Abraham Initiative, for several years running, members of Arab communities have said that the issues that most concern them are crime and violence, well above civil status, racist legislation and the stalemate in the peace process.
However, many Arab citizens of Israel feel that the Jewish state just isn’t putting the resources into fighting the wave of violence in a long-term, comprehensive way.
"People are talking about it as the violence in the Arab society. First of all, it’s the violence in the Israeli society," said Prof. Mona Khoury, the Vice President for Strategy and Diversity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Khoury, a full professor at the Hebrew University School of Social Work, sat with The Times of Israel in her Mount Scopus office this week. Much of her research focuses on children and adolescents' deviant and delinquent behaviors.
But instead of merely studying the phenomena, she has concrete suggestions for breaking the cycle of violence.
This week, when all eyes are finally on the uptick of violence in Arab communities, we ask Prof. Mona Khoury, what matters now.
The following transcript has been lightly edited.
IMAGE: Prof. Mona Khoury, Vice President for Strategy and Diversity, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (Sharon Gabay)
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.
Eleven years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his much-quoted "Iranian nuclear duck" speech at AIPAC warning against United States plans for a nuclear deal. Fast forward to today and we hear reports that the United States is now looking for a “less for less” deal to stave off that Iranian duck’s final launch.
This week alone, Iran made international headlines as it claimed it had developed a hypersonic missile capable of traveling at 15 times the speed of sound. We were likewise told that Iran will head a naval alliance in cooperation with other Gulf states. And we heard that Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia.
There are new truces in the region and a re-embrace of Syria in the Arab League. And that’s just the beginning.
This week, Dr. Jonathan Spyer, the director of research at the Middle East Forum and editor of Middle East Quarterly, gives us a whirlwind tour of the new alliances threading through a tangled region.
A freelance security analyst for Janes Information Group and a columnist at the Jerusalem Post, Spyer is also an on-the-ground journalist who has entered Syria, Lebanon and Iraq numerous times and is the author of the 2018 book “Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars.”
And so this week of increased news out of Iran, we ask Jonathan Spyer, what matters now.
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IMAGE: Dr. Jonathan Spyer on a reporting trip in Mosul, Iraq, September 2017. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his cabinet meeting with an announcement that his government will draft a decision to establish a new ministerial committee -- that he will head.
In his remarks, Netanyahu stated, “The fight against the cost of living tops our government's list of national priorities. We will take determined and strong action to lower prices in all areas."
Our What Matters Now guest this week points out that this new Netanyahu-led committee is perhaps the fifth such task force the government has established to study the cost of living since 2011.
But lawyer and "people’s lobbyist" Rachel Gur is ready to take up the fight to lower Israel's outlandishly inflated prices.
Gur moved to Israel from the United States at age 17 and served in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. After demobbing, she earned an L.L.B. and B.A. in political science from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and an L.L.M in Legal Theory from New York University Law School. (She also married The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.)
Like any reputable lobbyist, she knows how to walk the halls of power: From 2011 until a few years ago, Gur served in senior positions in the Israeli government.
Today the Director of Public Policy for Lobby 99, Gur is an expert in the fields of Israeli legislation, regulation, and public policy.
But what makes Lobby 99 different from other pressure groups is that we, the people, set the agenda.
This week, as the cost of living is again on the cabinet’s agenda, we ask Rachel Gur, what matters now.
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IMAGE: Rachel Gur, Director of Public Policy for Lobby 99. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week, Jews all over the world will mark the holiday of Shavuot by reading from the Book of Ruth. In this biblical tale, disaster and famine strike and an elderly widow called Naomi loses her two sons. Childless, she tells her daughters-in-law to return to their parents’ homes in Moab and says that she will make her own way back to her family in Bethlehem.
One daughter-in-law, Orpah, regretfully leaves. The other, Ruth, says the famous lines, “Where you go I will go, and where you slumber I will slumber. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”
And with that, she joins the People of Israel and eventually becomes the ancestor of the much-heralded King David.
The Book of Ruth was written about 2,500 years ago. However, argues our guest this week, it couldn’t be more relevant today as a model of “creative halacha.”
Israel Prize-winning Bible scholar Prof. Yair Zakovitch joined The Times of Israel this week in his Hebrew University book-lined office to discuss the societal context of the Book of Ruth and the halachic “problems” it solves.
The author of best-selling works on the Bible was born in the pluralistic northern city of Haifa in 1945 and joined the faculty of Hebrew University in 1978. When awarded the Israel Prize for Bible in 2021, then Education Minister Yoav Gallant said, "Yair Zakovitch is one of the most original Bible researchers in the country and the world."
To bring the Bible to the next generation, Zakovtich helped found the Hebrew University's Revivim program, a prestigious teacher-training program for outstanding university students, who sign on to teach in state schools post-graduation.
In our in-depth conversation on the Book of Ruth, we hear how the scroll's author — in opposition to the writers of the contemporary prophets — offers a scripture of compassion in solving that era's challenge with intermarriage.
We also hear about today’s rampant biblical illiteracy and why it is immensely important for secular Israelis to readopt the Bible for themselves.
This Shavuot week, we ask Prof. Yair Zakovitch, What Matters Now.
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IMAGE: Prof. Yair Zakovitch in his Hebrew University of Jerusalem office, May 23, 2023. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
On Thursday this week, tens of thousands of marchers -- including several government ministers and MKs -- marked the 1967 reunification of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty with participation in the annual Flag March.
While most of the masses sang, danced, and yes, caused a ruckus through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, much like every year in the recent past, at times parts of the mostly under-30, largely male crowd acted like a tinderbox eager for a spark.
What was different this year is a group of left-wing activists blocked a main artery from the West Bank bloc of Gush Etzion to prevent marchers from reaching the capital. Perhaps taking a page out of the judicial overhaul protests, they stood with massive banners, chanting, "Fascism will not pass; the marchers will not pass."
This push-pull political situation in Israel is the stuff scholars of contemporary history dream of. And for Dr. Sara Hirschhorn, an American historian and public intellectual who focuses on the Israeli ultranationalist movement, a research visit to the Holy Land couldn’t have been better timed.
Hirschhorn is currently an inaugural fellow at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center for Antisemitism Research and an instructor in Jewish and Israel Studies at Rutgers University. In addition to her research into Israeli extremism, she also focuses on Diaspora-Israel relations and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
Her first, award-winning book, "City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement" (Harvard, 2017) will soon be followed up on with an in-progress manuscript entitled "New Day in Babylon and Jerusalem: Zionism, Jewish Power, and Identity Politics Since 1967."We sat together this week and in our wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the increasing extremist symbolism of the Jerusalem Day Flag March. We also drill down on how Israel’s far-right parties are now considered mainstream as part of the Knesset coalition.
And, we discuss how by simply envisioning what the world could look like the day after peace breaks out, we may actually get there.
This week we ask Dr. Sara Hirschhorn, What Matters Now.
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IMAGE: Dr. Sara Hirschhorn in the Nomi Studios in Jerusalem. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Israel stands unified this week as hundreds of Gaza rockets rain on the country.
Unusually of late, even Israel’s political echelon has put aside its differences to stand together during the IDF’s Operation Shield and Arrow.
That’s really good news for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose own coalition has increasingly taken to covert -- and overt -- threats against the stability of his government.
But even after this conflict with Palestinian Islamic Jihad is put to rest, Netanyahu still has a battle on his hands: He must pass the budget or, as mandated by law, see his government topple.
When the budget does pass, and most think it will, only then will we see where the prime minister really stands on hot-button issues such as the judicial overhaul legislation package, according to senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, our guest this week.
“One of the terrible costs Netanyahu will pay for suddenly being in control again, for being in a position where his own coalition partners can’t topple him and demand from him everything they want and embarrass him, shatter his popularity and just destroy everything for him, is that the buck stops with him,” said Rettig Gur on Wednesday.
We sat down during a pocket of tense calm, just before the rain of rockets began. In our in-depth conversation, we speak about how Israeli leadership fares under rocket fire — for better and worse. We then turn to Netanyahu’s next operation, the budget, which has a fast-approaching expiration date of May 31.
In this week of rare political and national unity, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur What Matters Now.
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IMAGE: Times of Israel senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur at Jerusalem's Nomi Studios, May 10, 2023. (Jamal Risheq/Israel Story)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
The Knesset reconvened this week and anti-judicial overhaul protestors ramped up their demonstrations with Thursday’s nationwide Day of Disruptions.
While these protests were going on nationwide, a panel appearing on Israel’s Channel 14 talked about the upcoming protest outside former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak’s house that night. Barak, the panel agreed, is the puppet master who is pulling all the strings in the anti-judicial overhaul movement. He is to blame for the mess the country is in and only if Barak agrees to the reform, they said, will all protests stop.
Even as Fox News captures headlines throughout the world for skewed coverage, Israel’s version, Channel 14, is slowly capturing an increasingly larger audience. So, I sat down this week with Zman Yisrael editor Biranit Goren to make sense of Israel's Hebrew-language media map.
A three-decade veteran of Israeli journalism, Goren started out as an investigative reporter at the Ha'aretz group, moved on to become the news and magazine editor at Yedioth Aharonot and then editor-in-chief of Ma'ariv's website.
Goren also crossed into the tech world, developing and maintaining dozens of media websites -- including The Times of Israel and Zman Israel, where she is also the editor-in-chief since its foundation.
Now celebrating four years, Zman Israel, The Times of Israel's sister Hebrew website, covers politics, economy, environment, diplomacy and the rule of law. With a staff of highly experienced journalists, the current affairs website focuses on investigative reporting, exclusive news and in-depth analysis.
In our in-depth discussion -- recorded on World Press Freedom Day -- Goren explains the lay of the land in Israel's Hebrew-language media and suggests that all of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s three ongoing court cases are tied to its control.
In this week of dueling narratives, we ask veteran journalist Biranit Goren, What Matters Now.
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IMAGE: Zman Yisrael editor Biranit Goren at an event celebrating ToI's 10th anniversary, May 1, 2022. (Ariel Jerozolimski)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf announced Wednesday that he will advance legislation to make Zionism a “guiding and crucial value” in government decision-making.
But what exactly is Zionism?
In this week of Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen and Independence Day, we invited Prof. Gil Troy to The Times of Israel’s Jerusalem office to discuss the nationalist movement's ever-shifting role in the Jewish world.
Among his other scholarly pursuits, the American historian has written several books on Zionism, including 2018's "The Zionist Ideas; Visions for the Jewish Homeland — Then, Now, Tomorrow," and is currently re-releasing early Zionist thinkers’ works.
During our conversation, Troy speaks about "coming out of the closet" as a Zionist after many years on faculty at McGill University in Montreal. We speak about the changing definitions of Zionism, past, present and future, including the increasing lack of Zionism and pro-Israel support among Diaspora Jews.
In a Zionist emotional roller coaster of a week, we ask Gil Troy, What Matters Now.
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IMAGE: McGill University History Prof. Gil Troy in The Times of Israel's office, April 25, 2023. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/ToI)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This episode is being published during a uniquely Israeli window of time that occurs between Yom Hashoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day — and Yom Hazikaron — our Memorial Day for fallen soldiers.
This is a liminal space naturally inhabited by our What Matters Now guest this week, former director general of the Justice Ministry Emi Palmor.
A specialist in international human rights and government policy, she is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and — when not lecturing at law schools and leadership programs, or concentrating on her part-time work on the Facebook Oversight Board — she is also the volunteer head of Natal, an apolitical nonprofit organization that specializes in the field of war and terror-related trauma.
This week, headlines were again made about looming judicial overhaul legislation, this time, regarding a potential legal counsel bill that would make ministry legal advisors a discretionary role in ministries.
As she is a 24-year veteran of the Justice Ministry, six of which she spent as its director general under several ministers from different parties, we, ask Emi Palmor, What Matters Now.
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IMAGE: Former Justice Ministry director-general Emi Palmor is now a member of the select Meta Oversight Board and head of the nonprofit PTSD organization Natal. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
This week, like every week, antisemitism has captured media headlines around the world, ranging from "'Death to the Jews' chants heard at Berlin rally" to "Bone-chilling antisemitic display in Poland sparks condemnation."
These modern iterations of antisemitism are, of course, of concern to Israel’s national Holocaust memorial museum Yad Vashem. But it was yet another headline this week that caused Yad Vashem head Dani Dayan to speak out, "'Polish propaganda': Critics assail deal to resume Israeli youth trips to Poland."
As a guardian against the distortion of Holocaust memory, in the past year, the Buenos Aires-born Dayan, a former head of the settler movement and a past Consul General of New York, has spoken up in several other cases, including when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made comments this summer that evoked Nazi ideology.
Speaking with The Times of Israel on Thursday, Dayan says, he sees results.
This week, days before Israel marks Yom Hashoah, the national Holocaust memorial day we ask Yad Vashem head Dani Dayan, what matters now?
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IMAGE: Dani Dayan in the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem (Alex Kolomoisky)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — except this week.
Ahead of Passover, as some Jews all over the world change sets of dishes, blowtorch their stoves and, of course, cover every last counter and corner with aluminum foil, we wonder: when did the practice of this crazy religion get its start?
So I invited Ariel University's head of the Institute of Archaeology Prof. Yonatan Adler to our Jerusalem office to speak about his new book, “The Origins of Judaism.”
In our lengthy conversation, we hear how he treats the origins of the practice of Judaism as an archaeological excavation, working backward in time to gather physical and textual proof of the observance of the laws and commandments charted out in the Torah. This is a topic that has engaged Adler for well over a decade -- including his doctoral research for "The Archaeology of Purity" -- and he continues to explore it through his Origins of Judaism Project.
Adler, who obtained rabbinical ordination through the Israeli chief rabbinate in 2001, treats this question through a scientific assemblage of data points collected throughout the centuries and the guiding archaeological principle that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
While Adler hasn’t yet found evidence for foil-covered kitchen counters, at the end of our discussion he does speak about the earliest evidence for the observance of Passover, and that matters now.
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Image: Ariel University's Dr. Yonatan Adler. (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Suddenly, about three months ago when Justice Minister Yariv presented the judicial overhaul package, it seemed like everyone in Israel's pro-reform camp began speaking about Canada as a justification for the coalition's controversial bills.
That made this week’s What Matters Now guest, former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, take notice.
Cotler joined me at The Times of Israel's Jerusalem offices this week to discuss how the use of Canada as an example in support of the judicial overhaul package is basically "fake news."
The veteran human rights lawyer discusses how Canada worked through its own constitutional crisis in the 1980s, how Israel is setting itself up for trouble with the International Court of Justice and his fervent hope that the Jewish state will reach 75 with a consensual, ratified People’s Constitution.
In a week in which hundreds of thousands of Israelis spontaneously took to the streets to vote against the judicial overhaul with their feet, find out What Matters Now to international legal authority Irwin Cotler.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
On Thursday, Israelis watched as Shikma Bressler, a world-renowned physicist, was arrested during the nationwide “Day of Paralysis,” a day of ramped-up civil protests against the government's judicial overhaul. Bressler, who is also one of the top leaders of the grassroots protests against the widespread changes to the judiciary, was dragged toward a police car as bystanders shouted, "shame, shame, shame."
Following Bressler's short detainment, social media lit up with the news and, among other responses, Labor leader MK Merav Michaeli tweeted, “In a normal country Shikma Bressler would be given the Israel Prize.”
I met with Bressler, 42, at her Weizman Institute office in Rehovot on Wednesday this week to hear how the scientist, a co-founder of the Black Flags protest movement and head of a collaborative project with CERN, originally activated her activist gene. We hear what she sees as the next steps in stepping up civil disobedience, even as she believes we're already in a form of a civil war.
With her mild, almost professorial manner, she explained that Israel is quickly nearing the point of no return. That things are much worse than most international observers can imagine.
During our lengthy conversation, Bressler also laughingly told me that three years ago in her initial protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she coined the chant “De-mo-crat-ya.”
This week, we ask Dr. Shikma Bressler, What Matters Now?
IMAGE: Physicist Dr. Shikma Bressler, co-founder of the Black Flag protest movement. (Eldad Rafaeli, Photoactive)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
Wednesday night on primetime news, Israeli President Isaac Herzog presented his long-awaited "People’s Framework," a platform meant to be the basis for working toward a compromise on the judicial overhaul.
A few hours later, the platform was rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and judicial overhaul legislation continues apace.
This week on What Matters Now, we learn how the new legislation could affect issues of religion and state. We hear from attorney and Reform Rabbi Uri Regev, the head of Hiddush: For Religious Freedom and Democracy, which describes itself as "a non-denominational, non-partisan Israel-Diaspora partnership uniting people across political and religious spectrums."
Before founding Hiddush 12 years ago, Regev served as president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, a global umbrella organization of the Progressive, Reform, Liberal and Reconstructionist movements, and was the founding chair and executive director and legal counsel of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC).
Prophetically, back in 2015, Regev told The Times of Israel -- after facing off and winning a Supreme Court case against the future MK Simcha Rothman, the author of much of the judicial overhaul -- “it starts and ends with people fighting for the Declaration of Independence.”
This week, we hear What Matters Now to religious rights activist Uri Regev.
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Image: Attorney and Reform Rabbi Uri Regev (far right), head of Hiddush: For Religious Freedom and Equality, in the Israeli Supreme Court. (Courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
As Israel celebrated Purim this week, putting on costumes and trading sweet treats with neighbors and friends, we took a brief, humorous break to speak with Benji Lovitt and Joel Chasnoff, comics, educators and speakers who recently launched a new book, “Israel 201, Your Next-Level Guide to the Magic, Mystery and Chaos! of Life in the Holy Land," written to mark Israel’s 75 years of existence.
“Israel 201” (Gefen Publishing) is Chasnoff’s fourth book, and Lovitt’s first, and the 265-page book is an ode to life in Israel, with all its ironic, annoying and heartwarming aspects.
It's a comic -- at times -- and in-depth primer to some daily aspects of life in Israel that are rarely discussed in book form. And as Israel grapples with the vagaries of the planned judicial overhaul, a new government and its 75th birthday, we talk about their path to this manuscript and What Matters Now.
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
On Wednesday, stun grenades, tear gas, water cannons and horse-mounted police were deployed against Israelis protesting the judicial overhaul. Images of a wall of citizens of all ages holding Israeli flags, standing defiantly opposite a line of mounted armed law enforcement headlined Israeli media and were seen all over the world.
These images are galvanizing, and to many, terrifyingly indicative of what will follow once the government’s reforms are passed. Because despite the massive protests, according to many experts including The Times of Israel’s senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, they’re sure to go through.
This became more clear when, on Wednesday night, Israelis who had seen liberal Tel Aviv in turmoil that day, tuned in to primetime news at 8 p.m. to see whether this increased violence and chaos on the streets was a watershed moment. Would it prompt Prime Minister Netanyahu to slow down the judicial overhaul that was rocketing ahead through the Knesset even as tear gas was deployed on Israeli citizens?
Netanyahu, like a father chiding his miscreant children, compared the anti-overhaul protestors, who are stopping traffic and disrupting the nation, to those rampaging Israelis who had torched the Arab village of Huwara on Sunday night.
Netanyahu is clearly determined to charge ahead with the overhaul package — even while parts of Israel are burning. So this week, we ask Rettig Gur, how did we get here and What Matters Now?
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
A year into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is Israel maintaining its policy of neutrality? Is the Russian presence in Syria still a good enough reason for the Jewish state to decline underdog Ukraine’s repeated requests of anti-missile defense systems?
To find out answers to these questions, I turned to Middle East and Russo-Ukraine expert, Ksenia Svetlova.
Svetlova immigrated to Israel from Moscow at age 14. Later, as a fluent Arabic-speaking journalist, for years she was able to use her Russian passport to report from areas most Israelis will never see in the Middle East.
In 2015, she renounced that Russian passport and stepped away from journalism to join the Knesset in the Zionist Union party, headed by Tsipi Livni. Svetlova served there until 2019.
This week, a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I made Svetlova a cup of hot tea in Jerusalem and I found out What Matters Now ahead of a new phase of the war in Ukraine-- and the legal battlefield here in Israel.
Tune in to the podcast episode to hear diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman weigh in on Svetlova's statements.
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Image: Ksenia Svetlova in the West Bank (courtesy)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
On Monday, tens of thousands of Israelis took a day off work to protest outside the Knesset against the proposed judicial overhaul that was -- at the very same time -- being discussed at a stormy session of the Constitutional Committee inside.
The crowd was a sea of blue and white Israeli flags. Mostly secular, they sang, shouted, laughed and cried together against the bills that were, despite all their raucous energy, indeed passed for preliminary readings.
Many in Israel who support the judicial overhaul say that by adopting practices from other countries’ judicial systems, they are bringing the country in line with the standards of the international community. Many who oppose the legislation do agree to a need for reform, but say they are frightened that in cherry-picking from around the globe -- an override clause from Canada, a law from Norway and elements from the United States -- we will be headed toward a “Frankenstate.”
In 2013, Princeton University Prof. Kim Lane Scheppele coined the visceral term in her article, "Not Your Father’s Authoritarianism: The Creation of the "Frankenstate.'" In that essay, she writes, “A Frankenstate is an abusive form of rule, created by combining the bits and pieces of perfectly reasonable democratic institutions in monstrous ways, much as Frankenstein’s monster was created from bits and pieces of other living things. No one part is objectionable; the horror emerges from the combinations.”
This week, I made my way to the heart of old Jerusalem to the Israel Democracy Institute where I asked IDI vice president Suzie Navot, professor of Constitutional Law, what could happen if other legal systems are grafted on Israel’s judiciary.
Born in Uruguay, Navot made aliya to Israel at age 14. A polyglot, she has taught at the Sorbonne as a visiting professor as well as on the faculties of the Striks Faculty of Law at the College of Management and the National Security College in Israel.
Navot specializes in constitutional law, law of institutions, parliamentary law and comparative constitutional law, which gives her unique insight into what could happen if indeed this global mosaic of legislation does pass.
After this tempestuous week, we hear What Matters Now to leading Israeli legal expert, Prof. Suzie Navot.
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IMAGE: Vice president of the Israel Democracy Institute Prof. Suzie Navot at the IDI, December 2022. (Michal Fattal/IDI)
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Welcome to our second episode of What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.
In a rare moment of agreement, Israeli media from all sides of the political spectrum is closely following the proposed legislation for judicial overhauls — some of which will have their first preliminary votes early next week.
And while almost everyone seems to agree that there is a need for a judicial overhaul, many ask, why so extreme and why so fast?
For weeks we've reported on protests in the street, sharp rebukes from legal experts, and businessmen threatening to take their money elsewhere. The President of Israel Isaac Herzog waded in and asked legislators for a pause for reconsideration and potential compromise.
But one who doesn't think the overhaul is all that radical is the Member of Knesset who wrote the bills that are being determinedly pushed through, Simcha Rothman from the Religious Zionism party.
For the past decade, Rothman, a lawyer by training, has worked towards this legislation through his advocacy work at Meshilut, the Movement for Governability and Democracy. A fixture in the halls of the Knesset, Rothman has written books and lobbied for what he terms a stronger democracy -- through a rebalancing of power from the Supreme Court to the Knesset.
A member of Knesset since 2021, Rothman is clearly one of the most driven lawmakers in the new coalition. As the chair of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, he is fast-tracking these first points of reform, which include judicial appointments, curbing the Supreme Court’s test of reasonability, a slim override clause and severely limiting the High Court of Justice’s ability to strike down Basic Laws.
This week, days before a first vote on Monday for two proposals, I made my way through the labyrinth of the Knesset to speak with Rothman and hear why these reforms, and why so quickly.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: MK Simcha Rothman gives his first remarks at the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem, August 3, 2021. (Noam Moskovitch/Knesset Spokesman)
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Welcome to our inaugural episode of What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World -- right now.
Now, I don't know about you, but even for newshounds like me, sometimes the 24/7 headline barrage zooms by so fast that I feel like I don't catch all the nuance. There are so many hot-button issues that understanding the arguments for and against them feels like a Herculean task.
So each week, we'll sit for an in-depth conversation and find out what matters now to one journalist, thinker or newsmaker.
For this first episode, I turned to philosopher and author Dr. Micah Goodman. While his books are read by the country's leaders, he's made a career of explaining Israel and all her nuances -- even to Israelis themselves.
Goodman is the author of the best-selling "Catch-67," as well as "The Wondering Jew" and several surprising bestsellers on canonical Jewish texts, including works on Maimonides.
For this perplexed journalist, understanding this moment in Israel meant having tea with my friendly neighborhood philosopher.
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This week on Times Will Tell, host Amanda Borschel-Dan you with her to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to view for the first time seven new contemporary art sculptures in an exhibit called Disrupted Layer.
The seven pieces were all created by artist Zohar Gotesman, who was inspired by archaeological artifacts from the museum’s collection. They are distributed throughout the archaeology wing, much like stops on a treasure map. As you’ll hear, some pieces blend in more than others.
Gotesman and Borschel-Dan were joined by the exhibit's co-curators, Sally Haftel Naveh and Tali Sharvit, whom you’ll also hear during this slightly longer-than-usual podcast in which we tour the exhibit and match first impressions with the artist's real intentions.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Curator Tali Sharvit (from left) with artist Zohar Gotesman and co-curator Sally Haftel Naveh clown around next to the first of seven contemporary art sculptures inspired by the Israel Museum's archaeology wing. (Zohar Shemesh)
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On this week's Times Will Tell, we speak with Ariel Leizgold, cocktail master and one of the founders of the Bellboy Group, a hospitality and bar firm with six bars in Tel Aviv, one in Berlin and plans to expand.
Leizgold talks about growing up in his Russian-Israeli family, where hospitality and vodka --along with mayonnaise -- were regularly featured, but his medical professional parents never expected him to work in the service and hospitality industry.
He discusses the early days of cocktail making in Tel Aviv, when customers had to be convinced to try something more daring than vodka mixed with Red Bull, and what it means to bring the Tel Aviv bar experience to the globe.
Finally, Leizgold mixes his favorite cocktail of late, a Boulevardier, and shares his recipe:
Boulevardier
Glass: Coupe
Garnish: Absinthe spray on glass, large chocolate diamond, black ribbon on stem
Method: Throw
30 ml rye whisky
20 ml cognac
20 ml amaro
20 ml sweet vermouth
15 ml Campari
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Ariel Leizgold of the Bellboy Group pours a cocktail (Courtesy PR)
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This week on Times Will Tell we're speaking with Shalom Simcha Elbert, head of research and development at OCD, recently named Israel’s best restaurant at the 2022 Israeli Kitchen Awards, sponsored by American Express.
The name (an acronym for obsessive compulsive disorder) refers to the meticulous care that the culinary team, led by chef Raz Rahav, pours into each dish of the nightly tasting menu served to every diner.
The Jerusalem-born and raised, Italian-trained Elbert found his way to the world of fermentation in Italy and now handles that process at OCD, which prides itself on being a zero waste restaurant, where all parts of every ingredient are used, often fermented for use in the restaurant's pantry.
When an OCD grower had an overflow of apricots, the restaurant took them all, fermenting, curing, making hot sauce, baking into bread and bringing that conversation to the open bar where all 23 diners are seated each night, in constant conversation with the chefs cooking right in front of them.
"We tell the story of what's going on," said Elbert.
IMAGE: OCD's head of development Simcha Shalom Elbert in front of OCD in Jaffa (Courtesy)
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This week on Times Will Tell we’re speaking with Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld, the director of Indiana University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.
Prof. Rosenfeld founded the Jewish Studies program at Indiana University some 50 years ago and served as its director for 30 years. But retirement has eluded Rosenfeld and in 2009 he founded the Center for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism after observing the rise of anti-Jewish hostility all over the world.
"The last time I saw Elie [Weisel] shortly before he died, he was very downcast... He looked at me and he said, 'I've failed... Look at the rise of antisemitism today.' So he thought, I thought, we all thought that the more people come to know about the persecution and mass murder of the Jews the more reluctant anyone would be to speak hostilely against Jews in the public sphere. But we were simply wrong," said Rosenfeld.
And while early in his career he was able to concentrate on poets William Blake and John Wheelwright, Prof. Rosenfeld’s recent work deals with antisemitism, Holocaust literature and memory, including the 2011 book “The End of the Holocaust," and the 2021 collection of essays “Contending with Antisemitism in a Rapidly Changing Political Climate.”
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Indiana University Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld, December 2022. (Gale Nichols)
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This week's Times Will Tell is a recording of a recent sold-out Times of Israel live event in Jerusalem, featuring an English language screening of the award-winning "Cinema Sabaya" film followed by a conversation with filmmaker Orit Fouks Rotem.
"Cinema Sabaya," starring Dana Ivgy, tells the story of Arab and Jewish female municipal workers who take part in a video workshop, documenting their own lives and viewing each others’ — challenging their beliefs in order to get to know one another.
Fouks Rotem spoke with Times of Israel arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg about the making of the film, her casting of mostly unknown actors who had a lot of freedom with the script and her goals in making this movie about women of different stripes.
As the Best Picture winner in the Ophir Awards, Israel's version of the Oscars, "Cinema Sabaya" automatically became Israel’s selection for consideration as a foreign film nominee at the 2023 Academy Awards in the United States, a voting race that Fouks Rotem describes as well.
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
Times of Israel: This week's Times Will Tell is a recording of a recently sold-out Times@10 event, a screening in English of “Cinema Sabaya,” the award-winning Israeli film that is Israel's choice for an Oscar foreign film nomination, followed by a conversation with director Orit Fouks Rotem, at Jerusalem's Yes Planet. Have a listen and enjoy.
I'm very pleased to introduce Orit Fouks Rotem, the director of Cinema Sabaya, which won the Ophir Award, Israel's Oscar for Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress for Joanna Said, Best Costumes and Best Casting. Cinema Sabaya is the underdog film that unexpectedly swept the awards, automatically making it Israel's selection for consideration as foreign film nominee at the 2023 Academy Awards in the US. It's also Orit’s first full feature film, one that she worked on for eight years. She's a graduate of Jerusalem's Sam Spiegel Film School. And we considered showing this screening there in the new arts campus where they have a screening room that fits 120. That's the largest one, but it wouldn't have fit all of you. So it’s a good thing that we did it here at Yes Planet. It's very good to have you here and we're going to have a little conversation that we’ll also open to some questions from the audience.
I know your mother was involved in the initial idea. So if you could tell us a little bit of the story of how it came about and how your mother was involved in it from the very start.
Orit Fouks Rotem: So thank you for coming and taking the time to watch the film. Yeah, so my mother is the advisor for women's issues to the mayor of Hadera and she was a participant in a group like this, like you just saw, she studied stills photography with Arab women in the area of Hadera. And I just finished film school and looked for an idea for a film and she told me about the course and I thought it's very interesting platform to discuss a lot of subjects through women and through women's eyes. And then I started making those kind of groups as research for a few years.
Tell us how you found your first group. That's a great story.
So I wanted to make this kind of group and I didn't really know what I'm going to do, so I just went to Acre because someone told me, you should go to Acre.
There are a lot of Jewish and a lot of Arab women. I just walked in the street and asked women if they want to study how to use the video cameras. And they looked at me like I'm crazy. And then I went to this small shop and this woman there told me, go to this place. There are women meeting there once a week. It was like a shelter and I offered them to teach them a course of video filmmaking and they said yes. And then I just went there once a week for a while and actually made up this course that you saw in the film. And on the way I thought, maybe it can be also a documentary. But then I understood that many of the things that came up there, I wouldn't be able to use them in a documentary. So I decided to go with my first plan and make a fiction film. But take this conflict for this character that I wrote based on me, of course. And that's it. That's my mother's.
So your mother helped get you started. Art imitates life. Life imitates art. You wrote the film, you were thinking about it as a documentary, but ended up making it into a feature film. Tell us a little bit about why you wanted those elements of truth and reality as opposed to full-on fiction.
For me, as a viewer, when I believe what I see, it touches me. And if I don't believe it, I can understand it intellectually, but I don't feel it. So for me, it's the most important thing to do is to make this believable. And that was the way I think, to make it believable. Because a lot of people ask me after the film if it's a documentary or if it's a fiction film, mostly outside of Israel, where they don't know that I've been any of the actresses. And for me it's the best compliment because it means that they weren't sure if what they see is real life.
Talk about the actors a little bit. Dana Ivgy, the main character, plays Rona, the filmmaking teacher, is a very well known actress who actually was up for two of the awards in September. Both this for this film and for another film. But she is the most well known actor in the film. The rest were some of them had never acted before. Correct. And some of them just hadn't really acted a lot. Can you tell us a little bit about the casting process, how you found these women, who they are in real life?
So all of them are actresses except for Liora Levi who really lives on a boat and I found her through my script advisor, who told me I just have to meet this woman to take her to my film. And then I met her and wrote her in after that. So she is the only one who's not really an actor.
Did you have to convince her?
It was her dream for a long time to be in the film. In the beginning, I wasn't sure if she can act and I also made auditions for her character. It's really funny to think that someone else could be her. So yeah, she's one of a kind and all the others have something to do with acting. Some of them did, like, commercials and Joanna Said, this is her first film and she studied it for a semester in the Hazuti, and she did some theater, but not in a professional way. All the rest are actresses, not so known, but Amal Murkus, who's the singer, is really known.
You and I spoke about what you call the trick of the story, which is that most of the film takes place in this one room and the other scenes that we see are brought from the videos that the characters that the women made from their own homes. So tell us a little bit about that, how you came to decide that that was going to be the setting and also how did you make those films?
So the film they're bringing into class is of mostly the women themselves shot the videos. I went with them to locations that we found and we brought actors like the one who cuts his fingernail is my landlord because in the same day there was an extra that was supposed to come and he didn't show up. They thought, who can be her husband? They needed to have the location. We're paying those people. So I just called him and luckily he didn't cut his nails before and showed up. He's Jewish. My landlord got money for this. He didn't take it from the rent. And Yulia Tagil, the actor who plays Yelena, she really lived with her mother at that time and she's divorced and it's really her daughters in the film. So we used reality sometimes, but she's different. We did a mix of the real life and their true emotions.
Were they okay with that? Was that something you had to discuss?
As far as I discussed with each one of them, some of them didn't want to bring, so it was their choice.
Some of them don't share.
Some of them don't share at all.Yeah, like Nahed. I found that in every group I made, always there was one that didn't share. And she also suspects Rona’s intentions so that also gives her a reason not to share.
Right. She's suspicious the whole time about what's really happening there.
Yes.
You told me that Dana Ivgy sometimes filmed.
She filmed all the way. She held the camera, right. And she kept it going. And in the end we decided to use her footage only in three parts of the film. But at the beginning I didn't know. I thought maybe a lot of the film would be from her perspective.
What about the women as a group? The cast as a group, obviously the experience changed them in terms of making a film. For some of them, it was their first time. But did it affect them as a group? As a community of people together?
So yes, of course. It was really interesting to see they didn't know each other before. We didn't rehearse. We met twice in order to read the script together, so they will understand everything. But we didn't do the scenes, we didn't rehearse because I wanted to keep everything to the shooting days. We had twelve shooting days only.
Tell everyone where the room was, where you filmed it.
We filmed in Ben Shemen. It's a boarding school. And we filmed in a place where Shimon Peres got married. It was just an empty hall. When we came down and we fixed everything, the curtains, the color of the walls, which was, like, abandoned.
In the weeks since the elections, we're feeling the effects of what's happening around us. When did you actually film this? In what year?
2019?
Right before COVID closed everything. Three months before COVID and what were you looking to bring to the table in terms of your Arab Jewish subject matter? How deeply did you want to get into it? Did you get into subjects that you didn't anticipate beforehand?
My main motivation was to bring deep and full feminine characters to the screen. It was more important for me than the conflict, in a way, because I saw many films about the conflict that tells you what to think. And I didn't want it to be this kind of film. I wanted it to be more open. So the main thing will be the women themselves. And of course, when I go to Arab and Jewish women together, I have to put the concept on the table because it's very not to do that. It's there. So I did it, like in the beginning of the film, just to get rid of it and not to get rid of it, but to finish with it and to make room for these women. Because I think it's even more political when you identify with the character that you will never be identified, maybe before and when you see the film and not to have an agenda that tells you what to think about it.
Did you have any reactions as you went through the editing process from your cast or from your editing team of putting more in, putting less in? How did you react to that?
I didn't really open it to the cast, but, yeah, it was a dilemma how much to put it, because what you see in the film, the political part, was in the shooting much longer. We decided to put it there, but don't let it take over everything. And Amal Murkius is a really political figure and it was important for me to be loyal to what she wanted and to give her a place to say what she thinks and also to the actor that plays Esti.
They felt like they represent all the Jewish and all the Arabs in Israel. So I tried to tell them it's not true, but in a way it's a bit true because I see when people see it outside of Israel, mostly they look at this like, as a representation of what is happening.
So you just came back from a road show in the States showing the film, working on exposing it in terms of the Oscar nomination. What was it like to show it to audiences out there? What were their reactions to this film that is presenting what is happening here, but not intending to necessarily.
A lot of questions were about the election and what's going to be in Israel now. They reacted like in Israel, everyone has a character that he likes the most. And the questions were a lot about the work in progress and how we got this authenticity that there is in the film. So it wasn't really different in that part.
Okay, so you are in this race to try and win the Oscar nomination.
Yes, we are at the voting starts in the 12th.
Next week.
Next week.
No pressure.
No pressure. If you know any Academy members, please tell them to see the film. It's amazing how many people know Academy members. It's a really small world.
Tell us a little bit about the process.
Now, there is 93 films from all over the world. And in the 12th until the 15th, they're voting for the 15, the short list, and after and who goes to the shortlist, competes to be in the five, and then you're a nominee.
Each Academy member gets, like, I think, eight films. And you can vote for 15 films to rate 15 films. And, yeah, it's supposed to be equal, but I don't know how it really works. It's a lot about money. I see. And big companies like Netflix that run the film can have more impact. And the Jordanian film now gets a lot of attention to our government, thanks to them.
Right. So, of course, you want this nomination, but at the same time, how does it actually feel to be in this place? In other words, it is your first feature film. It did do incredibly well. It's a film that really catches people emotionally and through the vibrancy of what we see on the screen. Where are you right now in terms of the Cinema aabaya effect on yourself? Where do you want to go with all of this besides obviously wanting a nomination? That would be pretty nice.
Yes. In a way, all the time you want more and more. In a way, I want it to end and to have a good memory and keep going to the next film. Okay.
Well, we want to see what your next film is. Thank you very much, Orit Fouks Rotem.
Thank you.
IMAGE: The cast of 'Cinema Sabaya' (Courtesy PR)
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We speak this week with clinical social worker Carla Naumburg about her latest book, "You Are Not a Shitty Parent, How to Practice Self-Compassion and Give Yourself a Break,” a self-compassion primer and guide that came out this fall.
Naumburg, based in Boston, talks about her own kids and family, using a welcome dose of humor and practical advice, hammering home the need to accept oneself and not feel guilty, because most parents are generally doing their best.
She wants people to acknowledge how tough parenting can be, and to treat themselves with kindness, following through on various strategies in order to care for themselves.
Naumburg offers some personal examples of how she practices self-compassion in her own life.
She also talks about modern parenting as opposed to how our parents and grandparents parented, and how that's changed over the decades.
"Just because things are really hard, doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong," said Naumburg. "It's just how life goes."
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times Will Tell: I'm here today with Carla Naumburg, a clinical social worker, writer and mother. She is the author of four books, and her writing has appeared all over the place, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Huffington Post, CNN, and she lives outside of Boston with her husband and two daughters. Hi, Carla.
Carla Naumburg: Hi, Jessica.
Carla's latest book is, "You are not a Shitty Parent." She writes with great clarity about the conundrum of parents who often feel that they are shitty parents, parents who aren't succeeding at caring for their kids in the way that they should. And I guess the first thing I wanted to talk about is we don't usually curse on The Times Will Tell. And I wanted to ask if you thought twice, three times, at all, about using the s-word, because, of course, it's something that you use throughout the book.
This is a great question. And for this book, there was really no question about using the word, because this book follows on the heels of my previous book, "How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids." So the decision was really about whether or not to use the s-word in that title. And I decided that for a few reasons. One, from a very pragmatic perspective, if you look at the New York Times bestseller list, there's a ton of books with profanity in the titles. It just seemed to be a moment in time when readers are really resonating with this kind of casual, everyday language, which is what I think a lot of us are craving right now. But also, when I wrote "How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids," I wanted to convey through the title that I'm not here to judge parents. I'm not some expert saying, I never do this and you should never do this, and I'm going to talk down to you and give you all this judgmental advice. I was trying to convey the sense of, like, you know, what if we were like two parents sitting down for a cup of coffee, just talking about how hard parenting is?
So I wanted to use the language and the voice that I use all the time in my life, right? And I swear. And I'm funny. And so that's what I hope comes through in the book.
Absolutely. It definitely does. And I think it's a funny kind of thing. I always think about my mother when I use profanity, which I do a lot, and I try not to use it with my kids, and then I say, really, what is stopping me? Now let's go back into other the main subject of the book, really, which is about self compassion for parents. Carla, it would be extremely helpful for you to define self compassion as you do in the book.
Yes. So the way I think about self compassion and I'm following on the work of giants in the field, like Kristen Neff and Christopher Germer and others who I just want to acknowledge have done amazing work in this area. It's really about noticing when you're suffering and instead of beating yourself up or feeling guilty, you're going down a shame spiral. It's about treating yourself with kindness and understanding. And so the three specific practices I look at in the book are once you've sort of noticed that you're suffering, which is a thing that many of us don't do right. We're so busy in our daily lives, we've got kids to pick up from school. And as you and I are talking right now, Jessica, there's like Thanksgiving to prepare for and we've got all the moving pieces and then doctors appointments and do we pay the bills and what's going on with the mother-in-law, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We don't even notice when we're suffering, when we're in pain, either emotionally, physically, psychologically. So the first step is to just take a moment and kind of notice that. And then we can look at these three specific strategies I outlined in the book, which is connecting to the people we love, to the people who will be compassionate with us.
So that moment of connection. Also curiosity, kind of getting interested in what's going on for us and what do we need and how can we take care of ourselves. And then also just kindness, really choosing not to beat ourselves up when we're struggling or suffering, and instead treating ourselves with the kindness that we would offer to a good friend or a loved one. So that's how I think about self compassion in the book.
OK, let's talk about real life for a second. You are the mother of a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old. I am the mother of two 14-year-old boys. And I was thinking a lot about this from my own life, but I wanted to ask you, how does self compassion as a parent enter into your own life really of late? Like the last couple of weeks, the last day, the last month.
Over the long term, self compassion changed everything about parenting for me. But let's so the last week is a great example. I live on the East Coast of the United States, and I had a very close family member in a medical emergency on the West Coast just last week. I flew home on a red eye two days ago. So at the very last minute, I had to rush to get a plane ticket, hop on a plane, kind of dump everything on my husband. But he's a fully involved parent, and he stepped up, and it was seamless. He's the primary caretaker of our children at this point, which is amazing. But I missed some things that my kids were doing that I wanted to be there for. I wasn't able to be there for my husband during a time when he needed some additional support, and I felt like I wasn't. My gut initial thought was, I am not enough. I am failing everyone. I'm failing my family on the West Coast because I wasn't there for them all along. Like, I chose to go away. I'm failing my family on the East Coast because I'm bailing on all these plans.
And what I had to repeatedly say to myself and what I was able to say to myself because I've been practicing self compassion for so many years is life is really hard. I'm talking to a bunch of Jews. Why do I need to explain to them that life is hard? We all know life is hard, right? Life is so stinking hard, even on the good days, and then these things happen that just kind of blow everything up and make it almost intolerable. And I have to keep reminding myself that just because things are really hard doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong. And just because I'm missing these moments with my kids or I'm not being as present wherever as I would like to be, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me. It's just how life goes. And it's okay if this feels hard. It doesn't mean I'm a problem or what I'm doing is a problem. But I will tell you, just because a few years ago I didn't have that language at all, I didn't have that perspective, I would have thought, I screwed this up. This is all falling apart because I'm doing it wrong.
If I planned better, if I thought I had better, if I had blah blah blah, whatever better, this wouldn't be this way, which is, by the way, total BS. That's not true. Like, crazy, awful things happen that are completely beyond our control. So self compassion really made the last week, which was a very hard week on many levels. It just made it a little bit easier and less stressful, and in this day and age, easier and less stressful in many cases. Is amazing, right? That's like the best we can hope for. So this past week my self compassion was on high practice recently.
We think about our parents and how they dealt with these situations. We all know that life was different then. No seatbelts, there was no Netflix, there was no cable, there were no cell phones. Do you look at that generational difference for yourself and in terms of your writing when you think about all of this, do you think about us now compared to your parents, your grandparents, in terms of parenting, in terms of self compassion?
Absolutely. And I think that keeping that bigger perspective in mind is so important because we humans, this is a very human dynamic, tend to think of our imperfections or our problems or our struggles as very personal. Like I am the cause of this when in fact sometimes it is, right? Sometimes it's a personal problem that really has to do with our very unique situation. But more often than not it's a societal dynamic, a societal cultural context that we are taking personal responsibility for. And so, you know, I was talking to my husband's grandmother, so my daughter's great grandmother who is going to be, God-willing, 100 in a couple of months and she's amazing. And I was trying to explain this book to her and she's very with it, right? I was trying to explain my book to her and she was like what are you talking about? The idea that parents would think of themselves as shitty parents and have this total shame cloud that we're walking around in was very foreign to her. And I think that's also true for to some degree to our parents generation. And it's not that they didn't care about parenting, of course they cared about parenting but they were getting a very different message.
First of all, I think so much of our shame and blame of parents today comes from comparison, right? And people, humans have been comparing themselves to other people since time and memorial. But back when we were growing up, the parenting comparison happened primarily in our neighborhood. It was the person next door. And so yes, there were always the people who were richer and better resourced than us and there was always that mom who life looked so perfect and whatever. There was always somebody to compare yourself to but at least it was generally happening in the same context. Like you have the same options for school and you have the same snow days to figure out and you had all the same stuff whereas now we are comparing ourselves, thanks to social media and reality TV, we are comparing ourselves to literally every other person on the planet, and we're comparing ourselves to lies about their lives. So I got hooked on a reality show about some family with like 13 kids. It's like mom and dad and 13 or 14 kids. They have no help in the house. They have no help. They're homeschooling these children.
And not once in like two seasons do you see the mom lose her shit, right? And at first I was like, oh my God, I can barely get my kids off to school, at the school I send them away to for like six or seven hours a day. And I only have two kids and I'm losing it. And then I had to step back and be like, oh, wait, this is not a reality show. It is labeled as reality, but it's, you know, it's actually TV, just TV. It's entertainment. And then we also see Gwen Paltrow. All of a sudden, we know how Gwen Paltrow parents. We know that. So this is a person with unlimited resources. Right. And I am comparing myself to what I think is her reality, but clearly not because I have no business knowing what Gwen Paltrow's reality is. But like, I am comparing myself to what I think is going on with her. And of course, I'm going to come up short. She has all this staff, right? I have two cats. They're not helpful. My husband is very helpful. That's true. I do have an extremely helpful husband.
But I think that's part of just one example of the generational differences and why there are many more, but that's one example of why I think it's actually in some ways harder to be a parent now than perhaps it was when you and I were growing up.
You write about the different inspirations that you have yourself. Meditation. I don't know if Buddhism is a personal one. Brene Brown, therapy. You wrote in Kveller about how the book is an exploration of Hillel's teachings. If you sort of break that all down, what really comes to the fore for you? What are some of these teachings that have really helped you personally and professionally in coming up with these concepts and moving yourself forward and writing this book?
So if we need the tagline about, like, my inspirations, I'm just a Jewish mother who overthinks everything, right? That's really what it boils down to. Overthinking is like, my favorite hobby. What I tend to think about when I'm looking for inspiration and I'm not a practicing Buddhist, but I think Buddhist psychology is some of the wisest stuff out there. It's really brilliant. But when I'm looking for inspiration. Here's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for ideas and practices that align with my values, some of which, many of which are drawn from Judaism. And I'm also looking for something that's practical, pragmatic, doable. Right? So I remember reading a parenting book years ago that was like, you should spend ten minutes a day alone with each of your kids. And at that point, I only have two daughters. It's not that many in the grand scheme of things, but they're only 20 months apart. And I think when I read that book, they were like, that's hard, right? And you have twins, what am I telling you for? But I think at that time, the girls were like, in preschool, and I'm thinking, what am I supposed to do?
Like, lock one kid in her room and tell her I'm playing with the other kids? Like that advice. And I was like, I don't understand, because the girls are so close. And even now, if I said to my daughters, who are twelve and 14, I'm going to take one of you out for ten minutes and we're going to do something fun together, and the other one has to stay here and what, stare at your phone? I don't know. Like, it's bonkers, right? So I'm always looking for advice. Look, I love evidence-based advice. I love when there's research. And I also realize that the most important research we can do is in our own home, on our own family, trying to see if things actually work for us, because research is one important step. Evidence from the outside world is really important, but also, like, being real about what works for us. But I need advice that is pragmatic, that is doable, that is workable. I can handle it. It doesn't make my life harder. And also that aligns with my values. So that's really where I come from. But yes, Brene Brown is my favorite pop culture social worker. She's extremely wise and she writes a lot about sort of shame and vulnerability, and I think her stuff is really brilliant.
Okay, take a step back for me into what made you decide to take your professional advice and knowledge and to write books. Self-help books and parenting books are great, and people sometimes need them. They need to sit down and be able to say, okay, who is going to be able to help me to see myself through this situation? And on the other hand, of course, sometimes you look at the pile of the shelf or the pile of self-help books, of parenting books, and you say, how am I going to take this advice and apply it into my life?
That is a brilliant question. And I share the same ambivalence about parenting books and parenting advice and self-help books and self-help advice as you do. On the one hand, I've read some parenting books that have been incredibly useful and helpful, and on the other hand, I've had more than my share of parenting advice that left me feeling overwhelmed and confused. And I probably would have been better served by going and sitting on my porch and reading a juicy romance novel and calming myself down so I could go back and be present with my kids. So I think it's a great question. Look, I have always wanted to write. I remember being like six years old and being in a diner with my grandfather and being like, Poppa, I'm definitely going to write a book because, you know, you're smart if you write a book. And he's probably thinking, yeah, there's a lot of morons who wrote books, but he said to me, you should definitely write books. So even before I understood why, it's always been a thing I've wanted to do, I picked college majors and I picked a master's program and I picked my doctor program because they all required a significant amount of writing because I love it.
The writing has always been my way of exploring my own experience, and trying to get a handle on what the hell I'm doing. And so I started writing books when I became a parent. Not necessarily because I felt like I had the answers to give other people, but because this was my journey to finding the answers for myself and it was a journey of doing this work for myself. So in both "How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids" and "You Are Not a Shitty Parent" it really draws from a lot of work I did personally around mindfulness work and self compassion because after a lot of searching and experimenting that was what I found actually helped me be a calmer, more present, more focused parent. Because I struggle hugely with anxiety. This is a big part of my life and the anxiety impacts a lot of different parts of my parenting. And so I've developed these practices over the years that I kind of have to stay on top of so that I'm not an anxious, irritable mess with my kids. So that's just one example. But these really came from my own love of writing and my desire to share what I've learned with other people, but also in the writing process, I learned a lot about myself.
And you've got the humor, of course, which does not hurt in a parenting self-help book. It's a very, very helpful part of it when you literally laugh out loud in this passage or another because you're saying, that's funny, and that is something that you, the reader, have experienced.
If I couldn't laugh about parenting, I don't have anything left. Like, humor is in life and everything. My number one coping mechanism. And I will say that you might experience as Jessica, but my 14-year-old occasionally has no sense of humor whatsoever. She'll get it back. But for me, humor is, if we can't laugh at this, what are we going to do? It's so absurd.
Does everyone stop you in the neighborhood, at the supermarket, at the pharmacy, and say, Carla, this is the situation I'm dealing with right now. What should I do? Do you get these questions all the time?
I don't, actually. Thankfully, I do every once in a while. My family and I, before COVID we used to do this thing, you might remember, it was called going out to restaurants where you actually go into a building and someone else cooks for you and does all the dishes, and you just pay the money.
Oh, my God. It's amazing. And every once in my family and I would be out, and somebody would, like, hear my name and be like, oh, you're that person. But no, people don't generally ask me for parenting advice, which is good, because my books aren't really about how to parent, right. They're about how to take care of yourself as a parent. So when people ask me something like, how do I get my kids to put their shoes on? I often say, like, Good luck, godspeed, and let me know when you figure it out, because that's not the kind of parenting advice I have. But I will say you know what? If you want to talk about parenting, let's grab a cup of coffee and sit down and laugh, cry into our mochas, because that's what I can do with you.
Something that I really liked were your maps of compassion. Yeah, it's something that made me think a lot about how I take care of myself as a parent, how I take care of my partner, my husband as a fellow parent, friends as parents. I was curious if that was something that came later on in the process of researching and writing this, or if that was out there for you early on.
You mean the crap maps?
Yes, crap maps and compassion.
I think that's something that came up for me in a conversation with someone once. What I was trying to explain was it was actually before I wrote this book, and I was thinking a lot about the ways in which we really treat ourselves so poorly when things go wrong, when we're feeling lost and confused in parenting and we don't know how to solve a problem or how to support our children. And we end up saying things like, god, I'm a shitty parent, I'm really screwing this up. And we sort of think everybody else knows how to handle this problem and I don't. And in that moment, I was seeing, what is the metaphor for this? I love thinking in metaphors. I think they're very useful, especially when you're talking about hard stuff. And I was imagining somebody who's out for a hike and they get lost and they're really confused. I have a whole little funny vignette about this in the book, and a park ranger comes up and hands them a map, and the map just says, you're lost and you suck. Right? Like, that's essentially what we're doing to ourselves and self compassion is when that whole script kind of gets flipped and we're having a hard moment.
We're lost, we're confused. And the park ranger shows up at the map, and the map says, you're lost. It's okay that you're lost. This is a hard trail. Lots of people get lost. You'll figure this out and P. S you're a great parent, right? And so that's sort of the thing about self compassion, is it doesn't really give us the answers. It doesn't say to us, this is how to deal with your child's struggles in math class. This is, you know, the right choice to make when they've been diagnosed with ADHD or whatever it is. Self compassion doesn't do that. But self compassion calms us down, helps us kind of clear out all this really judgmental crappy thinking that we have so that we can focus, we can get a little clarity on the situation. We can think creatively about what to do. Right. If you're out for a hike and you're so stressed out about how did you get lost in what a terrible person and parent and partner you are, you can't think clearly about what to do next. You're not going to come up with any creative solutions. But when you're calmer, when you're not beating yourself up, there's a lot more sort of head space and heart space to get a handle on what to do next.
IMAGE: Clinical social worker and writer Carla Naumburg (Courtesy)
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We speak this week with chef Nomi Zysblat, creator of Paletas, a Tel Aviv-based company that makes natural popsicles with fresh, seasonal fruit and ingredients, inspired by the Mexican version of this frozen treat that she discovered while living in New York.
We discuss the inspiration for Paletas, driven by seasonal fruits and flavors, and the timing of Zysblat's venture just a decade ago, just as Israel was deep diving into vegan and farm-to-table trends.
Zysblat talks about what it's like to run a small, growing business out a small Tel Aviv factory and her expansion into stores countrywide. She also discusses the learning curve with customers, figuring out what both kids and adults want from natural, artisanal popsicles.
We chew over favorite flavors and some of Zysblat's inspired creations, including the Sufganyeta for Chanukah, jelly doughnut popsicles, made from jelly doughnut-flavored milk and filled with homemade strawberry jam.
IMAGE: Nomi Zysblat, Israeli creator of Paletas, homemade natural popsicles
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In this week's Times Will Tell, we speak to Eytan Peled, an emerging Israeli singer-songwriter whose first song, "Where Are The Days?" went viral, placing him at the top of the Israeli charts.
That attention put the US-born Peled in the perfect situation to write songs -- primarily in English -- for breakout Israeli artists Mergui, Noa Kirel and others.
He also writes and sings in Arabic, a language he first learned in high school, then perfected during his army service and while living in a northern Druze village.
We listen to Peled's most recent release, "Sakatna," sung by Peled in English and Arabic, with an accompanying video made with star producer Stav Beger and set in a southern Bedouin village, complete with a hip-hop Bedouin dancer.
Peled wants to bridge together Jews and Arabs with his music, bringing that message of Israeli mainstream music.
IMAGE: Singer/songwriter Eytan Peled (Courtesy)
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This week's Times Will Tell introduces Lena Glikson, the Russian-born, Jewish music editor who was part of the 2022 Emmy-winning editing team for Netflix's hit series, "Stranger Things."
Lena speaks about her work in Season 4's scene featuring Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill," editing the music to picture and helping slingshot the 80s song into a viral hit.
She talks about her journey from Russia to the US a decade ago, the distance from her family and friends, and experiencing the onset of Putin's war against Ukraine from afar.
She also examines the development of her own Jewish identity as a teenager, discovering and exploring her Jewish roots and facing a turning tide of anti-Semitism in her native land as she left for the US.
Glikson talks about Israel, her hopes to work on Israeli films and productions, and her efforts to study Hebrew as part of her own personal journey.
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times of Israel: Lena, welcome. We're so happy to have you here with us.
Lena Glikson: Thank you, Jessica, for having me. It's such a pleasure to be a part of your podcast.
I think we're going to have to start with Stranger Things. Tell us when and how you joined the Stranger Things music crew and a little about development of music for this show.
So, season four of Stranger Things is my first season on the show. I've been working as a music editor in Hollywood for the past six years at this point. Receiving this email from David Claude, the music editor for all the seasons of the show, was kind of surprising. And I couldn't even believe it because I actually was a big fan of the show and I watched all these seasons and I was one of the people googling the release date for season four. I literally saw that and thought it was a junk email.
That's funny.
And, yeah, it was real. And apparently the Duffer brothers were looking for the second music editor because the episodes in season four are so long, many different processes were happening in parallel. So while one episode was dubbed, meaning the sound for the episode was mixed, the Duffer brothers were already cutting and working on the following episode. So poor David, the music editor, would have to be in two places simultaneously. And the Duffer Brothers needed someone who would be actually working with them in the cutting room every single day. And that person was me. And it was just an amazing experience. I was spending a lot of time with the Duffer Brothers and we were working very closely on the music, both the score and the source pieces. And of course, “Running Up That Hill” was one of the songs that we worked closely on and it was just amazing. And they gave me so much creative freedom and just things to experiment with. And they trust me to a point where they can just bring up a few pieces from the previous seasons and tell me, can you cut this one over here or is that one over there?
I kind of had to take pre-existing piece of music and then place it in a new scene and actually make it work in that context, which is always a very, very fun thing to do. And the entire crew is just so lovely and amazing. And the vibes you're getting from the show, it's so interesting because these positive, friendly vibes, they actually live in the cutting room, which is a very unique thing, I think, even from my experience.
Talk to us a little bit about how the music gets chosen. What is it like to work as part of the music editing team and to make the decisions about various songs?
Many of the songs are already scripted. At some point it becomes about licensing. How much money do we have to spend on the music and where can we save a bit if we can pick certain alternatives for some of the songs? But when it comes to big songs, I think most of them are kind of predetermined and it's a combination of director's work and showrunner's work. And we also have our amazing music supervisor, Nora Felder, who helps us providing alternatives for certain songs. And also she does all the licensing for the show. And in terms of picking and choosing songs, basically if we need some options, then Nora would come up with a number of different songs and I would be the person cutting them into the scene. Basically, and showing them to the Duffer Brothers because obviously all the songs are different tempo, different length. And my job, just as a music editor in general, is to make a particular piece of music work syncwise and dramatically within a certain scene and make it all very musical so that it develops beautifully and works with a picture. And then sometimes we're just narrowing down the choice to two or three different pieces and then go from there.
I’d like to dig in a little bit to Running Up That Hill from Kate Bush. We're going to listen for a moment to a snapshot of the scene in season four in which Max, played by Sadie Sink, is able to overcome the powerful curse, spoiler alert for those who have not gotten to season four yet. And she's able to overcome the curse by hearing her favorite song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV0RAcuG2Ao
It becomes such an indelible moment in the season.
I know that that was supposed to be a very, very big moment. And when I saw the song for the very first time, it was instructed and told that, okay, so this is the scene, this is our feature song. Please be super careful about cutting it. Make sure that it all works.
And the way it works, really, in the movie world, is that the songs and the music is being cut to picture, and very rarely it works vice versa. So the song always has to be adjusted in one way or the other. And to be honest, there are so many different stories about how the song was picked for the series.
One of them is that it was scripted. The other one is that the director of that particular episode, Sean Levy, brought it in.
But the way it was originally cut, it was cut by Dean Zimmerman, our picture editor. And it was just a very kind of rough shape of the song. And my job was basically just making it work within the scene and making it develop in a certain way. And we actually even had to adjust the picture a little bit to kind of make the song shine, which happens very, very rarely. It just tells you about how important this song was for the episode and for the season.
And for me personally, the other interesting experience was cutting the same song in episode nine during this big epic montage where it's not just the main version of the song, but it's the remix by the artist Totem. And that one was fun because originally in that scene, we were supposed to have the score and then the Duffer brothers just brought it in and said, oh, we have this cool version of the Kate Bush song and it's a remix and let's try cutting it in. And basically I had all the separate instruments and elements for the remix. So just assembling such an epic version of that song for that scene was amazing. And when the Duffer brothers saw it, they really loved it and it was just such a happy moment for me when they actually fell in love with something that I did and I was the first person who kind of tried doing it. So it was very, very cool. And that sequence actually also lives on YouTube, I believe, as a separate video, because, again, it's a very rare thing, I think, when a song and the sequence, the video sequence, they live together and you can actually watch them separately from the episode, which kind of shows that people also like that one and were interested and it was cool reading the comments on YouTube.
Let’s turn to you now. You trained in piano and voice and did a lot of classical music training, and then made your way to sound editing. Was that always your goal?
Well, as a child, my dream was actually to become a professional singer. And I think I started playing piano mostly because I wanted to be a singer and there was no official way of studying voice back in Russia. And I was always doing the two things in parallel and also because there was nowhere to study jazz vocals or pop vocals when it came to choosing like a career path when I was still living back in Russia. It's surprising and it's a bit weird, but out of all the options that I had, I picked classical music theory. And I think partially it's because my parents are programmers. And there was something about that, just like the specific way my brain works and kind of the logical component to the artistic component. And just that particular major appealed to me simply because it was a combination of both. But my goal was still to become a singer. So that's how I discovered Berklee College of Music in Boston.
How many years ago did you come from Russia to the US?
Ten years ago.
Ten years ago? So not that long.
Yeah, but that's still the third of my life.
Okay, so most of your education was in Russia, and where in Russia did you live?
Voronezh. It's a city really, really close to Ukraine. It's pretty much on the border with Ukraine. I was also considering a Rimon School of Music in Israel and kind of choosing between the two in a way, but also kind of thinking that maybe after a couple of years at Rimon, I would probably be able to go to Berklee. But the thing was that I didn't speak Hebrew, and I thought that that was kind of a bigger issue. I spoke English, so that was one of the main reasons why I actually went to Berklee, just to be able to absorb as much knowledge as I could.
Well, what I realized at Berklee was that my dream of becoming a singer was a lovely dream, but I just had way too much classical background to kind of forget about that and only concentrate on performance. And because Berklee has to offer a number of very unique majors, and one of those was film scoring, I felt like that would be an amazing way of combining my more technical and logical side with a very, very creative, orchestral writing and just kind of using all my knowledge, basically. And that's why I came to Los Angeles, because with such a degree, this is kind of the number one place.
And because music editing was one of the classes that we had to take as film scoring students, I considered it as one of the options for myself. And the first internship that I found was with the music editor, Nick South. And I already had kind of all the knowledge about creating a score for movies and how it all works and who is involved and had the basic technical skills. But I needed those specific skills for music editing. And my mentor, Nick, taught me pretty much everything he knew and he was just amazing in terms of explaining not only the technicalities, but also the political side of the job because that's another very, very important side of it.
What is the political side?
A music editor is a person who lives between all the parties involved in creating the music. And we act as some sort of a bridge between the director and the composer and the studio. Our job is to save the composer from being fired or save the movie from all the music being thrown away. And it has a lot to do with just understanding people, feeling the room, making sure you are protecting everyone that needs to be protected, making sure that we stay on schedule, communicating with a movie studio, communicating with the director. And sometimes the composer, let's say, sends me a piece of score. And I know that the director is in a really, really bad mood and I know that I can show that piece of score to the director at the moment. So I need to figure out a way to find the best time to do that. And it's a lot of figuring out what you can say, what you cannot say, how to save this person, how to protect that person, and problem-solving, troubleshooting and just resolving conflicts.
I imagine there is a sense of satisfaction from what you do now, even though it is a long road from where you began. Is there?
For sure. Of course. I kind of miss the performance element a bit because I just don't have the time to do that anymore. But I feel like there are no skills that are completely abandoned and unused because in one way or the other, even my singing skills, because I often work in musicals and, for instance, now I work on a remake of The Color Purple and there are many, many songs in that movie. So just having that background, knowing about vocal position, knowing about just how to use your voice helps me a lot as a music editor when I'm working on musicals, and of course, all my classical background helps me with the editing bit of it. And yes, it's been a very interesting journey, and I probably could never imagine working in Hollywood and doing what I do when I was little and when I was dreaming of being on stage and performing, but it's still very exciting.
There's been a lot of upheaval in the last months, with the war in Ukraine. Where has that put you in terms of your own personal life and what you're thinking about both in terms of career and home?
For me, what happened on February 24 when Russia attacked Ukraine was a personal tragedy in a way. I do not have family in Ukraine, but just the fact that the city where I was born is so close to the border with Ukraine and you know, especially in my town, it's actually very hard to say, oh, this person is 100% Russian and that person is 27% Ukrainian. It's all very, very mixed. And I have many friends from Ukraine, and I thought, okay, so now the Russians are going to actually see what happened and what our government is like. But that did not happen. And that made me feel devastated, to be honest. Like the whole world started crashing and burning. And when I was living in Russia. I was kind of suffering a bit with my identity because I was born with my Dad's Jewish last name, which is Glikson. But when I turned three years old, my mom changed her last name and my last name to her maiden name, which sounds way more Slavic. And that's actually still the last name that I have in my passport. Mostly because swastikas were all over the city and antisemitism was kind of flourishing.
So I was growing up with this idea that I was Jewish, but I kind of had to hide that from everyone, living in a pretty conservative society where the Russian Orthodox Church is still kind of a big thing, and all the kids in my class were wearing crosses, and kids would ask me, so have you ever been baptized? And I've never been baptized. And it just felt very uncomfortable. And I had this feeling that, okay, I need to hide my identity. And when I became a teenager, that was already in the late 2000s, the climate in the society started changing a bit, and the Jewish community in my hometown started having different activities and celebrating high holidays. So it started to feel like it's not as dangerous as it used to be to be Jewish and to be kind of open about it, but it was still very difficult because we had so many decades of that part of who we are kind of being hidden. And the generation of my grandparents was the first generation who started experiencing that and started hiding their Jewish identity because they couldn't really celebrate any high holidays.
That's why the generation of my parents grew up completely Soviet as opposed to having their ethnicities kind of cherished and respected. And when I started feeling more Jewish, that's when I started discovering more things about my Jewish heritage and learning more about the Holocaust, because that's an important part of my family history. My grandfather, he left Poland in 1939, and his family was exterminated in one of the first extermination camps in Poland. So for me, that was this generational trauma that was living very, very deep inside. And for many years, I was reading a lot about it, was reading a lot about the Holocaust, trying to understand that.
Circling back to February 24, just from my personal experience, knowing so much about the war, knowing so much about what happened with the Jews and even living in Russia. It's not just me. I have my personal story with the Jewish heritage in the background. But going through the Second World War for all the Russian families was also devastating. And everyone has ancestors who died in the Second World War and served in the army.
And it's this huge tragedy, and people all of a sudden were manipulating into saying that, okay, we have such a great past, and we won over the Nazis in 1945, and now we're going to do the same thing again. And for me, the two dots, they don't connect. The Nazis they were fighting against in 1941 to 1945 are not the same Nazis they're fighting against today. And the fact that it was so easy for the society to believe this huge, huge, huge lie just made me feel like I don't feel connected to the place where I was born anymore.
Your parents are there?
Yes. My dad passed away a couple of years ago, but my mom still lives there. And for me, it's very difficult because, you know, even during the pandemic, it was very, very hard for me to travel just because I'm not a US citizen. I'm here on a work visa. And Russia has a horrible relationship with the United States, so getting a visa in Russia is impossible. All the other countries in the world would only issue visas to their own citizens. And when my dad passed away, I wasn't even able to go back home for his funeral. And just I always feel stuck between all these different factors. And again, like this war in Ukraine, there are so many things that I don't support that have something to do with the politics, of course, and with the government and I can't be associating myself with that place anymore. And because I have so many ties to my Jewish heritage and I've always been thinking about becoming a part of Israel because again, it's a very important part of who I am and my identity. And only when I came to the United States, I felt like, okay, I can finally be more open about being Jewish.
When I was at Berklee, most of my recitals were actually me singing Jewish music and Ashkenazi music. Wow. And I would never be able to do that in Russia. And for me, this was an incredible opportunity, just exploring who I am, exploring the music, and I feel very, very connected with that music.
You've had a lot of different journeys, this professional journey and a very personal, familial and individual journey. Where does that put you personally and professionally?
Right now, I'm kind of at this place with my career where everything keeps changing and I keep seeing different opportunities and everything keeps developing so, so fast. Of course, long term, I would love to work on an Israeli movie as well. I think language is a very big thing, and I am learning Hebrew right now, even though I'm not in Israel. But I do feel like it's a very important thing and it's something that, again, brings me back to my roots and connects me to my ancestors, even though my grandparents, they spoke Yiddish. But still I feel like it's just an important part of who I am. And as soon as my Hebrew basically turns into something that I can use professionally, then it would be much, much easier and more convenient for me and the filmmakers to work on, let's say, Israeli movie. And I know that there are many Israelis working in Hollywood, and I would love to get to know them and potentially collaborate on a project that would actually be amazing. Right now, the world is just changing so fast, and every day something new happens and I'm trying to kind of protect myself, protect my family where I can, and just basically watching the world change every single second.
So I hope that very, very soon we'll come to a point where things will stabilize and hopefully the war in Ukraine will stop as soon as possible. And I will be able to kind of take a breather and just absorb everything that's going on and plan accordingly. Right now, everything feels like chaos.
Yes. It's hard to avoid that feeling these days. Let's turn back to the beginning of the conversation a little bit and tell us a little bit about your musical dreams.
Finding that balance between work that's very, very crazy and very intense and art. Before the war in Ukraine, I also used to write music for a local theater in my hometown, which was an amazing way of just self-expression and artistry. And I do miss that. I don't think it's possible to do the same thing, keep doing it. And especially, again, considering everything else that's going on in the world at the moment, it's just unsafe for both parties, me and the theater I used to work with, to collaborate. But doing something like that and finding the time for it is definitely an amazing thing. And I was also recording songs for those theater productions. And this is kind of the dream job in a way, where you don't have to do it for the money. You can just do it for the sake of artistic pleasure, basically. And, you know, in terms of the movies, of course I can work even on bigger shows. And yes, I definitely have certain topics.
Like, for instance, Schindler's List is one of my favorite movies and working with, let's say, Steven Spielberg or working on a movie about Holocaust. Because as I already mentioned, it's a very, very, very important part of my identity. And it's a very unique type of music and type of score that a movie like that requires. And maybe not necessarily even editing the music for a movie like that, maybe writing music for a movie like that, that would definitely be a big dream for me.
Lena Glikson, we hope that you get to fulfill these dreams. And final question, next season of Stranger Things, are you working on it yet?
Have my fingers crossed!
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IMAGE: Lena Glikson, music editor for "Stranger Things" (Courtesy)
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This week's Times Will Tell brings us Nigerian-American filmmaker Ose Oyamendan (pronounced OH-SE), who spent the better part of a decade filming his feature documentary, "Other Voices," in Israel's Sderot and in Gaza, to capture a story that is not often told.
The film brings viewers to the unexpected and unusual peace efforts and unwavering friendship between residents of Sderot, Israel and Gaza as the two bordering nations endure ongoing war, animosity and conflict.
"People on different sides of a story find a way not to talk to each other," said Oyamendan, who refused to talk politics or edited it out of the film. "When you take the politics out of it, it's a very strong human story."
Oyamendan talks about what initially brought him to the region and what it has been like to spend ten years visiting and spending time in the area, getting to know his protagonists, and how they cope with living in the region.
Oyamendan is in Israel this week to premiere the film at the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Cinematheques. "Other Voices" is also being shown on Amazon Prime.
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times Will Tell: I wanted to understand what brought you to this region from Nigeria, and what introduced you to the story and the protagonist in it? Tell us a little bit about that, please.
Ose Oyamendan: Where I grew up, there were Jewish kids. There were Lebanese kids, Lebanese Arab kids, and we played together, played soccer together, and when we went to high school, they stopped talking to each other, and I was struck by it. I started life as a journalist and I think I subconsciously carried that story with me. And I wrote a short story about two kids who became friends playing football in Jerusalem.
Now, I'd never been to Israel at that time and I don't even think I thought I would come to Israel, wasn't on my radar at all. And so in 2010 I went to Haiti during the earthquake and I ran into this Israeli NGO there. Now, I didn't know there was really NGOs there and they told me the politics of it, why they don't announce.
Why they don't make it clear that they're Israeli. I'm just explaining that for listeners.
As they told me, sometimes if they announced themselves as Israeli NGOs, maybe some people will pull out. So I was staying in this hotel that was the best hotel in Haiti at that time, because we had power for 6 hours a night and I think we had power from six to eleven, So that was where ABC network guys were, CNN network was, so everybody tried to get their work done then. They came to me and asked if they could use my computer because they've not been able to send messages home. And I didn't think I was very approachable, so I thought it was very interesting it's me that they had the chutzpah.
So I said, of course. And while they were looking at it, it was like supposed to be a quick thing, but they were there for like maybe an hour or so. So we started talking and I said I wrote this story, this short story. I've never been to Jerusalem. Can you help me with the geographical accuracy? So they read it, they said oh, it's a great story, what do you want to do with it? I said, well, I want to publish it, I want to try to make a film or a TV series one day about something like this, something I'm passionate about. They said there is another story that is true. Have I heard of Gaza? And I said yes. Have you ever heard of Sderot? And I said no. So they are next to each other and that's where the war is fought for the most part. And there are people on both sides that want a return to the old times when they had peace there.
And they were very friendly with each other, and they had a group called Other Voices. And this man, Eitan, who was one of the three people there, was one of them.
So I said, okay. I said, I love this story. I would like to follow it. I would like to see. I said, can I come? So we communicated by email and then I came, and I was blown away how close they were to each other. And they were talking on the phone to some people there. And I said they genuinely cared about people on the other side. And then I met Natan, who had lost his daughter in this conflict, and he said, I don’t want the other person's daughter to suffer what I've gone through. And so I met a whole swath of people from both sides, and I decided I would love to tell this story. And that's how it started.
So that was ten years ago?
Yeah, it's very tough to get financing for something like this. I did what a poor filmmaker would do. I have these other jobs that I do, so when I have enough money, I put enough money together to get the crew to come and film, because I wanted to have my very independent, my own observation. And I also decided that I want to know how true these people are.
The activists, the protagonists.
Because it's very easy to want peace until you lose something. So I wanted to see how committed they were, and I also wanted to go to Gaza. So those days make it longer.
I was also struck by how neutral the film was. It felt to me and this is not surprising, really, that it's a relatively small group of activists on both sides.
When you compare to the population or even the region where they are, it's small. But I also think one of the reasons why it was fascinating to me is I also felt that a lot of people get lost in the politics of it. And there's this thing that I found, not just here all over the world, like people on different sides of the story find a way not to talk to each other, like they just stand there. And my whole thing for me was when you take the politics out of it, it's a very strong human story, like a very strong, tragic human story. And that's why I said we will not talk politics. Even the people in Gaza, when they will talk about Hamas, I was saying we're going to edit those things out. Because I just felt that the moment you bring politics into it, it just becomes like this fire you can't contain. And of course, there's politics there, but my own passion was to show to people how the kind of life people live there and how people cope with that life. And for me, why it shouldn't be like when you have a child, for instance, and you're not sure if you say goodbye to your child in the morning, you see them in the afternoon.
And when I come into Israel at the airport and they said, Where are you going? I said, I'm going to Sderot. They say, Are you crazy? I just feel like we had to get the story of these people trying in their own little to way, live a normal life in a place like this right now.
Was Sderot your base for filming?
Yeah, because this group are mostly in Sderot. I mean, they spread out around the region, around the kibbutz there, but Sderot was their base and I didn't want to be one of those people with just helicopter in and I want to feel it. I felt I wanted to feel the heat of the other thing and be able to talk about it not with authority, but with some form of knowledge.
You must have been caught in rocket attacks as well. Can you talk about that? About staying on both sides of the fence, so to speak?
Yeah, I think it was very interesting because we tried for, like, a couple of years to get in [to Gaza] and I could not. I always felt like I don't have a film without going into Gaza. There's many ways to go into Gaza. You have to get Israeli permits, and then you have to get the Palestinian permit. Now, I had an option. I could come in through Egypt, which I thought was easier, but that is not the world of the story for me. I wanted to go because you could actually walk into Gaza. The gate was open, so I wanted to go. So when I went, I had no idea that I needed a permit to go into Gaza. I thought, I just need Israeli pass to go into Gaza. So when I got there, they refused me entry.
And they were justifiably angry that I didn't think this was like an anchor, like a country on its own. And I just tried to explain. I didn't know. But I sat there because I was convinced this was my chance to do this. So I tried to find a connection. They were talking about football, and I realized that a lot of them were Real Madrid fans. I followed Barcelona.
So we're talking about soccer. So I think we became human. We just became normal people. We could be in Tel Aviv, we could be in Glasgow, anywhere. And then after a while, this man came. I still remember. I can see his face. He came. And the strange thing is, they don't speak good English. I don't speak any Arabic, but we're able to talk soccer. And then this man came. And I said, Are you Real Madrid, too? He said yeah. And then he called me to go and see. So I found that he's the head of the whole place, the whole thing. And I think he just thought I was either crazy or something.
I was there for five or six days the first time, so I had to see all my subjects and it’s the kind of things I've never seen. And I tell people it's tough to describe Gaza and I don't want to get into the politics of it, but the human aspect of it. They were free to talk politics or talk about their relationship with Israelis, even people that were subjects of the film. They were very bold people.
They were bold to say, there has to be another way. And there are people that will say to me, you put my name in, like, this is what I'm saying. But I think because I come into this as a journalist, my life started as a journalist. And you have to protect your subjects sometimes. And there's so much stuff we have on the edit room floor that are just amazing, amazing revelations and stories, but also it may not be good for them or their families. So we have to trade that a little bit gently to protect them, in a sense.
Did you come up against anyone on either side who said, I don't agree with what you're doing?
I came against a lot of opposition, but I try not to look at opposition as opposition. I look at it as people expressing their opinion. And one of the things that we do take for granted in the free parts of the world is the fact that we are able to have an opinion. And it's a great thing. A lot of people die so we can have opinion, that we can speak, that we can vote and do all sorts of things. So if you come to me and say, I don't agree with this, and I say, yes, it's fine not to agree with it, but do listen, watch the film, listen to the other side. And I've met people that are so I hate to use the term left or right that are very right. And they watch the film, and you'll see the scales just for life, because they've never understood it like this. They've never seen that world like this, because that world is a very political world that people find themselves in. Like I told you, a lot of people know Sderot, a lot of people know Gaza, but all they know about our world is the few inches of print they read in the newspaper or like, they want to make, and that's it.
I want them to be able to show the human side of it, to be able to show people mentally. I wanted to be able to take people into that geographical place, just put yourself there and see the way it is and then decide what to decide.
How did the protagonists did they feel about it at first?
I would say a lot of the people we talked to, they wanted to tell their story. And because we did it for a long time, so we're able to just take the time, get all these people, and then decide what is the story? I think there were a few people that were a little bit shy about it in Gaza. There were people that I would have loved to talk to, I did talk to, and I felt it may not be too safe, some of the things they said. So we just lose those storylines, right?
What happens next with this now? Is this the end of the story for you, or did working on it bring up other storylines here in this region that you think about?
I'm actually going back to what I came to do originally, like developing a TV series about two kids that brought it to Jerusalem. I just like this. There's something about Jerusalem that I find. It's such a rich place. It's so rich, it's so historical, and everything is there. So I'm working on this TV series I'm developing this TV series about two kids who brought Jerusalem together for one day with soccer. I like the inner sense of kids. I like the global nature of soccer. And I think it's another avenue to say, just take a look at what can happen.
IMAGE: Nigerian-American filmmaker Ose Oyamendan (Courtesy)
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Israel Philharmonic conductor Lahav Shani speaks with Jessica Steinberg for this week's Times Will Tell episode, ahead of the orchestra's nine-city tour in the US, beginning in November.
The tour is the IPO's first since the start of the pandemic, and Shani's first as its artistic director.
Shani, 33, is a world renowned pianist, double bass player and conductor, known for his skills as a musician and conductor as well as for the young age at which he's accomplished so much.
The rising star also became the chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2018 and the principal guest conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
Shani made his first appearance as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic in 2007. Six years later, he conducted the debut concert of the Philharmonic’s 2013 season. (That same year, he won the coveted top prize at Germany’s Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition.)
He follows in the giant footsteps of the legendary Zubin Mehta, who led the IPO for nearly 50 years.
Shani speaks about the challenges of following Mehta, about conducting his friends and colleagues, and the wonders of seeking new sounds and music.
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times of Israel: Tell us a little bit about this nine-city tour in the US, which is your first with the IPO since you just took over as musical director very recently.
Lahav Shani: Well, this is going to be the orchestra's very first tour since the pandemic, and that's a very serious thing for the Israel Philharmonic, because it's an orchestra that used to tour almost all the time relative to other orchestras. I toured with the orchestra before, but not as a conductor, as a pianist, or as a double bass player. On our tour to the Far East in 2010 is when I really got to know the orchestra in Japan, in South Korea, etc. That was also the very first time that I got the opportunity to conduct the orchestra.
Wait, how old were you in 2010?
I must have been 21. I went there as a double bass player and as a pianist soloist, and Zubin Mehta was still the music director, he just offered me to conduct the orchestra I had never heard. I had just started to study in Berlin the year before, and the musicians really wanted to see if I could really conduct. And so that was really the real beginning of my relationship with the orchestra as a conductor. So now, finally, to go on a real tour and be the music director, and in the US, in fantastic halls, that's a really special moment.
You are the official conductor of the Israel Philharmonic. You're also the chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. How does that actually work in real-time?
Well, conductors usually hardly see their own home, unfortunately, that's one of the biggest sacrifices one has to make in this profession. There are 52 weeks in a year, about nine of them I do in Israel, about eight or nine in Rotterdam, and a couple of weeks more with each orchestra on tour.
And then the rest of the time, there's a little bit of piano playing.
You still have your solo career, you still perform as a pianist, right?
I play and conduct. I play chamber music with musicians from my orchestras and with soloists, at festivals, And I also like to enjoy my free time every once in a while. But then I go to Israel, now, for example, to rehearse with the orchestra for concerts in Israel. And then after we've done all the concerts, then we would have a few days to just refresh the repertoire that we're going to take on tour. Because we have played this repertoire before, so it's not like starting from scratch for us.
So there's a lot of discussion, of course, about your youth, your age, you're in your early thirties if I'm not mistaken.
Yes.
You’re the first IPO musical director to be born in Israel, and dealing with this challenge of aging audiences. What does it mean in terms of the Philharmonic repertoire?
Everything has to be looked at in the right context. First of all, we're just stepping out of these two years of pandemic everywhere in the world, during which classical music suffered. Taking that into account, the Israel Philharmonic is really blessed with one of the best audiences in the world, and we're already selling out concerts again in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa. This is really a blessing because it's not the same situation everywhere in the world. And our public is really loyal, there are great music lovers in Israel. The orchestra sometimes repeats the same program five, six, even seven times so that our entire Israeli public can hear the concert.
So you're repeating it so that everyone can make it to the same repertoire.
Exactly. So about three times in Tel Aviv, two times in Haifa, one time in Jerusalem. That's just to play for all of our subscribers. The problem of the age of the audience has been an ongoing thing for decades. Classical music was always something that the younger people didn’t find interesting. The important thing for me is that anyone who has any curiosity for music shouldn't be afraid to come and try it out and not to think that if they don't know enough, then they cannot enjoy it. The idea is that you first need the curiosity, and the music will just take you over if you're really interested, if you allow it, and if you become an active listener.
You took over for Zubin Mehta, and I can't imagine what that's like, to follow in those footsteps.
First of all, it's a big honor, no question. Zubin Mehta is, I would say, one of my mentors, one of the musicians that really inspired me to become a conductor in the first place. I've played with him many times in the orchestra, as a double bass player. I played with him as a soloist pianist. I went on tours with him, with the orchestra. So there's a real feeling of being almost colleagues, even when I was much younger. My relationship with the orchestra has been shaped for many years. So it's not like I just came out of nowhere. They kept inviting me back every year as a [guest] conductor, and as a pianist.
They liked you?
Yeah, they liked me. I liked them. Many of the young musicians in the orchestra are people my age, these are people that I know since childhood. When they named me musical director, it was not the beginning of a relationship, but rather a continuation. It actually feels very natural and very much the right thing to do, and very comfortable. We're very direct with each other, as Israelis are in general.
I often get the question, how do you deal with people older than you? Or how do you deal with people who are your friends, and you are supposed to lead them and tell them what to do. This relationship is so clear and direct and natural that I feel very comfortable with all of the musicians, and I feel that they're happy to go together with me and explore everything.
What about your multifaceted career? You’re a conductor, a solo pianist, a double bass player. What is that like to be both a performer, a musician, and the one who is guiding the whole show?
Well, at the end, it's the same thing. Making music is making music. However, the big difference between conducting and playing an instrument yourself is that when you conduct, you're always dependent on other people. You have your musical ideas, but you can move your hands as fast as you want or as loud as you can. It doesn't make any sound. It's other people that have to like what you do. They have to agree with you. You have to convince them, and then they might play as you think they should. And when you play the piano, it's just you and the keyboard, and that's it. And if you're in good shape and if you practice, there's a good chance that you might be able to make the sound that you imagine. So also, it's very healthy, in a way, as a conductor, to keep this physical contact with the sound, not to forget what it means for the musicians to make those sounds. It's not just that they do what you want and they do what you tell them. They are the ones who express themselves, and they're the ones who make the sound and try their best.
So this is really a collaboration in the end. But if you really play an instrument often, then you don't lose this feeling and you don't lose the feeling of what it means to make sound for other people.
I like that explanation. And then, given the fact that you have two different orchestras that you work so closely, what is that like in terms of what you produce? Is there ever any overlap?
Well, any piece that I take for any orchestra, not just for my orchestra, but also when I'm a guest conductor, it is going to be different than other orchestras. And the rehearsal process, a lot of it is improvisation. You have an ideal way, let's say, in your mind, and the orchestra does something that may be slightly different than your idea, even though they see your body language and you're clear [about your intent], they have their tendencies or their habits, or they want to do something else. And then as a leader, you need to ask yourself the question often, should I just take what I have right now? Is it good enough? Is it better than what I thought? Or is it very far away?
You try to stay as objective as you can, also as a conductor, because if you tell the musician in the orchestra, can you play it like that and not another way, there is a very good chance they will ask, why is your way better than mine? And it's a very fair question. So you must be able to convince the musicians why they should play one way or another. Or if you like what they do, also just say, actually I like that better than my idea.
Think about film directors, for example. Most likely, they have a very clear vision, a very clear image of the entire film in their mind. But then they're facing these world-class actors. And the actors, sometimes they have their way to say the lines. So there must be very good communication between the director and the actor so that the actor is able to say things as he understands or as she understands, with their subtext.
And if the director feels this could work well, then they should let it happen. And if not, they need to be able to guide them in another way. It's exactly the same kind of communication.
I like that metaphor. Okay, last question. You obviously have many new beginnings happening in the next month and year, but what are one or two things that you're looking to bring to your plate this year?
Well, repertoire is something that we determine one, two, sometimes three years before we actually play it. Sometimes it's a bit annoying because if there is something you really, really want to perform but maybe in three years, you won't like it anymore. Who knows?
I want to continue and deepen the relationship with my orchestras. It's true that this relationship goes years back, but as music director, this is just going to be my second official season because my first season had to be delayed during the pandemic. So it's really about deepening these relationships and keep exploring different territories of the repertoire together and keep discovering our sound.
The combination of a conductor and an orchestra needs to bring something unique, something that is different, and this is something that is to be discovered. It's not that I can imagine to the last note in my mind and the orchestra has to do exactly what I imagine. This is a process that we need to really understand each other better so that we're completely free to express the music and focus on the music itself and stay in the flow and in communicating it with the public.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Lahav Shani, artistic director and chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, which will head to the US in November 2022 for its first US tour post-pandemic (Courtesy IPO)
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We have a musical Times Will Tell this week with Lenka Lichtenberg, who talks about and shares songs from her new album “Thieves of Dreams: Songs of Theresienstadt's Secret Poetess.”
Lichtenberg is a classically trained musician who grew up in the Czech Republic. Before eventually settling in Canada, she moved around Europe and dipped her toes in a variety of musical genres.
Her eclectic musical background can be heard in her new project, which is based on poems that her grandmother Anna Hana Friesova wrote during the Holocaust -- before, during and after her years spent in Theresienstadt.
A few years ago, Lichtenberg came across her grandmother’s two notebooks of poems in Prague while cleaning out her recently deceased mother’s apartment. Sixteen of the poems were turned into songs, eight of which Lichtenberg composed and eight others that were commissioned from Czech and Canadian composers. The arrangements feature 19 recording artists from Canada, the Czech Republic and Germany. The album was recorded and produced by Lichtenberg at her Melody Meadows barn studio in eastern Ontario.
In this slightly longer episode this week, we learn about Lichtenberg and her family and hear excerpts from her remarkable album “Thieves of Dreams.”
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Musician Lenka Lichtenberg (Bo Huang)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We have a musical Times Will Tell this week with Lenka Lichtenberg, who talks about and shares songs from her new album “Thieves of Dreams: Songs of Theresienstadt's Secret Poetess.”
Lichtenberg is a classically trained musician who grew up in the Czech Republic. Before eventually settling in Canada, she moved around Europe and dipped her toes in a variety of musical genres.
Her eclectic musical background can be heard in her new project, which is based on poems that her grandmother Anna Hana Friesova wrote during the Holocaust -- before, during and after her years spent in Theresienstadt.
A few years ago, Lichtenberg came across her grandmother’s two notebooks of poems in Prague while cleaning out her recently deceased mother’s apartment. Sixteen of the poems were turned into songs, eight of which Lichtenberg composed and eight others that were commissioned from Czech and Canadian composers. The arrangements feature 19 recording artists from Canada, the Czech Republic and Germany. The album was recorded and produced by Lichtenberg at her Melody Meadows barn studio in eastern Ontario.
In this slightly longer episode this week, we learn about Lichtenberg and her family and hear excerpts from her remarkable album “Thieves of Dreams.”
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Musician Lenka Lichtenberg (Bo Huang)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Adam Duritz has waited decades to play in Israel, a place that he loves, said the Counting Crows frontman in this Times Will Tell podcast ahead of his band's Wednesday night show in Ra'anana, outside Tel Aviv.
Duritz visited Israel several times in his teens, hiking through Sinai, working on a kibbutz and later learning Torah in Jerusalem, a "powerful place" for him, he says.
Yet Duritz hadn't returned to Israel since then, as he built his career and band, waiting for the right opportunity to make it back to Israel and perform here.
The lead singer of the California-founded band, known for hits such as "Mr. Jones," "Round Here," and "Accidentally In Love," credited the physical work he learned on the kibbutz as the foundation for the landscaping and construction jobs that he later did to support himself while building his musical career.
He also spoke about his own struggles with religion and faith, and how those issues showed up in his music.
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times of Israel: Welcome Adam Duritz to the Times Will Tell, we are very honored to have you with us, and we appreciate you squeezing us into what I know is a busy schedule ahead of your Wednesday night performance in Ra'anana.
Adam Duritz: I know I am. I'm very excited to play some place we've never played before.
The Times of Israel: It's hard to believe. There's been a lot of preview interviews with you mentioning that you came here and you worked on the kibbutz when you were 18 and you came back to Jerusalem and did a little studying in the holy city. But it has been quite a few decades since you've been in Israel, correct?
Adam Duritz: Four, I would think about. Four, yeah. It's been a really long time.
The Times of Israel: Are you planning on traveling around for the next couple of days? Are you going to lay low and hang out at the beach?
Adam Duritz: Well, I'd like to get a chance to travel around. I really want to go back to Jerusalem because that was someplace I really loved when I was a kid. But I don't really know. It depends on what kind of press and stuff they have us doing. That's the only thing that's going to take up the time. Except for our A gear, has all been in a locker in Liverpool for a year now. So we kind of have to go through that and make sure we have to do some pre-rehearsal with the band and the crew to make sure all the equipment gears.
The Times of Israel: It got sent over for a concert that got canceled. And now you're basically doing the tour that you meant to do a while back.
Adam Duritz: Because of Covid, I decided to leave it over there rather than bring it back on the risk that we would be able to reschedule the tour. I left it over there because especially nowadays, all the expenses for bands' prices haven't gone up at all, but the expenses are all doubled or tripled freight, airlines, flights, hotels, freight for your gear. All that is double or triple what it was. So I didn't want to waste the money by bringing it all back. There's a lot of things I'd like to do and hopefully I'll get to do some of them. But part of touring is realizing that the gig is everything.
The Times of Israel: How is this tour going? I know that you were touring the US and now you're in Europe and you hopped over to Israel, and you have a lot of tour dates all over Europe. What does it feel like to be touring again?
Adam Duritz: It's cool. I mean, this is the first gig of the European tour, so we haven't done that part yet. But the shows in America, we did a whole tour last summer and we've been playing gigs off and on this year. It's all been really cool. It's nice to be back playing.
The Times of Israel: You've mentioned in a few interviews that it's been 30 years since your first album and that you feel, I guess, a sense of privilege that you guys are still together and that you perform these huge shows, [with] fans that are really excited to see you.
Adam Duritz: Not so much that we're still together, but that people are still coming out to see us. You always worry about that because the shelf life of a band is very short, but especially after two years lay off, you really wonder whether things are going to pass you by. But we're still here.
The Times of Israel: What was it like getting back onto those stages, getting back together, working together, performing together?
Adam Duritz: Well, the same as it's always been. I mean, it's just performing. It's nice to play, you know, I think when you're in a band that was the longest I've ever gone without playing that period during Covid. In my entire adult life, I've never gone that long between gigs, so it was very strange.
The Times of Israel: That must be incredibly strange. There are certain songs that are so familiar, so popular, that make people happy. "Mr Jones," "Big Yellow Taxi," "Roundhere." What is it like when you play these songs that you know are beloved by your fans, but that you have to keep on churning out all the time? What is it like to play those songs over again, knowing that your crowd wants to hear them, but knowing that maybe there's other things that you want to focus on more, or maybe not. Maybe those are the songs you always want to bring to your audience.
Adam Duritz: If I want to play something else, I would just play it. There's nothing that has to get played every night. The only song that we play every night is "A Long December." And that's because for some reason, that's the only song I never ever get sick of. I don't think there's ever been a night where I didn't want to play that song. I don't know why that is, but I'm never tired of it. Everything else, if there's a night where I don't want to play it, I'm not going to play it. Because I think it would suck to play songs that you don't want to play.
The Times of Israel: Really? You would do that to the audience? You would do that to the fans? Not play "Mr. Jones," for instance.
Adam Duritz: Yeah, there's been lots of nights where we didn't play "Mr. Jones." I love that song. I love "Mr. Jones," but I want to keep loving "Mr. Jones." I don't want to hate the song. And I would think the quickest way to hating your own music is to play it on nights when you don't want to play it.
The Times of Israel: Interesting, given that you've had this long-standing connection to Israel that it took so long to get back here.
Adam Duritz: Bands want to go everywhere, but you can't go anywhere unless you have a promoter making you an offer that makes sense. The fact is, there's probably nowhere in the world we don't really want to go. But you just can't go until promoter gives you the right kind of offer. And I don't know that we've had those in the past. This offer was really good. The moment I heard it, I said, absolutely, let's do it. It's taking care of a lot of our European tour because some of the other gigs in Europe are smaller, not as well paying some of them. This is a great gig. I'd like to be able to come back here every few years because to go to a new country and find out that you have an audience where you can go right and play a 6,000-seat arena right off the bat, that's fantastic. I mean, not an arena, an amphitheater. So I don't know about the past, but I don't really remember offers from Israel. The only thing I say is, as soon as I heard this offer, I said, absolutely, let's do it. Okay. I love it here.
The Times of Israel: I know it's always a little bit of a pain to come to Israel because of the fact that you have to ship everything over here and then ship it back to Europe. You're not playing in the countries that surround Israel, you're not going to Egypt, you're not going to Jordan, not going to Syria or Lebanon. You didn't get hit with any boycotts or sanctions, you didn't get hit with any criticism of coming to play in Israel.
Adam Duritz: No. The only place I really heard about it were in the interviews. But, I mean, I will say that I've been pretty isolated this year because I haven't been out and about very much. Also, we're not exactly the center of the culture right now, so maybe it would be different in that situation, I don't know. But also, like, I'm a Jew. I understand the long tradition of, like, everything is the Jew's fault. I don't really buy it.
The Times of Israel: So, talk about that a little bit. Now that you brought it up, what is it like to come back here and to bring the Counting Crows, to bring your people, to bring your band, to bring your bandmates to this place that you connected with a long time ago? What does that feel like?
Adam Duritz: It feels pretty cool. It's a really long time ago for me, but there's some pretty powerful memories. I just think for the band, in a lot of ways, you expect your career to be shrinking. You expect to play less and less places every year, so a year where you can come and play, more places to go, someplace new for the first time. I don't think any of the guys in our band, except for me, have been here before, which is pretty rare. This tour, we actually have three cities we've never played, Helsinki and Warsaw and Tel Aviv. And that's kind of great. It's the opposite direction you expect things to go in the later years of your career. So that always makes me really happy, especially if, considering how big the crowd could be here for us, it's someplace we could come back to.
The Times of Israel: Can you share a memory?
Adam Duritz: I mean, I was a kid, I went through the Sinai. It was still part of Israel back then. I spent a lot of time in Jerusalem. It was very powerful for me, that city, especially the Old City. I worked on a kibbutz for a little while, working in the apple orchard. I dug crap out of a grain silo. I really enjoyed the work. And it's funny because it kind of prepared me in some ways, because that kind of physical work is what I ended up doing to support myself all the years when I was in the band, at first and in different bands, I was a landscaper and I did construction work. And I think one of the reasons I knew that I was okay doing that kind of work is that I had done it. I had done it over here. I'd gotten up really early in the morning and done hard work all day, and that's kind of how I ended up supporting myself in the early days before the band was successful. But the first place I really did a lot of that was on the kibbutz here.
Adam Duritz: I went back again a couple of years later when I was 18 and pretty much just spent time in Jerusalem in that time. A lot of it was also that I was a kid and I liked getting wasted and there was no drinking age over here, and I thoroughly appreciated that at the time.
The Times of Israel: I don't know if this is too much of a stretch, but are there any of those early moments and early memories that made their way into your music at any point? Or is there any connection there between what you experienced and what you later started creating?
Adam Duritz: Well, I think there's a lot of places where my struggle with religion and faith shows up in my music, and that certainly was a part of my time here.
The Times of Israel: It's a pretty common theme coming to Israel, coming to Jerusalem, struggling with where you are in terms of faith. And of course, now you're here for work and you're here to perform and to give interviews and to maybe see a little bit of this country that you haven't seen in a while. But do you find that it tugs at you in a certain way or is that sort of in your past?
Adam Duritz: Well, there are things about the country that tug at me a lot, like just the history and what part it plays in my own history. Being a Jew, that's a pretty powerful thing for any Jew. Being here is a very, what's the word? Intoxicating in that way. Israel is a heavy liquor for Jews, I would say. But no, the religion doesn't tug at me. I'm past believing things like that.
The Times of Israel: Yeah, but the place, the scenery, what you're seeing outside your window, what you see when you drive from the airport, those kinds of things, the people on the street.
Adam Duritz: The street, well, not as much from the airport to Tel Aviv, but just the knowledge of what it is and my memories, especially of Jerusalem, maybe if I went over to Jaffa, to the older parts of town. It's incredibly beautiful out the window, looking at the beach, but between me and the beach is a construction zone. I guess they're putting in a rapid transit system. I remember when they did that in LA. That always tears up for a bit. Yeah, I guess it's just like also, it's a country full of Jews, as opposed to being one in a crowd as you are in the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, you're one in a crowd and here you are, the crowd. That's a unique thing.
The Times of Israel: Are you brushing up on any Hebrew for the show? Are we going to hear any?
Adam Duritz: Yeah, if people are talking, I'll say, sheket. I remember sheket. I remember ken and lo. I remember shalom, which means aloha. I don't remember most of my Hebrew. I could sort of speak it back then, but yeah, I don't remember very much of it now.
The Times of Israel: The crowd loves it when some beloved singer comes their way and throws a little shalom and a little sheket b'vakasha (please be quiet). I think they'll be happy on Wednesday night to hear that as well. Where are you in terms of new songs? In terms of new work? I know Covid, as we keep on saying, has been such a struggle for bands. Sometimes it's great for being inspired, and sometimes it has made it really difficult. Where is Counting Crows in terms of new music? Are we going to hear any?
Adam Duritz: Well, I had written a second suite, but I threw it out. I sang on my friend's record and he sent me their record before it came out. They're this band called Gang of Youth. They have a new record called "Angel in Real Time." And when I listened to it, it was so good that for the first time, literally the first time in my entire career, I thought, oh, these songs aren't good enough, and I threw them out. So I have to rework.
I mean, I'm reworking some of it, but his record was so much better, and that's not good enough.
The Times of Israel: Okay, but the point is that you're working, we're going to hear more new music. You guys are going to keep on going for hopefully a very long time.
Adam Duritz: The chances of us finding other jobs are pretty slim, so yeah.
The Times of Israel: Well, you said landscape and construction. There's always something to fall back on. Right.
Adam Duritz: I'm not falling back to that on that. I'll stick with my job. I loved it at the time, but I'm glad I like my new job better.
The Times of Israel: The new job that you've been carrying out for a while, happily, for quite a few decades. Excellent. Well, we really thank you for being with us, Adam Duritz, it's great to have you here in Israel and looking forward to hearing you on stage on Wednesday night and hoping you have a great trip and that you get to do a few things and see a few places that you want to see while you're here.
Adam Duritz: Absolutely. I hope so. But the main thing I really wanted to do was play here, so one way or another, I'll get it all. I really wanted to play here.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz at the band's September 14 show in Ra'anana, Israel (Courtesy Shlomi Pinto)
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Adam Duritz has waited decades to play in Israel, a place that he loves, said the Counting Crows frontman in this Times Will Tell podcast ahead of his band's Wednesday night show in Ra'anana, outside Tel Aviv.
Duritz visited Israel several times in his teens, hiking through Sinai, working on a kibbutz and later learning Torah in Jerusalem, a "powerful place" for him, he says.
Yet Duritz hadn't returned to Israel since then, as he built his career and band, waiting for the right opportunity to make it back to Israel and perform here.
The lead singer of the California-founded band, known for hits such as "Mr. Jones," "Round Here," and "Accidentally In Love," credited the physical work he learned on the kibbutz as the foundation for the landscaping and construction jobs that he later did to support himself while building his musical career.
He also spoke about his own struggles with religion and faith, and how those issues showed up in his music.
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times of Israel: Welcome Adam Duritz to the Times Will Tell, we are very honored to have you with us, and we appreciate you squeezing us into what I know is a busy schedule ahead of your Wednesday night performance in Ra'anana.
Adam Duritz: I know I am. I'm very excited to play some place we've never played before.
The Times of Israel: It's hard to believe. There's been a lot of preview interviews with you mentioning that you came here and you worked on the kibbutz when you were 18 and you came back to Jerusalem and did a little studying in the holy city. But it has been quite a few decades since you've been in Israel, correct?
Adam Duritz: Four, I would think about. Four, yeah. It's been a really long time.
The Times of Israel: Are you planning on traveling around for the next couple of days? Are you going to lay low and hang out at the beach?
Adam Duritz: Well, I'd like to get a chance to travel around. I really want to go back to Jerusalem because that was someplace I really loved when I was a kid. But I don't really know. It depends on what kind of press and stuff they have us doing. That's the only thing that's going to take up the time. Except for our A gear, has all been in a locker in Liverpool for a year now. So we kind of have to go through that and make sure we have to do some pre-rehearsal with the band and the crew to make sure all the equipment gears.
The Times of Israel: It got sent over for a concert that got canceled. And now you're basically doing the tour that you meant to do a while back.
Adam Duritz: Because of Covid, I decided to leave it over there rather than bring it back on the risk that we would be able to reschedule the tour. I left it over there because especially nowadays, all the expenses for bands' prices haven't gone up at all, but the expenses are all doubled or tripled freight, airlines, flights, hotels, freight for your gear. All that is double or triple what it was. So I didn't want to waste the money by bringing it all back. There's a lot of things I'd like to do and hopefully I'll get to do some of them. But part of touring is realizing that the gig is everything.
The Times of Israel: How is this tour going? I know that you were touring the US and now you're in Europe and you hopped over to Israel, and you have a lot of tour dates all over Europe. What does it feel like to be touring again?
Adam Duritz: It's cool. I mean, this is the first gig of the European tour, so we haven't done that part yet. But the shows in America, we did a whole tour last summer and we've been playing gigs off and on this year. It's all been really cool. It's nice to be back playing.
The Times of Israel: You've mentioned in a few interviews that it's been 30 years since your first album and that you feel, I guess, a sense of privilege that you guys are still together and that you perform these huge shows, [with] fans that are really excited to see you.
Adam Duritz: Not so much that we're still together, but that people are still coming out to see us. You always worry about that because the shelf life of a band is very short, but especially after two years lay off, you really wonder whether things are going to pass you by. But we're still here.
The Times of Israel: What was it like getting back onto those stages, getting back together, working together, performing together?
Adam Duritz: Well, the same as it's always been. I mean, it's just performing. It's nice to play, you know, I think when you're in a band that was the longest I've ever gone without playing that period during Covid. In my entire adult life, I've never gone that long between gigs, so it was very strange.
The Times of Israel: That must be incredibly strange. There are certain songs that are so familiar, so popular, that make people happy. "Mr Jones," "Big Yellow Taxi," "Roundhere." What is it like when you play these songs that you know are beloved by your fans, but that you have to keep on churning out all the time? What is it like to play those songs over again, knowing that your crowd wants to hear them, but knowing that maybe there's other things that you want to focus on more, or maybe not. Maybe those are the songs you always want to bring to your audience.
Adam Duritz: If I want to play something else, I would just play it. There's nothing that has to get played every night. The only song that we play every night is "A Long December." And that's because for some reason, that's the only song I never ever get sick of. I don't think there's ever been a night where I didn't want to play that song. I don't know why that is, but I'm never tired of it. Everything else, if there's a night where I don't want to play it, I'm not going to play it. Because I think it would suck to play songs that you don't want to play.
The Times of Israel: Really? You would do that to the audience? You would do that to the fans? Not play "Mr. Jones," for instance.
Adam Duritz: Yeah, there's been lots of nights where we didn't play "Mr. Jones." I love that song. I love "Mr. Jones," but I want to keep loving "Mr. Jones." I don't want to hate the song. And I would think the quickest way to hating your own music is to play it on nights when you don't want to play it.
The Times of Israel: Interesting, given that you've had this long-standing connection to Israel that it took so long to get back here.
Adam Duritz: Bands want to go everywhere, but you can't go anywhere unless you have a promoter making you an offer that makes sense. The fact is, there's probably nowhere in the world we don't really want to go. But you just can't go until promoter gives you the right kind of offer. And I don't know that we've had those in the past. This offer was really good. The moment I heard it, I said, absolutely, let's do it. It's taking care of a lot of our European tour because some of the other gigs in Europe are smaller, not as well paying some of them. This is a great gig. I'd like to be able to come back here every few years because to go to a new country and find out that you have an audience where you can go right and play a 6,000-seat arena right off the bat, that's fantastic. I mean, not an arena, an amphitheater. So I don't know about the past, but I don't really remember offers from Israel. The only thing I say is, as soon as I heard this offer, I said, absolutely, let's do it. Okay. I love it here.
The Times of Israel: I know it's always a little bit of a pain to come to Israel because of the fact that you have to ship everything over here and then ship it back to Europe. You're not playing in the countries that surround Israel, you're not going to Egypt, you're not going to Jordan, not going to Syria or Lebanon. You didn't get hit with any boycotts or sanctions, you didn't get hit with any criticism of coming to play in Israel.
Adam Duritz: No. The only place I really heard about it were in the interviews. But, I mean, I will say that I've been pretty isolated this year because I haven't been out and about very much. Also, we're not exactly the center of the culture right now, so maybe it would be different in that situation, I don't know. But also, like, I'm a Jew. I understand the long tradition of, like, everything is the Jew's fault. I don't really buy it.
The Times of Israel: So, talk about that a little bit. Now that you brought it up, what is it like to come back here and to bring the Counting Crows, to bring your people, to bring your band, to bring your bandmates to this place that you connected with a long time ago? What does that feel like?
Adam Duritz: It feels pretty cool. It's a really long time ago for me, but there's some pretty powerful memories. I just think for the band, in a lot of ways, you expect your career to be shrinking. You expect to play less and less places every year, so a year where you can come and play, more places to go, someplace new for the first time. I don't think any of the guys in our band, except for me, have been here before, which is pretty rare. This tour, we actually have three cities we've never played, Helsinki and Warsaw and Tel Aviv. And that's kind of great. It's the opposite direction you expect things to go in the later years of your career. So that always makes me really happy, especially if, considering how big the crowd could be here for us, it's someplace we could come back to.
The Times of Israel: Can you share a memory?
Adam Duritz: I mean, I was a kid, I went through the Sinai. It was still part of Israel back then. I spent a lot of time in Jerusalem. It was very powerful for me, that city, especially the Old City. I worked on a kibbutz for a little while, working in the apple orchard. I dug crap out of a grain silo. I really enjoyed the work. And it's funny because it kind of prepared me in some ways, because that kind of physical work is what I ended up doing to support myself all the years when I was in the band, at first and in different bands, I was a landscaper and I did construction work. And I think one of the reasons I knew that I was okay doing that kind of work is that I had done it. I had done it over here. I'd gotten up really early in the morning and done hard work all day, and that's kind of how I ended up supporting myself in the early days before the band was successful. But the first place I really did a lot of that was on the kibbutz here.
Adam Duritz: I went back again a couple of years later when I was 18 and pretty much just spent time in Jerusalem in that time. A lot of it was also that I was a kid and I liked getting wasted and there was no drinking age over here, and I thoroughly appreciated that at the time.
The Times of Israel: I don't know if this is too much of a stretch, but are there any of those early moments and early memories that made their way into your music at any point? Or is there any connection there between what you experienced and what you later started creating?
Adam Duritz: Well, I think there's a lot of places where my struggle with religion and faith shows up in my music, and that certainly was a part of my time here.
The Times of Israel: It's a pretty common theme coming to Israel, coming to Jerusalem, struggling with where you are in terms of faith. And of course, now you're here for work and you're here to perform and to give interviews and to maybe see a little bit of this country that you haven't seen in a while. But do you find that it tugs at you in a certain way or is that sort of in your past?
Adam Duritz: Well, there are things about the country that tug at me a lot, like just the history and what part it plays in my own history. Being a Jew, that's a pretty powerful thing for any Jew. Being here is a very, what's the word? Intoxicating in that way. Israel is a heavy liquor for Jews, I would say. But no, the religion doesn't tug at me. I'm past believing things like that.
The Times of Israel: Yeah, but the place, the scenery, what you're seeing outside your window, what you see when you drive from the airport, those kinds of things, the people on the street.
Adam Duritz: The street, well, not as much from the airport to Tel Aviv, but just the knowledge of what it is and my memories, especially of Jerusalem, maybe if I went over to Jaffa, to the older parts of town. It's incredibly beautiful out the window, looking at the beach, but between me and the beach is a construction zone. I guess they're putting in a rapid transit system. I remember when they did that in LA. That always tears up for a bit. Yeah, I guess it's just like also, it's a country full of Jews, as opposed to being one in a crowd as you are in the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, you're one in a crowd and here you are, the crowd. That's a unique thing.
The Times of Israel: Are you brushing up on any Hebrew for the show? Are we going to hear any?
Adam Duritz: Yeah, if people are talking, I'll say, sheket. I remember sheket. I remember ken and lo. I remember shalom, which means aloha. I don't remember most of my Hebrew. I could sort of speak it back then, but yeah, I don't remember very much of it now.
The Times of Israel: The crowd loves it when some beloved singer comes their way and throws a little shalom and a little sheket b'vakasha (please be quiet). I think they'll be happy on Wednesday night to hear that as well. Where are you in terms of new songs? In terms of new work? I know Covid, as we keep on saying, has been such a struggle for bands. Sometimes it's great for being inspired, and sometimes it has made it really difficult. Where is Counting Crows in terms of new music? Are we going to hear any?
Adam Duritz: Well, I had written a second suite, but I threw it out. I sang on my friend's record and he sent me their record before it came out. They're this band called Gang of Youth. They have a new record called "Angel in Real Time." And when I listened to it, it was so good that for the first time, literally the first time in my entire career, I thought, oh, these songs aren't good enough, and I threw them out. So I have to rework.
I mean, I'm reworking some of it, but his record was so much better, and that's not good enough.
The Times of Israel: Okay, but the point is that you're working, we're going to hear more new music. You guys are going to keep on going for hopefully a very long time.
Adam Duritz: The chances of us finding other jobs are pretty slim, so yeah.
The Times of Israel: Well, you said landscape and construction. There's always something to fall back on. Right.
Adam Duritz: I'm not falling back to that on that. I'll stick with my job. I loved it at the time, but I'm glad I like my new job better.
The Times of Israel: The new job that you've been carrying out for a while, happily, for quite a few decades. Excellent. Well, we really thank you for being with us, Adam Duritz, it's great to have you here in Israel and looking forward to hearing you on stage on Wednesday night and hoping you have a great trip and that you get to do a few things and see a few places that you want to see while you're here.
Adam Duritz: Absolutely. I hope so. But the main thing I really wanted to do was play here, so one way or another, I'll get it all. I really wanted to play here.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz at the band's September 14 show in Ra'anana, Israel (Courtesy Shlomi Pinto)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
There are basically two categories for novelist Elyssa Friedland's work: Jewy and super-Jewy.
Friedland has a new book out this week, “The Most Likely Club,” but many listeners will know her from two, very Jewy, earlier works, “Last Summer at the Golden Hotel” and "The Floating Feldmans.” Friedland has written two other novels and is looking forward to the publication of her first children’s book soon.
Today, in addition to working on her own books, Friedland teaches novel writing at her alma mater, Yale University. She’s also a Columbia Law School grad and once upon a time worked as an associate at a major law firm before turning to writing full-time.
Her new novel, “The Most Likely Club,” has some of her trademark Jewish flavor in the characters, but weaves together the stories of four women, high school best friends, who are reunited for their 25th high school reunion.
Friedland spoke with The Times of Israel for our weekly Times Will Tell podcast, a week before the publication of "The Most Likely Club."
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times of Israel: Elyssa, thank you so much for joining me today. Where am I finding you?
Elyssa Friedland: You are finding me on Long Island in New York.
So we came together, of course, to speak about your newest book, "The Most Likely Club," but also about some of your other great books that, coincidentally actually, I read four out of five of your novels without even knowing that they were written by you, aside from the last one, of course, which I asked for.
Wow, that's very flattering. I'm very happy to hear that. You might be the only person other than my mother to do that.
You can say that I'm your number one fan, but not in a "Misery" kind of way. I just really enjoyed your work, and I just would read the synopsis of a novel, buy it, read it, and say, this sounds somewhat familiar in tone to another book that I really enjoyed and read. And then I looked up and thought, yeah, same author -- again and again. It was just really kind of coincidental and strange, but fantastic.
Well, I'm very happy to hear that. I do think I have a voice that carries through from book to book. So I do try, of course, to vary the plots, create new characters, always keep it interesting for myself, not only for the reader to have something new, but for me. I'm the one who has to be with it a lot longer than the reader does while I'm writing it. And so I do try to always come up with very new ideas, but I think my voice is my voice, so I'm not surprised that there are echoes of it in all the books.
So for me personally, I kind of divide your works into extremely, very Jewy and medium Jewy. In the very Jewy category, we have, of course, "Last summer at the Golden Hotel" and "The Floating Feldmans." In the medium Jewy category I would put your newest novel, "The Most Likely Club," which comes out September 6, and then "Love and Miscommunication." Now, the one novel I didn't read, where would that fit in the Jewy or very Jewy spectrum?
I would say, "The Intermission," the one you did not read is definitely medium- to low-Jewy. So you haven't missed out on any super Jewy.
So let's just very briefly speak about the plot behind "The Most Likely Club." Give us a couple of sentences. What is this book about?
"The Most Likely Club" is about four women that were very close friends in high school, and they are reunited. Three of the four of them reunite at their 25th high school reunion and one of them is unable to make it, she says, because of work obligations, and being back together on campus where they went to school. Seeing their former classmates just filled them with all the usual angsty feelings. And they really take a moment to take stock of their lives where they are 25 years out of high school and think about, is this where they wanted to be? Is this where they thought they would end up?
After a sort of boozy night of reminiscing and remembering who they once were, they decide to try to make their high school superlative come true. Their "most likely" in the yearbook. And they embark on this plan to actualize some of their dreams from when they were teenagers. And as you can imagine, when you're in your mid-40s, it's difficult to make that kind of life change. And so we follow these women as they try to right the ship of their lives, but of course are met with all sorts of obstacles.
And then the fourth friend who is not able to make it to the reunion, of course she folds into the story, and we learn some big surprises about her. And it's really just the story of what it's like to reach middle age, look back and take stock of where you are and really take time to think about if this is where you want to be and when is it too late to make a change.
Not only do I know what you're talking about, I live what you're talking about. I realized suddenly when I was reading this book that my high school union will be 30 years in the spring. So, yes, I fully grasped all the different dramas and concerns of each of these women, and it really felt like they were all in me or I was all in them. And when you were writing these characters, did you feel that yourself? That you were splintering off different concerns and challenges of your life as a working mother, wife and professional and putting it into these four different women.
Definitely. I mean, when I think about it -- I won't bore your listeners with going into each character -- exactly how I'm similar to them, but for sure there are some that I'm more similar to than others. I would say I'm not a doctor, obviously, I'm a writer. But the doctor character in the book is probably the one that I relate to the most in my day-to-day life, because she and her husband are both working professionals and they have three children, just like me and my husband. We have three children and I definitely still do the lion's share of the child -- I wouldn't necessarily say, like, child raising, I think we share that. But I certainly do the lion's share of the camp forms, the health forms, the dentist visits, the selection of camp and after-schools. I could go on and on. And I know many women who are listening to this can relate to that.
And so in her life, Priya the character is named in the book, is really similar to mine. She's really overwhelmed. She doesn't quite understand why it has to be this way, like why her husband, who works basically in the same job, they work at the same hospital, is sort of let off scotch free and he can go out for a run while she's buried and, like, uploading the COVID vaccine cards, essentially.
And she just doesn't have a free second to herself. Sometimes when she thinks about what she'd want to do with her free time, she can't even figure it out because she hasn't had free time in so long. And so she's a character that I really relate to in my day-to-day life. Although it was fun making her a doctor because it did still let me escape a little bit because I don't even know that much about the medical profession and I had to research that and it kind of let me have a little bit of distance from her.
So I didn't pour every single detail of my life. If she had been a writer, that probably would have been a bit too much. So I have a lot in common with her. But the other women, too, there one character really fixated on her weight. And I'm definitely someone who if I had a reunion coming up, I would try some crash diet and I could see myself getting really obsessed with how I look when I'm going back to school, which is, of course, not the ideal way to be spending your time and your energy.
And then the other women as well. There's a very powerful CEO. I'm not her, but she's just someone I don't know if I relate to her as much as I just think about women like that. And the double standard that is applied to women in positions of power and how unfair it is. Like the Hillary Clintons of the world who are just the more ambitious they are, the more maligned they are. So, yeah, I have bits and pieces of myself and all the women and things I see from my friends and just from the headlines that interests me.
I just found myself nodding, laughing and wanting to cry with some of the situations. And we won't spoil it because it's definitely worth reading. I just want to mention that while it may sit in the chick-lit category, it is so deep in its message and it so hit home to me as a working mother of seven. It is no question that all of these concerns that especially the Priya character has, every woman I know in our situation of working and having children is facing this mental load challenge.
Now, that's turned to the "Last Summer at the Golden Hotel," which is actually, can I say this, referred to in "The Most Likely Club." I loved that. So tell us briefly, what is this book about?
That book is about a hotel in the Catskills, very much like the hotel in "Dirty Dancing," if you can picture Kellermans. I know that's a movie that basically everyone with a pulse has seen. So it's about a hotel that was once the place to see and be seen, a thriving enterprise. But it's set in modern times and it's really on its last leg and needs a lot of refurbishment. Isn't attracting guests the way it used to. It's co-owned by two Jewish families, of which there are now three generations of each family, the Goldmans and the Winegolds. And one member of the Winegold family runs the hotel on a day-to-day basis. And he receives an offer from a casino operator who wants to buy the hotel, tear it down and put a casino up in his place, which is what happens at the Concord Resort, which is one of the greats in the area. And he calls a family meeting at the hotel and reluctantly, the three generations make their way back to campus. I guess I like a lot of back to campus because that's also the case in "The Most Likely Club."
And so these three generations come back to the hotel and we learn what's going on in all of their lives. They all have full lives outside of the hotel and so we get slivers of their lives and the complications and the issues they're facing and then how those issues affect what they want to do with the hotel, if they want to sell it or if they want to try to revive it. And in some ways it's really an intergenerational story because the grandchildren who are in their 20s have a lot of ideas about how to make the hotel hip and cool and attract millennials and attract people who are living their lives on social media. And of course, the grandparents, the founder generation, can't really make heads or tails of some of these bizarre suggestions like let's make our own honey and have beehives, let's have all vegan food options, let's have goat yoga, et cetera, et cetera. So as I'm sure you can understand, they have very different ideas of what to do with the hotel.
But for everyone, it's an important part of their legacy. And so it's really an emotional decision that has to be made. So I won't give away the ending.
Don't give away the ending because I was actually surprised by the ending! But both in this book and in "The Floating Feldmans," it's really a tale of several generations getting together and what ensues right in these little microcosms. "The Floating Feldmans" on a cruise. And you are so good at writing the different voices of the different generations. Talk to me about how you capture the voice of an 80-year-old versus how you capture the voice of a 20-something-year-old.
First of all, thank you for saying that. I definitely work hard at it. If I had to say why I am good at that, it's probably that I just have a really good ear when I'm out in the world. First of all, I live in New York City. So living in New York City, just going down the block, you are just constantly surrounded by people of all different ages, genders, and backgrounds. I could imagine if I had a more rural existence and I worked from home in a quiet town and went for a walk and maybe saw one person in an hour, it might be a very different experience. Whereas if I go to buy milk in Manhattan, I'm just surrounded by voices. And so I felt really lucky because I have exposure to a wide range of voices just when I walk down my block. And I think that because I am just a curious person and I'm always listening, I am able to absorb the intonation the verbiage, the mannerism. I look around and I listen. And that I think it helps me channel people that are in a different stage of life than I'm in.
And so I just feel really grateful. I credit New York City with my ability to channel these voices that are very different than my own because otherwise, I don't know where else I could say that I get it from because yes, do I know older people? Sure. I have parents, I have in-laws. Do I know people in their twenties? I do teach at the college level, but the truth is, I'm in the classroom with them. I'm doing most of the talking for two hours, and I leave. So I don't think it comes from that. I think it really comes from just living in a bustling place and having a good ear.
As you mentioned, you do teach. So is this something that you would give as a tip to your students?
I mean, not everyone can have the luxury of getting to live in New York City, and not everybody wants to. And for some people, from a writing perspective, that would be a terrible place to live because it's so full of distraction. And there's the Ralph Waldo Emerson version of writing, which is you got to go and tuck yourself in a cabin and have quiet. And so there are certainly many people who wouldn't get a stitch of work done if they lived in such a bustling place and would like to be off the grid. So I don't know that I would necessarily give that advice, but I would say maybe just see what you're good at. And if you feel like it's a really big stretch for you and it's not coming across as convincing to write like an 82-year-old man, don't write an 82-year-old man. Write the person that you feel comfortable writing, that you feel comfortable channeling. And maybe that's someone that's very similar to you. Maybe that's someone that you knew once upon a time. Very closely in life or you have some experience with.
But you can tell. I think. If it's a massive struggle to channel someone else's voice. If it's very integral to the story. I would just make it my business to at least find someone. One or two people who can an authenticity read. If you're writing an 82-year-old man, find an 82-year-old man and have them read it and correct it. I mean, when I was first starting out, even just writing a male voice, my husband would read my work and he would say, "No man would say that." He can't speak for all men, but he can maybe speak for a majority of men or at least tell me that something didn't ring true to him personally. And then it was up to me to decide what to do with that. But I don't think there's any reason why someone shouldn't reach out and have someone read the work.
For this book, "The Most Likely Club," my publisher hired people to read the book, to read the characters for an authenticity read, because there's an Asian character, there is a bisexual character, there's an Indian character. I am none of those things. And so they have these authenticity reads done, and I'm so grateful for that someone who says, "That's really not the way it works in an Indian family," or, "That's not the way I would phrase it."
And I really get my publisher a lot of credit because they said to me, "You don't have to take any of this. This is for you to absorb and decide what you want to do." If there was something very offensive, they would want me to do something about it. But it was up to me, and I took basically almost everything because I just want to sound as authentic as humanly possible.
It's interesting that you talk about wanting to sound authentic in these niche identities of the Indian or the bisexual, et cetera, et cetera, because at the same time, while they do to me at least sound authentic, definitely your Jewish voice sounds authentic. But it's always very universal stories that you're writing, too.
Well, I think that's really true because we're all still people and we all still feel the same things. Of course you want to be factually correct: The only Indian food you know is the kind served in a restaurant, and that's never something that is served in an Indian home? That's not great.
But does an Indian 16-year-old girl feel self-conscious in high school? Yeah. So do the Asian girl and the black girl and the white girl and the Jewish girl. Feeling self-conscious when you're 16 in high school is about as universal as it gets. Being middle-aged and thinking, "Oh, my God, how did I end up here? And is this what I want out of life again?" It's a privilege to be able to take the time to even think about that. And I do want to acknowledge that not everyone has the luxury of making the changes they want to make.
But I would say if given the time and the space to think about it -- these women are 43. If you ask any 43-year-old, "Take an hour of quiet and think about where you are in your life, is there anything you want to change? I'm pretty sure they'd be able to come up with a couple of things. No matter what they look like or what their background is.
Who has an hour, though, right? Let's talk about how Judaism plays a role in your writing. None of the characters are especially observant or religious Jews, but they are so steeped in the culture. Even in the least Jewy books that we identified, there's such striking cultural Judaism. So how is Judaism playing a role in your writing?
I think that it's because it just plays such a big role in my own life that it filters over onto the page. I am not observant, but I'm just very culturally Jewish, as comes across in my books. I went to a Jewish day school. I go to synagogue on the major holidays. We celebrate Shabbat in our home, even if we're not observing it in a religious way. But we like candles, we eat challa, we have a Shabbat dinner. And this is the world I know. It's also, like, the humor I know.
My grandparents were immigrants. Even my parents were immigrants from Europe. They were born after the war, and they came here from Eastern Europe. And so that's literally the humor that I grew up with, this sort of very Borsh belt, eastern European Jewish humor, and it's just who I am. I feel like I've just been steeped in Jewish culture from a very early age. And I grew up in a Jewish town. I went to Jewish camp. I could go on and on and on. So I feel like my Judaism is just a really big part of who I am. And so then it ends up becoming a natural part of my writing.
Even when I don't set out to write the Jewish book, I end up incorporating some of it because I think I just like it and I feel comfortable. It's the opposite of needing the authenticity reads. Here is where I'm in my milieu, I know what I'm talking about. And that feels good because writing is really hard. And then when I can write about something that I feel like I know, first of all, I feel like I can push boundaries more because I feel more comfortable and I could just be more creative and find even more humor because I'm not first trying to learn about it and then write about it. I already know it. So it's a comfortable space for me to be in as a writer, so I find myself returning to it.
Have you ever had any kind of antisemitic blowback because of this?
Zero. Absolutely zero. And I love saying that. It's honest to God truth. And I've talked about this in previous interviews, but when "Last Summer at the Golden Hotel" came out, in May 2021, it happened to be the same month that there was a lot of media coverage about the rise in antisemitism, and the statistics were staggering about the antisemitic attacks that were happening across the globe. Up some crazy percentage, like up 100%, something really, really horrifying.
And my book came out and it was received with the warmest embrace by so many non-Jewish readers. Most of my readers aren't Jewish. And I could just tell you, go on my Instagram, look at the comments, and it was like 1000 comments of, "I didn't know anything about Jewish culture. This is the first book I've read where I've learned a lot about Jewish identity and Jewish culture. And I'm fascinated."
It was one positive thing after another after another after another, and it was a great reminder of,, yes, there are bad people doing crazy things, but most people don't hate Jews, and most people are very excited to read and learn about Jewish culture in the way that I love.
And the book sold well enough and was distributed widely enough that I can honestly say that it means something that I never came across a single antisemitic reaction. That's really heartening.
I wonder about this next novel's reception because it is basically about the inner lives of women of a certain age, my age essentially, and there's not a lot of empathy for that in American society. There's, of course, the Karen Meme. There's all sorts of things of that nature where we women can't have it all, women want to have it all, but suck it up and move on. Are you worried at all about this kind of reception?
Yeah, I would say I am a bit worried about that. That people just are sick of what they would call whining. Enough. But I wasn't so worried that I wasn't going to write it because I feel like I'm living it and I lead a very privileged life, and yet I still feel like I can't take it. Like I'm losing it as a working mom, and I'm trying and I'm just coming apart at the seams.
And if I feel it, I can only imagine people who don't have as much privilege and the luxuries that I have in my life. And so I know that I write from a place of privilege, I'm aware how much worse it is for people who don't have the resources to have a babysitter and not have to worry about every doctor bill that comes in.
I have mostly female readers. And so it will be interesting. I think that people's responses are going to be very personal. It's going to strike a chord either very positively or negatively. People are going to have very strong reactions to the book, and I have to be prepared for that.
All right, I'm reminding our listeners that we're about a week and a bit ahead of the publication of this newest book. So by the time they hear it, everything will be fine. It will be published. The world will embrace it, I feel sure, having read it just recently. And really such a pleasure reading your work -- as coincidentally as it has been. And I will, of course, follow you more intentionally from here on out. So really such a pleasure speaking with you.
Thank you. And thank you so much for having me. It was very fun to discuss my books with you.
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IMAGE: Novelist Elyssa Friedland with her new book, 'The Most Likely Club.' (Courtesy)
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There are basically two categories for novelist Elyssa Friedland's work: Jewy and super-Jewy.
Friedland has a new book out this week, “The Most Likely Club,” but many listeners will know her from two, very Jewy, earlier works, “Last Summer at the Golden Hotel” and "The Floating Feldmans.” Friedland has written two other novels and is looking forward to the publication of her first children’s book soon.
Today, in addition to working on her own books, Friedland teaches novel writing at her alma mater, Yale University. She’s also a Columbia Law School grad and once upon a time worked as an associate at a major law firm before turning to writing full-time.
Her new novel, “The Most Likely Club,” has some of her trademark Jewish flavor in the characters, but weaves together the stories of four women, high school best friends, who are reunited for their 25th high school reunion.
Friedland spoke with The Times of Israel for our weekly Times Will Tell podcast, a week before the publication of "The Most Likely Club."
The following transcript has been very lightly edited.
The Times of Israel: Elyssa, thank you so much for joining me today. Where am I finding you?
Elyssa Friedland: You are finding me on Long Island in New York.
So we came together, of course, to speak about your newest book, "The Most Likely Club," but also about some of your other great books that, coincidentally actually, I read four out of five of your novels without even knowing that they were written by you, aside from the last one, of course, which I asked for.
Wow, that's very flattering. I'm very happy to hear that. You might be the only person other than my mother to do that.
You can say that I'm your number one fan, but not in a "Misery" kind of way. I just really enjoyed your work, and I just would read the synopsis of a novel, buy it, read it, and say, this sounds somewhat familiar in tone to another book that I really enjoyed and read. And then I looked up and thought, yeah, same author -- again and again. It was just really kind of coincidental and strange, but fantastic.
Well, I'm very happy to hear that. I do think I have a voice that carries through from book to book. So I do try, of course, to vary the plots, create new characters, always keep it interesting for myself, not only for the reader to have something new, but for me. I'm the one who has to be with it a lot longer than the reader does while I'm writing it. And so I do try to always come up with very new ideas, but I think my voice is my voice, so I'm not surprised that there are echoes of it in all the books.
So for me personally, I kind of divide your works into extremely, very Jewy and medium Jewy. In the very Jewy category, we have, of course, "Last summer at the Golden Hotel" and "The Floating Feldmans." In the medium Jewy category I would put your newest novel, "The Most Likely Club," which comes out September 6, and then "Love and Miscommunication." Now, the one novel I didn't read, where would that fit in the Jewy or very Jewy spectrum?
I would say, "The Intermission," the one you did not read is definitely medium- to low-Jewy. So you haven't missed out on any super Jewy.
So let's just very briefly speak about the plot behind "The Most Likely Club." Give us a couple of sentences. What is this book about?
"The Most Likely Club" is about four women that were very close friends in high school, and they are reunited. Three of the four of them reunite at their 25th high school reunion and one of them is unable to make it, she says, because of work obligations, and being back together on campus where they went to school. Seeing their former classmates just filled them with all the usual angsty feelings. And they really take a moment to take stock of their lives where they are 25 years out of high school and think about, is this where they wanted to be? Is this where they thought they would end up?
After a sort of boozy night of reminiscing and remembering who they once were, they decide to try to make their high school superlative come true. Their "most likely" in the yearbook. And they embark on this plan to actualize some of their dreams from when they were teenagers. And as you can imagine, when you're in your mid-40s, it's difficult to make that kind of life change. And so we follow these women as they try to right the ship of their lives, but of course are met with all sorts of obstacles.
And then the fourth friend who is not able to make it to the reunion, of course she folds into the story, and we learn some big surprises about her. And it's really just the story of what it's like to reach middle age, look back and take stock of where you are and really take time to think about if this is where you want to be and when is it too late to make a change.
Not only do I know what you're talking about, I live what you're talking about. I realized suddenly when I was reading this book that my high school union will be 30 years in the spring. So, yes, I fully grasped all the different dramas and concerns of each of these women, and it really felt like they were all in me or I was all in them. And when you were writing these characters, did you feel that yourself? That you were splintering off different concerns and challenges of your life as a working mother, wife and professional and putting it into these four different women.
Definitely. I mean, when I think about it -- I won't bore your listeners with going into each character -- exactly how I'm similar to them, but for sure there are some that I'm more similar to than others. I would say I'm not a doctor, obviously, I'm a writer. But the doctor character in the book is probably the one that I relate to the most in my day-to-day life, because she and her husband are both working professionals and they have three children, just like me and my husband. We have three children and I definitely still do the lion's share of the child -- I wouldn't necessarily say, like, child raising, I think we share that. But I certainly do the lion's share of the camp forms, the health forms, the dentist visits, the selection of camp and after-schools. I could go on and on. And I know many women who are listening to this can relate to that.
And so in her life, Priya the character is named in the book, is really similar to mine. She's really overwhelmed. She doesn't quite understand why it has to be this way, like why her husband, who works basically in the same job, they work at the same hospital, is sort of let off scotch free and he can go out for a run while she's buried and, like, uploading the COVID vaccine cards, essentially.
And she just doesn't have a free second to herself. Sometimes when she thinks about what she'd want to do with her free time, she can't even figure it out because she hasn't had free time in so long. And so she's a character that I really relate to in my day-to-day life. Although it was fun making her a doctor because it did still let me escape a little bit because I don't even know that much about the medical profession and I had to research that and it kind of let me have a little bit of distance from her.
So I didn't pour every single detail of my life. If she had been a writer, that probably would have been a bit too much. So I have a lot in common with her. But the other women, too, there one character really fixated on her weight. And I'm definitely someone who if I had a reunion coming up, I would try some crash diet and I could see myself getting really obsessed with how I look when I'm going back to school, which is, of course, not the ideal way to be spending your time and your energy.
And then the other women as well. There's a very powerful CEO. I'm not her, but she's just someone I don't know if I relate to her as much as I just think about women like that. And the double standard that is applied to women in positions of power and how unfair it is. Like the Hillary Clintons of the world who are just the more ambitious they are, the more maligned they are. So, yeah, I have bits and pieces of myself and all the women and things I see from my friends and just from the headlines that interests me.
I just found myself nodding, laughing and wanting to cry with some of the situations. And we won't spoil it because it's definitely worth reading. I just want to mention that while it may sit in the chick-lit category, it is so deep in its message and it so hit home to me as a working mother of seven. It is no question that all of these concerns that especially the Priya character has, every woman I know in our situation of working and having children is facing this mental load challenge.
Now, that's turned to the "Last Summer at the Golden Hotel," which is actually, can I say this, referred to in "The Most Likely Club." I loved that. So tell us briefly, what is this book about?
That book is about a hotel in the Catskills, very much like the hotel in "Dirty Dancing," if you can picture Kellermans. I know that's a movie that basically everyone with a pulse has seen. So it's about a hotel that was once the place to see and be seen, a thriving enterprise. But it's set in modern times and it's really on its last leg and needs a lot of refurbishment. Isn't attracting guests the way it used to. It's co-owned by two Jewish families, of which there are now three generations of each family, the Goldmans and the Winegolds. And one member of the Winegold family runs the hotel on a day-to-day basis. And he receives an offer from a casino operator who wants to buy the hotel, tear it down and put a casino up in his place, which is what happens at the Concord Resort, which is one of the greats in the area. And he calls a family meeting at the hotel and reluctantly, the three generations make their way back to campus. I guess I like a lot of back to campus because that's also the case in "The Most Likely Club."
And so these three generations come back to the hotel and we learn what's going on in all of their lives. They all have full lives outside of the hotel and so we get slivers of their lives and the complications and the issues they're facing and then how those issues affect what they want to do with the hotel, if they want to sell it or if they want to try to revive it. And in some ways it's really an intergenerational story because the grandchildren who are in their 20s have a lot of ideas about how to make the hotel hip and cool and attract millennials and attract people who are living their lives on social media. And of course, the grandparents, the founder generation, can't really make heads or tails of some of these bizarre suggestions like let's make our own honey and have beehives, let's have all vegan food options, let's have goat yoga, et cetera, et cetera. So as I'm sure you can understand, they have very different ideas of what to do with the hotel.
But for everyone, it's an important part of their legacy. And so it's really an emotional decision that has to be made. So I won't give away the ending.
Don't give away the ending because I was actually surprised by the ending! But both in this book and in "The Floating Feldmans," it's really a tale of several generations getting together and what ensues right in these little microcosms. "The Floating Feldmans" on a cruise. And you are so good at writing the different voices of the different generations. Talk to me about how you capture the voice of an 80-year-old versus how you capture the voice of a 20-something-year-old.
First of all, thank you for saying that. I definitely work hard at it. If I had to say why I am good at that, it's probably that I just have a really good ear when I'm out in the world. First of all, I live in New York City. So living in New York City, just going down the block, you are just constantly surrounded by people of all different ages, genders, and backgrounds. I could imagine if I had a more rural existence and I worked from home in a quiet town and went for a walk and maybe saw one person in an hour, it might be a very different experience. Whereas if I go to buy milk in Manhattan, I'm just surrounded by voices. And so I felt really lucky because I have exposure to a wide range of voices just when I walk down my block. And I think that because I am just a curious person and I'm always listening, I am able to absorb the intonation the verbiage, the mannerism. I look around and I listen. And that I think it helps me channel people that are in a different stage of life than I'm in.
And so I just feel really grateful. I credit New York City with my ability to channel these voices that are very different than my own because otherwise, I don't know where else I could say that I get it from because yes, do I know older people? Sure. I have parents, I have in-laws. Do I know people in their twenties? I do teach at the college level, but the truth is, I'm in the classroom with them. I'm doing most of the talking for two hours, and I leave. So I don't think it comes from that. I think it really comes from just living in a bustling place and having a good ear.
As you mentioned, you do teach. So is this something that you would give as a tip to your students?
I mean, not everyone can have the luxury of getting to live in New York City, and not everybody wants to. And for some people, from a writing perspective, that would be a terrible place to live because it's so full of distraction. And there's the Ralph Waldo Emerson version of writing, which is you got to go and tuck yourself in a cabin and have quiet. And so there are certainly many people who wouldn't get a stitch of work done if they lived in such a bustling place and would like to be off the grid. So I don't know that I would necessarily give that advice, but I would say maybe just see what you're good at. And if you feel like it's a really big stretch for you and it's not coming across as convincing to write like an 82-year-old man, don't write an 82-year-old man. Write the person that you feel comfortable writing, that you feel comfortable channeling. And maybe that's someone that's very similar to you. Maybe that's someone that you knew once upon a time. Very closely in life or you have some experience with.
But you can tell. I think. If it's a massive struggle to channel someone else's voice. If it's very integral to the story. I would just make it my business to at least find someone. One or two people who can an authenticity read. If you're writing an 82-year-old man, find an 82-year-old man and have them read it and correct it. I mean, when I was first starting out, even just writing a male voice, my husband would read my work and he would say, "No man would say that." He can't speak for all men, but he can maybe speak for a majority of men or at least tell me that something didn't ring true to him personally. And then it was up to me to decide what to do with that. But I don't think there's any reason why someone shouldn't reach out and have someone read the work.
For this book, "The Most Likely Club," my publisher hired people to read the book, to read the characters for an authenticity read, because there's an Asian character, there is a bisexual character, there's an Indian character. I am none of those things. And so they have these authenticity reads done, and I'm so grateful for that someone who says, "That's really not the way it works in an Indian family," or, "That's not the way I would phrase it."
And I really get my publisher a lot of credit because they said to me, "You don't have to take any of this. This is for you to absorb and decide what you want to do." If there was something very offensive, they would want me to do something about it. But it was up to me, and I took basically almost everything because I just want to sound as authentic as humanly possible.
It's interesting that you talk about wanting to sound authentic in these niche identities of the Indian or the bisexual, et cetera, et cetera, because at the same time, while they do to me at least sound authentic, definitely your Jewish voice sounds authentic. But it's always very universal stories that you're writing, too.
Well, I think that's really true because we're all still people and we all still feel the same things. Of course you want to be factually correct: The only Indian food you know is the kind served in a restaurant, and that's never something that is served in an Indian home? That's not great.
But does an Indian 16-year-old girl feel self-conscious in high school? Yeah. So do the Asian girl and the black girl and the white girl and the Jewish girl. Feeling self-conscious when you're 16 in high school is about as universal as it gets. Being middle-aged and thinking, "Oh, my God, how did I end up here? And is this what I want out of life again?" It's a privilege to be able to take the time to even think about that. And I do want to acknowledge that not everyone has the luxury of making the changes they want to make.
But I would say if given the time and the space to think about it -- these women are 43. If you ask any 43-year-old, "Take an hour of quiet and think about where you are in your life, is there anything you want to change? I'm pretty sure they'd be able to come up with a couple of things. No matter what they look like or what their background is.
Who has an hour, though, right? Let's talk about how Judaism plays a role in your writing. None of the characters are especially observant or religious Jews, but they are so steeped in the culture. Even in the least Jewy books that we identified, there's such striking cultural Judaism. So how is Judaism playing a role in your writing?
I think that it's because it just plays such a big role in my own life that it filters over onto the page. I am not observant, but I'm just very culturally Jewish, as comes across in my books. I went to a Jewish day school. I go to synagogue on the major holidays. We celebrate Shabbat in our home, even if we're not observing it in a religious way. But we like candles, we eat challa, we have a Shabbat dinner. And this is the world I know. It's also, like, the humor I know.
My grandparents were immigrants. Even my parents were immigrants from Europe. They were born after the war, and they came here from Eastern Europe. And so that's literally the humor that I grew up with, this sort of very Borsh belt, eastern European Jewish humor, and it's just who I am. I feel like I've just been steeped in Jewish culture from a very early age. And I grew up in a Jewish town. I went to Jewish camp. I could go on and on and on. So I feel like my Judaism is just a really big part of who I am. And so then it ends up becoming a natural part of my writing.
Even when I don't set out to write the Jewish book, I end up incorporating some of it because I think I just like it and I feel comfortable. It's the opposite of needing the authenticity reads. Here is where I'm in my milieu, I know what I'm talking about. And that feels good because writing is really hard. And then when I can write about something that I feel like I know, first of all, I feel like I can push boundaries more because I feel more comfortable and I could just be more creative and find even more humor because I'm not first trying to learn about it and then write about it. I already know it. So it's a comfortable space for me to be in as a writer, so I find myself returning to it.
Have you ever had any kind of antisemitic blowback because of this?
Zero. Absolutely zero. And I love saying that. It's honest to God truth. And I've talked about this in previous interviews, but when "Last Summer at the Golden Hotel" came out, in May 2021, it happened to be the same month that there was a lot of media coverage about the rise in antisemitism, and the statistics were staggering about the antisemitic attacks that were happening across the globe. Up some crazy percentage, like up 100%, something really, really horrifying.
And my book came out and it was received with the warmest embrace by so many non-Jewish readers. Most of my readers aren't Jewish. And I could just tell you, go on my Instagram, look at the comments, and it was like 1000 comments of, "I didn't know anything about Jewish culture. This is the first book I've read where I've learned a lot about Jewish identity and Jewish culture. And I'm fascinated."
It was one positive thing after another after another after another, and it was a great reminder of,, yes, there are bad people doing crazy things, but most people don't hate Jews, and most people are very excited to read and learn about Jewish culture in the way that I love.
And the book sold well enough and was distributed widely enough that I can honestly say that it means something that I never came across a single antisemitic reaction. That's really heartening.
I wonder about this next novel's reception because it is basically about the inner lives of women of a certain age, my age essentially, and there's not a lot of empathy for that in American society. There's, of course, the Karen Meme. There's all sorts of things of that nature where we women can't have it all, women want to have it all, but suck it up and move on. Are you worried at all about this kind of reception?
Yeah, I would say I am a bit worried about that. That people just are sick of what they would call whining. Enough. But I wasn't so worried that I wasn't going to write it because I feel like I'm living it and I lead a very privileged life, and yet I still feel like I can't take it. Like I'm losing it as a working mom, and I'm trying and I'm just coming apart at the seams.
And if I feel it, I can only imagine people who don't have as much privilege and the luxuries that I have in my life. And so I know that I write from a place of privilege, I'm aware how much worse it is for people who don't have the resources to have a babysitter and not have to worry about every doctor bill that comes in.
I have mostly female readers. And so it will be interesting. I think that people's responses are going to be very personal. It's going to strike a chord either very positively or negatively. People are going to have very strong reactions to the book, and I have to be prepared for that.
All right, I'm reminding our listeners that we're about a week and a bit ahead of the publication of this newest book. So by the time they hear it, everything will be fine. It will be published. The world will embrace it, I feel sure, having read it just recently. And really such a pleasure reading your work -- as coincidentally as it has been. And I will, of course, follow you more intentionally from here on out. So really such a pleasure speaking with you.
Thank you. And thank you so much for having me. It was very fun to discuss my books with you.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Novelist Elyssa Friedland with her new book, 'The Most Likely Club.' (Courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, we speak with Tova Dagan and Yoni Nuriel, two high school and middle school teachers in Jerusalem as they prepare for Israel’s new school year that aims to begin September 1.
Despite the annual threat of a countrywide teachers' strike, the two discuss their outlook on the Israeli educational system and what they want for their own classrooms this year.
Dagan has been a homeroom teacher and is currently an English teacher at Keshet, a dual religious and secular school in Jerusalem; Nuriel is a homeroom teacher for rising eighth graders at Hartman High School, a religious Orthodox school for boys in Jerusalem, with a dedication to tradition and tolerance.
They both talk about how to teach kids during the ongoing pandemic, the challenges of finding better emotional boundaries between teachers and students and creating a stimulating educational environment despite the obstacles of the overall system.
IMAGE: Keshet high school students take their mathematics matriculation examination Jerusalem on May 20, 2019 (Courtesy Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, we speak with two camp counselors, Israeli shlichim, the Hebrew term for emissaries, who were sent through the Jewish Agency this summer to work at Camp Ramah in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, where they spent two months caring for campers and working and meeting fellow staff members.
The two staffers are Halleli Busheri and Tair Offir, who had their own family connections to Camp Ramah, the Conservative Movement's camping movement. Both were seeking the challenges and new experiences of a Jewish American summer camp.
They speak about camp life, and what it's been like to be the Israelis, known as mishlachat, on staff at camp. Busheri and Offir share moments from the summer, describing what it's been like to get to know people their age as well as their campers.
They speak about what surprised them during the last two months, and some of the unexpected joys and tender moments in this very American Jewish summer experience.
IMAGE: Halleli Busheri (left) and Tair Offir, two shlichim, emissaries on staff at Camp Ramah in the Poconos (Courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, we speak with Jeff Abella, chief executive of Moka Origins, a kosher boutique coffee roaster and chocolate retailer based in Honesdale, PA, on the grounds of the Himalayan Institute, a yoga and meditation retreat in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Abella and his staff of 15 roast and grind coffee and cocoa beans, creating their artisanal chocolates and coffee for a greater purpose.
The products are part of the institute’s humanitarian efforts to help subsistence farmers in Cameroon find better ways to earn money and support themselves and their farms under better conditions. Moka Origins is looking ahead to helping farms as well as in Uganda, Costa Rica and Mexico.
For Abella, it's all about excellent coffee and fine chocolate, but it’s just as much about social entrepreneurship. He wants more people consuming fine craft chocolate and coffee in order to broaden the net of people engaging in their social impact project. As Abella says, "the more chocolate and coffee we can sell, the more good we can do."
IMAGE: Jeff Abella with a cacao pod (right hand) and sack of coffee beans (Courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, we speak to two of the co-founders of New Legend, a pioneering company in the field of financing Israeli television content.
After Israeli filmmakers and showrunners spent years chasing government funding and local production studios, New Legend has created a new model and venture for financing film and television projects, with backing from Israeli investment firm Meitav, which will tap into its network of investors and business relationships.
Gal Yashar, CEO of New Legend, and Oded Turgeman, New Legend's director of content, talk about this new model of the film and TV business in Israel, building on the country's reputation as a high-tech nation and now becoming the content nation.
New Legend recently established an accelerator with the Jerusalem Film and Television Fund, selecting 11 new TV projects for development, and bringing together additional funding from leading broadcasters, including Netflix, HBO, A&E and Israeli studios Yes and Hot.
Yashar comes from the world of Israeli high-tech while Turgeman has years of experience in developing animation content.
IMAGE: Oded Turgeman (left) and Gal Yasher, two of the New Legend co-founders (Courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, we speak to culinary expert, cookbook author and chef Adeena Sussman, whose bestselling book 'Sababa' took Israeli cooking and translated it for the larger, global audience.
We catch Sussman after a week of culinary arts workshops at a summer camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, where she brought her homemade pita, hummus and roasted tomatoes, as well as fruity gazoz -- a fizzy soda water drink elevated with fresh fruit and homemade syrups -- chocolate-dipped dates topped with flaky salt and preserved lemons to the campers and young staff members.
Sussman speaks about what she's learned about translating her ingredients and recipes for audiences outside of Israel. That experience keeps her cooking and teaching fresh and dynamic, particularly as she moves toward the final stages of her next cookbook, "Shabbat."
IMAGE: Cookbook author Adeena Sussman shows how to mix tahini in the Camp Ramah in the Poconos kitchen (Courtesy Jessica Steinberg)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week we’re speaking to Shani and Yahala Lachmish, a pair of sisters who are musicians, singers and composers, and have been singing onstage for most of their lives.
The Lachmish sisters speak about their band, Tandu, a loose translation from the Aramaic term for togetherness, which recently released its first album, "Savtuna," named for their great-grandmother, the spiritual beacon of their family.
Their music is a mix of styles, with arrangements of falafel jazz, liturgical music courtesy of their cantor father, soul and world music. The sisters talk about the inspiration for their music, including their father and grandmothers, the musical worlds in Israel and what it took for them to finally appreciate their father's age-old piyyutim, or liturgical poems set to song.
They also sing some selections from their album, acappella during the podcast.
IMAGE: Yahala (left) and Shani Lachmish, sisters and singers in their band, Tandu (Courtesy Reuven Ben Haim)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week we’re speaking to Dr. Noya Rimalt, a professor of law at the University of Haifa who is at the forefront of the struggle for reproductive rights in Israel.
Rimalt speaks about the history of abortions in Israel. Women can have abortions at local clinics and hospitals, but must undergo a complicated permissions process that often makes them seem "mad or bad," says Rimalt.
She talks about her involvement in this battle for personal reasons and as a feminist law professor. Rimalt also discusses the passage of the recent new regulations that slightly ease the Israeli process, just as Roe vs. Wade was being overturned in the US.
IMAGE: Dr. Noya Rimalt (Courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week we’re speaking to bestselling author Faye Kellerman about her latest book, "The Hunt," the final installment in her Decker/Lazarus series, coming out next month.
As usual, there’s some intense drama, plenty of crime, punishment and suspense in "The Hunt," as well as the usual details about the observant Jewish life led by Kellerman's beloved characters, Detective Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus.
Kellerman speaks about her writing career, what led her to this series, as well as why she chose to bring so much of her own lifestyle to her characters. She talks about what it's like to write about detective work now, as opposed to thirty years ago, and what different characters can teach us about life and decisions.
Kellerman, soon approaching her 70th birthday, talks about what she's doing with her life now, and whether or not she'll be saying goodbye forever to Detective Decker and his beloved wife, Rina.
IMAGE: Author Faye Kellerman (Courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week we’re speaking about evangelical support for Israel with Prof. Motti Inbari.
Born, raised and educated in Israel, Motti is today a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. While most of his previous research has focussed on Jews, his forthcoming book, which was co-authored with Kirill Bumin, is “Christian Zionism of the Twenty-First Century: Evangelical Public Opinion on Israel.” It’s expected in 2023 from Oxford University Press.
The book is based on four consecutive surveys on the attitudes of American evangelicals on Israel. We learn that there is no such thing as a monolithic evangelical block. We hear how politics and other factors, such as age and race, can impact support for Israel and how the past five decades have shaped the ways in which evangelical theology has evolved, along with views on Jews’ roles in the Holy Land.
IMAGE: Prof. Motti Inbari (Rose Trail Images)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, we're speaking with Jamie Geller, often known as the Jewish Rachael Ray, who just published her eighth cookbook, "Farmer’s Kitchen Cookbook: 50 Recipes Celebrating Israel’s Veggies and their Growers."
The cookbook features ten vegetables common to the Israeli kitchen, with guides on selecting, storing and cooking with them in 50 different recipes.
Geller speaks about the process of writing the book during the pandemic, what she's learned about Israeli produce and seasonal vegetables during her ten years living in Israel, and whether her six kids actually eat braised fennel and leeks.
"Farmer's Kitchen" also highlights Israeli farmers who are currently observing the biblical mitzvah or commandment of shmita, Israel's sabbatical for the land that comes around every seven years.
With farming families facing loss of income from the observance of shmita, Geller partnered with The Shmitah Fund, which offers farmers financial assistance, and she tells the stories of those families, taking a closer look at their farms and what they grow.
IMAGE: From Jamie Geller's 'Farmer’s Kitchen Cookbook: 50 Recipes Celebrating Israel’s Veggies and their Growers' (Courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
Our guest this week is Dr. Mark Shinar, who captured the attention of host Amanda Borschel-Dan through his moving blog, “Broken roads: Leadership, authenticity and sexuality.”
The blog discusses how, as an Orthodox father, husband and educator, he came out of the closet a year and a half ago. We’ll hear segments of the blog throughout the longer-than-usual episode.
Shinar has been a Jewish day school administrator and Head of School for 20 years and has worked in Jewish summer camp for more than 25. Today, his main focus is on helping schools shape cultures that inspire within its administrators, teachers, and students a willingness to be vulnerable, to take risks, and to live lives of courageous authenticity and empathy.
Shinar made aliyah in 2017 and lives in Modiin where he and his ex-wife are raising their four sons.
Image: Dr. Mark Shinar (courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks to Dr. Tova Hartman, dean of the faculty of humanities at the Ono Academic Campus and founder of the Shira Hadasha congregation in Jerusalem, the first of its kind, a religious community that combines a commitment to Jewish law, with a commitment to prayer and feminism. At the time, it drew a lot of criticism from many Orthodox rabbis who opposed having women lead prayer and read from the Torah.
Hartman persisted and built Shira Hadasha with her fellow founders, spawning an entire movement in Judaism, of partnership minyanim, communities committed to Jewish law, as well as to feminism in prayer and action.
She speaks about the inspiration drawn from her father, Rabbi David Hartman, the American-Israeli leader and contemporary Jewish philosopher who founded the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
Hartman also speaks about making the world of academia accessible to the ultra-Orthodox and Arab populations within the multicultural campuses of the Ono Academic Campus, helping change the direction and goals of those societies.
IMAGE: Dr. Tova Hartman (Courtesy Ono Academic College)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks to documentary filmmaker Tal Inbar and producer Nancy Spielberg, sister to Steven Spielberg, who premiered their new film, "Closed Circuit" at DocAviv, Tel Aviv’s annual documentary film festival.
"Closed Circuits" uses security camera footage -- much of it taken on the night of the 2016 terror attack in Tel Aviv’s Sarona market -- when two men in suits shot at a crowd eating out. The use of the footage deconstructs the event augmented by interviews with those who survived the attack, and who speak about their insights into that event.
Inbar speaks about how she came across the closed circuit footage of the attack and developed it into a fuller-length film.
Spielberg discusses her fascination with the film upon receiving a 'cold' email from Inbar, as well as her own relationship to Israel, and how the film resonates, particularly in the US, currently reeling from its own spate of tragic attacks.
IMAGE: A closed circuit screen grab from 'Closed Circuit,' Tal Inbar's 2022 film about the 2016 Sarona, Tel Aviv terror attack (Courtesy 'Closed Circuit)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel’s weekly feature podcast.
This week, host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with archaeologist Prof. Jennie Ebeling about women’s live in ancient Israel.
In addition to leading and participating in archaeological excavations in Israel and Jordan, Ebeling is sculpting the next generation of scholars through her teaching at the University of Evansville in Indiana.
She has written extensively about ancient food and drink technology which can offer a deeper look at women in antiquity, including a book, “Women’s Lives in Biblical Times.”
One of the ways we can learn about women’s agency is through studying ancient ovens, said Ebeling, which in part has led her to hypothesize that women were the master brewers of ancient Israel.
IMAGE: Archaeologist Prof. Jennie Ebeling at the Jezreel Expedition. (Ashley Motes, courtesy of the Jezreel Expedition)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel's weekly feature podcast.
This week, we speak with journalist Joshua Prager, the author of "The Family Roe: An American Story," which was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
"The Family Roe" tells the larger story of abortion in America through focussing on the stories of "Jane Roe," Norma McCorvey, and her three daughters -- including the baby she was carrying that spawned Roe V Wade.
Our conversation was prompted by a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision that could overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. We discuss this potential decision’s implications.
And finally, we talk about another book Prager wrote, "Half-Life," which charts the aftermath of a 1990 bus accident in Israel that left him paralyzed.
My destruction, my resurrection
Half Life: Reflections from Jerusalem on a Broken Neck, by Joshua Prager
Image: Journalist Joshua Prager, author of 'The Family Roe.' (Peter van Agtmael/Magnum Photos)
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Welcome to a bonus episode of Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel's weekly feature podcast.
We're speaking with Joshua Cohen, the prize-winning author of "The Netanyahus, An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family," who is in Israel for the Writers Festival and a residency at Jerusalem's Mishkenot Sha'ananim.
We speak about his fictionalization of the very famous political Israeli family and how he chose the Netanyahus as his focus for the novel, as well as the twists of fact and fiction.
Cohen talks about winning the Pulitzer for a book about identity, tokenism and, the Jews.
IMAGE: American novelist Joshua Cohen speaks during a meeting with Journalists as part of the International Writers Festival, in Jerusalem, May 16, 2022. (Courtesy Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90)
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Welcome to this week’s Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from the Times of Israel.
This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks with Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringras, two Israel-based educators and longtime professional collaborators who have just written a book, "Stories for the Sake of Argument," a collection of 24 tales designed to provoke disagreements about Israel.
The aim is to teach readers more about themselves, each other, and the world at large, with a how-to book of stories that address various controversial issues, taking place primarily in Israel but with universal themes.
They tackle subjects such as religious freedom in Israel, demands of history, issues of social media, praying at the Western Wall, Arab-Israeli voting issues, refugees, racial profiling and the list goes on.
Dauber Sterne and Gringrass discuss their working process, how they chose their subjects and the ultimate aims of this how-to-argue book.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringrass, educators and authors of 'Stories for the Sake of Argument' (Courtesy PR)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from the Times of Israel. This week, we speak with Mayim Bialik, who has just released her filmmaking debut, “As They Made Us.”
Most people know Bialik from her performance as neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on “The Big Bang Theory,” from her work as a child as the title character on the sitcom “Blossom,” or lately, as the new host of "Jeopardy!"
Bialik wrote and directed “As They Made Us”," which is quite the departure from the rosy sitcom bubble. It is a tough look at tense family relations as the father’s life is winding to a close. It stars Dustin Hoffman as the dying father; Candice Bergen as the overbearing mother; Simon Helberg is the estranged older brother, and Dianna Agron plays the anchor of the family, Jewish journalist Abigail.
"As They Made Us" is now in theaters.
IMAGE: Filmmaker Mayim Bialik. (Storm Santos)
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Welcome to this week’s Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from the Times of Israel.
This week, host Jessica Steinberg speaks with Dr. Stephen Daniel Arnoff, CEO of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center and newly minted author of "About Man and God and Law, the Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan."
Arnoff discusses his own love for Bob Dylan and his personal rock 'n roll history and how that has morphed into a lifelong exploration of Dylan's music and lyrics.
He looks at Judaism and Christianity through the prism of Dylan's music and the questions asked by Bob Dylan in a lifetime of songs.
Join us for this conversation about one of music's greatest songwriters and the lessons that can be learned from Bob Dylan's music.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Bob Dylan performs at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California, February 26, 2002 (HECTOR MATA / AFP / File)
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Welcome to this week’s Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from the Times of Israel. This week, ahead of Easter, host Amanda Borschel-Dan tours the Jerusalem Old City’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre with top archaeologist Prof. Jodi Magness.
Christian tradition holds that Jesus was crucified and buried on the spot of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As we tour the church and its surroundings, we see parts of the ruins of earlier stages of the church, including a find from when it was built by Constantine in around 330 CE, as well as remains of earlier structures.
At the end of the tour, we see what Magness feels is the best evidence that supports the Christian tradition.
For much of our tour, we are standing next to praying pilgrims, so to respect them, at times we’re almost whispering. Apologies as well for the background noise as Holy Week was being observed in Jerusalem.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Prof. Jodi Magness in the Jerusalem Old City's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Monday, April 11, 2022. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel)
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Welcome to this week’s Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from the Times of Israel.
This week, we're thinking about Passover, the spring holiday that begins Friday night, April 15.
We speak with two Jerusalem-based teachers and writers who have spent a lot of time studying the Haggadah, the Jewish text read during the Passover seder.
First up is Rachel Sharansky Danziger, a teacher, writer and daughter of Natan Sharansky, the Soviet dissident whose battle for freedom formed the very background of his daughter’s life.
She speaks about the disjointed storytelling of the Haggadah text, and how to think about that story as she teaches it, and her own family history, to her children.
We also speak with Sarah Yehudit Schneider, a teacher of Hasidic philosophy and Kabbalah whose Haggadah, "A Small Still Voice" was recently published.
She shares ideas and thoughts about matzah as a meditative focus and the telling of the Passover story as a form of narrative therapy.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: An Israeli family seen during the Passover seder on the first night of the eight-day long Jewish holiday of Passover, in Tzur Hadassah on April 22, 2016 (Courtesy Nati Shohat/Flash 90)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we speak with Eyal Sherf, an actor, singer and cantor who specializes in everything related to Broadway, and in particular, its musicals.
The Israeli-born Sherf trained as an actor in England and New York, and has performed on various stages. He also realized early on that the performance aspect was just as interesting to him as the creative process of musical theater, delving into the work that went into the shows, their histories and putting that all together into shows melding information and music.
He now performs shows around Israel that combine performance and lectures, fulfilling his own passion for musical theater.
He takes us through several shows, from "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story" to "Fiddler on the Roof" and a few others, discussing their histories, creators and why they still resonate so much, to this very day.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
This Times of Israel podcast is sponsored by Thirty-Six, in which host Justin Hayet scours Israel to find the 36 most wonderful, interesting people doing the most wonderful, interesting things. Subscribe to Thirty-Six on your favorite podcast platform.
Image: Actor, singer and cantor Eyal Sherf onstage at Habima in Tel Aviv (Courtesy)
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Welcome to a bonus episode of Times Will Tell for an archaeology update of an item that, if verified, may be one of the greatest discoveries of the century.
On Thursday, March 24, Dr. Scott Stripling held a press conference in Houston, Texas, unveiling what he claims is the earliest proto-alphabetic Hebrew text discovered in ancient Israel.
He has discovered what he claims is a 2 cm x 2 cm folded lead curse tablet or defixio that he dates to the late Bronze Age, before or around 1200 BCE. If this dating is verified, it would make the text centuries older than the previous record holder for Hebrew in the Land of Israel.
However, there are some challenges: In 2019, it was discovered outside of a carefully excavated stratified context while his team was re-examining a dump pile from 1980s excavations at Mt Ebal that were held under Prof. Adam Zertal. The earth had been dry sifted then, and in 2019 Stripling’s team resifted it, in a wet sifting technique that was developed at the Temple Mount Sifting Project, where Stripling once worked.
The folded interior of the tablet has undergone hi-tech scans in a lab in Prague at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The dating of the tiny tablet is mostly based on epigraphical analysis of these scans, along with analysis of the lead and potential ancient sources for it.
The scans were read by a few epigraphers, including Haifa University Prof. Gershon Galil, and Stripling says it holds 40 letters. The reading includes the words "arur" (cursed) and "YHWH" (the tetragrammaton or the name of God).
The problem is, Stripling has not released images and the tablet has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. So the academic community still has to weigh in. In the meantime, you can hear what Stripling has to say about it here.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
This Times of Israel podcast is sponsored by Thirty-Six, in which host Justin Hayet scours Israel to find the 36 most wonderful, interesting people doing the most wonderful, interesting things. Subscribe to Thirty-Six on your favorite podcast platform.
IMAGE: Close-up of the outside of the arguably Late Bronze Age lead curse tablet discovered on Mt. Ebal in 2019. (Michael C. Luddeni/Associates for Biblical Research)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we speak with composer Andy Teirstein about his new contemporary classical music album, “Restless Nation” and play selections from it.
Like his music, Teirstein is hard to categorize. Born in New York City to a Jewish family, he quickly diverted from his classical piano and violin lessons and formed folk bands in his youth. Later, he joined a wilderness school's itinerant bus and he traveled around the United States while hiking, working in local communities -- and absorbing their music.
These travels and his subsequent varied occupations can be heard in his compositions, whether as a field hand, a clown, an actor, or a university professor. The inspiration for the new album's pieces comes from all over the globe, too, including here in Israel.
We’ve played selections of “Restless Nation” throughout the conversation. One piece includes Israeli oud player Yair Dalal and was inspired by a camel trek with Bedouin in the Arava Desert which ended each night with fire-side jam sessions deep into the night.
[caption id="attachment_2732495" align="alignnone" width="600"] Fire-side musical jam with Bedouin, oud player Yair Dalal and composer Andy Teirstein. (courtesy)[/caption]
There is a whole cast of other leading musicians recorded on the album, including Teirstein himself on a haunting harmonica solo in his piece, "Letter to Woody," based on archival documents he found in the Woody Guthrie library.
Today, Teirstein is a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He is also active in coexistence arts initiatives, such as the Translucent Boundaries project, which was founded in Israel and since expanded globally. It seeks to bring together the music and dance from peoples who share borders.
A big thanks to Navona Records for granting permission for use of the album tracks.
"Restless Nation" can now be streamed or purchased. Choose your platform here.
Watch "Cluck Old Hen" here.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
This Times of Israel podcast is sponsored by Thirty-Six, in which host Justin Hayet scours Israel to find the 36 most wonderful, interesting people doing the most wonderful, interesting things. Subscribe to Thirty-Six on your favorite podcast platform.
Image: Composer Andy Teirstein during a desert trek in Israel with oud player Yair Dalal. (courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
We speak with Merav Oren, a serial entrepreneur and culinary creator, and now the CEO at Foodish, the new culinary arm of ANU, the renovated and rescaled Museum of the Jewish People (formerly known as Beit Hatfutsot).
Foodish is bringing the story of Jewish food to the forefront, with recipes, stories, photos, videos and a Foodish culinary map.
There are podcasts as well, hosted by Oren with chefs and celebrities, speaking about their relationship and memories of food, and visits with culinary luminaries, such as the recent visit by food writer Joan Nathan to Israel.
Oren speaks about the goals of Foodish, which sends its team out to families who want to record their recipes for posterity, making sure those lists of ingredients and instructions are never completely lost.
She shares stories and anecdotes, sharing information about this fulsome food endeavor.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
This Times of Israel podcast is sponsored by Thirty-Six, in which host Justin Hayet scours Israel to find the 36 most wonderful, interesting people doing the most wonderful, interesting things. Subscribe to Thirty-Six on your favorite podcast platform.
IMAGE: Foodish CEO Merav Oren, left, with food writer Joan Nathan, during Nathan's recent visit to Israel, hosted by Foodish, the culinary arm of Anu -- Museum of the Jewish People (Courtesy Merav Oren)
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We’re speaking this week to 'Fauda' series creators Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, as well as documentary filmmaker Oren Rosenfeld, whose 2018 film 'The Real Fauda,' delved into the series' global popularity.
Issacharoff and Lior Raz spoke to journalists this week just before taking off for Budapest, where the show will shoot part of the fourth season.
Viewers have been waiting since 2020 for the latest installation of this series. While Israelis will be able to watch the fourth season of "Fauda" in Hebrew starting summer 2022, Netflix has yet to announce a date for the US release of the show, which has rocketed Issacharoff and Raz to TV stardom.
The new season follows an Arab citizen of Israel who is suspected of having a terrorist history, and whose sister is an Israeli police officer.
The plot -- which spirits viewers to Lebanon, Jenin, Israel, and Belgium -- was inspired by a true story that happened in Israel many years ago, said Issacharoff.
The creators said writing began before the last year's violence.
The pair recently announced a $50 million partnership with former Disney executives, and their production company Faraway Road is working on several films and TV series.
IMAGE: 'Fauda' co-creators Lior Raz (left) and Avi Issacharoff at a March 6, 2022 press conference about the upcoming fourth season of 'Fauda' (Courtesy Rafi Daluya)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we're marking International Women’s Day by speaking with the Director of Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital, Dr. Tamar Elram.
Born in England, Elram moved to Israel as a child with her family and lived in Jerusalem. A trained gynecologist, Elram has served in leadership positions at the Hadassah hospitals for the past decade. In November 2017 she became the director of Mount Scopus.
We discuss the powerful female history behind the Hadassah hospitals and Elram's own hard-won wisdom around what she calls “Awareness-Based Leadership.” We also have a frank conversation about important developments in women’s health perspectives and how the #metoo movement has affected the field of gynecology.
IMAGE: Dr. Tamar Elram, CEO of Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital (Arnon Bosani)
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We’re speaking this week to Israeli rap impresario Shaanan Streett, the founding member of hiphop/funk band Hadag Nahash, currently celebrating its 25th year.
During our conversation in Streett's Jerusalem studio, we discuss reaching this career pinnacle, the band's improbable start and finding the balance between the songs of protest and, as Streett says, "the importance of having fun."
We also talk about Streett's new solo album and his first Arabic single,"Arabiyaty ElMaksura," sung entirely by Streett in Arabic, the language he's been working on for the last decade.
Streett also recently published his first book, a fictional work about Jerusalem skateboarders and graffiti artists. We discuss the art of writing and interpreting dreams, something he does with friends in his "Dream a Dream" podcast and finally, his ongoing relationship with the city of Jerusalem, where he was raised and still lives and works.
IMAGE: Rapper, writer and dream interpreter Shaanan Streett (Courtesy)
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This week, in honor of The Times of Israel's 10-year anniversary, Times Will Tell is speaking with founding editor David Horovitz.
We here at The Times of Israel want to thank all of you for giving us a chance a decade ago and so we’re peeling back the curtain for a glimpse behind the scenes.
Horovitz speaks about what it was like to launch a media platform in a crowded tough market. We talk about our five language platforms and deep dives into investigative journalism. We hear about the state of Israel generally, and finally, what gives Horovitz confidence in the future.
Image: Founding The Times of Israel editor David Horovitz in our Jerusalem office. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/ToI)
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We’re speaking this week to Anneke von der Lippe and Uri Barbash, the Norwegian actor and Israeli director of the current Netflix series, "The Girl From Oslo," which racked up views and placed in the top ten of series watched in 36 countries during its first week on the streaming platform.
The 10-part series tells the story of a kidnapping of a young Norwegian woman and her two Israeli friends. The Norwegian Pia’s mother, Alex, played by von der Lippe, travels to Israel to make contact with two friends — Arik, an Israeli politician played by Amos Taman, and her Palestinian friend, Layla, played by Raida Adon.
It’s a show that takes on many subjects; ISIS, Israel, Hamas, Oslo, Palestinian and Israeli conflict, personal relationships, husbands, wives and children, terror and mourning, for a sweep of emotions and drama.
IMAGE: Anneke von der Lippe (left) and Amos Taman (right) as Alex and Arik in 'The Girl from Oslo,' currently on Netflix.
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We're speaking this week with Daniel Sivan, the Israeli co-director of the new animated Netflix short film, “Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis,” which was shortlisted for the best documentary short Oscar; final nominees will be announced on February 8.
"Camp Confidential” is the latest of several Sivan documentary collaborations with his work and life partner, Mor Loushy, to explore different aspects of Jewish history — their previous films have dealt with subjects such as the Oslo Accords, the Six-Day War and the legacy of AIPAC.
"Camp Confidential" tells the story of a group of Jewish American veterans, refugees of Nazi Germany, whose sole experience of WWII was guarding a secret Nazi POW camp on American soil, outside Washington, DC.
Sivan discusses the use of animation to tell this story, their decision to make it into a short film and how he and Loushy unintentionally became filmmakers telling aspects of the Jewish story.
IMAGE: A still from 'Camp Confidential.' (Netflix via JTA)
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This week in honor of the January 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Times Will Tell spoke with Dani Dayan, the new head of Yad Vashem, in his Jerusalem-based museum and Holocaust education center.
We met a few days after the Colleyville hostage situation, in which four Jews were held captive for some 11 hours in their Reform synagogue in what was arguably an antisemitic attack. We discuss what role Holocaust education could play in mitigating such attacks and how Dayan once naively thought they would not occur in the United States.
Dayan was born in 1955 in Argentina and moved to Israel in 1971. Prior to heading Yad Vashem, he was the Consul General of Israel in New York. Before that, he was a longtime activist and head of the right-wing Settler Movement’s Yesha Council.
In the most recent elections, he ran on Gidon Sa’ar’s New Hope ticket and was appointed chair of Yad Vashem by the party’s Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton in August. Despite his former political ties, Dani tells me that he and Yad Vashem are strictly non-partisan in their work -- and why that is increasingly important.
IMAGE: Head of Yad Vashem Dani Dayan. (Alex Kolomoisky/Yad Vashem)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
We’re taking a deep dive today into Israel’s kosher certification system, as the government undertakes the first step in overhauling the industry.
The new plan, unveiled in July by religious affairs minister Matan Kahana, would presumably end the monopoly of the chief rabbinate and local rabbinates as the only bodies that can issue kosher certificates, which costs businesses upwards of $2 million a year, and allow for other private kosher certification agencies.
This long-awaited privatization of the kosher certification industry follows a path paved by the religious Zionist Tzohar organization, which launched its own kosher certification agency in 2018. They took over for a grassroots group that first entered the industry years before, aiming to break the rabbinate’s grip on what can be considered kosher.
You'll hear from several people involved in this industry, including Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar; Tzvi Maller, the American-born owner of Crave, a restaurant in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market that grappled with a fakin' bacon issue; Itzik Kadosh, a pastry chef and owner of a beloved Jerusalem cafe who fought the rabbinate over turning his croissants into triangles; Yittie Lawson, who runs Tacos Luis, a Mexican restaurant down the block from Kadosh; Dan Male, who runs Jerusalem's Angelica, a fine chef restaurant whose customers won't stand for anything other than the rabbinate's stamp of approval and Leon Avigad, who owns and operates the Brown Hotel chain in Israel, Greece and Europe and just wants his kosher supervisors to tell him what to do and how to do it.
It's a wacky world of kosher laws and these people live it, every day.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Crave Jerusalem's 'facon' duck bacon on its Black Forest Special (Courtesy Crave)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we're speaking about the play "The Blessing of a Broken Heart," based on the book by Sherri Mandell, directed by Yael Valier of Theater and Theology and with the lead role played by Rebecca Sykes.
The production was supposed to be performed this week in Jerusalem, but is being postponed due the current wave of the omicron variant.
This latest version of the one-woman play is now backed by an ensemble created by Valier in order to underline the story and reflect what the Mandell character is thinking and feeling throughout the work.
The production is about the brutal terrorist murder of Mandell's 13-year-old son Koby Mandell and his friend Yosef Ishran in 2001, near their home in Israel.
This terrible tragic loss led the Mandell and her husband, Seth Mandell, to do many things, including establishing the Koby Mandell Foundation that offers support programs to people who have lost family members to terrorism.
Mandell has always been a writer and "The Blessing of a Broken Heart" was written in the year after Koby's murder, portraying her experience of mourning and renewal.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: From recent rehearsals of "The Blessings of a Broken Heart," the book by Sherri Mandell that's being performed by Theater and Theology in Jerusalem, in January 2022. (Courtesy PR)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we're speaking with author and journalist Andrew Lawler, who recently published the fabulous “Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City.”
Host Amanda Borschel-Dan absolutely devoured the book and highly recommends it to anyone interested in Holy Land history, archaeology, or even just tales of unbelievable, but real characters. It’s a real trip along the timeline of Jerusalem archaeologists, spanning from the 1860s through today.
We get a sense of the crazy people behind the digs, government involvement and the sparks of geopolitical conflict that still simmer.
Image: Author Andrew Lawler (Samir Al-Sharif)
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we're speaking to Danna Stern, the managing director of Yes Studios.
This is the studio that brought us "Fauda" and "Shtisel," "On the Spectrum" and "Your Honor," and many hours of viewing pleasure in this new era of streaming platforms and often shorter, sharper series.
We discuss what makes a successful Israeli show and when it can be 'translated' into success abroad, such as Kan 11's grocery store mockumentary "Checkout," being distributed by Yes.
Stern feels that Netflix's recently canceled "Hit and Run," from the "Fauda" team, can be considered a success, given the parameters that brought it about, and waxes poetic over her own recent viewing favorites, "Squid Game" and Apple TV's "Ted Lasso."
IMAGE: Yes Studios' Danna Stern (right), with Niv Majar (middle) and Naomi Levov of 'On the Spectrum,' during a 2019 awards ceremony in Monte Carlo (Courtesy Yes Studios)
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This week on Times Will Tell, we sent our New York-based film and culture critic Jordan Hoffman on an odyssey to ascertain how best to fulfill the American Jewish "mitzvah" of Chinese food and a movie on Christmas.
Our tireless correspondent went deep into the heart of Chinatown and sampled dim sum and hot and sour soup. He also explains how the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is currently affecting the city that never sleeps, and who gets no (wonton) soup from him.
We hear about Columbus Park, a unique snapshot of New York at its finest, and where to go to get the best tea (and potential prezzie) ever.
In the second half of the show, Hoffman explores what's screening in local theaters. What's worth the hype -- and what decidedly is not. And finally, he explains where those New Yorkers who want to fulfill the Xmas mitzvah to its fullest can have a most goyische evening out.
ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: People are seen in the window eating at a Chinese restaurant decorated with menu items on its shop front on January 10, 2020, in New York City. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
We're speaking this week to Bishop Glenn Plummer, a minister, pastor and bishop of the Pentacostal Church, with Lazar Berman hosting, putting on his Christian Affairs correspondent hat.
Plummer was appointed in 2019 as the first Pentacostal bishop of Israel, representing the predominantly Black church that has nearly nine million adherents worldwide.
He was mandated, said Plummer, to "come and embrace Israel," from his position as one of the top African American, pro-Zionist clergy in the US.
Berman and Plummer discuss his first few months in Israel, when certain Jewish Israelis felt threatened by his presence and intentions. They also discuss the roots of the Pentacostal Church, evangelical Christianity, Black-Jewish relations in the US and Plummer's plans and experiences in Israel until now.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Bishop Glenn Plummer, the Pentacostal minister who moved to Israel during the pandemic, on a boat in the Galilee (Courtesy Bishop Plummer)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
We're speaking this week to flag football players who gathered in Jerusalem this week to play in the IFAF Flag Football world championship.
Organized by American Football in Israel founder Steve Leibowitz, who brought flag football to Israel in the 1980s, the championship gathers hundreds of athletes from all over the world to the Kraft Family Sports Campus in Jerusalem, for three days of games.
Given the pandemic, it was a last minute decision to hold the championship in Israel, after other countries had to cancel. Leibowitz tells us that it was only back in May that he began organizing the games in Jerusalem, a plan that was nearly abandoned with the arrival of the Omicron variant.
But Leibowitz and other government agencies prevailed, and the players arrived late lat week, quarantining for three days, sticking to their own team tents when not on the field, and only gathering together when it's time to play.
According to them, it's all worth it.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Flag football players competing in IFAF Flag Football world championship in Jerusalem, December 7, 2021
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we're speaking to the Djamchid Sisters, Shay-Li Djamchid and Eden Djamchid, sisters in life and in music, who have been composing, playing and singing together for the last 15 years, since they were teens.
Their new single, "B'Yadayim Shelcha," ("In Your Hands") was recently released as part of their second album, "A Thousand Suns."
It's an album that's been long awaited by local 88FM listeners, as well as their fans around the country.
During the conversation, the two sisters speak about being born in Jerusalem into a musical family. Shay-Li picked up the guitar when she was still in grade school, and began writing songs and music on her own. Her younger sister Eden, only by a year and a half, began learning how to play the cello at the age of five, when she was still in kindergarten.
The two began playing and singing together from their bedrooms in their teens and performing soon followed, with a serious approach to their music from the very start.
This latest collection of songs, say the sisters, reflects where they are in life now, older, wiser, still full of hopes and dreams.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: The Djamchid Sisters, Eden Djamchid (left) and Shay-Li Djamchid (Courtesy Omri Rosengart)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we're speaking to Samekh Zakout and Uriya Rosenman, the Arab rapper and Israeli educator who banded together in the last year to put their frustrations, thoughts and ideas into two raps so far, the first of which, “Bo Nedaber Dugri,” (Let’s Talk Straight), a six-minute, 28-second rap, went viral when released in May.
They had been working together for months, but the impetus for releasing the first rap in May were the riots that raged through Israel's mixed cities.
Now the two have released their second rap, "Munfas," and are on the road in Israel, speaking to Arabs and Jews, sometimes together, about what this country needs in order to find different solutions for future generations.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Samekh Zakout, left and Uriya Rosenman of Dugri, the straight-talking rap pair who aim to find a different narrative for young Arabs and Jews in Israel.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
Thanksgiving has long been celebrated by American immigrants living in Israel, but what about Israelis, native Sabras, who don't know from pilgrims and pumpkin pie? Why would they celebrate this holiday about all foods related to pumpkin, stuffing and cranberries?
This week, we're speaking to Israelis who have long celebrated Thanksgiving, chef Snir Eng Sela and Tel Aviv resident Yael Cnaan, who speak about how and why they celebrate this very American holiday.
There's also a conversation with Gavi Nelson, the founder of Eating Around Israel, who exports his spice mixes, and created his own Middle Eastern version of pumpkin spice.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Chef Snir Eng Sela's pumpkin pie at his bistro, Gouge and Daniel, where he often ends up eating most of the pie he makes, as Israeli customers often shy away from this most American of Thanksgiving desserts.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we’re speaking to two musicians who will be performing at the upcoming 22nd Oud Festival, opening November 18 in Jerusalem.
Wisam Gibran is a composer, poet and oud player who will be performing with poet Ronny Somekh this year, bringing their music and words to the stage. It's not the first time at the Oud Festival for Gibran, a Palestinian from Nazareth who performs globally, and who enjoys the particular mix of people and place at the annual event.
Singer Nataly Oryon, from Jerusalem, will be performing for the first time at the Oud Festival, bringing her mix of Greek music and song to the stage.
Greek is a language Oryon learned on her own, having fallen in love with its musicality and tone. The music she sngs is classical and traditional Greek music, and other tunes she's discovered along the way both in Greece and back home in Israel.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Musician Wisam Gibran on the oud, his instrument of choice during the upcoming Oud Festival in Jerusalem (Courtesy Wisam Gibran)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we’re speaking to David Kichka, founder and producer of the Israeli Cuisine Festival, opening November 11 for two weeks around the country.
Kichka, a culinary entrepreneur who has produced different food events in Israel over the last decade, speaks about the Michelin-starred chef meals, market tours, hummus, olive oil and wine tastings that make up this first-time event.
There are chef meals and talks in several Dan hotels, dinners created by chefs Ezra Kedem and Erez Komarovsky in their pastoral homes, street food meals and 17-course dinners, the whole gamut of dining experiences.
Kichka also delves more fully into his definition of Israeli cuisine, looking at the chefs who study abroad and bring their knowledge home, adding to the Israeli vibe that has helped create the local culinary culture.
"It's okay to be an immigrant country," said Kichka, pointing to the "salad of origin" of Israelis, coming from different places and adding their tastes to the local gastronomical melting pot. "It's become part of our identity."
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: David Kichka, the culinary entrepreneur behind the new Israeli Cuisine Festival (Courtesy David Kichka)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, environmental reporter Sue Surkes speaks to award-winning Israeli photographer Roie Galitz, who uses his lens to show how climate change is impacting animals in the coldest parts of the planet.
Galitz lives in Tel Aviv, and has spent years traveling to the North Pole, Antartica and other cold corners of the world, where he documents animals -- polar bears are a particular favorite -- and climate change as a result.
He wasn't always an environmentalist, Galitz tells Surkes, but through his fascination with the animals in those places and the immense changes taking place there, he watched the Arctic warming up, causing dramatic changes.
"Photography freezes moments in time forever," said Galitz, "it's my time machine."
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Photographer Roie Galitz on one of his photoshoots, with animals who are "relaxed and calm," something he always aims for with his photography (Courtesy Roie Galitz)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg headed to Arad, 25 kilometers west of the Dead Sea, where 200 participants volunteered to be photographed in the nude for Spencer Tunicks’ third installation at the Dead Sea, raising awareness about the retreating waters of this natural phenomenon.
Tunick’s 2011 shots of the Dead Sea included shots of the models covered with Dead Sea mud. This time, they covered their bodies with white body paint, channeling Lot’s wife, the biblical character who turned into pillar of salt when she fled Sodom, and turned back to look at her city.
The volunteer models spent several hours standing barefoot on the sharp rocks and stones of the arid hilltop, posing for Tunick who stood on a ladder, a megaphone in one hand and his camera in the other.
Steinberg interviewed several of the volunteer models, and spoke with the Arad mayor and Spencer Tunick on the windy plateau overlooking the Dead Sea, bringing listeners to this unusual photoshoot on the border of the Negev and Judean Deserts.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: A few hundred of naked people paint in white pose for a group picture taken by Jewish American artist Spencer Tunick and his team, outside Arad, Southern Israel, on October 17, 2021. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we speak with Federica Sasso, a freelance writer for the Times of Israel, who is covering the story of Israeli-born Eitan Biran, the six-year-old sole survivor of the May cable car crash in northern Italy.
Biran is the subject of a fierce custody battle between his maternal and paternal sides of the family. His parents, baby brother and maternal great-grandparents were all killed in the accident. Eitan has been raised in Italy since he was a baby, where his Israeli-born parents were living while his father studied medicine near Milan. His paternal aunt, also a doctor, lives in the same town where Eitan and his family lived.
Eitan's maternal grandfather whisked him back to Israel in September, and a court case is now unfolding in Israel to determine whether the grandfather violated the Hague Convention and is guilty of abduction.
Sasso, an Italian living in Israel, unfolds the story, the ongoing court cases and the two cultures at battle in this tragic tale.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM, or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Aya Biran, third from left, a paternal aunt of Eitan Biran, who survived a cable car crash in Italy that killed his immediate family, arrives to court in Tel Aviv Friday, Oct. 8, 2021. The boy's parents and younger sibling were among 14 killed in May when a cable car slammed into a mountainside in northern Italy. He is now the focus of a custody battle between his maternal grandparents in Israel and his paternal relatives in Italy. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we speak with Michael Leventhal, the Yorkshire, England-based publisher of Greenhill Books and Green Bean Books, who authored "Babka, Boulou & Blintzes," a collection of Jewish chocolate recipes by 50 Jewish food writers, including Claudia Roden, Joan Nathan and others.
The book includes everything from traditional babka and chocolate soup to chocolate Sacher torte and chocolate-tahini combinations.
The cookbook also includes Leventhal's in-depth research and exploration of the history of Jewish food and culture through cocoa, examining the Cadbury family's connections to Israel; whether the creator of the Sacher torte was Jewish; and the popularity of babka.
Leventhal's cookbook includes recipes from Jewish communities the world over, including Russia, Mexico, England, Israel, North America, Turkey, Egypt, Portugal and the Netherlands.
All sales of the book will support Chai Cancer Care, a Jewish cancer support organization in England.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: The cover of Michael Leventhal's cookbook, "Babka, Boulou & Blintzes, Jewish Chocolate Recipes from around the World"
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we speak with home chef Shaily Lipa about her latest book, "Hakol Beseder," about the power of an active, organized kitchen, and which is now being translated into English as "KitcheNeat."
Lipa is a beloved Israeli TV personality and lifestyle authority, who has written eleven books in Hebrew.
This book, which came out in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus, just as Israel went into a lockdown, is about the benefits of a well-organized and active kitchen -- the heart and soul of any household -- and how it can offer the path to a healthy, balanced and fulfilling life.
Lipa speaks about her 5 Rules to an Organized Kitchen, the guiding principles of KitcheNeat.
She also talks about her studies in Hasidism and how that affected her research and writing, her thoughts about other home organizing experts, and how her readers' reactions to "KitcheNeat" have been a powerful antidote during these very uncertain times.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Home chef and TV personality Shaily Lipa in her kitchen.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week, we speak with artist Mindy Wiesel about her lifelong search for beauty in her artwork and life, amid the turmoil, pain and love of her Holocaust survivor parents.
"AFTER: The Obligation of Beauty," is an unusual memoir, a hardbound, slim volume that divides Weisel's life into chapters of her artistic experience, with photos of her work, which includes paintings, glassworks and sculpture, illustrating each section.
It's a work that Weisel wrote over the course of eleven years, tracing her search for beauty in her life. She was born after the Holocaust, in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Person's Camp to parents who survived Auschwitz, and is a cousin to the late Elie Wiesel.
Yet despite those complicated beginnings, the book is Weisel's own story, her struggles as a "second generation," a child of survivors. The memoir traces Weisel's lifelong journey to understand her parents' trauma into which she was born and an unshakable will to live with beauty, one that she has attempted to fulfill her entire life.
By weaving a tapestry of her art, narrative, poetry and journals, Weisel offers moving insights into her life and work, especially her deep-seated conviction that beauty and love can overcome tragedy.
Weisel, her husband and children lived in Washington, DC for forty years before she moved with her husband to Jerusalem ten years ago.
Her art is on permanent display at the National Museum of American Art, Oxford University and the Israel Museum, and in many public and private collections.
The book is available for purchase on Amazon; Weisel will also have a solo exhibit this November at the Rosenbach Gallery in Jerusalem.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Artist Mindy Weisel in her Jerusalem home, prior to the September 2021 launch of her memoir, "After."
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, we’re speaking with three different rabbis of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform denominations, in Israel and the US, about their work as congregational spiritual leaders during this high holiday period that began with Rosh Hashana on Monday night.
The first rabbi to speak is Rabbi Seth Farber, an American-born rabbi living in Ra'anana, where he leads the Kehillat Netivot synagogue in his neighborhood. He talks about the logistics of running Rosh Hashana services this year, as well as some ideas from his sermon, including the destiny of the biblical Joseph who spent two years in isolation in an Egyptian prison, a formative period in his life.
Our second rabbi is Rabbi Aaron Brusso of Bet Torah Synagogue in Mount Kisco in New York. He is also grappling with the realities of coronavirus restrictions in his Conservative congregation, which has both strengthened his connection with his congregants of all ages, and limited their physical presence as well.
Rabbi Brusso speaks about his sermon topics, the state of everyone's empathy in this complicated time, followed by his second day open letter to the congregation's college students about Israel.
Finally, we hear from Rabbi Toby Manewith, a Hebrew Union College-ordained rabbi from Chicago, who will be leading services at a nearby old age home and assisted living facility.
Rabbi Manewith speaks about the particular issues confronting her aged congregation, and what they have handled over the last period. She tells one story she'll be relating on the first night of Rosh Hashanah, a folktale that will help people release their thoughts and concerns.
Throughout the podcast, we listen to Ishay Ribo's "Seder HaAvoda" piece, a haunting work based solely on the prayers and liturgical poems of the Yom Kippur service.
Times Will Tell podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Jewish men blow the shofar during the forgivness (Selichot) prayer at the Rashbi gravesite in Meron, Northern Israel, on September 9, 2017, prior to the upcoming Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (Photo by David Cohen/Flash90)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, we’re speaking with Bryan Friedland, an actor on the autism spectrum who recently participated in Kan 11 reality show, "Tnu L'avod," ("Let Us Work").
The show, which aired in August, comprises four episodes about nine people with neurological and cognitive differences. All nine want to integrate into the Israeli workplace, and engage in a months-long process to find their way toward jobs and acceptance in Israeli society.
Friedland speaks with us about the process of participating in the show, working with a social worker and coach to figure out which jobs best suit his skills, and more importantly, the emotional and cognitive challenges of his life, along with his desire for acceptance and a life of meaning.
IMAGE: Bryan Friedland, who appears on Kan 11's "Tnu L'Avod," in Jerusalem's Shekel candle workshop where he worked for ten years.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, we’re speaking with Andrew Porwancher, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, and author of the recently published, "The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton," about the founding father's Jewish background and influences.
Porwancher spent the better part of a decade researching "The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton," before Lin Manuel-Miranda's musical hit on Broadway, changing the way millions think about spoken word and the founding father's lasting influence on the American democracy.
We’ll discuss Porwancher's research and his engrossing thesis about American Jewry, including what it meant to be a Jew in Hamilton's time.
A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Porwancher earned degrees from Brown and Northwestern before completing his PhD in history at Cambridge. He currently serves as the Wick Cary Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma and the Ernest May Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.
IMAGE: Dr. Andrew Porwancher
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, we’re speaking with Dr. David Sasso. A musician and psychiatrist, David works in the intersection of mental health, music, and the arts and serves as Assistant Clinical Professor at the Yale School of Medicine.
Full disclosure, David and host Amanda Borschel-Dan attended high school together in Indianapolis, after which he studied Music Composition at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and double majored in biochemistry before attending medical school at Northwestern. As a teen, David premiered works with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and later his full-length opera "The Trio of Minuet"was performed featuring children as the main characters.
More recently, David has focused on various traditional folk genres and his duo project -- Kat Wallace and David Sasso -- is releasing its second album in October.
We’ll discuss the idea of the creative genius and hear excerpts of his music, especially two very different pieces he wrote about Noah’s Ark.
IMAGE: Dr. David Sasso (courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we’re speaking with Mark Halawa, who -- although Jewish from birth according to halacha or Jewish law -- only after some 11 years in Israel recently gained his Israeli citizenship.
That's because Mark was born and raised in Kuwait to a family of Palestinian refugees. His father, once a colleague of Yasser Arafat, is a secular Muslim. His mother is the daughter of a Jewish woman from the Holy Land who married a Muslim man. So according to Muslim law, he’s Muslim. And according to Jewish law, he’s a Jew.
Hear how Mark learned about his Jewish identity and made his way from Kuwait to Jerusalem, where he is building his own tribe of tolerant citizens of the world.
IMAGE: Kuwaiti-born Mark Halawa receives his Israeli citizenship, August 2021. (Courtesy)
Read more here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-a-kuwaiti-muslim-made-a-jewish-home-in-jerusalem/
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, we’re speaking with Ariel Zwang, the new CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Zwang is a longtime CEO of other nonprofits, but for the Jewish world, it is still a real rarity to see a woman at the top. We’ll speak about a life of breaking glass ceilings and what still needs to be done for more gender parity in the Jewish organizational sphere.
Zwang is just back from a month-long tour of Israel where she visited Lod and other sites of coexistence flar-ups during the recent May conflict. Also, Zwang discusses the JDC’s footprint around the world, among all nations regardless of religion, its work here in Israel, and how the mammoth organization is trying to get more input from the next generation of leaders.
IMAGE: JDC's new CEO Ariel Zwang visits with participants of Hanoch Digital, a JDC program that helps Israeli Haredim embrace technology to confidently enter the job market. (courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we're speaking with an up-and-coming high-risk pregnancy specialist Dr. Joshua Rosenbloom. The Harvard Medical School trained magna cum laude immigrated to Israel a few years ago and now works from Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem medical campus.
When we spoke, Rosenbloom was fresh from delivering a baby a few minutes earlier via cesarean section and could have been called at any moment to deliver another, so our conversation is concise, fast-paced and informative.
It is also based on the curiosity of host Amanda Borschel-Dan as a 45-year-old woman who has just entered her 8th month of pregnancy. She has found very little information online for pregnancy in her age bracket and wanted to set the record straight for others.
We discuss high-risk pregnancy, fertility, pre-natal testing, and how Israel compares versus North America.
ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: A pregnant woman undergoes an ultrasound in Israel. (Chen Leopold/Flash90)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, ahead of Sunday's observance of Tisha B’Av on Sunday, which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples, we go onsite in Jerusalem to the Temple Mount Sifting Project.
We speak with archaeologist Zachi Dvira, who is the co-director of the project. He’ll explain its controversial genesis and continuing struggle. At the end of our conversation, you'll hear as we wet sift a bucket of earth taken from the Temple Mount.
Founded in 2004 near the Mount of Olives, it’s now at a new location called Mitzpe Hamasuot, near the Hebrew University. The new site is easily accessible and has an auditorium and a shady picnic grove, which was made possible with the help of American Friends of Beit Orot.
Dvira calls for all who have not been to help sift through thousands of years of Temple Mount history to "hurry up!"
IMAGE: Visitors sifting buckets of earth from the Temple Mount at the relaunch of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, June 2, 2019. (Yosef Huri)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we’re speaking with a dynamic young Israeli filmmaker named Dani Schoffman, whose short “Aye Ko” was filmed in Burma after he lived in the fascinating mysterious country for several years following NYU film school.
Here is a link to the film, so you can watch ”Aye Ko” now, before you hear us discuss it, or following our conversation.
The film follows a 12-year-old Burmese girl as she struggles to bring a blessed goat home to her village for her sister’s wedding. Everything goes wrong and we meet a colorful cast of characters along the way.
Schoffman describes his initial culture shock in arriving in Burma, a country that was essentially closed to the world for 60 years, how he found himself giving an offering to Buddha to ward off a curse while filming, and how the Yiddish phrase “Man tracht un gott lacht” — “Man plans and god laughs” couldn’t have been more true.
IMAGE: A still from 'Aye Ko' by Dani Schoffman (courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, at the tail end of Pride month, we're speaking with a leader of IGY — the Israel Gay Youth organization -- Rom Ohayon, who heads up all post-high school programs.
Today, IGY is funded in part by the Israeli Ministries of Education, Health and Social Welfare, in addition to private donations. There are some 400 IGY volunteers who offer support and advocacy for over 4,000 gay youth a year throughout Israel. IGY works in conjunction with the IDF, the National Service programs, and is launching a new pre-military academy named after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this fall.
But it was not always on the Israeli scene and was only created in 2002 by Yaniv Weizman and Gal Ohovsky, specifically for youth aged 12-23. Its ongoing evolution and spread to all kinds of Israel’s diverse communities means the group is gradually filling a massive void for gay youth and helping them stay integrated within Israeli society.
By 2010, IGY started its post-high school Year of Service group. Some participants continue to the IDF’s Nahal Brigade, which was founded by David Ben-Gurion in 1948 and traditionally combines military service with serving in small communities.
Since 2018, several graduates of the service and army programs have settled in Afula and become IGY leaders. This is where we find 29-year-old Rom Ohayon today.
IMAGE: IGY participants (courtesy)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, as Israel is experiencing a minor surge of the delta or Indian variant of the coronavirus, we speak with The New York Times’s South Asia bureau chief Jeffrey Gettleman, who is based in New Delhi.
We discuss the horror of the height of the pandemic in India, which the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist describes as every nation’s nightmare.
Prior to his four years in India, Gettleman has reported from war fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, was taken hostage in Fallujah, has covered conflict in Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Yemen and Ethiopia.
Covering the pandemic is different, he said, and much closer to home.
Hear about the overloaded health care system and how India is slowly stymieing the pandemic.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, ToI published an article about a fascinating study that pinpoints when and where early modern man met up with their Neanderthal cousins -- 50,000 years ago in the Negev Desert.
The multi-disciplinary study was authored by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Weizmann Institute and draws on hi-tech carbon-14 dating, alongside the discovery of material culture excavated by IAA prehistorian, Dr. Omry Barzilai, at the Boker Tachtit site in the Negev.
Barzilai explains his path into the world of prehistoric archaeology and helps put a human face on early man, whom he firmly believes were a lot like us.
For more on the new study, see:
Prehistoric man lived with and loved Neanderthals in the Negev 50,000 years ago
IMAGE: Prehistorian Dr. Omry Barzilai. (Courtesy)
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Even as the State of Israel appears poised to usher in a new era of politics, this week on Times Will Tell we are looking back at the prime minister who, in 1977, caused the original “Mahapach” or “Upheaval” -- Menachem Begin.
We’re speaking with director Jonathan Gruber, whose English-language film about Begin, “Upheaval,” opened this week.
Gruber paints a complex picture of Begin, a self-proclaimed “simple Jew” from Poland, whose Zionism led him to become one of Israel’s founders and most influential leaders.
The film is well worth viewing for the star-studded cast of interviewees and remarkable historical images and footage. We hope this conversation with Jonathan Gruber whets your appetite to see the movie, which is available now in virtual theaters.
IMAGE: In this November 16, 1980 file photo, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin as he appeared on the ABC program 'Good Morning America.' (AP Photo, File)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. In the wake of Operation Guardian of the Walls, late last week, host Amanda Borschel-Dan had a startling conversation with antisemitism scholar Adi Kantor from the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.
Kantor is a research associate at the Europe Research Program and in the institute’s ongoing project "Contemporary Antisemitism in the United States.” Her main research fields include right-wing extremism, antisemitism, trauma, identity and intergenerational discourse after 1945.
Kantor offers a disturbing look at the trend of increasing antisemitism that is sweeping the globe from all political and societal echelons.
It’s an upsetting conversation, but an important perspective to hear.
Image: A man holds a placard during a protest organized by Jewish associations, who say justice has not been done for the killing of French Jewish woman Sarah Halimi, at Trocadero Plaza near Eiffel Tower in Paris, April 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week a crazy interesting study is published in the Tel Aviv archaeological journal called “The Pentateuchal Dietary Proscription against Finless and Scaleless Aquatic Species in Light of Ancient Fish Remains.” It was co-authored by Ariel University’s Dr. Yonatan Adler and Haifa University’s Prof. Omri Lernau; we're speaking with Adler.
Finless and scaleless fish are prohibited in the Bible, in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy. It appears in both books just after pig is forbidden from consumption. But it seems it was much less observed throughout the land and ages.
In the newly released study, the pair of scholars examine all known evidence of fish remains from ancient Judah over the period of some 2000 years to see if the common everyday Judean was actually following this particular Torah law, and if so, from when.
This study is part of Adler’s Origins of Judaism project, which examines all sorts of Torah laws, including purity, figurative art, and dietary prohibitions, and looks for concrete evidence for them.
IMAGE: Catfish swim in Ein Afek Nature Reserve, east of Kiryat Bialik, Israel, on April 24, 2015. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we’re speaking with Max Gross, the author of the award-winning “The Lost Shtetl.” The book came out in October 2020 and we had a great no-spoilers interview with him then that was written by our writer Renee Ghert-Zand. Since then, it’s won a bunch of Jewish book awards.
Podcast host Amanda Borschel-Dan recently read the book and loved it, so we’re having a fresh conversation in which we’re lifting up the curtain and spoiling away.
WARNING: If you intend to read this crazy novel about a shtetl that somehow drops off the face of the Earth and misses the Holocaust, the Cold War, fast-food, consumerism, and the internet revolution, stop now and do not listen to this episode!
Otherwise, you’ll hear Gross answer all sorts of frank questions about this enchanting, sobering book, that had us crying on the final page.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. The holiday of Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks, is here and one of the major themes surrounding this day that marks the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai is conversion.
So we’re speaking with Seth Farber, an American-Israeli rabbi and social activist, who is a leading expert in conversion and how it went awry in the Jewish state.
Farber was ordained by Yeshiva University and after moving to Israel, he earned a PhD in Jewish History from Hebrew University. In 2002, Farber founded the organization ITIM (“Passages” in Hebrew), which helps up to 5,000 people a year navigate the Israeli Chief Rabbinate in vital life cycle events. According to Farber, Itim works to build a Jewish and democratic Israel in which all Jews can lead full Jewish lives -- including the increasing numbers of Jews who are not recognized as such by the State of Israel.
Farber is also a founder of Giyur K’Halacha, Israel’s largest non-governmental, Orthodox conversion program, which we'll hear all about.
Illustrative image: A woman converts to Judaism at the Rabbinic Court in Jerusalem on July 21, 2003. (Flash 90)
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Hi everyone I’m Amanda Borschel-Dan and welcome to Times Will Tell, a weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we’re speaking with the Israel Antiquities Authority’s senior researcher Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini about the Nabateans' Incense Road, today a World Heritage Site. We’ll talk about the fall of the Nabatean trade route — possibly due to an epidemic — and other precious commodities in the ancient Holy Land including how globalization influenced antiquity.
For over 20 years, Erickson-Gini was the IAA’s Southern Negev sub-district archaeologist and she has conducted numerous archaeological excavations and surveys in many parts of the Negev and even Petra.
In 2019, Erickson-Gini excavated in a large area south of Ashkelon's Agamim neighborhood where she discovered evidence of wine and garum production from 2000 years ago. We’ll talk about that, too.
Erickson-Gini is also an adjunct lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. If you ever have a chance to hear her speak, it’s a thrill.
IMAGE: Tourists visiting Al-Khazneh "the Treasury" in the ancient city of Petra, Jordan, November 11, 2016. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)
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In the spirit of coexistence during the holy month of Ramadan, we held a special “Behind the Headlines” online discussion exclusively for The Times of Israel Community (join here). This week on our weekly Times Will Tell podcast, we bring you excerpts of the fascinating dialogue.
In 2019, ToI Editor David Horovitz conducted a fascinating joint interview with Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi and Palestinian scholar Prof. Mohammed Dajani after the publication of Klein Halevi’s book, “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.”
In a rare moment of bi-national solidarity, the two neighbors — one a former Jewish Defense League activist now working for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence; the other a former Fatah member whose academic career was destroyed after he took students to Auschwitz in 2014 — agreed to disagree, and vowed to work together as Dajani developed a doctoral program training journalists and religious leaders in reconciliation and interfaith dialogue.
Almost two years and an international pandemic later, where do the two neighbors stand now? And what can they tell us that may offer a truly viable model for resolving the broader conflict?
IMAGE: Prof. Mohammed Dajani (left) and Yossi Klein Halevi at The Times of Israel's office in Jerusalem, May 2019 (ToI staff)
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Hi everyone, this is Amanda Borschel-Dan and welcome to Times Will Tell, a weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. In honor of this week’s April 20 "4-20 Day" — the day which marijuana enthusiasts have adopted to raise awareness for the causes of cannabis legalization and medical marijuana — we’re speaking with Saul Kaye who is a mover and shaker in Israel’s cannabis legalization and technology drive.
Kaye was trained as a conventional pharmacist prior to moving to Israel in the 1990s and establishing a pharmacy in Jerusalem. But around a decade ago, he began opening his mind to the use of medical marijuana when a severely ill friend had exhausted all other options.
Now he is the CEO of CannaTech and ICan, two Israel-based initiatives working on medical marijuana efforts.
We speak about how the brains and brawn of StartUp Nation are still largely untapped, and so is the some $1 billion potential economic boost that deregulation could provide.
After our conversation with Saul, we will hear a special report from Dubai brought to us by The Times of Israel’s Ops and Blogs editor Miriam Herschlag. It was first broadcast on TLV1’s Promised Podcast.
Illustrative image: A worker tends to cannabis plants at a growing facility for the Tikun Olam company near the northern city of Safed August 31, 2010. (Abir Sultan/Flash 90)
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To mark Israel's Independence Day on Thursday, The Times of Israel's weekly podcast, Times Will Tell, is concentrating on the troubling new trend of anti-Zionism among young Diaspora Jews and we're speaking with author and educator Ben. M. Freeman, whose new book, “Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People” explores how progressive society has turned Zionism into a form of racism.
But all is not lost: In his new book, Freeman also offers ways in which Jews can remain liberally minded and reclaim Israel and their Jewish pride for themselves.
"I believe very fundamentally that it is not possible to be anti-Zionist and to be proudly Jewish. I think that it is just not possible because I see anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism, a form of anti-Jewish racism," Freeman tells The Times of Israel.
Glasgow-born Freeman, 34, is an educator based in Hong Kong who was inspired to found a "Jewish Pride movement" by his personal experiences in coming out of the closet and claiming for himself LGBTQ+ pride.
In addition to personal anecdotes and self-help encouragement, the book is an informative dive into the history of anti-Semitism. Spoiler, it began well before the advent of Christianity.
He discusses how Jews in many eras, including our own, have internalized this pervasive systemic anti-Semitism, to the detriment of themselves and the Jewish people as a whole as whole communities assimilate based on the myths and biases of anti-Jewish racism.
Likewise, we speak about the racial labeling of Jews and the concept of "light-skinned Jews who pass as White" versus "White Jews." It's not as clear-cut as it sounds. Finally, he gives encouragement for seeding the Jewish Pride movement throughout the Diaspora and spotlights a rainbow collection of seven young activists who have taken up the gauntlet.
The Times of Israel podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week, in honor of Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, we’re speaking with Dr. Liat Steir-Livny, who is a senior lecturer in Holocaust, film and culture studies at Sapir Academic College and the Open University.
Steir-Livny, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, is the author of five books and innumerable articles on the Holocaust in contemporary popular culture, including "Is it O.K to Laugh about it? "(Vallentine Mitchell, 2017), which analyzes Holocaust humor, satire and parody in Israeli culture.
We speak about the rampant use of Holocaust humor that has proliferated over the past 20 years in Israel, why it is flourishing and what it symbolizes.
Whereas Israelis have accepted Holocaust humor as an integral part of the parlance, Steir-Livny has found that abroad it is still clearly "verboten" and like "poking the bear."
Steir-Livny has found that the phenomenon is cross-generational and can be found on all media platforms. On Twitter, for example, Steir-Livny has discovered a treasure trove of "humorous" Anne Frank references. Found out what they represent.
We also discuss the increasing trend of the Zikaron Basalon or Remembrance in the Living Room grassroots gatherings and their role today. Spoiler, Steir-Livny credits the program with "saving" Holocaust Remembrance Day.
We also speak about recent headlines calling for Yom Hashoa to be turned into a fast day.
The Times of Israel podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.
IMAGE: Scene from 'Jojo Rabbit,' a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Taika Waititi, adapted from Christine Leunens's 2008 book 'Caging Skies.'
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast of The Times of Israel. This week, just ahead of Passover, we’re speaking about a new Israeli Reform movement prayer book called "Tfillat HaAdam." It combines Jewish traditions with new liturgy that deals with modern issues including pluralism, democracy and women’s rights.
"Tefillat HaAdam" is a compilation of modern Israeli poetry (such as the Hannah Senesh poem that gave the book its title) and literature, alongside traditional blessings and new blessings altogether, such as a communal blessing for one coming out of the closet.
We're speaking with its two editors, Rabbi Dr. Dalia Marx and Rabbi Dr. Alona Lisitsa. Both rabbis teach liturgy at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Rabbi Marx is a 10th generation Jerusalemite, whereas Rabbi Lisitsa was born in Kiev. She is also the first female rabbi in Israel to join a religious council, in Mevasseret Tsiyon in 2012.
We speak about the prayer book, the status of Liberal Judaism in Israel today, and to close, each rabbi will offer up a gem to spice up our Passover seders.
PHOTO: Rabbi Dr. Alona Lisitsa and Rabbi Dr. Dalia Marx, the editors of the new Israeli Reform movement prayer book, Tefilat HaAdam. (Omri Stark)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, The Times of Israel weekly podcast. This week we're speaking with author and scholar James McGrath, a professor in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis.
We'll speak about his new book, “What Jesus Learned From Women,” a project that was spurred by a curious graduate student's question.
The book is an interesting hybrid of classical historical/theological scholarship and imaginative historical fiction as McGrath works out just how a selection of women influenced Jesus’s thinking.
His previous books include, "Theology and Science Fiction" and "The Only True God: Monotheism in Early Judaism and Christianity."
IMAGE: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, 1655 by Johannes Vermeer.
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This week in honor of International Women’s Day, we're taking up menstruation rights on Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel, and speaking with Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, the co-founder of the advocacy group, Period Equity (https://www.periodequity.org/).
Weiss-Wolf is a lawyer and the vice president and the inaugural women and democracy fellow of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law. Her work focuses on gender, politics— and menstruation, including the ongoing campaign to squash the “tampon tax” in all 50 United States.
She speaks about the need for discrete, open-access to menstrual products for all those who need them, including the growing transgender population. For many, the financial burden of purchasing these products presents a dilemma -- food for the family, or a hygienic means of disposing of bodily fluids.
Weiss-Wolf's 2017 book “Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity” is great fun to read and incredibly enlightening. (Spoiler: Walt Disney even had a finger in the period pie.) We have a frank conversation about menstruation and its role -- or lack thereof -- in popular culture.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we're speaking with the brains and brawn behind the hit web series “YidLife Crisis”, Eli Battalion and Jamie Elman.
In a love letter to their hometown of Montreal, the two secular Jews schmooze and nosh their way in and out of uncomfortable situations born of their own twisted minds. The very modern, very Jewish series is filmed mostly in Yiddish and filled with food, sex, atheism, and a dash of parental guilt. Guest stars have included Mayim Bialik and Howie Mandel.
We caught up with the guys in a cross-continental Zoom to find out what they’re up to now. Check out their site here: https://www.yidlifecrisis.com/whatsnu
PHOTO: Jamie Elman (left) and Eli Batalion, the stars of the Yiddish-language webs series, YidLife Crisis. (courtesy)
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This week on The Times of Israel's Times Will Tell podcast, we're speaking with popular Israeli philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman, whose book “The Wondering Jew” just came out in English. It’s a deep dive into the Israeli search for Jewish identity from both the secular and religious sides. He breaks down the differing foundational ideologies, how they connect and divide Israelis and proposes a middle path.
We also discuss the ultra-Orthodox community’s loud and proud noncompliance to coronavirus rules and the role of God in Purim.
PHOTO: An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man stops to speak with Israelis listening to a street concert on Aza Street in Jerusalem during the 'Einstein on Aza Street' event, November 7, 2014. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
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This week on The Times of Israel's weekly podcast Times We Tell, we honor Black History Month and speak to three members of the Black and Jewish communities about their experiences, their struggles and their visions for the future in a panel, “Circles of Trust: Black and Jewish Communities Fight Together for Change.”
A little about our panelists: The Times of Israel readers may be familiar with Ed Gaskin through his stunning blog on The Times of Israel, “After the Tree of Life tragedy, I went to Shabbat services and never stopped.” Gaskin still attends services at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Massachusetts, as well as the Roxbury Presbyterian Church in Roxbury. He is joining us from Randolph, Massachusetts.
Gaskin earned an M. Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and graduated as a Martin Trust fellow from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He has published several books on a range of topics with social justice themes, was a co-organizer of the first faith-based initiative on reducing gang violence at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and has taught a seminary class on the topic of Christianity and the problem of racism for over 25 years.
Ginna Green is a political strategist, writer, movement-builder, and consultant, and partner and chief strategy officer at Uprise. A Schusterman senior fellow and a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance notable woman, Green is also a fellow at the Kogod Research Center of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and sits on the boards of Women’s March, Political Research Associates, the Jews of Color Initiative, Bend the Arc, and the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable.
Green is a frequent speaker and writer on democracy, race, racism in the Jewish community, Jewish community diversity, and leadership. Green is Zooming into the panel from Columbia, South Carolina.
Our final panelist is Rabbi Shais Rishon, also known as MaNishtana. Rishon is an author, writer, educator, playwright, rabbi, and public speaker, whose work on racial and religious identity and culture – and how their intersections manifest in America – faces prejudice, bias, and ignorance head-on, asking the questions about humanity, race, religion, and social injustice that we all have (and maybe are afraid to talk about).
In February 2018, Rishon earned his first Orthodox rabbinical ordination. He lives in New York with his family, but is joining us from San Diego.
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Israel is observing Yom HaMishpacha or Family Day on February 12 and so this week on Times Will Tell we're speaking with Einat Nathan, a leading Israeli parenting guru. In April, Nathan is publishing a new English-language book, “My Everything: The Parent I want to be, the children I hope to raise.”
Nathan's path to parenting was fraught with loss. In her book, she describes in frank detail how losing twin boys to a "quiet" or stillbirth at week 39 turned her into the parent she is today. Her approach is to go back to basics: to allow children to deal with pain and work out their own problems, all the while knowing that they are supported by “reliable, relaxed parents -- that are present.”
She is a mother of five children, ranging from 21 to 8. As host Amanda Borschel-Dan is a mother of six kids aged 17-8, the two women had a bit of a schmooze in a wide-ranging conversation on raising kids during the coronavirus pandemic and how to dispel the fantasy of the perfect family in order to enjoy the wonder of reality.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we have two really interesting, really nerdy, interviews with two of Israel’s leading archaeological scholars.
First, we’ll speak with Tel Aviv University Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, who since 2013 has led the excavations at Timna on the site of the fabled King Solomon Copper Mines and their surroundings. As you’ll hear, the excavation is currently concentrating on the Iron Age activities of the nomadic Edomite kingdom. The team has uncovered all sorts of 3,000-year-old artifacts, including three super rare textiles that are dyed with the precious argaman or true purple that is mentioned in the Bible. Based on these findings and others, Ben-Yosef has developed a truly fascinating take on the early biblical United Monarchy.
Read more here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ancient-cloths-with-royal-purple-dye-found-in-israel-dated-to-king-davids-time/
The second half of our program is devoted to an interview with Weizmann Institute of Science Prof. Elisabetta Boaretto, an internationally recognized leading expert in radiocarbon dating. Boaretto generously explained to this science dummy the basics of radiocarbon dating. Part of what makes the work done in Boaretto’s lab so noteworthy is that unlike most pure scientists, she and her team are regularly out in the field, collected secure samples, and working alongside the archaeologists.
We delve into an aspect of a new study looking at an old find — an almost 4,000-year-old olive branch — which is the only remaining organic sample from the pivotal volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini. Through new experiments on 70-year-old olive branches, Boaretto offers a new resolution to an ongoing debate over the timing of the eruption.
PHOTO: Fragment of the rare purple fabric from 1,000 BCE excavated in the Timna Valley. (Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority)
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Hello everyone, welcome to Times Will Tell, a weekly podcast by The Times of Israel.
This week, in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are speaking with the out-going, longtime head of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev. Shalev will speak about the United Nation’s 2005 adoption of January 27 -- the day Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army -- as the global commemoration of the Holocaust. We also speak about cynical political uses of Holocaust memory, researchers’ undying battle for truth, and how Yad Vashem is much more than a mere museum.
Next, we’ll speak with Yad Vashem educator Orit Margaliot, who has put together a new virtual tour of Auschwitz’s Block 27 pavilion in Poland, which is also under Yad Vashem’s auspices.
And finally we speak with Dana Porat, the director of Yad Vashem’s digital division, about her team’s work online, which has only become more critical over the past year.
During this episode we will hear music commissioned for Yad Vashem, including the piece “Facing the Loss,” which was a joint production between artist Uri Tzaig and Amir Lloyd, and a setting of "Ani Ma'amin" from an installation by Hagit Shimoni.
PHOTO: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland, May 10, 2017. (Isaac Harari/FLASH90)
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we’re traveling to Europe and speaking with two impressive individuals.
First, we'll hear a short chat with 29-year-old Swedish composer Jacob Mühlrad, who, just ahead of the January 27th International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is releasing his a-cappella choir piece, “Kaddish” on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label. Based on texts written by Elie Wiesel and recorded testimony from Mühlrad's Holocaust survivor grandfather, the piece is a spellbinding wall of sound. (Stick around until the end of the program when we’ll play the piece in full.)
Next, we speak with Brussels-based Katharina von Schnurbein, who is the first European Commission Coordinator on Combatting Anti-Semitism. We speak about the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism, and about some of its practical — and problematic — results.
Images: Composer Jacob Mühlrad (Andre Garcia); European Commission Coordinator on Combatting Anti-Semitism Katharina von Schnurbein (courtesy)
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Welcome to Times will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we go onsite to the banks of the Jordan River near Jericho to attend the first mass in 54 years at a Franciscan church called the St. John the Baptist Chapel.
Along with another dozen or so churches on both sides of the Jordan, the chapel commemorates the site where it is traditionally thought that Jesus was baptized. To make the day even more special, for the Catholic church that date marks the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Meaning, the priests were commemorating the day of Jesus’s baptism at the place where he was meant to have been baptized.
Why has it been so long since the monks were able to hold mass here? Well, the Franciscans only received permission to re-enter the church compound in October. During the 1967 Six Day War, the entire Qasr Al-Yahud baptismal site area was littered with thousands of landmines. In a cooperative, multi-year mission between the UK-based Halo Trust and the IDF, the entire area has been cleared.
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Welcome to Times Will Tell, a weekly podcast from The Times of Israel.
This week we're going deep into biblical archaeology and the fields new techniques with Bar Ilan University Prof. Aren Maeir, who for the past 25 years has led the excavations at Tell es-Safi, more commonly known as biblical Gath.
We talk about the Philistines — a complex mosaic of Sea Peoples who migrated to the Holy Land from the Aegean during the biblical era — and about a couple new studies that have recently come out that change perceptions of the Levant in the 9th and 10th centuries BCE.
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This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we asked our New York-based film critic Jordan Hoffman to pick up the mic and give us a run down of his top 10 Jewish released for 2020. He came up with 11. "If I had to summarize 2020 in a single phrase, I’d choose an old reliable: oy vey iz mir," said Hoffman to open his accompanying essay. Check out his list in full on The Times of Israel website
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This week we're taking you behind the scenes at The Times of Israel to speak with two colleagues. We’ll hear first from Raphael Ahren, our outgoing diplomatic reporter, who left us this week after almost 9 years at The Times of Israel. Raphael, who speaks four languages fluently, went to 26 countries on behalf of The Times of Israel. Even tho he didn’t bring back chocolate from all of them, he is well beloved and we’re all sad to see him go. Next we’ll hear from The Times of Israel’s new science and health reporter, Nathan Jeffay. Nathan joined our staff in March to cover the COVID-19 crisis and he hasn’t really slept since. This week, Israel started vaccinating the general population — starting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. We’ll hear from Raphael first.
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This week The Times of Israel Podcast is bringing you a sneak peak at a new album, Mozart Complete Piano Sonatas Volume 1, recorded by Israeli-American performer, Orli Shaham. Shaham was born in Jerusalem, but following in the footsteps of her big brother, the violinist Gil Shaham, she quickly found her way to New York where she began training at the Juilliard School. Today she teaches the next generation of artists there, and performs internationally with major orchestras. Shaham recorded Mozart’s Complete Piano Sonatas during the coronavirus crisis lockdown, and is in the process of releasing five discs on the new Canary Classics label. Vol. 1 was released in October. We'll hear excerpts of the new album before and throughout our conversation. Stay tuned at the end of our interview for the final movement of Sonata No. 17. We’ll speak about Mozart the improvisor, being a musician during the coronavirus, and how to inspire the next generation to add to Classical music to their playlists.
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This week we’re speaking with Canadian-Israeli documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht, whose newest project “The Wilderness” is now screening in North America. "The Wilderness" is a 10-part series exploring biblical stories from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles in which the core action takes place in the desert. The stories include the Temptation of Christ, Hagar’s promise, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the story of Ruth and Naomi. Hecht himself plays Lot because, as he put it, anyone who had a beard was cast. While some 40 Israeli actors took part in the series, which is narrated by a team of internationally known biblical scholars and archaeologists, the true star is clearly the breathtaking Israeli desert. Later, we chat about a project Hecht calls his “Moby Dick” — a film he tentatively titled "My Election" that he began two years ago when he was about to vote in his first Israeli election. Since then he’s voted in two more. With another election likely on the horizon, his camera is still rolling and capturing the Balfour protests ahead of this next campaign.
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This week The Times of Israel Podcast is taking you on a journey through thousands of years of history and archaeology at the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem’s Old City. It’s undergoing a huge renovation, which will make the Crusader-period building more accessible and double the space of the indoor galleries. But because they can’t build up, the museum, in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, is going deep down into a Crusader moat that was filled in during the Ottoman period. We speak first with Eilat Leiber, the director and head curator of the 30-year-old museum. And then with Amit Re’em, the IAA’s Jerusalem district head. He gives us a deep, detailed historical overview — and takes us behind the scenes at the excavation. Emphasis on the word "behind."
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This Thanksgiving week, founding editor David Horovitz, Senior Analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, and US Correspondent Jacob Magid join Deputy Editor Amanda Borschel-Dan to speak about the Israeli-American relationship vis a vis the outgoing Trump and incoming Biden administrations. We’ll talk about what Israelis are grateful for, concerns about Iran, hopes for additional peace agreements in the new Middle East -- and what Borschel-Dan has in common with Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain.
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This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we’ll hear a Behind the Headlines video interview that was conducted for The Times of Israel Community with Michael Dickson and Dr. Naomi Baum, the authors of “Isresilience: What Israelis Can Teach the World.” The book takes readers on a journey across Israel to profile 14 Israelis who have overcome extreme odds, and continued to “bounce forward” in their lives. Dickson is the head of StandWithUs Israel and Baum is an internationally known expert in the field of overcoming trauma. They built a model for the keys to resilience: empathy, flexibility, and meaning-making. We will talk about these keys during our conversation, as well as focus on four truly remarkable individuals. Image: Dr. Naomi L. Baum (left) and Michael Dickson, co-authors of 'Isresilience.' (courtesy)
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This week we're joined by The Times of Israel’s Culture and Lifestyle editor Jessica Steinberg. Around Jerusalem she’s commonly known as Ms. Thanksgiving for her instrumental role in setting up and conducting a pumpkin pie sale for Sharsheret, a US-based organization that aids Jewish women and their families as they face breast and ovarian cancer. We’ll hear about that and how you can help, too. (https://sharsheret.org/) But Jessica also wrote a great children’s book about Thanksgiving called "Not This Turkey." We’ll start with a short reading. Image: Jessica Steinberg with her children's book, 'Not this Turkey!' (Daniel Laufer)
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The Times of Israel's film critic Jordan Hoffman joins the podcast this week to discuss two current, very Jewy films starring Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen: "Borat 2" and "Chicago 7." The actor plays goofy title character Borat -- "a retrograde in all of his beliefs" -- and real-life jokester activist Abbie Hoffman. Baron Cohen, says Hoffman, has popularized the genre of cringe comedy for our era. While more known for his comedic roles, these two films allow the actor to display his dramatic range. Hoffman hails him the "heir apparent" of Groucho Marx. Collage: Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman in "Chicago 7" (left) and as the title character in "Borat 2." (courtesy)
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This week we’re speaking with Dr. Susan Weissman, who has just published “Final Judgement and the Dead in Medieval Jewish Thought.” Her book delves into Sefer Hasidim, a Hebrew-language moralistic text written in the 13th century in Ashkenaz. The men who wrote it were part of the German Pietists sect, which was known for its extreme forms of penitence, including sitting in vermin or setting themselves on fire. The era was one of change for Jewish liturgy and the Medieval pre-occupation with sin and the afterlife was not lost on the Jewish communities. It’s during this time that the mourner’s Kaddish emerges, as well as the Yizkor service, which commemorates the souls of loved ones. Susan concentrated her study on a collection of ghost stories that appear in Sefer Hasidim. We’ll discuss how these ascetic Jews were influenced by their Christian neighbors while Susan dissects an interesting ghost story. Image: A page from Sefer Hasidim. (Courtesy)
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Warning, sexually explicit material: This week we're speaking with sex therapist Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus, who is the Clinical Director at New York’s Maze Women’s Sexual Health center. Bat Sheva, who is a practicing Modern Orthodox Jew, is also a licensed social worker and treats a swath of women, including from the most ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of New York.
Parents: This is a very frank conversation about sex, porn, and masturbation. The discussion is focused on heterosexual marital sex, but if you’re not up for that, please stop listening now and join us again next week.
Image: Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus (Nusrat Mulla)
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The Times of Israel's Senior Analyst Haviv Rettig Gur talks political transparency and budget this week on the podcast. At least a third of Israel’s cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, have failed to produce a declaration of their personal assets, more than three months after the legal deadline. Gur explains why this matters -- and why no one will do anything about it. Then, Gur does a deep dive into why Netanyahu isn't keen to pass the 2020 budget, and how tens of thousands of lives are affected. And finally, why are top economy bureaucrats dropping like flies? Image: Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Benny Gantz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a vote at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on August 24, 2020. (Oren Ben Hakoon/POOL)
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This week w're speaking with Prof. Eric Cline about his newest book, “Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon.” Cline is Professor of Classics and Anthropology at The George Washington University in DC and the author or editor of over 20 books. It’s a work of non-fiction, but some of the tales he tells here are frankly juicy and that’s pretty amazing since it’s about the early days of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and its 1920s and 30s excavations at northern Israel’s Megiddo. Megiddo is known both in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles as a place of great battles. For come Christians, it is the site of the final battle. Cline spent 20 years co-directing the current excavations at Megiddo until 2014. Today, when not hampered by COVID restrictions, he is a co-director of the Tel Kabri excavations. Image: Prof. Eric Cline at Megiddo (courtesy)
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This week on The Times of Israel Podcast, we're bringing you a recent conversation with philosopher and best-selling author Dr. Micah Goodman that was part of The Times of Israel’s new Behind the Headlines video events. Other interviewees in the series have included Israeli writer Etgar Keret, performer Neshama Carlebach, and Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy about their new ‘memoirfesto,’ ‘Never Alone.’ Join our Times of Israel Community and be the first to see other upcoming events. Image: Dr. Micah Goodman delivers his acceptance speech for the 2014 Marc and Henia Liebhaber Prize for Religious Tolerance. (courtesy)
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This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we’re speaking with two members of the world music band Yamma, singer Talya G.A. Solan and winds player Yonnie Dror. Other band members include Aviv Bahar, Nur Bar Goren and Avri Borochov. The band incorporates Jewish music traditions from across the Mediterranean and Africa, and draws on the musicians’ musical and ethnic backgrounds. Their runaway hit is strangely enough a setting of Psalm 104. The Youtube video alone has gotten almost 6 million views. If you enjoy their music and this talk, check out more of their songs on YouTube and at their website YammaEnsemble.com
Image: Yamma Ensemble (Ruth Luar)
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The Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered by all Abrahamic religions and is considered by Jews to be the second holiest spot after the Temple Mount. Like at the Temple Mount, no recent archaeological study has been permitted at the site, but a recent scientific study was conducted by Ariel University archaeologist, Prof. David Ben-Shlomo. This is the first high-tech study of the cave’s pottery.
Ben-Shlomo co-authored an article charting the systematic compositional analysis of four vessels that were taken from the cave (in Arabic: al-Ḥaram al-Ibrahimi or Ḥaram el-Khalil) in an unauthorized underground incursion in 1981. Spoiler: Ben-Shlomo’s new scientific study found that these vessels are typical of Iron Age IIB (late ninth and eighth centuries BCE) Kingdom of Judah.
Hear how the vessels got into his hands and about excavations of ancient Hebron.
Image: A general view of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in the West Bank town of Hebron, June 22, 2017. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
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This week we’re speaking with Dr. Rabbi Levi Cooper about rabbinic responses to pandemics throughout Jewish history. We’ll speak about how even hundreds of years ago, Jewish communities grappled with contemporary everyday questions, such as whether to limit synagogue attendance, and if so — who should attend? We’ll also discuss a Kabbalistic prayer practice based on the Temple incense ritual that is still being said from on high -- from a helicopter above Jerusalem, in fact. As you’ll quickly hear, Levi is originally from Australia. He immigrated to Israel as a young man, served in the IDF’s Golani Brigade and earned three law degrees, culminating in a Ph.D., from Bar-Ilan University. Today Levi teaches at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and is a Teaching Fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Buchmann Faculty of Law. He is a prolific writer and a communal rabbi in Tsur Hadassah, just outside of Jerusalem. Image: Dr. Rabbi Levi Cooper at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies (Courtesy of Pardes)
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This week, to mark the start of the school year here in Israel, we’re revisiting a live Times of Israel/Beit Avi Chai event with one of Israel’s greatest educators, Prof. Alice Shalvi.
Back in January 2019, Shalvi spoke with Jewish World editor Amanda Borschel-Dan onstage at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem in honor of the publication of her memoir “Never A Native.” The memoir has since been awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Women's Studies.
Shalvi will soon celebrate 94. Among her many achievements, she is an Israel Prize Laureate, and as one of the country's pioneering religious feminists, she is one of the founders of the Israel Women's Network.
In addition to years teaching at the Hebrew University, Shalvi established the Pelech High School for Girls, a school that still continues her tradition of strong learning -- and strong women.
Image: Prof. Alice Shalvi (Debbie Cooper)
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US-born, Jerusalem-based lawyer Dr. Susan Weiss founded of the Center for Women’s Justice in 2004 to lead the legal battle for equality, dignity and justice for women under Jewish law in Israel.
Among other issues, the center is currently involved in a high-profile case involving the Israeli chief rabbinate’s revocation of Jewish status from a three-generational family with roots in the Former Soviet Union.
The brief: When the matriarch came to Israel over 30 years ago, like all immigrants, her Jewish status was checked and confirmed. Likewise, during her own and her two daughters’ subsequent marriages.
But during one of the daughters’ divorce proceedings, her disgruntled husband alleged his wife is actually not Jewish. After a series of court hearings and opaque checks, the rabbinate has since declared the entire family not Jewish — including the children born here in Israel to parents married by the rabbinate itself — and that all of their marriages are null.
So who you gonna call?
Teaming up with an organization called DOR 1.5 that is made up of young Russian-speaking Israelis, Susan’s center has recently petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court over what she labels the rabbinate’s over-reach.
Image: Dr. Susan Weiss, founder of the Center for Women's Justice. (courtesy)
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This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we’re speaking with Rachel Gur, who is a lawyer and a Knesset lobbyist. Rachel works for Lobby 99, which is the world's first crowdfunded nonprofit public interest lobbying firm (https://lobby99.org.il/en).
Before she became a lobbyist for the people, Rachel served in senior positions in the Israeli government, including as a legislation advisor and senior advisor to several government ministries. She is truly an expert in Israeli legislation, regulation, and public policy.
Full disclosure, she’s also married to The Times of Israel’s senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, but we won’t hold that against her.
Image: Lobbyist/lawyer Rachel Gur. (Courtesy)
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Being deployed as an Israel Defense Force tank gunner in Lebanon doesn't sound like a lot of laughs, but US-born grunt Joel Chasnoff began a thriving stand-up comedy career based on his exploits. A mainstay of Jewish community functions and conventions, Chasnoff is now grounded in Israel. He speaks with The Times of Israel about coming to volunteer for the IDF as an old man of 24, finding out that the State of Israel didn’t consider him Jewish, and the continual culture shock of being a non-Sabra in the Holy Land. We’ll hear about how Joel does still continue to perform, and have a few laughs. Image: Courtesy Joel Chasnoff; www.joelchasnoff.com/zoom
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This week we'll hear the inaugural installment of The Times of Israel’s new weekly video series Behind the Headlines.
In this first installment that first aired to our Times of Israel Community on July 23, Times of Israel Founding Editor David Horovitz speaks with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. The pair of veteran journalists discuss the US-Israel relationship, the global impact of the coronavirus crisis, and many other hot-button issues in their intensely fascinating conversation.
In this weekly online series, Times of Israel reporters and editors will be video-interviewing influential individuals from a wide spectrum of fields. We aim to offer a fair, deep look at some of today’s burning issues and noteworthy personalities. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynH309ZaHn8&feature=youtu.be
Image: New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens. (Jason Smith via JTA)
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Nazareth may be best known for its famous ancient resident -- Jesus -- but as British-Israeli archaeologist Yardenna Alexandre notes in this week's The Times of Israel Podcast, the once small village with huge name recognition has existed well before and well after his lifetime.
In our conversation, Alexandre discusses what archaeology tells us about the Jews who lived in Nazareth and its surrounding towns and villages two millennia ago, and how, by hewing into the soft chalk stone under the village houses, the residents evaded taxes, and also may have saved their skins during the Great Revolt against the Romans in 66 CE.
Among her digs, in 2009, Alexandre discovered the first example of a residential building from the time of Jesus near today's Church of the Annunciation.
Image: IAA archaeologist Yardenna Alexandre inside a subterranean room in Nazareth. (Screen shot)
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What is privilege? Who are People of Color? What is being woke? This week in The Times of Israel Podcast, we speak with with Rabbi Sandra Lawson and define terms, discuss racism in the Jewish community and talk about the burning issue of reparations for the ancestors of enslaved people. After serving in the US Army, earning a MA in sociology, and eventually working as a personal trainer, Lawson found the open and accepting congregation she never knew she needed. She converted to Judaism in 2004 and when Lawson was ordained two years ago, she became one of the first openly gay, female, black rabbi in the world. Today she serves as a campus clergy person, an educator and a musician. Lawson lives in North Carolina where she is the Associate Chaplain for Jewish Life at Elon University, a school which is consistently ranked among the "Schools Jews Choose" by Hillel College Guides. After our frank discussion, we’ll play an excerpt of Sandra’s setting of the Mourner’s Kaddish. Image: Rabbi Sandra Lawson (courtesy)
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As Israel appears to be on the brink of another coronavirus lockdown, we traveled this week to Jerusalem to speak with Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler at the Israel Democracy Institute about surveillance methods used to track individuals infected with COVD-19. Tehilla heads the think tank’s Democracy in the Information Age Program and for the past several months has been the Cassandra railing against the Israeli secret service’s role in contact tracing Israeli citizens. It is a sobering conversation, with a troubling look at decision-makers' technological illiteracy even as they bestow new, wide-sweeping authority on the Israeli secret service to track average Joes. But stay tuned until the end: There is a still a ray of hope, even as Tehilla assured The Times of Israel that Big Brother is absolutely watching us.
Image: Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler (Israel Democracy Institute)
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This week, The Times of Israel is taking you under Jerusalem’s Old City where we’re joining Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Dr. Barak Monnickendam-Givon in a subterranean dig, about 7 meters or so underground.
We’re in a huge, excavated chamber that was once filled with dirt and debris. At a glance you can take in different periods of Jerusalem history, starting way down with a unique find from 2,000 years ago, until a British Mandate water system from just a few decades ago. It’s frankly jaw dropping.
See pix here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/listen-toi-takes-you-to-a-unique-excavation-deep-under-jerusalems-old-city/
Image: Dr. Barak Monnickendam-Givon at the excavations under Beit Straus in Jerusalem’s Old City, near the Western Wall, May 2020. (Yaniv Berman/Israel Antiquities Authority)
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The countdown is on to July 1st, the date that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has designated as the beginning of the annexation of parts of the West Bank. To see what is happening on the ground to prepare for this “declarative annexation,” The Times of Israel went to speak with the mayor of Mitzpe Yericho, one of the towns that could be annexed as part of the Jordan Valley bloc. US-immigrant Aliza Pilichowski serves as the head of the 43-year-old settlement that overlooks the oldest continuous city in the world, Jericho. In our conversation, she says she still has no real idea of how Annexation could change life for her town of some 3,500. In the meantime, it’s business as usual for the Orthodox Jewish settlement, and Pilichowski is deep in the midst of planning new building and overseeing current construction — a job the 42-year-old mother of six, a rebbetzin and interfaith chaplain, never imagined she’d have. Image: Aliza Pilichowski in front of a map of Israel on the porch of her Mitzpe Yericho home. (Amanda Borschel-Dan)
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This week, The Times of Israel podcast sat down with head of the Jewish Agency, Isaac (Bougie) Herzog. Bougie follows in the footsteps of giants: The illustrious Herzog family has contributed on all levels in the foundation of the State of Israel and we speak for a minute about his impressive mother, Aura. Bougie has himself played many roles in Israeli society — in politics, serving as Minister of Welfare and eventually leading the Labor party and heading the opposition. Today he heads the Jewish Agency, and is in many ways the bridge between Israel and the Diaspora, while at the same time bolstering those in need all over the Jewish World. Image: Chairman of the Jewish Agency, Isaac Herzog welcomes members of the Ethiopian Falashmura community on February 4, 2019. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
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In this moment of complex activism taking place all over the world during the coronavirus crisis, we speak with Rabbi Sergio Bergman, the new head of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Bergman, who is locked down in his Buenos Aires home, is a Reform rabbi who turned social activist after the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center -- an act of terrorism that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds. The perpetrators are yet to be brought to justice and to advocate for the victims, he cofounded the Memoria Activa foundation over 25 years ago, which until today holds demonstrations in front of the Supreme Court, a few steps from the first synagogue of the Argentine Republic, where Bergman holds the pulpit. Eventually Bergman turned to local and then national politics and in 2015, he was appointed Minister of the Environment under President Mauricio Macri, a position he held until 2019. Now Bergman is set to come to Israel to champion world Liberal Jewry and fight for religious freedom in Israel.
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This week the prestigious Cell journal has put on its cover a really cool new study of ancient animal DNA that was taken from Dead Sea Scrolls’ parchment. There are a lot of surprising findings so we’re speaking with Pnina Shor, the founding Curator and Head of the Dead Sea Scrolls unit in the Israel Antiquities Authority to get some background. In a super interesting, but quite lengthy conversation, Shor gives a Dead Sea Scrolls 101 and explains the many iterations of her unit's conservation and digitization efforts since a the scrolls were found in a chance discovery by a Beduin shepherd in 1947. Image: Pnina Shor, the founding Curator and Head of the Dead Sea Scrolls unit in the Israel Antiquities Authority (Shai Halevi/IAA)
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Israel's annual observance of Jerusalem Day was a little different this year under COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. So The Times of Israel Podcast decided to mark the national holiday from afar with an in-depth conversation with ToI New Media editor Sarah Tuttle-Singer. Tuttle-Singer lived in all four quarters of the ancient city for over two years, after which she wrote her experiential memoir, "Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered." In a lively conversation with podcast host Amanda Borschel-Dan, Tuttle-Singer servers as a behind-the-scenes guide to the alley ways and rooftops of the Old City. We hear about the best place in the world to purchase take-out humus, and upon which rooftop to eat it. Image: Sarah Tuttle-Singer outside Jerusalem's Old City's Jaffa Gate. (courtesy)
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After 508 days of labor pains, on Sunday Israel’s Knesset voted 73-46 in favor of a new government. Israel's 35th government is headed first by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then, 18-months later, by Blue and White head Benny Gantz, who is currently dubbed the "alternate prime minister and future prime minister," as well as minister of defense.
Today in The Times of Israel Podcast, to make sense of the new 35-minister government, we’re speaking with our Senior Analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. He has been following all the nail-biting twists and turns in this monumental period of three elections, and the rise and break up of major parties, and shares his insights with podcast host Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz at the Knesset, May 17, 2020. (Alex Kolomoisky/POOL)
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The pandemic has transformed, perhaps forever, how we experience the most banal of activities, whether it’s a trip to the supermarket or a walk in the neighborhood. In this episode of the storytelling podcast “WhyWhyWhy! from Lockdown,” we hear from ToI’s opinion editor Miriam Herschlag about why she keeps muttering “amen” on her evening jogs in Jerusalem, and from Ann Bar-Dov on her epic journey to pick up groceries in Israel’s northern town of Karmiel. Click here -- or on the photo -- for an exclusive preview of the episode, "Shop, Pray, Run."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hi everyone, this is Amanda Borschel-Dan and welcome to The Times of Israel Podcast’s Mother’s Day episode. I have two women writers speaking with me today, Jordana Horn, who has a podcast Call Your Mother and writes for Kveller, and Bethany Mandel, an outspoken conservative columnist at a variety of outlets. I was thinking about it and realized that between us, we have 16 kids.
It’s actually not mother’s day in Israel — we have a Family Day at the end of winter — so I won’t be feted by runny eggs by my six kids, but I thought it a good time to check in with two prominent Jewish mothers in the United States, who have somewhat different takes on parenting their children.
We’ll first hear from Bethany, who is homeschooling her four children in the Washington, DC area. Among other reasons, she sees it as an answer to the day school tuition crisis. Jordana’s life in New Jersey, on the other hand, is more mainstream and her six kids are in various schools and kindergartens. But now that they’re all home, she is juggling their online learning needs with her need to get work done. We have a schmooze that is years in the making, and she shares the experience of mourning her father-in-law under the coronavirus restrictions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Way before most people in the world had even heard the word "coronavirus," the staff at Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center were getting trained on what to do in case the pandemic made it to Israel. This week on The Times of Israel Podcast, emergency room nurse Zippy Goodman, who has spent the past several months on the COVID-19 frontlines, explains how her hospital took swift, start-up Israel measures to meet immediate and changing needs.
Image: Nurse Zippy Goodman (courtesy)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Noam Shuster was having her dream year on a fellowship at Harvard when corona shut down her world. The Israeli comedian, 33, flew back home to her Jewish-Arab coexistence community near Jerusalem and, on the way, contracted what became a severe case of COVID-19. Listen to the story of her stint in the hospital followed by a stay in a "corona hotel" where she was shocked and awed to find a microcosm of Israel's fractious society -- Arabs, Jews, religious, secular, young and old -- bound together by a shared cough.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It’s Yom Haatzmaut here in Israel, our Independence Day and this week we're speaking with Lori Palatnik, the founding director of Momentum, who was chosen to light a torch at Israel's central ceremony as the representative of the Jewish Diaspora. It's a really big honor.
Palatnik’s group was founded in 2008 as the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project. Recently, the organization changed its name to Momentum, but a lot of people just refer to it as ‘Birthright for Moms.’ The idea is to connect mothers with children aged 18 and younger to Israel and the Jewish people, so that — in a trickle-down way — they may influences their households. In the past 12 years, over 20,000 mothers from the Diaspora have taken part, and for five-plus years, hundreds of fathers, too.
Image: Lori Palatnik (Courtesy Momentum)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
From Bill Slott, tour guide, kibbutznik and Times of Israel blogger, a story about adapting the ultimate collective experience: Kibbutz life, Jewish worship and the need to recite the Kaddish mourner's prayer to the corona-rules of social distancing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Keeping up with Israeli politics can be like watching an unending game of speed chess. Sometimes it's easy to follow the moves, other times much less. Here in Israel, all of a sudden, right the midst of the coronavirus crisis and Holocaust Remembrance Day, after a year of stalemate and three elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White head Benny Gantz signed a coalition agreement and it looks like Israel may actually be forming a government.
Or is it?
This is a job for the big guns. So Times of Israel podcast host Amanda Borschel-Dan -- a complete amateur at political analysis -- called in two experts at The Times of Israel, political correspondent Raoul Wootliff and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur to explain in simple terms, what the heck just happened.
Image: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White head Benny Gantz, November 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, here in Israel we’re observing Yom Hashoah, or the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. It is marked every year on the Hebrew calendar day, the 27th of Nissan, to mark the 1943 uprising in Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto.
Growing up in North America, Times of Israel Podcast host Amanda Borschel-Dan studied Holocaust history and was certainly exposed to it in popular culture. But it wasn't until her move to Israel 20 years ago that she met Holocaust survivors, through her husband's extended family.
First we’ll hear the words of Ruti Beery, who recently wrote a moving social media post in Hebrew about how today, the demons of her past are again upon her as she survives lockdown in Tel Aviv. When she was a 6-year-old, she was hidden in a Slovak monastery with five other Jewish children. Her words, translated into English, are read by her grandson, Daniel Jones.
The second half of the program is dedicated to a gripping wartime account told by 94-year-old Dr. Hanan Karshai. Today, he is a laughing force of nature, but in 1944, 18-year-old Karshai was separated from his family in Plesivec and taken on a transport to a forced labor brigade. He eventually escaped during a death march and joined up with Russian partisans while living in a forest.
Image: Dr. Hanan Karshai (left, wearing briefs and a hat) as an 18-year-old forced laborer, captured in a rare snapshot that was discarded by the posing Hungarian soldier (far left). (Courtesy)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Passover has nearly passed over, and seders, such as they were, took place several boxes of matzah ago. But for many, the strangeness of this year's confounding coronavirus confinement continues to reverberate. The usual gatherings, ritual and meals were not just scaled down, in many cases, they metamorphosed into something entirely different -- something good.
In this episode of WhyWhyWhy!, neighbors find their way out of isolation to join together (but not too close together) for a Passover seder. Emily Silverman, a Hebrew University professor, was inspired to propose the idea after she witnessed a prayer service conducted on the balconies of nearby apartment buildings. The result was magical.
For many Israelis, the Great Passover Egg Shortage of 2020 may feel like a distant memory, but for Milton Roller, it’s as if the crisis happened just last week. His story takes us from the simple realization that you've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette, all the way through a dark dream about Boris Johnson’s teeth, and an even darker experience on the express checkout line at a supermarket.
Stay indoors for an indefinite period of time -- wait, where have we heard this one before? For those who were in Israel, and are old enough -- or not too old -- to remember, confinement conjures the First Gulf War. Linda Lovitch, a communications consultant, finds herself nostalgic for a time when, like today, everyone had to stay home in close quarters -- but with none of today’s limits on touching!
Image: Dizengoff square, Tel Aviv, April 11, 2020. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Eggs are more precious than gold these days so host Amanda Borschel-Dan phoned up her good friend and colleague Melanie Lidman, who is currently managing an urban farm in Oakland, California.
Mel has mad skills as a journalist/ carpenter/ garden therapist, and is currently taking a semi-break from The Times of Israel, but recently wrote this magnificent piece on how to raise your own chickens. (Check out: https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-to-throw-off-the-yoke-of-supermarkets-and-produce-your-own-eggs-instead/)
For years, Mel and Amanda have spoken about Mel's chicken coop adventures in south Tel Aviv and she always promised to help set the six Dan kids to the task of building a coop, but somehow it never worked out.
So, cornered on Zoom, she gave a lot of useful tips on how to build the coop and take care of the “ladies” as she calls them. And also, great insight into the many added benefits of growing your own food.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On Sunday, The Times of Israel reported that cargo ships carrying eggs had arrived in Israel to fill the gap left by interrupted imports from Italy and Spain. But we also noted that the shipment might still fall short of the high pre-Passover demand. And short it fell.
While a few regions of Israel had eggs aplenty, many others were left scrounging. The great Passover egg hunt was on. After Opinion and Blogs editor Miriam Herschlag took to Facebook seeking ideas for replacing the egg on her seder plate (eliciting suggestions of a chocolate egg, lentils, rice, caviar, a plastic egg, avocado, a photo of an egg, and 80 more ideas), relief arrived from the friend next door.
On this, the Eggs episode of WhyWhyWhy!, you can hear a chat with Berhanu Yosef, the friend who came to the rescue.
Ed Snitkoff’s Jerusalem eggspedition led him to venture to the heart of Abu Tor, and to discover that egg shortages know no borders.
And Jewish World editor Amanda Borschel Dan got to the supermarket and found out that eggs were not the only item in short supply, eventually ending up with far more than she bargained for.
The WhyWhyWhy! Podcast, hosted by Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron, is a collaboration between The Times of Israel and TLV1 Podcasts. New story submissions are welcome. If you have a story to tell that you think might be a fit, contact the hosts at story@tlv1.fmSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It's almost Passover and there are no eggs to be had in Israel, so host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with star chef Adeena Sussman for some hot takes and easy tips on how to feed the kids.
Next, to help spice up the Haggadah portion of the festive meal, we speak with David Arnovitz, who is the Editor in Chief of the new Exodus volume of the wonderfully illustrated Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel series. It's a must for all Jewish book shelves.
Arnovitz discusses the tensions of being a Jewish publishing house, which adheres to an Orthodox religious perspective, yet brings to life the past 200 years of academic research. As he explains, the scientific and archaeological research gives the story of the 10 plagues even deeper meaning.
Image: Adeena Sussman in her Tel Aviv kitchen. (Courtesy of Dan Perez)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, we’ll discover how hi-tech can allow religiously observant Jews to stay connected to their prayer communities, and how it can also help those at highest risk during the coronavirus crisis — the elderly.
Haifa University’s Dr. Michal Isaacson, an expert in gerontechnology, explains that the biggest risk to older adults is not the disease, rather social isolation and its associated loneliness. She gives tips to help host Amanda Borschel-Dan stay connected with her 95-year-old grandma.
Many religiously observant Jews have taken to online prayer forums. Also, a group of Sephardi rabbis recently made Zoom Passover seders permissible. (First rice and now this?) To make seder of what is kosher, Borschel-Dan speaks with Rabbi Avi Poupko about the very deep and historically Jewish need for prayer quorums. They’re usually made up of 10 adult men, so how can technology fill the gap now that the Israeli Health Ministry has put out an order stopping all gatherings of more than two individuals?
Image: Zooming into reciting Kaddish at home. (Photo montage, Gil Be'eri)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, in a special episode of the “WhyWhyWhy!” podcast, we bring you one short story, “Alone together with Fiona,” told by Abi Hartuv. It's a tale of neighbors nurturing ties even while confined to their homes, in other words, a story borne of the extraordinary circumstances in which we all find ourselves at the moment.
“WhyWhyWhy!,” which normally features stories told in a Tel Aviv bar, is hosted by Times of Israel's Opinion and Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag and TLV1's Noah Efron. For now, they've taken the show off the road, and continue to seek out true, gripping stories that reveal our humanity amidst the chaos and uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic.
The podcast, a collaboration between The Times of Israel and TLV1 Podcasts, welcomes new story submissions. If you have a story to tell that you think might be a fit, contact the hosts at story@tlv1.fmSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.