Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In the last week of January 2021, thousands of Israeli haredim protested and rioted in Bnai Brak, a predominantly haredi city located east of Tel Aviv. The rioters were angry at the government’s efforts to […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  After a decades-long, worldwide campaign to free Soviet Jewry, in the late 1980s the borders of the Soviet Union were finally opened, allowing its Jews to immigrate to the State of Israel. This period saw approximately one million men […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  The year 2020 has been one of real suffering. The Coronavirus has infected tens of millions the world over and has taken the lives of a quarter of a million Americans. It’s decimated the economy, shuttered businesses, brought low […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, you can also find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.  Like so many nations around the world, Israel has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of today, the Jewish state has over 14,000 confirmed cases of the virus, and over 180 deaths. […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, you can also find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.  With the recent agreement between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief political rival, Benny Gantz, a governing coalition is at long last beginning to emerge in Israel. After three national elections in a […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, you can also find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.  Understanding the soul of a nation requires more than understanding the way it orders its laws and governing institutions. True understanding demands that we also look at a people’s culture—its art, its theater, and […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, you can also find us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify.  Since 1949, every election in Israel’s history has yielded a governing majority…until now. Though the bloc of right-wing parties emerged from the April 2019 Knesset elections with a clear majority, coalition negotiations fell apart […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Chapter 1: Conservatism, Radicalism, and Bourgeois Life in Haredi Society Chapter 2: Books and Burke Chapter 3: The Necessity of Change, and Its Dangers Chapter 4: The Role of Women in Haredi Life Chapter 5: A Return to Tradition […]

“Har Habayit beyadeinu!” “The Temple Mount is in our hands!” These were the words Lieutenant General Mordechai Gur broadcasted as he commanded the division that liberated the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967. But did Israel ever really take control of its holiest site? In 2006, Shmuel Berkovits’s “How Dreadful is this Place!” Holiness, Politics, and […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher. Chapter 1: The Jewish Response to Crisis Chapter 2: Assimilation, Resistance, or Isolation? Chapter 3: A Different Jewish Politics Chapter 4: Sovereignty and the Creative Minority Chapter 5: The End of History and Hopes for the Future From the breakdown […]