Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Every week, on the seventh day—the Sabbath—observant Jews rest. They perform no labor and they dedicate the day to serving God. This idea, the Sabbath, has another application in the Hebrew Bible: God also commands […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Home to the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the city of Jerusalem has unparalleled spiritual significance for millions of people around the world. But in addition […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Mandatory army service plays an essential function within Israeli civic culture, absorbing and equalizing Ashkenazi, Mizrahi (Middle Eastern), religious, secular, male, female, Ethiopian, Russian, Druze, and more. In the IDF, all of these identities step […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Last week, Israel’s Supreme Court announced that, for the purpose of Israeli citizenship, conversions to Judaism that take place under the auspices of the Reform and Conservative movements and within Israel would be recognized by […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Not long ago, Conservative Judaism was America’s largest and most vital Jewish denomination. Today, things are different; for many years now, the movement has been losing and not replacing its members. In a recent essay […]

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.  For much of its history, the Jewish people hasn’t had a state. The Israel described in the Hebrew Bible had emissaries and military power, and the modern state of Israel has a foreign ministry and […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  Very few contemporary public figures have had as many successes in as many fields as Michael Oren. A writer-statesman in the model of Thucydides, Oren was Israel’s ambassador to the United States during the Obama […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  When the Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah each winter, what are we celebrating? The story of the holiday is the tale of rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem after it had been occupied and defiled by the Seleucid Greeks, who—with the […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  From the Iran Deal to the rise of and fall of ISIS, from Israel’s year of inconclusive elections to a pandemic that has ravaged globe, the second decade of the 21st century has been history-making for both the United […]