We discuss the upheavals on Israel’s Right, Center, and Left, as parties fall and rise, careers crash and burn and rise like a phoenix, some political leaders abandon the parties they head, and others are defenestrated. The drama!

We discuss 1) Bibi’s decision to dissolve the government and hold elections in April 2) a traditional “Ethiopian farm” in Israel, with mud storehouses and subsistence farming, challenge the way the rest of us live 3) a new law nudging us towards a “cashless society.”

We discuss 1) the French-inspired “Yellow-Vest” protests against rising prices and what they auger for Israeli politics 2) the 2018 Democracy Index and its finding 3) the decision by shopping mall in a Jewish neighborhood to install a big honking Christmas tree.

We discuss 1) a documentary about a leftist from Tel Aviv who sets up cameras in Tekoa, interviewing settlers who wander into her frame 2) surveys showing that Israelis prefer not to have anything to do with folks with disabilities 3) a proposed law that would require ISP’s to block porn sites unless explicitly asked not to

We discuss 1) the complicated Mid-East legacy of US President George H.W. Bush 2) a poll finding that just over half of Europeans think Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state 3) a cache of old photos purloined from Israel’s archives and select some of our favorites

We discuss 1) Airbnb kicking Jewish settlers off their site 2) whether West Bank Palestinians working in Israel is a path to peace or a path to maintain the status quo 3) how a majority of Israelis will have no choice but to live in skyscrapers in 2050.

We discuss 1) Bibi’s decision not to go to war 2) what is happening on the further reaches of Israel’s right, after the expected war was cancelled 3) the “theory-of-change” of the Women Wage Peace movement

We discuss 1) what some see as an insulting attempt by Israeli politicians to turn the mass-murder in Pittsburgh into an opportunity to suck up to Trump 2) a new combative attitude on Israel’s left about the lessons of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination 3) the shocking victory of a feminist mayoral candidate in a majority ultra-orthodox town

Former First Minister Peter Robinson and Rev. Gary Mason discuss what they think Israelis and Palestinians can learn from Northern Ireland. Then Rabbi, MK and Minister Michael Melchior explains why he believes religion is not a barrier to peace between Jews and Palestinians

We discuss 1) what it may mean that rabbis did not protest the passage of a very liberal abortion law 2) whether we need more professorial types in politics 3) why Israeli parents are so unworried about dangers facing their kids out and about in the world