Tel Aviv Review

Carlo Ginzburg, arguably the greatest living historian until his death this past June, changed how we understand the past. His 1976 classic, “The Cheese and the Worms,” about a sixteenth-century Italian miller, launched microhistory itself. But who was the man behind the method?

Can a country confront its past without putting its founding ideals into question? Historian Omer Bartov reflects on how Israel’s understanding of the Holocaust has changed, how the events of October 7 and the war in Gaza transformed his own thinking, and why he believes the country must confront difficult truths about its past.

A Palestinian political and legal philosopher explores political theory, citizenship, competing Israeli and Palestinian historical narratives, and the challenges of translating between Palestinian demands and Jewish Israeli fears.

Dr. Asher Lubotzky takes us through the complicated relationship between the South African anti-apartheid movement and Israel, from the birth of both countries in 1948 through the Cold War, the end of apartheid, and into the present.

Dr Ofer Idels, fellow in Israel Studies at the University of Calgary, takes us back to interwar Palestine, when Jews were debating what kind of bodies, citizens, and society they wanted to create.

Israeli-American lawyer, philanthropist, and disability rights advocate Jay Ruderman argues that lasting change isn’t about shouting the loudest. It’s about knowing when to provoke, when to persuade, and how to build unlikely alliances.

Dr. Eyal Boers takes us on a fascinating journey through more than a century of Dutch cinema, showing how films have reflected—and shaped—the Netherlands’ evolving relationship with its Jewish community, the Holocaust, national identity, and Israel.

Etgar Keret joins us to discuss his favorite literary form, the impact of AI on storytelling and the power of literature post-Oct 7.

In his most recent book, Aaron Magid explores the fascinating story of Jordan’s King Abdullah II: a monarch shaped by American culture, dependent on American support, yet ruling one of the region’s most fragile and strategically vital countries.

A generation raised on VHS, torrents, and global cinema reinvented horror in Israel—turning familiar tropes into sharp, funny, and deeply local cultural critique. As Prof. Olga Gershenson explains, Israeli horror is anything but escapist—it’s subversive, original, and long overdue.