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.

Prof. Oz Frankel takes us inside a pivotal — and surprisingly complex — moment in Israeli history: the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Israel didn’t simply “become American”… it collided with America.

Historian Dr. Mostafa Hussein explores how Jewish scholars in late Ottoman and British Palestine didn’t just study the region around them — they actively engaged with Arabic language, Islamic traditions, and broader Middle Eastern culture in shaping modern Jewish thought.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Yiddish press in America didn’t just report the news; they offered advice, shaped politics, and helped newcomers navigate a bewildering new society.

Amir Naaman and Dr Ran Heilbrunn, Israeli writers based in Germany, discuss the next steps for queer theory after the impressive gains made by gay rights activism over the last few decades.

For Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s most prominent human rights lawyers, the government’s anti-democratic proposals, collectively known as the “judicial overhaul”, are a culmination of the decades-long occupation of the Palestinians

Dr. Murat Yildiz, a historian of the Middle East at Skidmore College, discusses his book, “The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men and Communities in Late Imperial Istanbul”

Robert Malley, a former US negotiator and president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, discusses his book, “Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine”