The Deal of a Lifetime
In Hebrew עסקים means business. Today, Guy talks about the root עסק and introduces other nouns we should know. Bonus: What do you do when you see an unfamiliar transaction in your credit card statement?
This Land Will Be Shared
Shuli Dichter, a veteran activist for a Jewish-Arab shared society in Israel, discusses his political memoir. The timing of its publication in English, when Israel seems to be moving in the opposite direction, is not a coincidence
The “All You Protest Kids” Edition
We discuss: 1) Whether the very different natures of the protests in Jerusalem, Haifa and Beer Sheva offer a corrective to the much bigger demonstrations in Tel Aviv 2) Whether it's right for ostensibly apolitical universities, professors and students to protest the government on campus
The Demjanjuk Affair: A Study in the Culture of Memory
Dr Tamir Hod discusses his book on the Demjanjuk affair of the 1980s and 1990s - the trial and eventual acquittal of Ukrainian-American John Demjanjuk
The “When Life Gives You Demons…” Edition
We discuss: 1) The Supreme Court ruling that Aryeh Deri cannot be a minister and the constitutional crisis that may follow 2) The essay by Yossi Klein Halevi arguing that we’re riven between those who long for a “State of Judaism”, and those who long for a “State of Jews.” We are joined for this discussion by the author himself!
Best Served Warm
The Hebrew word להגיש is a verb with several different meanings. Food, university papers and TV shows — these are all things we can להגיש
Battered but Not Broken: The Israel Democracy Index, 2022
Tamar Hermann, Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, discusses the 20th edition of the annual Democracy Index, the most comprehensive annual survey of Israeli public opinion on matters of public importance
The “What Is Up? What Is Down?” Edition
We discuss: 1) The “Judicial Reform” that has so many people so worried 2) Who Israel’s “National Poet,” Hayim Nahman Bialik is to us, on the 150th anniversary of his birth
Your Israeli Soundtrack for January
It’s time for the annual Kol Cambridge music awards! Here are some of our favorite songs of 2022 and a few new ones from 2023
My Sweetie Pie
In Hebrew, מתוק means sweet or sweetie. You might also hear מתוק used passive-aggressively by a person standing in a Tel Avivi line
The Samaritans: Then and Now
Steven Fine discusses “The Samaritans: A Biblical People,” a documentary film, edited book and museum exhibition dedicated to the Samaritans, a tiny ethnoreligious group native to Israel and Palestine
The “Demonstrating Faith” Edition
We discuss: 1) The nearly daily, sometimes deadly Palestinian attacks on Jews, and their impact on the protests against Netanyahu’s reforms 2) The sudden rise of a (very small) religious left, and what it says about today and means for tomorrow