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 “The Falcon & the Falconer” Edition
We discuss: 1) Whether something “fundamental” just changed with the recent elections 2) Whether the jurisdiction of Rabbinical courts ought to be expanded to include civil disputes
Back on the Horse
Dr. Gilad Malach, the director of the "Ultra-Orthodox in Israel" program at the Israel Democracy Institute, discusses the latest "Haredi Report", published annually by the IDI
The “Getting the Book of Books on the Books” Edition
We discuss: 1) The new “coalition agreements” signed, some of which Netanyahu already said he ain’t gonna honor 2) The new proposed Basic Law that gives learning Talmud in a Yeshiva the same weight and status as commanding a tank in the IDF
Fair Play?
Dr Omer Einav, a historian at Hadassah Academic College, discusses his book “Defending the Goal: Football and the relations between Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, 1917-1948”
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