Noah Efron, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Don Futterman discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.
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Pfeffer’s Netanyahu, Netanyahu’s Israel
We are joined by Haaretz reporter and author of the forthcoming “Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu” to discuss in what ways is today’s Israel a product of Benjamin Netanyahu, and in what ways is Benjamin Netanyahu a product of the Israel in which he grew. Why and how can Benjamin Netanyahu serve as “a synecdoche” for Israel itself? And what is the price we all pay for the success he’s had molding the country, with such surprising success, into his own image?
Ben Gurion and The Matrix
Now, in 2018, more than forty years after Menachem Begin and the Likud broke through the hegemony of Labor rule; more than 45 years after the Black Panther protests first brought to broad public attention the depth and power of Mizrahi rage at the old Labor elite; more than thirty years after the Labor party embraced neo-liberal economics; a generation after the kibbutz movement largely (though not entirely) collapsed, can we still say of that heroic and beautiful and exceedingly problematic founding group of Socialist Zionists that they remain at the center of our national pantheon?
What About Natalie?
We on the Promised Podcast have, strangely, a sort of personal relationship with Natalie Portman. We may have exaggerated a smidge the intimacy of our relationship. But still, she has been the patron saint of this podcast almost from the very first, and her name has been mentioned in every episode in the past seven years. So how does her decision not to take The Genesis Prize, after having earlier agreed to take it, meet us, and how does it affect us, personally?
Music
Songs by Pele Ozen, in honor of their new single, Hilchot Ger, the profits of which all go to the fight against the deportation of the African Refugees.
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Photo: Hadas Parush/Flash90
While Portman is entitled to her opinion she is not entitled to misstate history. It is reflection of the lack of 20th century history not only in the diaspora but in Israel itself. Israel was developed by the League of Nations and was not a refuge for survivors of Wwll. This is a misconception that is harming Israel and Jews worldwide. Please learn history. It’s a mistake of not only actors but even the most educated Jews.