the promised podcast – full show

The “With Great Freedom” Edition

We discuss: 1) Whether families of terrorists should pay for the crimes of a loved one 2) Whether we need to change how we bury our dead 3) How we understand the main Passover commandment – to see ourselves as if we ourselves left Egypt, in this moment of viruses and violences, of refugees and unrest

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“The Centre Cannot Hold” Edition

We discuss: 1) The wave of violence that lately rocked Israeli cities, the worst in 17 years 2) The chairwoman of the coalition who bolted to the opposition, leaving the future of Israel’s government uncertain

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The “New Worlds & Old” Edition

We discuss: 1) The summit bringing together the foreign ministers of Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, Egypt, the US and Israel 2) Should we worry about “the Jewish character” of Israel? 3) On Israel’s greatest cult movie, what accounts for the decades of popularity of so bleak and disagreeable a film?

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The “Three of Four Estates” Edition

We discuss: 1) Zelenskyy’s address to Knesset Members and the Israeli public 2) How the new government did in its first semester of legislating 3) What we make of a series of articles finding the NY Times’s coverage of Israel to be biased against us

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The “What to Remember, What to Forget” Edition

We discuss: 1) Yad Vashem’s decision not to be the venue for a speech by Ukraine’s President 2) The mysterious disappearance from news feeds of the Pegasus surveillance software scandal 3) Whether time has come to retire the notion of Amalek

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The “Showing Up” Edition

We discuss: 1) Whether Israel should throw open its borders to refugees from Ukraine 2) The decision by police to close the sexual assault investigation of one of the LGBTQ+ communities’ leading lights 3) The govt’s decision to spend ten million shekels to “strengthen Shabbat” and the huge backlash against it

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The “Seeing Ourselves and Others” Edition

We discuss: 1) Israel’s hesitant and muffled response to the war 2) The angry exchange between a Knesset member and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 3) What to make of the legacy of Menachem Begin

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The “Humans and Other People” Edition

We discuss: 1) Whether the political attitudes of Israel’s left is corrosive of our connection to the country 2) Recent efforts to grant legal rights to animals, streams, rivers and lakes, so people who harm them can be sued in court

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The “Losing Our Humanities?” Edition

We discuss: 1) What the new government economic plan will and won’t do 2) Calls to shut down the ultra-Orthodox IDF infantry unit 3) New plans to do away with high school matriculation exams in the humanities

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The “What Do We Need to Know?” Edition

We discuss: 1) The bombshell report that police used spyware against mayors, Knesset members, journalists and protestors 2) A powerful editorial saying we teach our kids all the wrong things about the Holocaust

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