We discuss 1) whether a 3rd elections round would really be as bad as everyone says 2) whether the Hebrew language, that once unified Jews around the world, hasn’t lately begun to do exactly the opposite 3) the finale of the TV series Transparent, and what it says about how we ought (and ought not) practice Judaism in the 21st Century

We discuss 1) Rivlin’s decision to anoint Netanyahu with the right-and-responsibility to form a government 2) Netanyahu’s efforts to form a government 3) Gantz’s insistence that he wants nothing more than a national unity government

Wracked with anxiety & anticipation about what new gov will take shape, Noah seeks solace with the boys of Liquid Plumr, the youthful garage band that was his transition from youth to an adult life in Israel. The boys discuss Zionism, Israel in the 80s, relations between Israeli & American Jews, and how the lives of their youngsters on both sides of the ocean differ from their own.

We discuss 1) the odd, inconclusive results of the elections that maybe changed everything, maybe changed nothing at all 2) what’s next for Israeli politics 3) what we’ll tell our future grandchildren, thirty years from now, when they ask about these elections

We discuss 1) why some Israelis think cameras in polling places will destroy democracy, while others think it will save it 2) who doesn’t vote, and why 3) the angry claim by ultra-Orthodox feminists that progressive do-gooders fighting for the rights of Haredi women are messing up their game

A weeks and a bit before elections, Don Futterman, Noah Efron and Haaretz uber-reporter Judy Maltz, in an act of political empathy and imagination, ask for each of the parties to the Left of the Likud, why might someone vote for them.

Two weeks and a bit before elections, in an act of political empathy and imagination, we try to figure who votes for each of Israel’s right-wing parties, and why. (Next week, we do the same thing for the parties on the left.)

We discuss 1) whether or not Netanyahu has lost his edge, his grip, his inevitability and his invincibility 2) a new group aiming to politically empower English-speaking Israelis 3) what to make of the Israeli HBO series about the 2014 murders of Jewish kids by Palestinians and a Muslim kid by Jews

We discuss 1) the addition of an activist to the Labor Party list who once called it a party of racist oppression 2) a revisionist history of the settler movement arguing that it was not about religious ideology but rather economy and class 3) whether it’s right or not to harangue Avner Netanyahu about the purported “sins” of his father

We discuss 1) why the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not a campaign issue in our incipient elections 2) an ad campaign showing PM Netanyahu with autocratish world leaders 3) the revolutionary advance of municipal bus service on the Sabbath