Times Will Tell

Hello everyone, welcome to Times Will Tell, a weekly podcast by The Times of Israel. This week, in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we are speaking with the out-going, longtime head of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev. Shalev will speak about the United Nation’s 2005 adoption of January 27 -- the day Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army -- as the global commemoration of the Holocaust. We also speak about cynical political uses of Holocaust memory, researchers’ undying battle for...

Welcome to Times Will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we’re traveling to Europe and speaking with two impressive individuals. First, we'll hear a short chat with 29-year-old Swedish composer Jacob Mühlrad, who, just ahead of the January 27th International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is releasing his a-cappella choir piece, “Kaddish” on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon label. Based on texts written by Elie Wiesel and recorded testimony from Mühlrad's Holocaust...

Welcome to Times will Tell, the weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we go onsite to the banks of the Jordan River near Jericho to attend the first mass in 54 years at a Franciscan church called the St. John the Baptist Chapel. Along with another dozen or so churches on both sides of the Jordan, the chapel commemorates the site where it is traditionally thought that Jesus was baptized. To make the day even more special, for the Catholic church that date marks the Feast of the...

Welcome to Times Will Tell, a weekly podcast from The Times of Israel. This week we're going deep into biblical archaeology and the fields new techniques with Bar Ilan University Prof. Aren Maeir, who for the past 25 years has led the excavations at Tell es-Safi, more commonly known as biblical Gath. We talk about the Philistines — a complex mosaic of Sea Peoples who migrated to the Holy Land from the Aegean during the biblical era — and about a couple new studies that have recently come out...

This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we asked our New York-based film critic Jordan Hoffman to pick up the mic and give us a run down of his top 10 Jewish released for 2020. He came up with 11. "If I had to summarize 2020 in a single phrase, I’d choose an old reliable: oy vey iz mir," said Hoffman to open his accompanying essay. Check out his list in full on The Times of Israel website See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we're taking you behind the scenes at The Times of Israel to speak with two colleagues. We’ll hear first from Raphael Ahren, our outgoing diplomatic reporter, who left us this week after almost 9 years at The Times of Israel. Raphael, who speaks four languages fluently, went to 26 countries on behalf of The Times of Israel. Even tho he didn’t bring back chocolate from all of them, he is well beloved and we’re all sad to see him go. Next we’ll hear from The Times of Israel’s new...

This week The Times of Israel Podcast is bringing you a sneak peak at a new album, Mozart Complete Piano Sonatas Volume 1, recorded by Israeli-American performer, Orli Shaham. Shaham was born in Jerusalem, but following in the footsteps of her big brother, the violinist Gil Shaham, she quickly found her way to New York where she began training at the Juilliard School. Today she teaches the next generation of artists there, and performs internationally with major orchestras. Shaham recorded...

This week we’re speaking with Canadian-Israeli documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht, whose newest project “The Wilderness” is now screening in North America. "The Wilderness" is a 10-part series exploring biblical stories from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles in which the core action takes place in the desert. The stories include the Temptation of Christ, Hagar’s promise, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the story of Ruth and Naomi. Hecht himself plays Lot because, as he put it, anyone who had a beard was...

This week The Times of Israel Podcast is taking you on a journey through thousands of years of history and archaeology at the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem’s Old City. It’s undergoing a huge renovation, which will make the Crusader-period building more accessible and double the space of the indoor galleries. But because they can’t build up, the museum, in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, is going deep down into a Crusader moat that was filled in during the Ottoman...

This Thanksgiving week, founding editor David Horovitz, Senior Analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, and US Correspondent Jacob Magid join Deputy Editor Amanda Borschel-Dan to speak about the Israeli-American relationship vis a vis the outgoing Trump and incoming Biden administrations. We’ll talk about what Israelis are grateful for, concerns about Iran, hopes for additional peace agreements in the new Middle East -- and what Borschel-Dan has in common with Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain. See...

This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we’ll hear a Behind the Headlines video interview that was conducted for The Times of Israel Community with Michael Dickson and Dr. Naomi Baum, the authors of “Isresilience: What Israelis Can Teach the World.” The book takes readers on a journey across Israel to profile 14 Israelis who have overcome extreme odds, and continued to “bounce forward” in their lives. Dickson is the head of StandWithUs Israel and Baum is an internationally known expert in...

This week we're joined by The Times of Israel’s Culture and Lifestyle editor Jessica Steinberg. Around Jerusalem she’s commonly known as Ms. Thanksgiving for her instrumental role in setting up and conducting a pumpkin pie sale for Sharsheret, a US-based organization that aids Jewish women and their families as they face breast and ovarian cancer. We’ll hear about that and how you can help, too. (https://sharsheret.org/) But Jessica also wrote a great children’s book about Thanksgiving...

The Times of Israel's film critic Jordan Hoffman joins the podcast this week to discuss two current, very Jewy films starring Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen: "Borat 2" and "Chicago 7." The actor plays goofy title character Borat -- "a retrograde in all of his beliefs" -- and real-life jokester activist Abbie Hoffman. Baron Cohen, says Hoffman, has popularized the genre of cringe comedy for our era. While more known for his comedic roles, these two films allow the actor to display his...

This week we’re speaking with Dr. Susan Weissman, who has just published “Final Judgement and the Dead in Medieval Jewish Thought.” Her book delves into Sefer Hasidim, a Hebrew-language moralistic text written in the 13th century in Ashkenaz. The men who wrote it were part of the German Pietists sect, which was known for its extreme forms of penitence, including sitting in vermin or setting themselves on fire. The era was one of change for Jewish liturgy and the Medieval pre-occupation with...

Warning, sexually explicit material: This week we're speaking with sex therapist Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus, who is the Clinical Director at New York’s Maze Women’s Sexual Health center. Bat Sheva, who is a practicing Modern Orthodox Jew, is also a licensed social worker and treats a swath of women, including from the most ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of New York. Parents: This is a very frank conversation about sex, porn, and masturbation. The discussion is focused on heterosexual marital sex,...

The Times of Israel's Senior Analyst Haviv Rettig Gur talks political transparency and budget this week on the podcast. At least a third of Israel’s cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, have failed to produce a declaration of their personal assets, more than three months after the legal deadline. Gur explains why this matters -- and why no one will do anything about it. Then, Gur does a deep dive into why Netanyahu isn't...

This week w're speaking with Prof. Eric Cline about his newest book, “Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon.” Cline is Professor of Classics and Anthropology at The George Washington University in DC and the author or editor of over 20 books. It’s a work of non-fiction, but some of the tales he tells here are frankly juicy and that’s pretty amazing since it’s about the early days of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and its 1920s and 30s excavations at northern Israel’s...

This week on The Times of Israel Podcast, we're bringing you a recent conversation with philosopher and best-selling author Dr. Micah Goodman that was part of The Times of Israel’s new Behind the Headlines video events. Other interviewees in the series have included Israeli writer Etgar Keret, performer Neshama Carlebach, and Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy about their new ‘memoirfesto,’ ‘Never Alone.’ Join our Times of Israel Community and be the first to see other upcoming events. Image: Dr....

This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we’re speaking with two members of the world music band Yamma, singer Talya G.A. Solan and winds player Yonnie Dror. Other band members include Aviv Bahar, Nur Bar Goren and Avri Borochov. The band incorporates Jewish music traditions from across the Mediterranean and Africa, and draws on the musicians’ musical and ethnic backgrounds. Their runaway hit is strangely enough a setting of Psalm 104. The Youtube video alone has gotten almost 6 million...

The Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered by all Abrahamic religions and is considered by Jews to be the second holiest spot after the Temple Mount. Like at the Temple Mount, no recent archaeological study has been permitted at the site, but a recent scientific study was conducted by Ariel University archaeologist, Prof. David Ben-Shlomo. This is the first high-tech study of the cave’s pottery. Ben-Shlomo co-authored an article charting the systematic compositional analysis of four vessels that...