What Matters Now

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to the United States for a series of meetings, including a long-awaited face-to-face with US President Joe Biden. He was met by anti-judicial overhaul protesters at every possible stop. But are these protests the right move for Diaspora Jews? Do they actually serve their purpose or are they, as the prime minister himself insinuated, fodder for the BDS movement? This week I bring you a second webinar with a panel of experts who discuss the role of global Jewry during this time of intense internal conflict in the Jewish State. So this week, we ask former US ambassador David Friedman, Israel’s Special Envoy for Combatting Antisemitism Michal Cotler-Wunsh and leading Zionism expert Prof. Gil Troy, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Protesters wave flags and chant slogans near the site of a planned meeting between United States President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Sept. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. It’s July, just after the end of Shabbat and about 100 people have gathered in the Likud-majority West Bank city of Ma'ale Adumim. Hebrew University law Prof. Benjamin (Benny) Porat, a resident of the city, is addressing the crowd. During his 10-minute speech, Porat — standing next to the police headquarters in Maaleh Adumim — said statements such as, “The Israeli majority has risen up and will no longer be silent” — even as a few of the West Bank city’s residents attempted to drown him out. Porat is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the director of the Matz Institute for Jewish Law. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. He is also a settler who is vocally in opposition to the coalition’s judicial overhaul. The Times of Israel sat with Porat in his home this week to discuss Tuesday’s long-awaited and explosive High Court hearing over the first piece of the judicial overhaul legislation. We also talk about how Jewish legal tradition may help solve parts of this clash of the titans crisis. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Hebrew University Prof. Benny Porat (Israel Democracy Institute) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. “To Israel’s friends in North America, we are taking the unusual step of directly addressing you at a moment of acute crisis in Israel. We write with a sense of anguish and anxiety for the future of our country.” With these words, authors Yossi Klein Halevi, Daniel Gordis and Matti Friedman began a February oped on The Times of Israel that they titled, “An open letter to Israel’s friends in North America.” The Times of Israel hosted the trio this week in a webinar and this week’s What Matters Now episode is a very lightly edited recording of the event. It’s rather long, so we’ll get right to it. So this week, we ask Yossi Klein Halevi, Daniel Gordis and Matti Friedman, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. Image: Anti-overhaul activists protest against the government's judicial overhaul outside the president's residence in Jerusalem, on July 29, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. This week, we're taking a brief break from the headlines and turning to a topic we covered last summer, hearing the experiences of a young Israeli staff member at a Jewish summer camp. This week's What Matters Now guest, Yishai Mogilner, is royalty of a sort at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, where his late grandfather, Rabbi David Mogilner, was a revered director who helped shape the camp and tragically died of a heart attack, at the age of 42, while at camp one summer. Yishai Mogilner's father, the late Eitan Mogilner, also worked at Ramah Poconos, and Yishai Mogilner, 19, now spent a summer at the same Ramah, ahead of being drafted into the army and following a year spent in a mechina preparatory program. He speaks about being in the place that was shaped by his grandfather, that then shaped his own father's life and in turn, has been formative for Yishai and his siblings back home in Israel, where they were raised. Mogilner talks about being an Israeli in such an American Jewish space, and what that's been like this summer. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Yishai Mogilner (Courtesy Ella Goldberg) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords in which Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to establish the Palestinian Authority, what was supposed to be a temporary body responsible for limited Palestinian self-governance over parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip -- a body that would serve as the foundation of a future Palestinian state. Three decades later, we’re about as far away from that vision as ever. While the PA still exists, and one of the leaders who signed the Oslo Accords, Mahmoud Abbas, remains at the helm, the mechanism he operates largely fails to deliver for its people. But should the Palestinians’ problems be Israel’s as well? This week's What Matters Now guest, journalist Adam Rasgon, appeared to argue as much: “It ultimately is in Israel's interest to have a transparent and effective Palestinian Authority because when you have that, it will bring greater stability to the West Bank and to the region more broadly," he told the podcast. Rasgon has almost a decade of experience covering Palestinian Affairs for The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Now a member of the New Yorker’s editorial staff, he recently co-wrote a tour de force profile of one of Mahmoud Abbas’s closest aides, Hussein al-Sheikh. The story is about Sheikh, but it’s also a larger one about a PA that was born out of support from the masses but that, like Sheikh, has gradually distanced itself from the people and their struggles. We discussed what can be learned from Sheikh’s career, what his and the PA’s futures look like as well as Israel’s role in it all. So this week, we ask journalist Adam Rasgon, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Journalist Adam Rasgon. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. Jewish-American journalist Norman Cousins once said, “History is a vast early warning system.” This week we speak with Oren Kessler, the author of “Palestine 1936,” who would likely agree. But as we see in Kessler's new book, history can also be a collection of missed opportunities. “David Ben-Gurion, starting in about 1933-34, had a series of meetings with a man by the name Musa Alami and he and Ben-Gurion met again and again throughout the early mid-1930s and they come tantalizingly close to some sort of an agreement before everything goes wrong, as tends to happen,” Kessler said this week in Jerusalem's Nomi Studios. Kessler’s new book is about the Arab Revolt that took place from 1936-1939. He argues, quite convincingly, that these years in British Mandate Palestine form the roots of the Middle East conflict. The book attempts to illuminate all three sides of the complex relationship between the British, Jews and Arabs attempting to occupy the Holy Land during these formative years. Kessler is a journalist and political analyst based in Tel Aviv. He spent five years researching and writing “Palestine 1936” and it’s clearly a labor he loved. There are many lessons that have yet to be learned as we see this bloody history repeating itself in Israel, even today. So this week, we ask author Oren Kessler, what mattered then and why does that matter now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Journalist Oren Kessler, author of 'Palestine 1936' (Hadas Parush) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. This week, a Tel Aviv bus driver shouted at 20-year-old passenger, Romi Inbar, for wearing a tank top, which he considered to be immodest, telling at her repeatedly to put a shirt on. “You can’t walk around like that,” the driver said. She told Israeli television that the whole bus remained silent except for a mother who told the driver that Inbar can wear whatever she wants. She said she felt totally humiliated and she posted what happened to Instagram so it doesn’t happen to others. The bus company apologized, but this is hardly the first time this public shaming of women is happening in today’s Israel. The fact that Inbar is speaking up and publicizing her story is the glass half full here. But, according to this week’s What Matters Now guest, attorney Susan Weiss, men are increasingly emboldened to marginalize and sexualize women -- even as avenues for the protection of their rights, such as the Supreme Court, are being shut. "We do have this dichotomy in this country, we have this situation where women can be fighter pilots but they can’t get divorced,” said Weiss. The founder of the Center for Women’s Justice joined The Times of Israel this week in Jerusalem to analyze how the status of women has changed since the current, right-wing, and highly religious, government has taken office. Spoiler: it’s not good. We also talk about the new “Barbie” movie and what message Weiss took away that makes her feel bold. So this week, we ask attorney Dr. Susan Weiss, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Center for Women's Justice founder attorney Dr. Susan Weiss. (Rachel Markowitz Bader) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. Over 30 years ago, American political consultant, James Carville quipped during former US president Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Today, a growing chorus of Israeli economists are echoing this phrase while attempting to pause the government’s judicial overhaul legislation in the hopes of maintaining Israel’s up-till-now flourishing growth. “We are now at a crossroads and I’m extremely concerned. But when I look back I think we’ve done tremendously well and that’s why I think we have so much to lose," Prof. Karnit Flug, a former governor of the Bank of Israel, told The Times of Israel this week. Today, Flug is a Vice President of Research and the William Davidson Senior Fellow for Economic Policy at the Israel Democracy Institute and a professor in the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University. Flug is hardly alone in her concerns: This week, the Bank of Israel issued its Financial Stability Report for the first half of 2023. It warned that growing and prolonged uncertainty around the implications of the controversial legislation poses a threat to the country’s financial system and economy. In our talk, Flug gives concrete examples of what she and other analysts are seeing, right now. So this week, we ask Prof. Karnit Flug, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Karnit Flug is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, vice-president at the Israel Democracy Institute and former governor of the Bank of Israel (courtesy Israel Democracy Institute) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. This week, the Knesset passed the first contentious judicial overhaul bill into law. So, six months after getting perspective from philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman in the inaugural What Matters Now episode, I went back for more. “Two constitutional instincts have been unleashed and are clashing with each other: The Israelis who want to be empowered through government versus the Israelis who want to be protected from government. I think that’s what’s happening in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and all over Israel as we’re talking,” says Goodman, the author of the best-selling “Catch-67” and “The Wondering Jew.” His book, “The Last Words of Moses” recently hit shelves in English. For much of the past six months, Goodman has been performing a unique kind of reserve duty: speaking with people from all sides of the judicial overhaul conflict, from teams of politicians during the negotiations at the President’s Residence — at the request of President Isaac Herzog — to squadrons of pilots who are on the brink of refusing service -- again, at the request of the IDF. In keeping with this Tisha B’Av week, this is an in-depth and quite sober conversation. But, as you will hear, Goodman is, as always, a dedicated optimist. “I think the cynics will determine what happens tomorrow and next week, but I think it’s the optimists who will determine what will happen next year and two years from now,” he says. So this week, we ask philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman (Yonit Schiller) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now. What is the tipping point between democracy and dictatorship? Why do some nations fall under one supreme leader’s sway? And what actually is the perfect storm that can turn a thriving democratic nation into a totalitarian nightmare? “Economic ruin, war, massive immigration, no money, no water, no nothing... this is a recipe for a strong leader to take over and for the army to have a coup d’etat,” according to Dr. Yonatan Freeman, our guest on this week's What Matters Now. Freeman is an international relations and media expert, who lectures at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem on national security, government and politics, Israel’s relations with the world and civil-military relations. This week, the Brothers in Arms protest group is signing on thousands of IDF reservists to a document objecting to the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, stating “We will not serve in a dictatorship.” At the same time, hundreds are marching from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to build a tent city near the Knesset ahead of next week’s fateful vote on the Reasonableness Bill. All of this is to prevent what they see as steps leading to a dictatorship. However, unlike most Israelis you meet today, Freeman is passionately optimistic about the strong state of Israel’s democracy. So this week, we ask Dr. Yonatan Freeman, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: International relations expert Dr. Yonatan Freeman lectures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (Jenny Pepperman) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now. Since 1981, the archetypical image of an archaeologist has included a wide-brimmed brown hat, a brown leather jacket — and, of course, a bullwhip. This week, with a new Indiana Jones film having hit screens across the globe, we wondered how this Hollywood legend has affected the careers of the actual, digging-in-the-trenches excavators here in Israel today. So we met up in Jerusalem with Prof. Aren Maeir, who recently published an essay, “On My ‘Colleague’ Dr. Jones and His ‘Publications’” and discussed how archaeology has shifted from the first Indiana Jones installment until today. “I think this has nothing to do with archaeology, and if anything, I would say it’s almost anti-archaeology in many ways, but, it has brought archaeology to the public’s interest in a very very significant manner and numerous archaeologists in the field for the last several decades have come to the field of archaeology because of the Indiana Jones movies," said Maeir, the head of Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Archaeology and the longtime director of The Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project. After watching the new Indiana Jones film, "Dial of Destiny," we ask Prof. Aren Maier, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Prof. Aren M. Maeir at the Tell es Safi/Gath excavation, summer 2021. (courtesy) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now. This week, the Knesset’s Constitution Committee restarted deliberations over pieces of judicial overhaul legislation after compromise talks in the President’s residence broke down. 75 years after its foundation, Israel’s rules of procedural governance are still unclear, and clearly hot-button issues as the country heads into a 26th week of judicial overhaul protests. But from the first announcement of the judicial overhaul in January, our guest this week, Prof. Yedidia Stern got to work: In cooperation with other former heads of law schools and under the aegis of President Isaac Herzog, they came up with a first compromise solution — which was turned down. Today, he’s bring to the podcast a partial solution, what is called a thin constitution. Stern, who is now the head of the Jewish People Policy Institute, talks about the procedural constitution as well as earlier attempts in Israeli history to write a constitution and why they didn’t work out. But when, several months ago Stern brought the first potential judicial overhaul solutions to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, he didn’t receive the welcome he’d been expecting. "I formed a group of 10 law professors, trying to figure out a professional solution to this situation and we met with Simcha Rothman, and we met also with [Justice Minister] Yariv Levin. So when Yariv Levin, first meeting, entered the room, he gave us a big smile... he looked at me, pointed with his finger and told me, 'The whole thing is because of you, Prof. Stern.'" Find out how Levin's former teacher was an impetus for his judicial overhaul work today as we ask Prof. Yedidia Stern, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: JPPI head Prof. Yedidia Stern, a leading Israeli legal scholar. (Courtesy JPPI) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now. On March 22, 2022, four Israelis were murdered in a stabbing attack in Beersheba. In the same week, a terrorist shot and killed five civilians in Bnei Brak. Days later in Hadera, another terrorist attack occurred in which two Border Police officers were killed and 12 civilians were injured. After this bloody week, the IDF initiated Operation Break the Wave, which the army defines as “a counterterrorism operation conducted to thwart future attacks and apprehend those involved in terrorist activities against Israeli civilians.” It’s been 15 months since the operation's launch and again this week Israel was rocked by a bloody week, including the killing of four more citizens in a terrorist shooting. So we reached out to Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser. He is the former head of the research division in the IDF’s Military Intelligence division and former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs. Among his other current roles, Kuperwasser heads up The Institute for the Research of the Methodology of Intelligence. And at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) think tank, he specializes in the security dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. According to Kuperwasser, the current flare-up of Palestinian armed violence is not coincidental, but the fruit of a carefully cultivated extremism that surrounds Palestinians on all sides. And the region's many terror groups are all too ready to embrace any volunteer. “That’s why I’m totally against this idea of lone wolves. These are not lone wolves. These are wolves that were bred by the incitement that comes from all these places. And once you prepare them mentally to be a wolf, eventually they are going to carry out a terror attack,” said Kuperwasser on Wednesday. In this week of yet another surge in terror, we ask security expert Yossi Kuperwasser, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the research division in the IDF’s Military Intelligence division and former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs outside the Nomi Studios in Jerusalem, June 21, 2023. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now. This past weekend, Israel marked a tragic milestone: In the first half of 2023, over 100 Arab citizens have died by violence. Just like its manifestation in every community throughout the world, this scourge has many faces — organized crime, domestic violence, random acts of anger, and more. But according to polling by the Abraham Initiative, for several years running, members of Arab communities have said that the issues that most concern them are crime and violence, well above civil status, racist legislation and the stalemate in the peace process. However, many Arab citizens of Israel feel that the Jewish state just isn’t putting the resources into fighting the wave of violence in a long-term, comprehensive way. "People are talking about it as the violence in the Arab society. First of all, it’s the violence in the Israeli society," said Prof. Mona Khoury, the Vice President for Strategy and Diversity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Khoury, a full professor at the Hebrew University School of Social Work, sat with The Times of Israel in her Mount Scopus office this week. Much of her research focuses on children and adolescents' deviant and delinquent behaviors. But instead of merely studying the phenomena, she has concrete suggestions for breaking the cycle of violence. This week, when all eyes are finally on the uptick of violence in Arab communities, we ask Prof. Mona Khoury, what matters now. The following transcript has been lightly edited. IMAGE: Prof. Mona Khoury, Vice President for Strategy and Diversity, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (Sharon Gabay) What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now. Eleven years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his much-quoted "Iranian nuclear duck" speech at AIPAC warning against United States plans for a nuclear deal. Fast forward to today and we hear reports that the United States is now looking for a “less for less” deal to stave off that Iranian duck’s final launch. This week alone, Iran made international headlines as it claimed it had developed a hypersonic missile capable of traveling at 15 times the speed of sound. We were likewise told that Iran will head a naval alliance in cooperation with other Gulf states. And we heard that Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia. There are new truces in the region and a re-embrace of Syria in the Arab League. And that’s just the beginning. This week, Dr. Jonathan Spyer, the director of research at the Middle East Forum and editor of Middle East Quarterly, gives us a whirlwind tour of the new alliances threading through a tangled region. A freelance security analyst for Janes Information Group and a columnist at the Jerusalem Post, Spyer is also an on-the-ground journalist who has entered Syria, Lebanon and Iraq numerous times and is the author of the 2018 book “Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars.” And so this week of increased news out of Iran, we ask Jonathan Spyer, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Dr. Jonathan Spyer on a reporting trip in Mosul, Iraq, September 2017. (courtesy) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his cabinet meeting with an announcement that his government will draft a decision to establish a new ministerial committee -- that he will head. In his remarks, Netanyahu stated, “The fight against the cost of living tops our government's list of national priorities. We will take determined and strong action to lower prices in all areas." Our What Matters Now guest this week points out that this new Netanyahu-led committee is perhaps the fifth such task force the government has established to study the cost of living since 2011. But lawyer and "people’s lobbyist" Rachel Gur is ready to take up the fight to lower Israel's outlandishly inflated prices. Gur moved to Israel from the United States at age 17 and served in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. After demobbing, she earned an L.L.B. and B.A. in political science from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and an L.L.M in Legal Theory from New York University Law School. (She also married The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.) Like any reputable lobbyist, she knows how to walk the halls of power: From 2011 until a few years ago, Gur served in senior positions in the Israeli government. Today the Director of Public Policy for Lobby 99, Gur is an expert in the fields of Israeli legislation, regulation, and public policy. But what makes Lobby 99 different from other pressure groups is that we, the people, set the agenda. This week, as the cost of living is again on the cabinet’s agenda, we ask Rachel Gur, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Rachel Gur, Director of Public Policy for Lobby 99. (courtesy) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. This week, Jews all over the world will mark the holiday of Shavuot by reading from the Book of Ruth. In this biblical tale, disaster and famine strike and an elderly widow called Naomi loses her two sons. Childless, she tells her daughters-in-law to return to their parents’ homes in Moab and says that she will make her own way back to her family in Bethlehem. One daughter-in-law, Orpah, regretfully leaves. The other, Ruth, says the famous lines, “Where you go I will go, and where you slumber I will slumber. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” And with that, she joins the People of Israel and eventually becomes the ancestor of the much-heralded King David. The Book of Ruth was written about 2,500 years ago. However, argues our guest this week, it couldn’t be more relevant today as a model of “creative halacha.” Israel Prize-winning Bible scholar Prof. Yair Zakovitch joined The Times of Israel this week in his Hebrew University book-lined office to discuss the societal context of the Book of Ruth and the halachic “problems” it solves. The author of best-selling works on the Bible was born in the pluralistic northern city of Haifa in 1945 and joined the faculty of Hebrew University in 1978. When awarded the Israel Prize for Bible in 2021, then Education Minister Yoav Gallant said, "Yair Zakovitch is one of the most original Bible researchers in the country and the world." To bring the Bible to the next generation, Zakovtich helped found the Hebrew University's Revivim program, a prestigious teacher-training program for outstanding university students, who sign on to teach in state schools post-graduation. In our in-depth conversation on the Book of Ruth, we hear how the scroll's author — in opposition to the writers of the contemporary prophets — offers a scripture of compassion in solving that era's challenge with intermarriage. We also hear about today’s rampant biblical illiteracy and why it is immensely important for secular Israelis to readopt the Bible for themselves. This Shavuot week, we ask Prof. Yair Zakovitch, What Matters Now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Prof. Yair Zakovitch in his Hebrew University of Jerusalem office, May 23, 2023. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. On Thursday this week, tens of thousands of marchers -- including several government ministers and MKs -- marked the 1967 reunification of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty with participation in the annual Flag March. While most of the masses sang, danced, and yes, caused a ruckus through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter, much like every year in the recent past, at times parts of the mostly under-30, largely male crowd acted like a tinderbox eager for a spark. What was different this year is a group of left-wing activists blocked a main artery from the West Bank bloc of Gush Etzion to prevent marchers from reaching the capital. Perhaps taking a page out of the judicial overhaul protests, they stood with massive banners, chanting, "Fascism will not pass; the marchers will not pass." This push-pull political situation in Israel is the stuff scholars of contemporary history dream of. And for Dr. Sara Hirschhorn, an American historian and public intellectual who focuses on the Israeli ultranationalist movement, a research visit to the Holy Land couldn’t have been better timed. Hirschhorn is currently an inaugural fellow at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center for Antisemitism Research and an instructor in Jewish and Israel Studies at Rutgers University. In addition to her research into Israeli extremism, she also focuses on Diaspora-Israel relations and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Her first, award-winning book, "City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement" (Harvard, 2017) will soon be followed up on with an in-progress manuscript entitled "New Day in Babylon and Jerusalem: Zionism, Jewish Power, and Identity Politics Since 1967."We sat together this week and in our wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the increasing extremist symbolism of the Jerusalem Day Flag March. We also drill down on how Israel’s far-right parties are now considered mainstream as part of the Knesset coalition. And, we discuss how by simply envisioning what the world could look like the day after peace breaks out, we may actually get there. This week we ask Dr. Sara Hirschhorn, What Matters Now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Dr. Sara Hirschhorn in the Nomi Studios in Jerusalem. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. Israel stands unified this week as hundreds of Gaza rockets rain on the country. Unusually of late, even Israel’s political echelon has put aside its differences to stand together during the IDF’s Operation Shield and Arrow. That’s really good news for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose own coalition has increasingly taken to covert -- and overt -- threats against the stability of his government. But even after this conflict with Palestinian Islamic Jihad is put to rest, Netanyahu still has a battle on his hands: He must pass the budget or, as mandated by law, see his government topple. When the budget does pass, and most think it will, only then will we see where the prime minister really stands on hot-button issues such as the judicial overhaul legislation package, according to senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, our guest this week. “One of the terrible costs Netanyahu will pay for suddenly being in control again, for being in a position where his own coalition partners can’t topple him and demand from him everything they want and embarrass him, shatter his popularity and just destroy everything for him, is that the buck stops with him,” said Rettig Gur on Wednesday. We sat down during a pocket of tense calm, just before the rain of rockets began. In our in-depth conversation, we speak about how Israeli leadership fares under rocket fire — for better and worse. We then turn to Netanyahu’s next operation, the budget, which has a fast-approaching expiration date of May 31. In this week of rare political and national unity, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur What Matters Now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Times of Israel senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur at Jerusalem's Nomi Studios, May 10, 2023. (Jamal Risheq/Israel Story) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now. The Knesset reconvened this week and anti-judicial overhaul protestors ramped up their demonstrations with Thursday’s nationwide Day of Disruptions. While these protests were going on nationwide, a panel appearing on Israel’s Channel 14 talked about the upcoming protest outside former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak’s house that night. Barak, the panel agreed, is the puppet master who is pulling all the strings in the anti-judicial overhaul movement. He is to blame for the mess the country is in and only if Barak agrees to the reform, they said, will all protests stop. Even as Fox News captures headlines throughout the world for skewed coverage, Israel’s version, Channel 14, is slowly capturing an increasingly larger audience. So, I sat down this week with Zman Yisrael editor Biranit Goren to make sense of Israel's Hebrew-language media map. A three-decade veteran of Israeli journalism, Goren started out as an investigative reporter at the Ha'aretz group, moved on to become the news and magazine editor at Yedioth Aharonot and then editor-in-chief of Ma'ariv's website. Goren also crossed into the tech world, developing and maintaining dozens of media websites -- including The Times of Israel and Zman Israel, where she is also the editor-in-chief since its foundation. Now celebrating four years, Zman Israel, The Times of Israel's sister Hebrew website, covers politics, economy, environment, diplomacy and the rule of law. With a staff of highly experienced journalists, the current affairs website focuses on investigative reporting, exclusive news and in-depth analysis. In our in-depth discussion -- recorded on World Press Freedom Day -- Goren explains the lay of the land in Israel's Hebrew-language media and suggests that all of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s three ongoing court cases are tied to its control. In this week of dueling narratives, we ask veteran journalist Biranit Goren, What Matters Now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts. IMAGE: Zman Yisrael editor Biranit Goren at an event celebrating ToI's 10th anniversary, May 1, 2022. (Ariel Jerozolimski) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.