Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

On Thursday, Israelis watched as Shikma Bressler, a world-renowned physicist, was arrested during the nationwide “Day of Paralysis,” a day of ramped-up civil protests against the government's judicial overhaul. Bressler, who is also one of the top leaders of the grassroots protests against the widespread changes to the judiciary, was dragged toward a police car as bystanders shouted, "shame, shame, shame."

Following Bressler's short detainment, social media lit up with the news and, among other responses, Labor leader MK Merav Michaeli tweeted, “In a normal country Shikma Bressler would be given the Israel Prize.”

I met with Bressler, 42, at her Weizman Institute office in Rehovot on Wednesday this week to hear how the scientist, a co-founder of the Black Flags protest movement and head of a collaborative project with CERN, originally activated her activist gene. We hear what she sees as the next steps in stepping up civil disobedience, even as she believes we're already in a form of a civil war.

With her mild, almost professorial manner, she explained that Israel is quickly nearing the point of no return. That things are much worse than most international observers can imagine.

During our lengthy conversation, Bressler also laughingly told me that three years ago in her initial protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she coined the chant “De-mo-crat-ya.”

This week, we ask Dr. Shikma Bressler, What Matters Now?

IMAGE: Physicist Dr. Shikma Bressler, co-founder of the Black Flag protest movement. (Eldad Rafaeli, Photoactive)

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