What Matters Now

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. Last week, US President Donald Trump completed a four-day trip to the Middle East, his first official state visit of his second term. He struck economic deals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and, in lifting sanctions against Syria, made a bold move that could reboot the wartorn country. On May 13, Trump delivered an almost hour-long speech at the Saudi-US Investment Forum at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that gives deep insight into his plan for the Middle East and beyond. Rettig Gur examines this speech and explains its significance. We hear how it reflects Trump's diplomacy, which in many ways harkens back to an earlier style of US policy. And we hear how, while the speech only names Israel once, it is actually a leitmotif. And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.  IMAGE: US President Donald Trump speaks during the Saudi-US investment forum at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center in Riyadh on May 13, 2025. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Eurovision mega-fan Tal Dahan, straight from Basel. Dahan is a volunteer reporter with the Hebrew-language EuroMix website, which has been the number one source for Israelis about the Eurovision for decades. This year marks Israel's 47th time participating in the Eurovision, a song contest that was established 69 years ago to unite Europe through music. We are recording just after the first semi-final and ahead of Israel's participation in the second semi-final on Thursday night. It is expected that Israel's candidate, Yuval Raphael, will make it to the finals on Saturday night with her song, "New Day Will Rise." Dahan talks about the betting favorites going into Saturday's final and also discusses the politics of the competition. And so this week, we ask Tal Dahan, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Elana Kaminka, peace activist and bereaved mother. On October 7, 2023, Elana's firstborn son, Lt. Yannai Kaminka, 20, a commander in the Home Front Command, was killed battling against Hamas at the Zikim IDF training base. His efforts and those of his fellow officers there saved the lives of almost 100 recruits, as charted in a recently released IDF probe into the failures on and leading up to October 7. In a frank and open discussion about what it means to choose a path of peace after losing her first child to terrorists bent on destroying her nation, Kaminka speaks with The Times of Israel just after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down in refusing to hold a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 disasters.  Kaminka made aliya from California as a lone soldier at age 18 and later married Eyal with whom she had four children. Prior to October 7, she was already active in groups committed to fostering empathetic, respectful and nuanced dialogue. After losing her son, she redoubled her efforts to promote engagement between Israeli Jews and Palestinians -- and to protest the Netanyahu government, which she holds accountable for her son's death. She is an active member of Tag Meir and the Parents Circle Families Forum and speaks tirelessly about the need to counter extremism and develop empathy and compassion among all levels of Israeli society. While advocating for a future of dignity and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike in the Land of Israel, she is also a mother of three additional children, including her son who was conscripted to a paramedics unit a mere six weeks following his older brother's death. And so this week, we ask Elana Kaminka, what matters now. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with the coordinator of The Times of Israel's Those We Have Lost project, Amy Spiro, for this special episode in honor of Israel's Memorial Day to Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror. We explain about the genesis of our Those We Have Lost project, and how we aim to tell the stories of individuals slain in Hamas's brutal attack on October 7, 2023. The first entry was written on October 11, 2023, when the number of the murdered was still unclear and funerals were held around the clock. Today, with 1,100 individual entries covering almost every single person killed by Hamas, our Those We Have Lost project paints a picture of each of their lives and the ongoing ripple effects of their deaths. Spiro speaks to the challenges she's faced -- including the mundane issue of how to write names in Latin letters -- and where she draws her information from. The Those We Have Lost project works to ensure that despite the massive scale of the loss, no one is forgotten. On behalf of The Times of Israel, Borschel-Dan urges listeners to visit the project's home page this Memorial Day and keep the fallen's memories alive. What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Prof. Manuela Consonni, director of Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Consonni, a leading scholar of Holocaust memory, gender, and post-war European culture, decided to mark Yom Hashoah, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, with an exhibition at the Mount Scopus campus called, "Faces of Women's Resistance." The exhibition looks at how women -- Jewish and non-Jewish -- resisted the Nazi regime. Like men, many were fighters, partisans and rescuers, but also the sheer survival of their family was put on the shoulders of many mothers. We discuss definitions of resistance and what means were available to women during the Nazi regime. And finally, we delve into the use of Holocaust language when discussing the hostages kept by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023. So this week, we ask Prof. Manuela Consonni, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.  IMAGE: Two young women who managed to survive over a year in the concentration camp at Belsen, Germany, are shown, April 30, 1945. (AP Photo)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Mitch Ginsburg, a producer at the Israel Story podcast. Ginsburg, a former military reporter for The Times of Israel, brings us a special episode from Israel's flagship podcast series, called The Hebrew Hobbit: A Passover Special. In it, Ginsburg charts the tale of a number of Israeli POWs who took upon themselves the unlikely task of translating JRR Tolkien's "The Hobbit" while imprisoned together in an Egyptian jail. In a vivid soundscape, Ginsburg brings a 360-degree account of life before, during and after their detention -- for the soldiers and those they left behind. This Passover holiday, we hear the improbable story of a group of Israeli men who formed a mini-kibbutz in the heart of an enemy country's prison and what happened after their exodus from Egypt. So this week, we ask Israel Story's Mitch Ginsburg, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.  IMAGE: An undated photo of the POW group who together translated 'The Hobbit' into Hebrew prior to their release from an Egyptian prison in November 1973. (courtesy)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg speaking with Idit Ohel, mother of hostage Alon Ohel. Ohel talks about her son, who was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival.  Ohel discusses what she knows about the injuries sustained by Alon on October 7, including shrapnel in his eye, and she firmly demands that he receive medical attention. She says she deeply believes that despite his injuries and captivity, he is surviving and will continue to do so until he's released home. She explains what she's heard from released hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Eliya Cohen, who were kept captive with Alon, and we hear how Alon endures, playing imaginery piano on his chest as a musician, whistling favorite songs and talking about his family. Ohel says that her son, like her, has always meditated, and she assumes he is still doing so as one of the many methods that has allowed him to survive so many months underground. She discusses what it's like to mark another Passover without her son, and the need for the entire country and Jewish nation to rally behind the remaining hostages, in order to push the government toward an extension of the hostage deal. So this week, we ask hostage mother Idit Ohel, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.  IMAGE: Idit Ohel, mother of hostage Alon Ohel, speaks during a rally calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, March 8, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and scholar Dara Horn. Horn is the author of novels and non-fiction, including “People Love Dead Jews,” “Eternal Life,” “A Guide for the Perplexed,” and now her first book for young readers, “One Little Goat.” A graphic novel, "One Little Goat," was dreamed up by a young Horn and written decades later alongside the uniquely grungy illustrations of Theo Ellsworth. The program's first half delves into the book's trippy storyline and how she arrived at it. As Horn remarks on her website, "'One Little Goat' is a quirky, dryly funny, Passover-themed graphic novel featuring a lost matzah, a never-ending seder and a time-traveling talking goat." In the second half of the program, we hear some about the ideas Horn proposed in her bestselling work, "People Love Dead Jews," and she speaks about her new education initiative, Mosaic Persuasion, which is bent on teaching American schoolchildren about real, living Jews and Jewish culture. We hear about how the Hamas massacre of 1,200 in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has -- and has not -- shifted American discourse. And Horn points out the Jews' driving counter-culture DNA that has been passed down from generation to generation, much like the rituals of the Passover seder. And so this week, we ask author Dara Horn, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg hosting and speaking with Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of released hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen. Dekel-Chen, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was a vocal and visible hostage parent throughout the months of his son's captivity. Sagui Dekel-Chen was taken hostage on October 7, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz, while his pregnant wife and two young daughters were hiding in their safe room. He talks about the relief that he and the family felt upon seeing Sagui released home to Israel, the challenges that Sagui and the rest of the family and Nir Oz community still face, and the sense of rebirth that Sagui feels post-captivity. For 496 days, Sagui didn't know if his own family had survived, as well as extended members of his family and friends. Dekel-Chen also reflects on the sense of abandonment felt by many hostage families from the Israeli government throughout the months of the war, and particularly now, as the army has returned to fighting in Gaza, leaving 59 hostages still in captivity. He speaks about the tremendous support he and the other hostage families received from the US government, from both the Biden and Trump administrations and his surprise that American Jewish organizations didn't join together to support the hostage families. And so this week, we ask history professor Jonathan Dekel-Chen, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.  IMAGE: Freed hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen with his father Jonathan aboard an IDF helicopter en route to the hospital soon after his release from 498 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza, February 15, 2025 (IDF)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel editor David Horovitz. Recording at noon in ToI's Jerusalem office ahead of a planned fateful cabinet vote on the firing of Shin Bet head Ronen Bar tonight, Horovitz attempts to summarize this fraught Israeli moment. As the Israel Defense Forces troops are again entering the Gaza Strip for ground operations, fears of a crumbling Israeli democracy are bringing thousands to the streets, alongside others who reject the notion of a renewed war in Gaza without a hostage deal first. Horovitz takes us through a litany of issues fueling the domestic strife and assesses how Israel again finds itself at a crossroads. "All of us want Israel to survive and to thrive and we have two things simultaneously: We have terrible threats from without and we have tremendous division from within," says Horovitz. "This is extremely dangerous for Israel." And so this week, we ask ToI editor David Horovitz, what matters now? What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.  IMAGE: Israelis march in a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.