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.