Tel Aviv Review

Prof. Meir Zamir, Middle East scholar at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, is the author of the newly published The Secret Anglo-French War in the Middle East: Intelligence and Decolonization, 1940-1948. He talks to host Gilad Halpern about efforts of British intelligence officials, sometimes unbeknown to their government, to "advance" British interests in the Middle East at the expense of the new order that was shaping the region in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Song: Eatliz - Sunshine

Dr. Moshe Berent, a political scientist at the Open University, is the author of the recently published A Nation Like All Nations: Towards the the Establishment of an Israeli Republic. He reviews with host Gilad Halpern the marginal role that republicanism played in Zionist thought, and highlights its tensions with the idea of a Jewish state.

Dr. Hilla Dayan, a sociologist at Amsterdam University College in the Netherlands, is working to lay the theoretical and institutional foundations for the establishment of a new academic discipline, 'Occupation Studies' - in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, of course. She tells host Gilad Halpern what needs this discipline is designed to address, and what analytic void it's intended to fill, inside Israeli academia and beyond. Song: Shlomi Shaban & Chava Alberstein - Targil BeHit'orerut

Dr. Adam Rovner, an Associate Professor of English and Jewish Literature at the University of Denver in the United States, recently had his book In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands before Israel published by New York University Press. Dr. Rovner speaks to host Gilad Halpern about the step-siblings of Zionism – six different attempts to establish a Jewish political entity in the 19th and 20th centuries – and why they all failed. Song: LessAcrobats - Time

Dr. Noa Lavie, a sociologist at the Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College, specializes in the impact of television on society, in Israel and beyond. She discusses with host Gilad Halpern her most recent research about reality television - how it's been shaped by forces like capitalism and art. Song: Riff Cohen - Helas

Noga Kadman, an Israeli researcher and tour guide, recently had her book, Erased from Space and Consciousness: Israel and the Depopulated Palestinian Villages of 1948, published in English by Indiana University Press. Kadman sits down with host Gilad Halpern and traces the ruins of hundreds of Arab-Palestinian villages in the current physical landscape, and tries to place them in the discursive or ideological landscape of contemporary Israel. Song: Tislam - Hatzavim Porchim

Prof. Yosef Toby, professor emeritus of Medieval Hebrew poetry at the University of Haifa, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the cultural golden age of Tunisian Jews, and their being torn between European acculturation and cultural conservatism.

Professor Meron Medzini, a Japanologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but also, perhaps surprisingly, a biographer of Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel between 1969-1974 - our very own Iron Lady. Professor Medzini's mother was a childhood friend of Meir, and Medzini served as her press secretary. His book is the work of a political scientist but is riddled with personal anecdotes that shed light into the virtually most prominent woman in the history of Zionism.

Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, author of numerous books including, very recently, Lincoln and the Jews: A history, which he co-edited with Benjamin Shapell. The book, which was published by St Martin's Press, recounts the relationship of the 16th president of the United States with a then still small and relatively uninfluential ethnic group, based on hundreds of archival items, some of them newly unveiled.

Dr. Gabriel Noah Brahm, associate professor of English at Northern Michigan University, is probably best known for co-editing the comprehensive The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel. Today he talks to host Gilad Halpern about his forthcoming book, which dissects the theoretical underpinnings of the writing of Israel-bashers in academia around the world.