Haaretz Podcast
360 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago - ★★★★ - 129 ratingsFrom Haaretz – Israel's oldest daily newspaper – a weekly podcast in English on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World, hosted by Allison Kaplan Sommer.
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Episodes
'Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony exemplifies what the day after the Gaza war could look like'
May 12, 2024 07:41 - 34 minutes - 31.3 MBAs Israel prepares to celebrate Memorial Day, or Yom Hazikaron, on Monday and Independence Day, or Yom Haatzmaut, the following day, the abrupt transition from commemoration to celebration will look different in the shadow of October 7 and the war in Gaza. Abbey Onn lost two members of her family in Hamas' murderous attack, while three were taken hostage (two of them, 12-year-old Erez and 16-year-old Sahar, were released in November). She tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer tha...
'Biden is willing to sacrifice reelection for Israel. That's shocking, heartbreaking and dangerous'
May 08, 2024 09:34 - 43 minutes - 39.8 MBJournalist and public intellectual Masha Gessen is dismayed that the Biden White House has been condemning, not supporting, the numerous tent protests against Israel's war in Gaza on American campuses and worried that this decision will hand the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump. Speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast, Gessen said that the fact that "Biden and his administration are willing to sacrifice the election, effectively, to its ongoing engagement w...
'The campus wars over Gaza suck. But they are not a violent, antisemitic nightmare'
May 01, 2024 10:35 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBIn her first visit to Israel since October 7, Berkeley-based author and screenwriter Ayelet Waldman made the news carrying a sack of rice on her shoulder, she was arrested with a group of rabbis participating in a symbolic march to the Gaza border to deliver humanitarian aid. Neither she nor members of the group, Waldman tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, were under the illusion that they would actually get through the Erez checkpoint to feed Palestinians - but she felt it wa...
'Young U.S. Jews believe Judaism is about social justice. They ask, does Israel stand for that?'
April 17, 2024 15:17 - 47 minutes - 43.3 MBIf support for Israel becomes a truly partisan issue and political football in the United States, it will be "a disaster" that the people and the leaders of the Jewish state don't fully comprehend, says Professor Noah Feldman in a conversation with host of the Haaretz Podcast Allison Kaplan Sommer. Feldman is a Harvard Law School professor and public intellectual who has written ten books on law, politics, religion and Middle East geopolitics. In his new book, "To Be a Jew Today: A New Guid...
'If One of Those Missiles Hit Tel Aviv We Would Be in a Very Different, Devastating Situation'
April 16, 2024 10:23 - 29 minutes - 26.7 MBIran's firing of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night marked a new escalation in a simmering war usually fought by proxies miles from Tehran. Iran's strike, which was largely intercepted by Israel and its allies, leaves lingering questions of global significance. On a special edition of the podcast, Haaretz reporter Linda Dayan speaks to Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn, who explains how this unprecedented attack came to be – and what might follow. Although this part...
'U.S. aid to Israel is endangered. We're seeing that come to fruition right now'
April 09, 2024 10:14 - 40 minutes - 37.2 MBSix months into Israel's conflict with Hamas, the solid support U.S. President Joe Biden's White House gave to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has taken a serious hit. Following the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers, a clash over a possible military operation in Rafah, and Israel's failure to provide a vision for the "day after" the war in Gaza, there has been a "precipitous drop" in the standing of the Israeli prime minister both in the White Hou...
'U.S. military aid to Israel is endangered. More people will say it should be cut'
April 09, 2024 10:14 - 40 minutes - 37.2 MBSix months into Israel's conflict with Hamas, the solid support U.S. President Joe Biden's White House gave to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has taken a serious hit. Following the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers, a clash over a possible military operation in Rafah, and Israel's failure to provide a vision for the "day after" the war in Gaza, there has been a "precipitous drop" in the standing of the Israeli prime minister both in the White Hou...
'Ultra-Orthodox Israelis are at the peak of their power and they don't pay a price in war'
April 01, 2024 11:47 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBThe controversy in Israel over the exemption of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service "has reached a boiling point," former Haaretz journalist and author Yair Ettinger tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continually delayed confronting the issue in his years in power, Ettinger notes. But this week, the High Court's deadline for either enshrining exemptions in legislation or enlisting yeshiva students expired. And it ...
'The more oppression there is, the more younger Arabs in Israel prefer to identify as Palestinians'
March 26, 2024 17:13 - 38 minutes - 35.7 MBHaaretz journalist Sheren Falah Saab has been covering the unfolding disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza for months. Even now, aside from reporting on the lives of Gazans as the war rages, she manages, from time to time, to deep dive into Arab culture, and write the kind of articles that she used to send in all the time before October 7. But, she confesses in this week's conversation with Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the things she hears from Gazans often break her hear...
Thomas Friedman, Aluf Benn, Noam Tibon and Amir Tibon on the failures of Oct. 7
March 21, 2024 10:27 - 31 minutes - 29.3 MBThis special episode of the Haaretz Podcast features two of the standout sessions from the recent Haaretz-UCLA conference: Israel After October 7 First, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sits down with Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn to discuss the “perils” and “opportunities” that lie ahead for Israel in the aftermath of the war in Gaza. Friedman predicts that "Israel is either going to come out of this with a new relationship with the Palestinians in 202...
Tony Kushner: Israel's Gaza war 'looks a lot like ethnic cleansing to me'
March 20, 2024 12:19 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBAward-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, one of the first high-profile American Jewish artists to sharply and publicly criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians, speaks to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech, the Gaza War, antisemitism in the U.S., and the current production of "Angels in America" in Tel Aviv. He calls the events of October 7 "gutting" and as the months have passed since, has been horrified by the "unimaginable p...
Franklin Foer: 'Simplistic moralism is dividing the world into good and evil, and placing Jews on the side of evil'
March 12, 2024 15:47 - 31 minutes - 29.1 MBIn a bold cover story in The Atlantic, journalist Franklin Foer declared "The Golden Age of American Jewry is Ending." On the Haaretz Podcast, he tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer how and why he reached the sobering conclusion that "an unprecedented period of safety and prosperity for Jewish Americans" is over. Allegiance to the Palestinian cause on the progressive left, he says, is understandable – even after the atrocities of October 7 – as is opposition to the war in Gaza and calls for a ...
'Netanyahu wants the world to accuse Israel of genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing'
March 05, 2024 11:25 - 35 minutes - 33 MBVeteran columnist Bradley Burston opens his new book "The End of Israel: Dispatches from a Path to Catastrophe" with a stinging indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he believes is leading the country towards what could be its final chapter. He tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that in recent years, when the country was embroiled in the battle over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul, "it was clear to me already that the Israel that we all once knew was not going to ...
Former PM Olmert: 'Netanyahu’s overconfidence and arrogance led to October 7'
February 28, 2024 10:32 - 37 minutes - 34 MBIn a recent op-ed in Haaretz, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers of knowingly steering Israel into an all-out war. During a wide-ranging conversation on this week's Haaretz Podcast, Olmert tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer that for Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and Netanyahu, Gaza is only the beginning - they are aiming for "Armageddon, that will make it possible to expel many of the Palestinians in the West Bank." He mentions the go...
'Israelis are rejecting Netanyahu. That doesn't mean they are embracing left-wing views'
February 21, 2024 11:28 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MBYou can hear the drumbeats for immediate elections in Israel in demonstrations in the streets, on highway billboards, and in the headlines. After four months of putting politics aside to focus on the war in Gaza and the northern border, Israelis - in growing numbers - are finally asking when they will be able to take their growing frustration with their current leaders to the polls. Politics is also in the air when it comes to the Palestinian future - as the issue over who will rule Gaza an...
'This is not our first war, but it's the first war we've seen Israel's credit rating drop'
February 14, 2024 12:16 - 38 minutes - 35.3 MBThe decision by Moody's credit rating agency to downgrade Israel's rating and outlook last week was a shock to the country after decades of growth and a rosy outlook for the future as its technology-driven industries flourished. Haaretz economics editor and commentator David Rosenberg explains to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer why Israel received this "black mark," what it means, Israel's finance minister's "abnormal reaction" to the news and how it reflects the world's distrust...
Israel's former head of military intelligence: 'If we don't offer an alternative, we'll end up with Hamas again'
February 05, 2024 12:56 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBIsrael's former head of military intelligence, Tamir Hayman, now the managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Podcast to discuss Israel's war with Hamas and the key question: How far is Israel willing to go to bring 130-plus hostages home? While Hayman believes that the terms of a ceasefire are negotiable on both sides, he is skeptical that Israel's current government would release the political prisoners with blood on the...
Rallying for democracy, calling to free hostages: Where Israel's protest movements stand
January 29, 2024 13:58 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBThousands of Israelis are back on the streets, four months after the October 7 Hamas attack and the war in Gaza halted historic demonstrations against the Netanyahu government's plan to overhaul the judiciary. Joining host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast, reporter Linda Dayan explains how the protest movement has reemerged, and how wartime demonstrations differ. While the current wave of protests began with vigils and rallies for the hostages' return, "as the objectives of th...
The ugly price Israel will pay for the decision-making failures that led to October 7
January 22, 2024 13:44 - 37 minutes - 34.7 MBOn this week's Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer holds a wide-ranging conversation with Chuck Freilich, Israel's former deputy national security adviser. Freilich, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, discusses the numerous troubling issues arising from Israel's conflict with Hamas. He says that in the "hot atmosphere" following October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government set problematic goals when it declared its intention to destroy H...
'Can Netanyahu be ousted?' and other burning questions from Haaretz readers
January 16, 2024 15:41 - 45 minutes - 42.1 MBIn a special edition of the Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer and the Haaretz editorial team asked subscribers worldwide what they saw as the most urgent questions as the Israel-Hamas conflict passed the 100-day mark. The questions poured in. Is there any way to get rid of Netanyahu? What do Israelis know - and think about the level of death and destruction in Gaza? How does Israel decide when to assassinate a Hamas leader? Should Israel be more worried about progressive Democrat...
'How can we expect others to empathize with us when we fail to empathize with Palestinians?'
January 09, 2024 09:13 - 39 minutes - 36.5 MBRabbi Sharon Brous, founder of the IKAR synagogue in Los Angeles, has been progressive Judaism's leading voice over the past decade speaking out for equality and human rights, as well as the rabbinic figure of choice for the Biden-Harris White House. Author of the new book "The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World," Brous told Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that her world changed since October 7 and that, among other realizations, she reached the "pain...
Dennis Ross: On Gaza, 'Netanyahu's far-right ministers aren't living in reality'
January 01, 2024 13:09 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBAmbassador Dennis Ross has played an important part in U.S. Middle East policy over the last decades, and was the point man in the peace process in both the George W. Bush administration and Bill Clinton's administration. On Saturday night, he made a speech on the stage of the weekly Tel Aviv rally in solidarity with Israeli hostages still held by Hamas, making the case for a more long-term vision in the fight to dismantle Hamas and shape the future of Gaza. In this week's Haaretz podcast, ...
'Death in Gaza is a taboo subject in Israel right now'
December 26, 2023 12:45 - 32 minutes - 30 MBAs the number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza climbs to 20,000 while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in fighting grows daily, it is becoming harder every day for the two sides of the bloody conflict to see the humanity in the other side, says Sheren Falah Saab, who is covering the Gazan side of the conflict for Haaretz. Falah Saab tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer about the difficulty of covering a war when you can't be on the ground and the individual human stories among ...
‘The Houthis don’t care about the Palestinians. They are attacking Israel to gain support’
December 18, 2023 13:11 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBThe Houthis in Yemen, the Islamist rebel group that has shot missiles and drones at Israel and is now intensifying attacks on key shipping lanes in the Red Sea, have progressed from being "a nuisance and a headache to a major strategic threat to Israel," according to Dr. Yoel Guzansky, a former member of Israel's National Security Council and a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies. Their escalating attacks on international shipping over the course of the Israel-H...
'Israelis don't see images from Gaza because our journalists are not doing their job'
December 12, 2023 12:43 - 38 minutes - 35 MBFrom the horrifying live videos broadcasted by Hamas militants on the morning of October 7 during their invasion of Israeli villages, to IDF soldiers entering Gaza, the bombarded buildings, and the long lines of refugees with few belongings – The Israel-Hamas war is probably the most continuously, visually, documented war in history. Pictures have great power. And that means those in power have a great interest in directing images towards their political narrative. On this episode of the Ha...
Is the Red Cross failing Israeli hostages held by Hamas?
December 05, 2023 10:56 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBIn this week's episode of the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon explores a topic that has angered the Israeli public since the start of the Israel-Hamas War: Why haven't representatives of the Red Cross been able to visit Israeli hostages who are being held in Gaza in unknown locations and conditions for almost two months? As some captives were released by Hamas during a temporary cease-fire, Israelis – who were closely watching the daily releases on tel...
With all eyes on Gaza, West Bank Palestinians are facing unprecedented violence
November 27, 2023 13:42 - 34 minutes - 32 MBWhile the world is watching the Israel-Hamas war unfold in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are suffering some of the worst violence and restrictions on their daily life in years. Since Hamas militants entered Israel on October 7 and killed an estimated 1,200 people, Israel's security forces have cracked down on Palestinian factions in West Bank cities, while also detaining a huge number of Palestinians and allowing settlers threaten and attack West Bank residents without consequences. ...
This Holocaust survivor is used to fighting deniers on TikTok. Hamas apologists broke him
November 20, 2023 13:06 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBA disinformation war is raging online and Israel is losing, says Omer Benjakob, Haaretz cyber and technology correspondent at Haaretz. It isn’t as if an effort isn’t being made by Israel to professionally curate and manage information about its war with Hamas in a responsible and reliable “high value content,” he told to Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Weekly podcast. “The problem is that when you juxtapose that to what Hamas is doing.” In today’s digital space, Benjakob explains, “hi...
The cruel sexual violence that was part of Hamas' October 7 attack
November 13, 2023 12:54 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MB“I knew right away that sexual violence was part of the events of October 7, but obviously, I could not have known the extent of the cruelty that Hamas engaged in,” says Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, who served for 12 years on the UN Committee on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. Halperin-Kaddari now feels “completely betrayed” by the international women’s rights organizations with whom she’s worked for years, for their failure to condemn - or even recognize - the...
'It's very personal': Inside Gaza with Israeli soldiers
November 06, 2023 12:16 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBOne of the first journalists to be embedded with forces in the Israeli army’s ground operation in Gaza, Haaretz senior columnist Anshel Pfeffer shares his observations with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer after returning from a challenging battlefield. Pfeffer, who accompanied a Givati infantry unit, tells how the maze of tunnels under Gaza forces the soldiers to continually sweep the territory from every angle so “gunners and the commanders can constantly look at every point wher...
‘Some students on U.S. campuses think all Israelis are colonizers, so it's okay to slaughter them’
October 31, 2023 12:53 - 39 minutes - 36 MBProf. Dov Waxman has been on university campuses for several decades and experienced bursts of unrest following violence in the region and controversy over Israeli policies since the second intifada in the early 2000s. But what has happened since the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens on October 7 and Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, he says, “has felt qualitatively different. The atmosphere is different from anything I’ve experienced in the past. The tensions are greater. The animosit...
'Anderson Cooper said, I have a video of your kidnapped son'
October 23, 2023 10:16 - 34 minutes - 31.6 MBThe “alternative universe” Rachel Goldberg has been living in since her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, was kidnapped by Hamas, has included non-stop interviews with the media. Rachel and her husband Jonathan have appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine and spoke to “any outlet that would talk” to them, to advocate for humanitarian treatment and expedited release of their son and over 220 hostages being held captive in Gaza. An appearance on CNN last week, she reco...
'He wrote me: My parents are dead, I need help'
October 17, 2023 11:50 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBBrouria Carni Hadass lives in the tiny Kibbutz of Kerem Shalom on the Israel-Gaza border. On Saturday, October 7th, she went into the fortified safe room in her house when the first alarm sounded, quickly realizing this attack was "unlike anything we went through before. It felt like something else." On this week's episode of the Harretz Weekly podcast, Carni Hadass spoke to host Allison Kaplan Sommer from the hotel in the southern city of Eilat, where the members of her community are stayi...
'It's unthinkable. Hundreds of bereaved families, hundreds of hostages'
October 08, 2023 10:50 - 25 minutes - 23 MBIsrael's reality transformed overnight this weekend and what looks like a major war is unfolding. Events are progressing rapidly, so in this week's Haaretz podcast, editor in chief of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, and Haaretz senior analyst Yossi Melman explain in conversation with Allison Kaplan Sommer how a country that has prided itself with having the best intelligence in the world was hit hard by an unprecedented surprise attack from the Gaza Strip. Benn says the Hamas orchestrated attack – that...
'Israelis and Saudis have more to talk about than they realize'
October 03, 2023 13:39 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBThe prospect of a U.S-Saudi-Israeli deal, that would include the normalization of relations between the Jewish state and one of the most influential forces in the Arab world, intrigues citizens in all three countries. But while the opinions of Israelis and Americans are covered widely, the media seems to be overlooking the Saudi angle. Dr. Nora Derbal, an expert on Saudi Arabia currently at the Martin Buber post doctoral program at the Hebrew University, tells Haaretz podcast host Allison K...
Behind the Yom Kippur clashes in Tel Aviv
September 27, 2023 05:39 - 30 minutes - 27.7 MBHow did Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff square become a battleground for religion and gender segregation on Yom Kippur and how did the conflict become so charged and bitter? In conversation with Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Orly Erez-Lizhovski, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center and the country’s leading attorney on gender segregation cases, explains the background to the disturbing pictures that dominated Israeli media over Judaism’s most solemn holiday. ...
"U.S. Jews don't understand that the Israel judicial coup is like nothing we've seen before"
September 20, 2023 05:53 - 29 minutes - 27.3 MBOn this week’s podcast, Haaretz New York correspondent Judy Maltz talks to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the U.S. and the unprecedented demonstrations against him on American soil. Thousands of Israeli expats calling the Prime Minister of the Jewish state a “fascist” and a “dictator” on the streets of New York is not a site American Jews are used to, and as Maltz notes, many of them still haven't understood “the gravity, the seve...
'This could end in complete anarchy': Inside Israel’s Historic Supreme Court Showdown
September 13, 2023 12:58 - 32 minutes - 29.6 MBConstitutional expert Prof. Yaniv Roznai, an associate professor and Vice-Dean at Reichman University's Harry Radzyner Law School - and one of the leading academic voices in the protest movement against the judicial coup - attended the historic hearing at Israel's supreme court this week. After watching the sides debating the petitions against the first judicial overhaul law that the Netanyahu government had passed, Roznai joined Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer for a discussion ab...
Israeli protest movement hopes to win over voters in local elections
September 05, 2023 08:11 - 36 minutes - 33 MBAfter dominating political conversation in Israel for the past eight months, the protest movement against the judicial coup – which has brought millions of Israelis out to the streets – made a strategic decision. In the nationwide municipal elections on October 31, various protest groups will field candidates in mayoral and city council races, hoping that voters will use the local political sphere to send a resolute national message against the Netanyahu government’s attempts to change Isra...
“Worse Than the Pandemic”: Why the Judicial Coup is Bad for Israel’s Health
August 15, 2023 08:59 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBAs Israel wrestled with the assault of COVID-19 on its health care system, politics and public life, Professor Haggai Levine, an epidemiologist and chairman of Israel’s Association of Public Health Physicians, became a familiar face on Israeli television screens. Today, Levine has moved from battling the coronavirus to fighting the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul. He is a founding member of the “White Coats” collective, a grass-roots organization of doctors fighting the judicial co...
“The occupation is a motivation behind Netanyahu's judicial overhaul”
August 08, 2023 13:35 - 38 minutes - 34.9 MBAs settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank continues to intensify, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to share her experiences covering the deadly incidents in Hawara, Turmus Aya, Um Safr, and, over the past weekend, the clashes in the village of Burqa that resulted in the killing of 19-year-old Qosai Jammal Mi'tan. Two settlers are suspected in the shooting. Friction between settlers living in the outposts that ring and encroach on ...
'Despicable and reckless' that Netanyahu won't commit to obeying the rule of law
August 01, 2023 12:12 - 40 minutes - 37 MBIsraeli democracy is facing its biggest challenge since the founding of the state, after the Knesset passed the first law in its package of legislation designed to cripple the judicial branch. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, joins Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss what comes next in the battle between Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which appears determined to move forward with its “radical and extreme” judicial overhaul, and the protest mov...
'It's a dark day in Israeli history and I don't see a way back'
July 25, 2023 11:17 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBAs former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk experienced one of the most devastating moments of the country’s history - the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, during the time of Israel’s deep divisions over the Oslo Peace Accords. And yet, Indyk tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer, the current split over the judicial overhaul, following the passage of its first piece of legislation on Monday, is a “more fundamental” crisis. One that he says has left him “h...
Military Reserve Refuseniks ‘Are Defending Israel From an Internal Threat’
July 18, 2023 09:47 - 33 minutes - 30.8 MBAmong the numerous mass protests against the Israeli government’s controversial legislative moves to weaken Israel’s judicial system, the most influential effort has come from reservists in the country’s elite military units threatening to refuse to report for duty. One of the reservists, Yiftach Golov, tells Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer that he and his comrades in the group Brothers and Sisters in Arms – who are visibly on the front lines of the protest movement – are determin...
'A Very Combustible Situation': Israel’s Judicial Coup Is Back Full Force
July 11, 2023 14:22 - 30 minutes - 28 MBAs the Israeli streets explode in protests against the renewed effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to “neuter the judiciary,” Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz for an overview and explanation of the charged state of Israeli politics. The current push in the Knesset to eliminate the “reasonableness standard” which allows the High Court of Justice to block irrational government decisions has been a dramatic turning ...
'Israel’s government ministers openly support settler violence'
June 27, 2023 08:28 - 36 minutes - 33 MBDespite the weakened position of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the weekend’s aborted coup, chances that Israel’s government will change its policy in the Russia-Ukraine conflict are extremely low, says Haaretz senior correspondent Anshel Pfeffer, who has covered the war from the ground. “Israel has - both on a moral level and on a strategic level - been making a mistake by staying on the sidelines and keeping its relationship intact with the Russians,” Pfeffer tells host Alliso...
'It stuck with me, how safe their life felt': A conversation about 'My Friend Anne Frank'
June 21, 2023 09:26 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBIn a special podcast in honor of Israel’s annual Book Week celebration, Haaretz Weekly is spotlighting two female Israeli journalists turned authors: Dina Kraft, co-author of Hannah Pick-Goslar’s memoir “My Friend Anne Frank”; and Ruth Marks Eglash, a journalist who reported from Israel for the Washington Post for eight years before writing her debut novel, “Parallel Lines.” The world knows Anne Frank as a spirited teenager through her diary recounting her years in hiding from the Nazis in ...
Were Israel’s Secrets Hidden in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Bathroom?
June 12, 2023 10:06 - 33 minutes - 30.3 MBThe Trump indictment rocking the United States contains numerous references to foreign countries and military battle plans that many believe relate directly to Iran and Israel – and may have even originated in Israeli intelligence sources. Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir Tibon joins Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss the indictment as well as the similarities between Trump’s latest legal headaches and those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was elected to Is...
Israel Parade Protests in NYC: 'This Is the Worst PR You Can Get'
June 06, 2023 12:49 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBAn unprecedented number of Israeli ministers and governing coalition lawmakers flew to New York City last week to participate in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade and the conferences and meetings surrounding it. Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels joins Allison Kaplan Sommer with all the highlights of what happened next – from the historic “inflection point” of progressive American Jews and Israelis joining forces to bring pro-democracy and anti-judicial overhaul voices to the par...
Being LGBTQ under Israel’s far-right government: ‘Going backward is not an option’
May 31, 2023 12:29 - 32 minutes - 29.8 MBJune 1 marks the beginning of Pride Month around the world, and in Israel, it is being launched with the annual Jerusalem March of Pride and Tolerance, the most tense of the month’s events. Alona Nir Keren, a lesbian Reform rabbi who offers its opening blessing this year, has been part of the parade since it began in 2002. In this episode of Haaretz Weekly, she shares her memories of the early years, when the men who are today the country’s national security and finance ministers, Itamar Be...