Tel Aviv Review
654 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 141 ratingsShowcasing the latest developments in the realm of academic and professional research and literature, about the Middle East and global affairs. We discuss Israeli, Arab and Palestinian society, the Jewish world, the Middle East and its conflicts, and issues of global and public affairs with scholars, writers and deep-thinkers.
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Episodes
Just a very naughty boy: Sabbatai Zevi and C17th Jewish messianism
February 15, 2016 11:43 - 21 minutes - 9.68 MBDor Saar, a historian of Judaism at Tel Aviv University, discusses the curious case of a 17th-century Jewish theologian and mysticist called Abraham Miguel Cardoso, one of the principal backers of Sabbatai Zevi, the most well-known false messiah in the history of Judaism. Song: Yehudit Ravitz - Gaagua This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.
Weimar in Jerusalem: Is Israel on a slippery slope to fascism?
February 12, 2016 08:26 - 17 minutes - 8.05 MBProf. Moshe Zimmermann, a historian of modern Germany at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, attempts to draw lessons from the fragile and divided German democracy of the early 1930s for today's Israel, in the wake of a panel discussion entitled "The red lines of Israeli democracy" that was held at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. Song: Uzi Ramirez - She's So Young This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democrati...
Cyriac of Ancona, Europe's first archaeologist
February 08, 2016 13:15 - 16 minutes - 7.4 MBDr. Adar Yarum, an art historian at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, discusses with host Gilad Halpern the life and journals of Cyriac (Ciriaco) of Ancona, a 15th century traveler credited with bringing the long-lost marvels of the Classical world to Renaissance Italy. Song: Micha Shitrit - Masmerim Venotzot This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.
No laughing matter: What studying humor can teach us about life
February 05, 2016 17:00 - 16 minutes - 7.65 MBProf. Arie Sover, the founding chair of the Israeli Society for the Study of Humor, dissects with host Gilad Halpern the ins and outs of his field, in an Israeli and a global context, ahead of the society's annual conference. Song: Matisyahu - One Day This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.
Love in the time of cholera: Three decades of Spanish-Israeli relations
February 01, 2016 15:22 - 20 minutes - 9.45 MBProf. Raanan Rein, a historian of Spain and Latin America and Vice-President of Tel Aviv University, explores the tumultuous relationship between Israel and Spain before and after diplomatic relations were established, as late as 1986. Song: Gili Yalo - Hailoga This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.
Anti-clockwise: Time and modernity in the late Ottoman Empire
January 29, 2016 07:38 - 20 minutes - 9.15 MBDr. Avner Wishnitzer, senior lecturer in Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University, is the author of the recently published Reading Clocks Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire. He analyzes with host Gilad Halpern the tension between tradition and modernity in 19th century Turkey through the introduction of the concepts of standardized time. Song: Si Himan - Bekhol Makom This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institut...
Higher, faster, stronger? 'Hitler's Olympiad' and the Yishuv
January 25, 2016 08:06 - 19 minutes - 8.87 MBOfer Idels, a doctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University's Department of History, discusses with host Gilad Halpern the heated debate that swept the Jewish community in Palestine ahead of the 1936 Olympic Games, held in Nazi Berlin. Song: Eilad - Spirits (Rukhot) This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.
Chaim Weizmann: A statesman, a scientist
January 22, 2016 07:11 - 19 minutes - 9.08 MBProf. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Professor Emeritus of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and former Vice-President of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities, talks to host Gilad Halpern about his newly published collection of essays about Chaim Weizmann. Prof. Weizmann was Israel's first president and leader of the World Zionist Organization throughout much of the pre-state period, and maintained an active career as a chemist in parallel to his statesmanship. Where do science an...
Exporting the occupation: How Israel gains clout on the back of the Palestinians
January 15, 2016 17:00 - 21 minutes - 9.94 MBProf. Jeff Halper, an anthropologist and human rights activist, talks to host Gilad Halpern about his latest book, War Against the People; Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification, in which he analyzes the "securocratic" regime that dominates global politics, with Israel at its forefront. Song: Cohenbeats & KerenDun - What's On Your Mind
The public intellectual and Jewish philosophy
January 13, 2016 07:24 - 19 minutes - 8.87 MBZev Harvey, professor emeritus of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses with host Gilad Halpern the life and opinions of Prof. Aviezer Ravitzky, one of Israel's foremost Jewish philosophers, ahead of a public event that will take place in his honor at the Van Leer Institute on Thursday, January 14, under the banner "The engaged intellectual and Jewish Philosophy." Song: The Idan Raichel Project - She'eriot Shel Ha'Chaim This season of the Tel Aviv Review is mad...
Why hawks become doves: The Shimon Peres case study
January 11, 2016 14:42 - 22 minutes - 10.2 MBDr. Guy Ziv, an international relations professor at the American University in Washington, DC, is the author of the recently published Why Hawks Become Doves: Shimon Peres and Foreign Policy Change. He talks to host Gilad Halpern about the leftward shift of Israel's political establishment over the decades, and Shimon Peres' own journey as the standard-bearer of this shift. Song: Teapacks - Zmanim Ktanim This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institu...
The curious case of Sharia courts in the Jewish state
January 08, 2016 17:00 - 21 minutes - 9.66 MBDr. Ido Shahar, a lecturer in Middle East history at the University of Haifa, is the author of the recently published Legal Pluralism in the Holy City: Competing Courts, Forum Shopping and Institutional Dynamics in Jerusalem. He lays out for host Gilad Halpern his "organizational ethnography" of Muslim state courts in Jerusalem, how they interact with other legal entities, and how they affect the city's heterogeneous Muslim population. Song: Shai Tsabari - Lavi Oti This season of the Tel A...
The Israeli vernacular & the limits of education
January 04, 2016 10:30 - 26 minutes - 12.3 MBProf. Ghil'ad Zuckermann, a professor of linguistics at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and Dr. Gitit Holzmann, a lecturer in Jewish philosophy at the Levinsky Teachers' College in Tel Aviv, discuss the linguistic, educational, and political implications and limitations of the crown jewel of the Zionist enterprise: The revival of the Hebrew language. Song: Alma Zohar - Egotrip This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes h...
How Kabbalah shaped Judaism as we know it
January 01, 2016 07:59 - 19 minutes - 8.72 MBDr. Roni Weinstein, a historian of Judaism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explores with host Gilad Halpern the origins of Jewish mysticism (in 16th and 17th century Palestine), which influenced Jewish orthodoxy for centuries to come. Song: Sivan Talmor - I'll Be This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.
How the "Schindler of Vilnius" saved my life
December 28, 2015 15:44 - 20 minutes - 9.2 MBHolocaust survivor Simon Malkes has dedicated his recently published memoirs to the man who saved him, a Nazi officer called Karl Plagge, for whom he lobbied Yad Vashem for recognition as a Righteous Gentile. Malkes tells host Gilad Halpern his story. Song: Ninet - Child
Civil religion, Israel style: Independence Day case study
December 25, 2015 17:00 - 20 minutes - 9.5 MBAdi Sherzer, a doctoral fellow at the Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, explores with host Gilad Halpern the construction of the Israeli national narrative in the early years, bridging statehood and millennia of Jewish tradition. Song: Karolina, Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Loren Oden - Feel Alive
A land flowing with milk and honey... and water?
December 19, 2015 17:00 - 20 minutes - 9.57 MBDr. Orli Sela, an environmental and legal historian at New York University, explores the evolution of the perception of water abundance and its place in the state building effort, before and after the establishment of the State of Israel. Song: The Secret Sea - Afterlife
Enlightenment and its discontents: The French-Jewish critique
December 18, 2015 10:48 - 21 minutes - 9.62 MBDr. Rony Klein, professor of political philosophy at Tel Aviv University specializing in French political thought, explores how late 20th century Jewish philosophers posed a challenge to the ideas of Enlightenment that were the predominant themes in their intellectual sphere. Song: Ivri Lider - Makom Leyoter
Move over, Tony Soprano: Jewish underworld in Interwar Poland
December 12, 2015 17:00 - 21 minutes - 9.66 MBDr. Aviva Tal, professor of Yiddish literature at Bar-Ilan University, discusses with host Gilad Halpern the forgotten history of Jewish criminality in the early 20th century, and how central it was to Jewish life during that period. Song: Evyatar Banai- Matanot
Global memory culture: From Hiroshima to Auschwitz
December 11, 2015 17:00 - 19 minutes - 8.91 MBDr. Ran Zwigenberg, professor of history and Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University and author of the recently published Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture, explores with host Gilad Halpern the parallel cultures of commemoration that emanated from the two biggest catastrophes of the Second World War: Hiroshima and Auschwitz. Song: Doda - Elef Kaba'im
Fidelity issues: The story of an Israeli traitor
December 05, 2015 17:00 - 23 minutes - 10.8 MBDr. Hadas Cohen, a post-doctoral fellow at the Social Science Research Center in Berlin, discusses with host Gilad Halpern her analysis of the construction of Israeli identity through transgressions and aberrations from it, specifically the case of the "traitress" Tali Fahima. Song: Russo and Weinberg - Travel
Religion in conflict resolution: Liability or asset?
December 04, 2015 17:00 - 24 minutes - 11.1 MBDr. Yakir Englander, a Jewish philosophy scholar at Harvard University and expert on interfaith dialogue, both as an activist and a scholar, reviews with host Gilad Halpern the role of religion in perpetuating and assuaging conflict, in the Israeli-Palestinian context and beyond. Song: Omer Netzer - Couldn't Love You Any More
A shot heard around Israel: The sociology of Rabin's assassination
November 28, 2015 17:00 - 22 minutes - 10.2 MBDr. Ido Yoav, a sociologist and anthropologist at Sapir College, joins host Gilad Halpern to analyze the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on its 20th anniversary, through the perspective of the sociology of emotions. The lesson: It could happen again, and for the reasons you may think. Song: Gan Khayot - Yareakh Kakhol
Oh captain, our captain: Walt Whitman's influence on Jewish-American poetry
November 27, 2015 17:00 - 18 minutes - 8.52 MBDr. Dara Barnat, a poet and culture scholar at Tel Aviv University, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the universal message of the great 19th-century American poet, and how it influenced future generations of Jewish-American poets in their quest to come to terms with their composite identity. Song: Russo & Weinberg - My Man
The building blocks of conflict: Architecture and ideology in Israel/Palestine
November 21, 2015 17:00 - 24 minutes - 11.4 MBDr. Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, historian of architecture at Sapir Academic College and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the post-colonial perspective she espouses when studying the history of architecture in Israel throughout the 20th century. Song: Marina Maximilian - Tango
Israel for American eyes: Cross-cultural 'adaptation' of Israeli literature
November 20, 2015 17:00 - 17 minutes - 7.98 MBDr. Omri Asscher, head of the Translation Diploma Track at Beit Berl College and a post-doctoral fellow at the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies and the State of Israel at the University of Haifa, explains to host Gilad Halpern how Israeli literature was modified by translators and editors to conform with the prevalent worldview of American Jews. Song: Red Band ft. Sarit Hadad - Baby Can I Hold You
Stories and histories: 150 years of micro-history in Israel
November 14, 2015 17:00 - 23 minutes - 10.9 MBDr. Boaz Lev Tov, academic director of the Time Tunnel at Beit Berl College, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the benefits of oral history in understanding the lives and interactions of ordinary people in Israel throughout the generations. Song: Tsliley Ha'ud - Ani Gedalia
The year the Israeli-Arab conflict officially began
November 13, 2015 17:00 - 23 minutes - 10.8 MBProf. Hillel Cohen, a Middle East historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the author of the newly published 1929: Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. He talks to host Gilad Halpern about how the violent Palestinian uprising of August 1929 was a watershed moment for the Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and for the entire world. Song: KerenDun and Echo - I'll Follow You
And the Lord said to Moses (thought bubble)
November 07, 2015 17:00 - 22 minutes - 10.4 MBAssaf Gamzou, curator at the Israeli Cartoon Museum in Holon, gives host Gilad Halpern a review of a new exhibition that tells the Bible stories in caricatures, and ponders the link between cartoons and Judaism. Song: Maor Cohen - Adam Acher
To be unfruitful: Childlessness among Jewish men
November 06, 2015 17:00 - 23 minutes - 10.7 MBElliot Jager, journalist, political scientist, and commentator, is the author of the recently published The Pater: My Father, My Judaism, My Childlessness. He takes host Gilad Halpern through a semi-autobiographical exploration of what it means to be a childless Jewish man today, in Israel and beyond. Song: Eatliz - One of Us
Einstein: Genius, thought leader, cultural icon
November 03, 2015 11:39 - 21 minutes - 9.66 MBProf. Steven Gimbel, philosopher of science at Gettysburg College in the United States, is the author of the recently published Einstein: His Space and Time. He analyzes with host Gilad Halpern what factors propelled Albert Einstein to be the most celebrated scientist of our time, and what part his Jewishness played in it. Song: Dudu Tassa - Mishtara
'Year Zero' of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
November 03, 2015 11:14 - 28 minutes - 12.9 MBProf. Monty Noam Penkower, Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at the Machon Lander Graduate School of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, is the author of Palestine in Turmoil: The Struggle for Sovereignty 1933-1939. He talks to host Gilad Halpern about the period during which two intractably adversarial national movements were formed in Palestine. Song: Gidi Gov - Bil'adayich
How the music you choose to drive to can save your life
October 24, 2015 16:00 - 25 minutes - 11.9 MBProf. Warren Brodsky, a music psychologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and author of the recently published Driving With Music: Cognitive-Behavioral Implications, explains to host Gilad Halpern why you should be extra careful before you choose the playlist for your daily commute. Song: Berry Saharof - Od Chozer Hanigoon
Dad, and another one: Gay parenthood in Israel
October 23, 2015 16:00 - 21 minutes - 9.86 MBDr. Adi Moreno, a sociologist at the University of Manchester in the UK, studies how the increasing phenomenon of gay couples starting families affects preconceptions about family and continuity in Israel. She sits down with host Gilad Halpern. Song: Keren Ann - Lay Your Head Down
You say propaganda, I say hasbara
October 17, 2015 16:00 - 26 minutes - 12 MBDr. Ron Schleifer, head of the Center for Defense and Communication at Ariel University and author of Psychological Warfare in the Arab-Israeli Conflict talks to host Gilad Halpern about an invisible, yet extremely effective, element of warfare in the protracted Middle East conflict and beyond. Song: Ester Rada - Monsters
YIVO and the making of modern Jewish culture
October 16, 2015 16:00 - 26 minutes - 12.3 MBDr. Cecile Kuznitz, director of Jewish Studies at Bard College and author of YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation retraces with host Gilad Halpern the history of the 90-year-old Yiddish Scientific Institute from Interwar Poland to Postwar America. Song: Tuna ft. Shlomi Saranga - Lama Lo Achshav
Till death do us part: Prehistoric & contemporary cemeteries in Israel
October 10, 2015 16:00 - 18 minutes - 8.31 MBDr. Assaf Nativ, post-doctoral fellow in archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the author of Prioritizing Death and Society: The Archaeology of Chalcolithic and Contemporary Cemeteries in the Southern Levant. He explains to host Gilad Halpern how comparing burial practices that are millennia apart can shed light on each other, and on the human condition. Song: Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad feat. Karolina & Loren Oden - Feel Alive
Foul language: The politicization of Arabic teaching in Israeli schools
October 09, 2015 16:00 - 30 minutes - 13.8 MBDr. Yonatan Mendel, the director of the Center for Jewish-Arab relations at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, is author of the recently published "The Creation of Israeli Arabic: Security and Politics in Arabic Studies in Israel." Dr. Mendel explains to host Gilad Halpern why generations of Israeli high school students who specialized in Arabic are unable to string a sentence together. Song: Guy Mazig - Levad Bamidbar
The Holocaust averted: Counterfactual history of US Jews
October 02, 2015 16:00 - 27 minutes - 12.4 MBJeffrey S. Gurock, professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University, delves into the realm of counterfactual history in his recently published The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jews, 1938-1967. Talking with host Gilad Halpern, he imagines a very different existence for the community had the Second World War taken a different course. Song: Noa Shemer - Noa
Shared values, shared interests: Israel in US political culture
September 26, 2015 16:00 - 27 minutes - 12.4 MBDr. Jonathan Rynhold is a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University and the author of a new book The Arab-Israeli Conflict in American Political Culture, which can be bought here. The United States is the only western country where support for Israel has reached an all-time high in the 21st century - Dr. Rynhold explains to Gilad Halpern why this is. Song: Asaf Avidan & The Mojos - Hangwoman
Birth of the Palestinian refugee relief problem
September 25, 2015 06:41 - 20 minutes - 9.3 MBDr. Asaf Romirowsky, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, has co-authored a new book Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief. He talks to host Gilad Halpern about the involvement of American religious groups in diplomacy and refugee relief during Israel's War of Independence and its immediate aftermath. Song: Ehud Banai - Florentin
The Empire strikes back: British intelligence in the Middle East 1940-1948
September 19, 2015 16:00 - 24 minutes - 11.2 MBProf. 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: ...
Post-Zionism retold: For the establishment of an Israeli Republic
September 18, 2015 16:00 - 18 minutes - 8.6 MBDr. 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.
Occupation Studies: Theorizing and analyzing a new reality
September 11, 2015 16:00 - 21 minutes - 10.1 MBDr. 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 ...
In the shadow of Zion: Promised lands before Israel
September 04, 2015 16:00 - 23 minutes - 16 MBDr. 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
Bread and circuses: Reality TV and the boundaries of artistic quality
August 13, 2015 14:18 - 20 minutes - 14.4 MBDr. 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
Palestine in ruins: Israel and the depopulated villages of 1948
August 13, 2015 14:00 - 12 minutes - 8.75 MBNoga 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
The step-sister of Yiddish culture: Judeo-Arabic literature in Tunisia
August 07, 2015 15:56 - 19 minutes - 13.1 MBProf. 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.
A personal look into Israel's Iron Lady
August 02, 2015 10:20 - 19 minutes - 13.2 MBProfessor 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.
Our friend in the White House: Lincoln and the Jews
August 02, 2015 10:19 - 20 minutes - 14.4 MBJonathan 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.