Tel Aviv Review
646 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 138 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
Battered but Not Broken: The Israel Democracy Index, 2022
January 16, 2023 09:22 - 37 minutes - 35.2 MBTamar Hermann, professor of political science at the Open University and Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, discusses the 20th edition of the annual Democracy Index, the most comprehensive annual survey of Israeli public opinion on matters of public importance. This episode is made possible by the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent center of research and action dedicated to strengthening the foundations of Israeli democracy.
The Samaritans: Then and Now
January 09, 2023 07:52 - 36 minutes - 34.9 MBSteven Fine, professor of Jewish History and Director of the Center for Israel Studies at Yeshiva University in New York, discusses The Samaritans: A Biblical People, a documentary film, edited book and museum exhibition dedicated to the Samaritans, a tiny ethnoreligious group native to Israel and Palestine. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
Back on the Horse
January 02, 2023 10:52 - 34 minutes - 32.8 MBDr. Gilad Malach, the director of the “Ultra-Orthodox in Israel” program at the Israel Democracy Institute, discusses the latest “Haredi Report”, published annually by the IDI. The ultra-Orthodox parties are back in government with a vengeance, after almost two years in Opposition. How did their stay in the political wilderness affect their constituency, and what trends can already be observed? This episode is made possible by the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent center of resear...
Fair Play?
December 27, 2022 07:00 - 31 minutes - 29.6 MBDr Omer Einav, a historian at Hadassah Academic College, discusses his book Defending the Goal: Football and the relations between Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, 1917-1948. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
Has Liberalism Run Its Course?
December 19, 2022 10:08 - 42 minutes - 40.2 MBYoram Hazony, President of the Herzl Institute and Chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, discusses his book Conservatism: A Rediscovery, advocating for ending the “marriage of convenience between conservatism and liberalism.” The episode is sponsored by the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA and co-hosted by Prof David N. Myers.
Start the Revolution With Me
December 12, 2022 08:22 - 35 minutes - 33.6 MBRachel Azaria, CEO of Darkenu, the largest civil society organization in Israel, a veteran public campaigner and former politician (Member of Knesset, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem), discusses her book Guided Revolution: A step-by-step manual towards social change in Israel. Why do some campaigns succeed and others fail? Can activism in Israel be salvaged from its association with the depleted left-wing? This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which prom...
Mizrahi Jews and Palestinian Arabs: A Bilateral Triangle?
December 05, 2022 10:05 - 39 minutes - 37 MBProf. Hillel Cohen, historian of the Middle East at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses his new book Enemies, a love story: Mizrahi Jews, Palestinian Arabs and Ashkenazi Jews from the Rise of Zionism to the Present, an attempt to define Mizrahi politics in historical and contemporary contexts. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
The Birth of a Nation: The Diplomatic Backstory of Israel’s Establishment
November 28, 2022 08:05 - 40 minutes - 38.5 MBJeffrey Herf, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland, discusses his new book Israel's Moment: International Support and Opposition to Establishing the Jewish State, 1945-1949, analyzing how Israeli independence benefited from the changing international landscape in the "twilight" period between the Second World War and the Cold War. This episode is part of a series co-sponsored by UCLA’s Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and co-hosted by its dire...
Tantura: The Massacre That Was
November 21, 2022 10:15 - 35 minutes - 33.5 MBFilmmaker Alon Schwarz discusses his new documentary Tantura, which reopens an episode from Israel's War of Independence and a controversy that erupted in the 1990s, seeking to shed new light on the question whether Israeli troops committed a massacre of Palestinian civilians in a village near Haifa.
Night Comes On: Ottoman Cities After Dark
November 14, 2022 09:36 - 37 minutes - 35.2 MBAvner Wishnitzer, professor of Ottoman history at Tel Aviv University, discusses his book As Night Falls: Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Cities After Dark, a groundbreaking social history of Istanbul and Jerusalem on the cusp of modernity.
Not an Oxymoron: Secular Believers in Israel
November 07, 2022 08:29 - 35 minutes - 33.4 MBHagar Lahav, professor of communication at Sapir Academic College, discusses her book Women, Secularism and Belief: A Sociology of Belief in the Jewish-Israeli Secular Landscape. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
Groundhog Election Day? Analyzing the Deep Trends of Israeli Politics
October 31, 2022 04:00 - 37 minutes - 35.4 MBGideon Rahat, professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses the insights that emanate from The Elections in Israel 2019-2021, a book he co-edited with Prof. Michal Shamir. Is there any reason to believe that Israel’s fifth general election in two and a half years will be any different? This episode is part of a series co-sponsored by UCLA’s Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and co-hosted by its director, Prof. Dov Waxman.
Mutual Exclusion: The Plight and Hope of a Left-Wing Religious Zionist
October 24, 2022 11:44 - 35 minutes - 33.6 MBMikhael Manekin, a prominent Israeli activist (former director of Breaking the Silence and Molad) discusses his new book, A Dawn of Redemption, an attempt to address the ostensible contradiction between his progressive politics and his Modern Orthodox devotion. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
Civil Society in an Islamic State: The Case of Charity in Saudi Arabia
October 17, 2022 09:52 - 35 minutes - 33.3 MBDr. Nora Derbal, an Islamic Studies scholar and a Martin Buber Society Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses her book Charity in Saudi Arabia: Civil Society Under Authoritarianism.
The State of Religion and State
September 19, 2022 05:00 - 48 minutes - 45.5 MBShlomit Ravitsky-Tur Paz, head of the program on Religion, Nation and State and the director of the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for Shared Society at the Israel Democracy Institute, discusses some recent findings - some unprecedented - from the new biannual statistical report on religion and state, published this week. This episode is made possible by the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent center of research and action dedicated to strengthening the foundations of Israeli democracy.
High and Holy
September 12, 2022 09:01 - 39 minutes - 37.2 MBHaggai Ram, professor of Middle East History at Ben Gurion University, discusses his book Intoxicating Zion: A Social History of Hashish in Mandatory Palestine and Israel.
Re-Humanizing the Victims of the Nakba
September 05, 2022 07:41 - 48 minutes - 45.1 MBAdam Raz, historian at Tel Aviv University and Akevot – the Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, has written several history books. His most recent work is a stage play – his first – The Personal Tragedy of Mr Sami Saada. It focuses on how the life of an Arab family man from Haifa unraveled in April 1948, and his attempts to cope with the new reality. This episode is co-hosted by Prof. David N. Myers and sponsored by the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA.
“Coalonialism”
August 29, 2022 07:07 - 41 minutes - 39.2 MBProf. On Barak of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University discusses his book, Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization. He takes on a historical journey to think of energy in the historical context of the making of the Middle East as a region, during the long 19th century. Instead of thinking that we are in a transition from coal to oil to cleaner energies, he argues, we need to understand the persistence of coal in...
Multi-Layered Palestinian Presence
August 22, 2022 12:14 - 35 minutes - 33.4 MBDr Andreas Hackl, anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh, discusses his new book, The Invisible Palestinians: The Hidden Struggle for Inclusion in Jewish Tel Aviv.
Ottoman Jews, Ottoman Palestinians
August 15, 2022 09:58 - 42 minutes - 39.7 MBDr Louis Fishman, historian of modern Turkey and Israel/Palestine, discusses his book Jews and Palestinians in the Late Ottoman Era, 1908-1914, breaking down conventional wisdoms about politics and identity in Palestine on the eve of the First World War.
The Comedy Network
August 08, 2022 05:00 - 32 minutes - 30.9 MBMatt Sienkiewicz, Professor of Communication and International Studies at Boston College, discusses his new co-authored book That’s Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them, analyzing the reach and influence of openly right-wing comedians on old and new media in the United States.
The Left Behind
August 01, 2022 05:00 - 42 minutes - 39.6 MBAvi Dabush, veteran social activist, Meretz politician and author of the new semi-autobiographical book The Periphery Rebellion: The Guide to a Much-Needed Revolution in Israeli Society, analyzes the origins of social inequalities in Israel and explains why the liberal left – despite everything – is the answer (albeit not always the Israeli left in its current form). This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice t...
Out of Africa
July 25, 2022 09:51 - 28 minutes - 27.1 MBDr. Naomi Shmuel, author and anthropologist, from the department of Folklore at the Hebrew University, discusses her book Generations of Hope: Traditions and Intergenerational Transferal with the Transition from Ethiopia to Israel, analyzing the hybrid identity of Israelis of Ethiopian descent across the generations. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
Building on Shared Experiences: The Konrad Adenauer Foundation Marks 40 Years in Israel
July 18, 2022 10:45 - 23 minutes - 22.6 MBProf. Norbert Lammert, the chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and former President of the German Bundestag, joins us in Tel Aviv for a conversation about the challenges of the liberal and democratic order in his native Germany and elsewhere, upon the 40th anniversary of the Foundation’s presence in Israel. This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
The New Sepharad: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Salonica (Rerun)
July 11, 2022 14:07 - 29 minutes - 28.4 MBJewish history professor Aron Rodrigue of Stanford University was the keynote speaker at an international conference held this week at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, dedicated to the Jewish history of Salonica. In the late 15th century, the then-Ottoman city (today the Greek city of Thessaloniki) welcomed large numbers of Sephardi Jews who had been expelled from Spain, making it very soon the largest Jewish city in Europe. A series of crises and disasters, culminating in the Nazi occupati...
First, Do No Harm: Rashid Khalidi on US Peace-Blocking (Rerun)
July 04, 2022 14:40 - 34 minutes - 32.5 MBAmerica has long been viewed as the quintessential broker of Israeli-Palestinian peace. In his book Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi argues that it's no accident peace has not yet materialized. He shows how the US undermines, rather than advancing an agreement, by playing the role of "Israel's lawyer," or perhaps its siamese twin. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was made possible by The Van Leer Jerusale...
Are You There, Allah? It's Me, Haroon (Rerun)
June 27, 2022 09:38 - 36 minutes - 26 MBGrowing up is the pits in the best of times. Growing up Muslim in America has special complexities. Being Muslim in America, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, coming of age during and after September 11, and becoming a public speaker on the religion and culture of Islam could be a formula for collision. Haroon Moghul, Fellow in Jewish-Muslim relations at the Shalom Hartman Institute, has many: with the world, with God, with himself. His book weaves together stories of personal, political, and...
“I’m a Jewish Man in Love with a Hitler Youth” (Rerun)
June 20, 2022 11:46 - 29 minutes - 21.3 MBJupp, Salomon (Sally) Perel’s Nazi alter ego, which he had to play to survive in the Second World War, hasn’t left him more than 70 years on. Perel’s hair-raising story, and the baggage that he carries to this day, have been the center of “4 x Sally,” a thought-provoking art installation co-created by Shimon Lev, an Israeli, and Friedmann Derschmidt, an Austrian, and put on display at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jeru...
Upper West Bank: The Story of American-Born Settlers (Rerun)
June 13, 2022 11:54 - 33 minutes - 24.2 MBDr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn, a lecturer in Israel Studies at Oxford University, discusses her book City on a Hilltop: American Jews and the Israeli Settler Movement, which attempts to explain why American-born Jews are disproportionately represented among immigrants who settled in the West Bank. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel. Tel Aviv Review ...
Badges and Gadgets: Israel’s High-Tech Army (Rerun)
June 06, 2022 19:01 - 23 minutes - 17.1 MBYaakov Katz, the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post newspaper, discusses his book Weapons Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower. This episode 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. This episode was also supported by the Public Discourse Grant from the Israel Institute, which is dedicated to strengthening the field of Israel Studies in...
The Wild West (Bank): The Allegory That Keeps on Giving (Rerun)
May 30, 2022 16:25 - 29 minutes - 21.5 MBIsraeli novelist Assaf Gavron discusses his book, “The Hilltop: A Novel,” and explains why a secular Tel Avivian chose to set the plot in a remote Jewish outpost in the West Bank. More broadly, where do the personal and the political overlap, and what is the role of literature in articulating the two? This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.
A London Jewish Working Class Hero and His Twin Walk into a Sanatorium… (Rerun)
May 23, 2022 10:14 - 26 minutes - 19.6 MBAnd from that moment on, Linda Grant sets her cast of unlikely characters free - as much as possible in a TB clinic in 1950s London. The Dark Circle is her seventh novel. The protagonists are twin teens bursting with life, though they live in the space between collective death of the recent past and the shadow of death in the future, as patients. Yet Grant makes the period and the people come alive - and tells us how. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusa...
The Holocaust on the Outskirts
May 16, 2022 08:35 - 29 minutes - 28.3 MBJan Grabowski, Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, discusses his new book (co-edited with Barbara Engelking) Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland, focusing on the generally overlooked stories of the persecution and liquidation of Jews in rural and provincial areas in Poland, following the Nazi occupation.
How Did a Palestinian Terrorist Become Israel’s National Heart-Throb? (Rerun)
May 09, 2022 10:48 - 31 minutes - 22.6 MBHow do you fight a war by becoming the enemy and still keep your identity? Who are the good guys who are the bad guys? What's the best action series on television today, why is it a psychological drama as much as a shoot 'em up, and is it real, fake, fair? Avi Issacharoff, the co-creator of hit TV series “Fauda,” tells all. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social dis...
The Broke Woke (Rerun)
May 02, 2022 13:08 - 37 minutes - 35.1 MBBatya Ungar-Sargon believes woke culture has created a smokescreen of racial identity politics that obfuscates the real force tearing American society apart: class inequality. But it took the liberal media to exponentially amplify the problem. Her new book Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy explains why.
Kahane Lives On (Rerun)
April 25, 2022 08:53 - 37 minutes - 35.1 MBAlthough he came to prominence in Israel, as the undisputed emblem of the far-right, Rabbi Meir Kahane was a quintessential American Jew, claims Prof. Shaul Magid in his book, Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish radical.
Could It Happen To Us? (Rerun)
April 18, 2022 11:14 - 37 minutes - 26.8 MBIn her bestselling Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, acclaimed journalist and historian Anne Applebaum examines how a wave of nationalist populism swept through the western world – and tore apart her own circle of friends. This episode was made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
The History, Memory And Myth Of The Kishinev Pogrom (Rerun)
April 11, 2022 05:00 - 41 minutes - 29.4 MBThe Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was among the seminal events of modern Jewish history. The violence was memorialized in ways that shaped Jewish identity, from the early Zionist national narrative to Jewish American social activism. Prof. Steven Zipperstein examines the history, memory and myth of the violence in Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History. This episode was made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political ...
My People, Our History (Rerun)
April 04, 2022 16:23 - 42 minutes - 30.1 MBRashid Khalidi, a leading historian of the Palestinian national movement, weaves his family history into a century of the Palestinian national struggle against Israel and international forces seeking to thwart self-determination in his new book, The 100 Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017. This episode was made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education...
The Right Stuff: When Israel Knew How to Compromise (Rerun)
March 28, 2022 16:08 - 41 minutes - 29.5 MBTwo of the most prominent figures in America's efforts to advance a two-state solution, Ambassador Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, take a deep look at four Israeli leaders and their pivotal decisions. Their book, Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel's Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny, shows how the strength of these leaders lay in their vision of knowing when to make historic compromise. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institu...
Bret Stephens on the State of America and the State of Israel (Rerun)
March 21, 2022 11:08 - 29 minutes - 21.4 MBBret Stephens, the prominent New York Times columnist joined the Tel Aviv Review at the Z3 conference to discuss politics in the US and across the pond. This episode was made possible by the Z3 Project, an initiative of the Oshman Family JCC, committed to creating an ongoing, dynamic forum for opinions and ideas about Diaspora Jewry and Israel. The Oshman Family JCC is a premier source in the Silicon Valley of exciting and innovative programming; focused on architecting the Jewish future.
Avishai Margalit on Betrayal (Rerun)
March 14, 2022 15:13 - 27 minutes - 19.8 MBAvishai Margalit, Prof. Emeritus of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, as well as a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, discusses his 2017 book On Betrayal, a philosophical exploration of the similarities and differences between adultery, treason and apostasy as well as other forms of breach of trust. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which prom...
Ben-Gurion: An Intimate Portrait (Rerun)
March 07, 2022 09:47 - 40 minutes - 28.9 MBHistorian and journalist Dr Tom Segev discusses his book, “A State at all Costs: The Life of David Ben-Gurion,” a biography of Israel's founding father that draws heavily on his newly declassified personal papers.
Creating Killers (Rerun)
February 28, 2022 11:28 - 43 minutes - 30.9 MBOne of the most controversial questions about the Holocaust is whether it should be seen as a universal human problem, or a unique horror perpetrated by Germans on Jews. At the heart of this question lies the work of Christopher Browning, author of numerous books on the history of the Holocaust, survivors, the Final Solution, and the story of a German auxiliary police battalion – Ordinary Men – who became killers. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusal...
Liberalism and Nationalism: Friends or Enemies? (Rerun)
February 21, 2022 07:37 - 35 minutes - 25.5 MB“Liberal” and “nationalist” sound like mutually exclusive forces that cannot coexist. Yet Yuli Tamir, scholar, peace activist and a former government minister, makes the liberal case for nationalism, and argues for a nationalism that is liberal, in her book Why Nationalism. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.
Liberalism Is Dead. Long Live Liberalism (Rerun)
February 07, 2022 10:55 - 35 minutes - 25.5 MBMark Lilla, Professor of Humanities at Columbia University, discusses his book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics and offers insights into the past failures of progressive politics and how the liberal left can reinvent itself in a few easy steps. 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.
Who Lost Russia? (Rerun)
January 31, 2022 07:45 - 42 minutes - 30.3 MBWho lost Russia? In The Future is History, acclaimed author Masha Gessen dove into the heart of the Soviet Union and came up with the root causes of Russia's trajectory in the decades after communism. In a twist of political fate, these insights positioned her to become one of the foremost cultural critics of the Trump era, and of populist, authoritarian regimes around the world. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freed...
Matthew Goodwin: Get to Know the New Nationalists (Rerun)
January 24, 2022 13:28 - 44 minutes - 31.6 MBFrom Hungary to Brazil, to Italy, the UK and US a special style of nationalist politics seems to be taking over. But is the current wave of national-populism new, or rooted in older historic trends? Can its supporters be de-demonized, humanized or at the very least understood? Co-authors Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin analyze the causes of the trend in their book National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was brought to you by the Isra...
The Erratic Pulse of Israeli Democracy
January 17, 2022 11:11 - 36 minutes - 34.2 MBProfessor Tamar Hermann of the Israel Democracy Institute and the Open University discusses fresh findings from the annual Israel Democracy Index of 2021, including low optimism for the general future of the country, low optimism about democratic governance in Israel, declining trust in public institutions, and ongoing polarization of public attitudes. Israelis also reveal what they really think about the judiciary in light of populist political attacks in recent years. This episode is m...
The Human Experience in Objects: The Case for Museums in the 21st Century (Rerun)
January 10, 2022 08:06 - 28 minutes - 27.4 MBNeil McGregor, the former director of the British Museum, analyzes the enduring validity of museums in the age of technological upheavals and fake news. He recently visited Israel to deliver the inaugural lecture of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute’s Tom de Swaan Series on the Role of Ideas and the Responsibility of Intellectuals in Contemporary Society. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and libe...