Israel from the Inside with Daniel Gordis

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com I was walking to a restaurant in our neighborhood a few weeks ago, and on the way, just outside the restaurant, I came across a woman — who appeared to be homeless — lying on the sidewalk. I asked her if she was OK and she said she was. I asked her if she’d like me to buy her some food, and she declined. I aske...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com This past Thursday marked the Seventeenth of Tammuz, the Fast Day on which we recall and mourn the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by the Romans. The three weeks between the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Ninth of Av (which mourns the destruction of the Temples) are called the period of bein ha-matzarim — “B...

There’s an interesting phenomenon unfolding on the American Jewish progressive left, or at least in parts of it. Here and there you read and hear people like Peter Beinart, Jill Jacobs of Tru’ah and other trying to deftly walk back some of the language that they’ve been using about Israel, or at least trying to distance themselves from how others are using the language that they themselves formula...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com It is by now common knowledge that in the days following October 7, many Ameican progressive rabbis felt abandoned or betrayed by the larger communities and alliances they had cultivated for so long. But very few have had the courage to call out those communities and their duplicitous leadership the way that Ra...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com The history books will, without question, see our era as one of great periods of transformation for the Jewish state and the Jewish people. In Israel, years of bitter war without the accomplishments that the government promised and that the country needed, will have long lasting impact on younger generations of...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com Professor Avi Shilon, a widely respected Israeli academic, author and journalist, made headlines in New York during the campus uprisings at Columbia, when his class was interrupted by Columbia students protesting “Israel’s genocide.” But I’d met Avi Shilon long before that, back in the days when I was working o...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com There is a principle in the Talmud (applicable only in certain instances, but still very well-known) which states, in Aramaic, שתיקה כהודאה דמיא. Shtikah ke-hoda’ah damyah. Usually, it’s translated as something like “silence is considered tantamount to admission.” In its more popular usage, the phrase has come...

Several years ago, in March 2022, we ran an interview with Amotz Asa-El, a very gifted Israeli author, whose book, The Jewish March of Folly , instantly hit the Israeli bestseller list and stayed there for a long time. At the time of our interview, the book was not yet out in English, though Amotz and I both expressed hope that that would happen. Well, it finally has, and for the English-speaking...

Many Israelis are holding their breath today, waiting to see whether a deal gets signed with Iran. No one knows with certainty whether it will happen, and no one who’s talking knows what’s in it. But Israelis have a bad feeling. Screenshots from earlier today: This isn’t good for Bibi’s re-election prospects, and very serious journalists like Hagai Segal raised the possibility this weekend that Ne...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com On October 7th, as the worst attacks on the country were still underway, 300,000 reservists answered the call and reported for duty. They asked no questions. They fought for their country. They lost friends. They made impossible choices. And then they came home — to work, to family, to school pickup. And then a...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com Today we continue in our series of explorations of the intellectual, religious and historical roots of American Jewish anti-Zionism, which is significant, I believe, for what it tells us about American Jewish life’s DNA writ large. As promised in the first, here a few links to the sources we mention: * EPISODE...

I was sitting down this morning to prepare this post, when I came across a post on X from Nadav Eyal , one of Israel’s most highly regarded and thoughtful journalists. “Break it,” he called the post. He’s right. His post is below. With elections a few months away, people are now beginning to speak about whom they’ll vote for. More and more, I hear people say there’s just one issue. Not foreign pol...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com Here are some basic numbers. The picture is not pretty. In fact, it’s horrifying. * As of early May 2026, Israel’s annual homicide toll stood at 111, with 96 of those victims being Arab citizens — roughly 86% of all murder victims, in a community that constitutes about 21% of the population. Haaretz * The NGO A...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com As we’ve noted for quite some time now, we’re going to look at American Jewish anti-Zionism over the course of several episodes, not necessarily because it is going to be a long-term feature of American Jewish life — I explain towards the end of today’s video why I believe that will not be the case — but becaus...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com As we noted yesterday, the issue of Hezbollah’s drones has become the newest headline in a war that has had more than its share of horrors. I asked Yaakov Katz, our “go to expert” on armaments, among many other things, to explain to us the following: * What are these drones, what can they do, and where do they...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com In our previous conversation with Dr. Sarah Feuer last week, Yemen 101: Who are the Houthis, where did they come from, and what should we expect? , we looked at the history of Yemen, the religious and cultural background — as well as the conflicts — from which the Houthis emerged, and sought to understand their...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com “Is it really over?” That’s what Israelis are asking themselves. They hope the answer is yes. They hope the answer is no. “No,” because Hamas is rebuilding, Iran is running Hezbollah, and Iran … well. Things simply cannot be left this way. But “yes,” because people here are just exhausted. We need to breathe. E...

Melanie Phillips hardly needs an introduction to most readers of Israel from the Inside, though for those who would like a quick refresher on her extraordinary career, a brief bio can be found below. Melanie recently invited me to be in dialogue with her at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem on the occasion of her launching her most recent book, and today, we’re delighted to share the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com Look at the map of the Middle East, zoomed way, way out. Yemen (bottom in the green) seems like a place that should have no interest in dealing with Israel. In many ways, it’s in an entirely different part of the world. As we hear today from Dr. Sarah Feuer, that map can be misleading. Yemen, and the Houthis wh...

The boos started almost immediately in Basel (the same city, ironically, where Herzl held the First Zionist Congress in 1897). As Yuval Raphael stepped onto the Eurovision stage last year, in May 2025, portions of the crowd made clear that she was not welcome. Flags waved. The room echoed with the jeers with which we’re all now familiar. The point of the protesters was clear — no one from Israel w...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com I noticed this week, at the Shabbat table in two different homes, and in a series of conversations at work and around the neighborhood cafés, that I keep hearing people use the phrase “the collapse of civilization.” As in, “what we’re witnessing — in Europe, the United States, and even in Israel to a degree — i...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com It’s hard to quantify (though I suppose that there are ways that sophisticated researchers could manage), but it’s clear that Israel’s press is much more engaged than ever before with the attitudes of American Jews — but also the attitudes of American voters writ large — to Israel. There’s a reason that the Isr...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit danielgordis.substack.com As The Forward (and others) reported over the last couple of weeks, Israeli President Isaac Herzog has been invited to the Commencement Speaker at JTS, the academic center of Conservative Judaism. Not surprisingly, given the times in which we live, some students (albeit a very small number) have publicly object...

The little clip above, about “If the USA and Iran were people,” is cute. Not hilarious, but still cute. And what it reflects is a deep-seated frustration that after yet another war, this one a really long one in which our kids and grandchildren took much of the brunt, Israel may or may not have accomplished much. So the guy in the elevator is obviously Trump, with all his bravado. And the guy who...

Jimmy Bitton, a Canadian professor whose podcast is called “Echoes of Jewish History”(available on Spotify here ) invited me to join him on his podcast, and then graciously granted us permission to share the episode with the Israel from the Inside community. My basic claim, in response to his question about why the West so detests Israel, is that Israel has implicitly issued to the West a sharp wa...