J Street Conversations

The results of our 2026 Election Night Survey of American Jews are in, and we spent an hour unpacking the results with Jim Gerstein from GBAO Strategies and Tali DeGroot, our Vice President of Political and Digital. Key findings from the national survey include: - 72% of Jewish voters supported Democratic congressional candidates, compared with 24% who backed Republicans, continuing the community’...

“I think humanity won yesterday.” That’s how Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, opened our conversation this afternoon on Word on the Street Live about last night’s election. We discussed several key takeaways: Americans do not want to descend into authoritarianism. Voters came out to vote for democracy and made it clear they overwhelmingly want a check on Trump an...

Israel’s election results have left both Netanyahu’s coalition and the opposition bloc without a parliamentary majority, and the path to a new government is anything but clear. Ilan sat down with Israeli pollster Dahlia Scheindlin and New Israel Fund Acting CEO Mickey Gitzin to break down the results, explore the possible paths to forming a government, and discuss what comes next for Israeli democ...

We just wrapped up a fast-moving conversation with J Street’s own Nadav Tamir and Shimrit Braun Kamin, both on the ground in Israel, about tonight’s election results – and, cautiously, there are reasons to feel optimistic. (Hopefully we’re not biting our tongues tomorrow!) First and foremost, the horrific coalition that has governed for the past four years suffered a stunning defeat, losing 25 per...

In this special edition of Word on the Street Live, we’re coming to you from Atlanta to talk about two major elections alongside repeat podcast guest, Daniel Biss. Later today, we’ll get our first indications of where Israel’s election is headed, so we sat down to discuss what’s at stake. And this time next week, polls will be closing across the United States, with big implications for our democra...

Yesterday, we planned to talk with Rabbi Nikki Golomb and her fiancé Sam Stein about Nikki’s firing from Emory Hillel and the questions it raises about who belongs in Jewish institutions. But with Sam directly caught up in the day’s news, we switched up where we began. Sam was among the rabbis and advocates detained by Israeli authorities while helping Palestinian farmers harvest their olives in t...

[Recorded on October 14, 2026.] Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood behind police barricades as counterprotesters shouted accusations at him during an October 7 vigil in Union Square. The gathering, organized by Israelis for Peace, was meant to mourn Israelis killed on October 7 and Palestinians killed in the war that followed. Instead, it became a flashpoint in the divisions withi...

Three years after October 7, where does Israeli society – and those communities most closely affected by the attack and the war that followed – stand today? Israeli writer and pro-democracy activist Mika Almog and hostage father Yehuda Cohen joined us for a personal conversation about the hostages, the 2025 ceasefire and hostage deal, and the profound impact of the past three years on Israeli soci...

This week on Word on the Street Live, we dug into Netanyahu’s latest fights – with world leaders, with NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and increasingly with American Jews – and what they tell us about the road ahead. At the UN, Netanyahu used the global stage for a speech that sounded more fit for a campaign event at home than something made for diplomats in the room. And we talked about the sad irony t...

This week, it’s Word on the Street… in Michigan! The Wolverine State has become ground zero in battles over Israel in partisan politics and on campus. Jeremy’s co-host today was Lauren Haines, a 2025 Michigan grad and former national president of J Street U. She’s now a member of the J Street Digital Team and our in-house Michigan expert! Lauren and Jeremy were joined first by Adir Waxman, the cur...

This week, we wanted to mark the High Holidays on Word on the Street Live. We knew a conversation with a rabbi about teshuvah, or repentance, would go deep – and Rabbi Zach Truboff did not disappoint. Rabbi Truboff, author of Zionism in Crisis, opened with how October 7 left him both deeply connected to Israel and deeply alienated from parts of what he was seeing. We talked about what national tra...

Jeremy and Ilan had a fascinating conversation with Congressman Jared Huffman about his new book, No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism. The book is remarkably personal. Rep. Huffman takes us from his childhood in an offshoot of the Mormon Church and his eventual departure from the faith to his years in Congress, where he’s watched Christian nationalism grow into an i...

We’re just about through with primary season. In this week’s Word on the Street Live, we took a step back to look at what we learned about the national political landscape – and what it could mean for November. We talked through the House and Senate maps, the races J Street is watching most closely, and why states like Michigan, Georgia and Ohio are already shaping up to be some of the most import...

Israeli pollster and analyst Dahlia Scheindlin took us from freshman year to senior year, with a crash course into how Israeli elections actually work, the latest polls, Gadi Eisenkot’s rise and the many moving pieces that could determine the next government. One important caveat Dahlia wants us to remember: Don’t count Netanyahu out. Israeli elections have a way of surprising us, and there’s a ca...

This week on Word on the Street, Ilan spoke with Alia Awadallah, a Palestinian American who served in the Biden Administration, and Rebecca Abou-Chedid, a Lebanese American who has spent her career working in Arab American advocacy and Middle East policy. For too long, there’s been a real imbalance in Washington. I remember when there could be five Jewish voices at the policymaking table on Israel...

Our guest, Michigan local and Democratic organizer Jessica ‘Decky’ Alexander, said the state’s Democratic Senate primary felt seismic – not just for Michigan, but for the national Democratic Party. Decky spent the past year and a half listening, organizing and talking directly with Jewish Michiganders. She originally supported Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out of the race last month, before backin...

[Recorded on July 29, 2026] Donniel Hartman on what Israel needs to see differently – and why “better” isn’t good enough. “Thou shalt not be mediocre.” That line from Rabbi Donniel Hartman, a leading Jewish scholar and President of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, stuck with me. We had a wide-ranging conversation about Israel’s standing in the world, the trauma Israelis are living throug...

Nadav Weiman’s name has been in the headlines recently after he joined parts of Congressman Ro Khanna’s tour of the West Bank. We wanted to hear directly from him about what happened. Nadav walked us through the moment their vehicle was surrounded by armed settlers, who blocked the road and intimidated the group while soldiers stood alongside the settlers. Nadav connected the dots about the larger...

We just tackled one of the biggest conversations happening in American Jewish life right now: What do the recent primary victories by anti-Zionist and sharply Israel-critical candidates actually mean for the Jewish community? We were joined by Alana Zeitchik, Julie Zebrak, Rabbi Alissa Wise and, for part of the conversation before technical issues got in the way, Gili Getz. We unpacked why these r...

After a whirlwind of travel, Jeremy and Ilan were finally back behind the microphones together for this week’s episode. Ilan just returned from leading a delegation through Israel and the West Bank, where he met with Israeli opposition leaders as the political landscape shifted almost in real time. We unpacked who may actually be positioned to challenge Netanyahu, whether the opposition understand...

[Recorded on July 1, 2026] Listen in on an incredible Word on the Street Live with Brad Lander days after his decisive Democratic primary victory in NY-10 to discuss what the campaign’s implications are for the future of the Democratic Party, the American Jewish community and the increasingly difficult conversation over Israel and Palestine.

Recorded on June 24, 2026 | Ilan sat down with Iran experts Nate Swanson and Ari Tabatabai to unpack one of the most remarkable foreign policy reversals in recent memory.

Recorded on June 17, 2026 | A conversation with Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America

Recorded on June 10, 2026 | A conversation on how Reform Jews in the U.S. and Israel are linked in a shared fight

Recorded on June 3, 2026 | We sat down with Phil Gordon, a former National Security Adviser to Kamala Harris and one of the Democratic Party’s leading foreign policy voices to talk about the dramatic shifts in American foreign policy under Trump - from Gaza and Iran to growing tensions with allies and deep debates within the Democratic party itself.