What Matters Now

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. In this episode of the new series, we speak with Emory University Prof. Deborah Lipstadt, the former US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. Lipstadt is in Israel to accept Bar-Ilan University's Jonathan Sacks...

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this seventh episode in the new series, we speak with Palestinian activist and writer Samah Salaime to hear why this past election was so significant for the Arab Israeli voter. Salaime is a longtime contributor to the...

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this sixth episode in the new series, we speak with historian Sir Simon Schama, who recently published a lengthy essay titled "Jew-Hatred: The Latest Edition." In this cry from the heart, the professor of art history an...

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this fifth episode in the new series, we speak with author Yossi Klein Halevi. A deep pre-election political conversation had been planned for this episode. However, in a conversation that could have been called " Mann...

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this fourth episode in the new series, we speak with Prof. Nechumi Yaffe, an ultra-Orthodox woman running for Knesset for the Charedi Public Party ( HaTzibur HaCharedi ). A faculty member at Tel Aviv University since 20...

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this third episode in the new series, we speak with The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens -- also the editor of the SAPIR Journal -- who was in the country for a lightning reporting trip ahead of the Israeli electi...

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this second episode in the new series, who better to ask the big questions than a philosopher? We turn to author and public intellectual Micah Goodman for an in-depth conversation on the one burning issue that unites Am...

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this inaugural episode, who better to ask "Is the IDF justified in picking off Hamas terrorists?" than The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur . Last week, as headlines roiled world media condemning t...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. Before Alkhatib gives us an overview of the conditions on the gro...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with the head of the Israel Democracy Institute, Yohanan Plesner. As millions of Israeli voters will cast a fateful ballot on October 27, what are the top three issues driving them to the polls -- and why? Plesner, a former member of Knesset for t...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. As antisemitism surges worldwide by some 900% over the past decade, Greenblatt explores how the 113-year-old organization's mission to protect Jews has -- and has not -- evolved to m...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author Yossi Klein Halevi. The Hartman Institute senior fellow, writer and thinker joins us in our Jerusalem studio for a probing conversation about Jewish extremism. Klein Halevi is the author of the 1995 "Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist," bas...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with CEO of Community Security Service Richard Priem. While guarding his Dutch synagogue as a 17-year-old, Priem knew there were two places where Jews wouldn't experience antisemitism: Israel and the United States. Whereas in Europe, where Jews re...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with leading economist Prof. Dan Ben-David. Ben-David heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research and is a senior faculty member in the Department of Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University. Before Israel heads to the ballot box on Octob...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz , the director of the Israel Democracy Institute's Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for Shared Society and head of the Religion and State Program at the center. Ahead of the upcoming October 27 elections, Is...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. Alkhatib gives us an overview of the conditions on the ground rig...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur . With the sudden death of US Sen. Lindsey Graham this week, Rettig Gur is asked to expound on the loss of this staunchly pro-Israel politician who was able to rally both sides of the aisl...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Deborah Gilboa , MD, an expert in resilience and navigating change. The Pittsburgh-based family physician and author of "From Stressed to Resilient: The Guide to Handle More and Feel It Less" begins the program by defining what is -- and what...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with acclaimed chefs and restaurateurs Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook. Solomonov and Cook, the trailblazing chefs behind Philadelphia hospitality group CookNSolo Restaurants, are known champions of the Israeli culinary landscape, a history that be...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with celebrated writer Etgar Keret. Etgar Keret, a leading voice in Israeli literature, with books published in over four dozen languages, talks about how his perception of writing has changed since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught. Using typica...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, we hear from former prime minister Naftali Bennett in conversation with founding editor David Horovitz and political correspondent Tal Schneider. Speaking with ToI on June 11 at the campaign headquarters of Together, the new, merged party he now leads with former prime minis...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Israel Democracy Institute senior fellow Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler. Shwartz Altshuler, the head of the IDI's Democracy in the Digital Age Program, weighs in on the nefarious ways in which AI is being used to manipulate hearts and minds --...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and journalist Matti Friedman. On May 31, 2026, President Isaac Herzog attended the memorial ceremony for the fallen soldiers of the First Lebanon War (Operation 'Peace for the Galilee'), held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. On the same d...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan, speaking with author and scholar Dara Horn. Horn visited ToI's Jerusalem studio while on a break from this year’s International Writers Festival in Jerusalem, taking place May 25-28 at the city’s Mishkenot Sha’ana...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with author Yishay Ishi Ron. Ishi Ron's award-winning 2023 book, "Dog," is about an Israeli combat officer returning from Gaza, grappling with PTSD and heroin addiction until a stray dog enters his life and helps save him. The novel became a bestsel...