Haaretz Podcast

California State Senator Scott Wiener , the frontrunner for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat, insisted on the Haaretz Podcast that his change of heart regarding whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide did not represent a political flip-flop. In early January, Wiener faced an angry audience at a candidate’s forum, in which he debated his two ri...

Birthright Israel is celebrating 25 years of offering a free 10-day trip to Israel to every young Diaspora Jew with the hope of fighting assimilation. The celebrations include a $900 million fundraising campaign. But, as Haaretz Jewish World editor Judy Maltz told the Haaretz Podcast, their traditional mission and "fun in the sun" marketing campaign have become deeply problematic, given the batter...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped a bombshell in a recent interview when he declared he had told U.S. President Donald Trump that Israel no longer needed a long-term commitment from the U.S. for military aid, and that he planned to “taper off” the $3.8 billion Israel now receives to “zero” within ten years.  On the Haaretz Podcast, Washington correspondent Ben...

Once again, Iranians have taken to the streets. Starting in late December, the plummeting value of the national currency, along with the soaring cost of living, were the catalyst for a fresh wave of protest – and one that soon turned political.  Although the government has been quick to crack down on the demonstrations, the regime has been dealt some heavy blows in the past year, and an...

  It was a challenging year to be a Diaspora Jew.  The war in Gaza and growing hostility to Israel had an undeniable impact on Jewish life across the world in 2025. Events in Israel became a focus in local and national politics around the world – and served as a catalyst in a global surge in antisemitism. The year was punctuated by horrific and deadly attacks against Jews from Wash...

For Israel, 2025 was a year in which war turned the unimaginable into reality: from the terrifying exchange of missiles with Iran to the horrors of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to the joy and relief when U.S. President Donald Trump secured a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas to bring the painful hostage ordeal to an end. This special year-end episode highlights the reporting and analysis on...

France’s ambassador to Israel Frédéric Journès said on the Haaretz Podcast that any postwar Gaza plan must acknowledge that completely disarming and ridding the Strip of Hamas militia members is not an achievable goal.  “You're not going to eliminate all of those people, so you basically need to find them a job in local police, find them a little job in societ...

Before October 7th, Trump’s second term and the election of Zohran Mamdani rocked New York’s Jewish community, Manhattan’s famed 92nd Street Y – like most mainstream Jewish institutions – played it relatively safe when it came to programs about Israel. Susan Engel, executive producer of the 92nd St. Y Talks, tells the Haaretz Podcast that the famed Manhattan cultural...

Over the past two years, many filmmakers have hesitated or refrained from bringing their films to Israeli film festivals as part of cultural boycott of Israel over the Gaza war. But for Joshua Zeman , the decision to bring his powerful new documentary “Checkpoint Zoo” to the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival was “merely part and parcel of the whole experience of making a film about...

Australian Jews are “shocked but not surprised” by the “horrific” mass shooting on Bondi Beach, which turned a Hanukkah celebration into a tragic massacre, Australian Jewish leader Lynda Ben-Menashe said on the Haaretz Podcast.  In the two years since the October 7 attack in Israel, the Australian Jewish community “begged” their government officials to enfo...

When it comes to liberal American Jews and President Donald Trump, the “cognitive dissonance is real,” said award-winning journalist  Dahlia Lithwick on the Haaretz Podcast.  While Lithwick “doesn’t dispute for a minute" the fact that the U.S. president and his envoys “did yeoman’s work” negotiating a cease-fire deal, it is not enough for her to...

After Russian-Israeli academic Elizabeth Tsurkov was freed from captivity in Iraq in September following two and a half years of imprisonment and torture, she returned to a very different Israel, she said in a wide-ranging interview on the Haaretz Podcast.  Israelis “have changed in very fundamental ways,” she said. “After October 7, the circle of people towards whom Israeli...

In his first interview since his release, former hostage Alon Ohel called the International Committee of the Red Cross a “disgraceful organization.” His anger reflects a general bitterness among Israelis who believe ICRC failed to ensure the Israeli hostages’ received humanitarian treatment in captivity and their silence in the face of Hamas’ refusal to grant them access.&n...

There was a clear “threat” delivered in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s formal letter to the President Isaac Herzog requesting a pardon in his corruption case, senior Haaretz columnist Dahlia Scheindlin said on the Haaretz Podcast.  Netanyahu’s government continues to conduct a “campaign of vicious political incitement against the Israeli judiciary,&r...

The feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene may not be exclusively about Israel, “but Israel is one of the pillars of the narrative” that fueled Greene’s decision to resign earlier this week, Haaretz’s Washington correspondent  Ben Samuels told the Haaretz Podcast.  Until recently, the right was viewed as an unshakeab...

Now that all of Israel’s living hostages are home and the vast majority of the bodies of deceased hostages have been returned, the “line of thinking” among many Israeli military and political leaders is “we have nothing to lose” and “we can continue our fight against Hamas,” says Haaretz senior security analyst Amos Harel . Members of Prime Minister Benjam...

Haaretz held its first-ever conference in Berlin, “Fault Lines and Futures: Israel, Gaza and Germany in Wartime and After," to explore the dynamic between Israelis, Palestinians and Germans at this charged moment; this special edition of the Haaretz Podcast features highlights of those conversations.  Among the conference speakers was Hadash MK  Ayman Odeh , who called on German po...

Iran remains a major threat to Israel and the United States – with clear ambitions to expand its influence and terror activity into the Western hemisphere, said Danny Citrinowicz , a former IDF military intelligence officer and Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, speaking on the Haaretz Podcast.   Those ambitions were recently highlighted when a U.S. officia...

Olive harvest season has become a flashpoint in the West Bank in recent years as extremist Israeli settlers regularly threaten and physically harm Palestinian harvesters, but this year, “the situation on the ground is out of control,” Anton Goodman of Rabbis for Human Rights said on the Haaretz Podcast.  “We have never seen anything like this,” Goodman emphasized, noti...

After October 7, actor, singer and writer  Jonah Platt pivoted away from his entertainment career and poured all of his energy into what until then had been his “side hustle” – advocating for more “joyful” portrayals of Jews in Hollywood, and broadening his focus to include pro-Israel advocacy and fighting antisemitism.  Platt joins the Haaretz Podcast where...

The scandal rocking Israel’s military justice system has “serious ramifications” that could undermine the country both internally and in its ability to address accusations of war crimes overseas, Dr. Eran Shamir-Borer said on the Haaretz Podcast.  Shamir-Borer, who served for over 20 years in the IDF Military Advocate General's Corps, and currently heads the Israel Democracy...

The prospect of a New York City mayor who “won’t march in the Israel Day Parade, will not travel to Israel, who will divest from Israel” with a history of pro-Palestinian advocacy has brought many Jews to a place of “caution and worry” as they choose the city’s next leader, New York political reporter Jacob Kornbluh said on the Haaretz Podcast.  At the same...

Throughout the Gaza war, the tremendous difference between international coverage and Israeli media coverage was obvious to anyone exposed to both.  In a new report, media scholar Dr. Ayala Panievsky’s research quantifies precisely how pronounced that difference was. On the Haaretz Podcast, she said the silencing of dissent in Israel’s mainstream media was unprecedented.  &ld...

The turmoil around the Gaza war has transformed French Jews into “different people” than they were two years ago, pioneering rabbi Delphine Horvilleur said on the Haaretz Podcast. “I don't know any of any Jewish family in France who hasn’t had a conversation around the Shabbat table,” Horvilleur said, contemplating possible emigration and wondering what will remain of...

The flow of high-level Trump administration officials to Israel in the wake of the Gaza cease-fire agreement has sent a clear signal to Israel’s prime minister and his government, columnist Joshua Leifer said on the Haaretz Podcast. In a single week, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived for an extended stay, followed by the first state visit of Vice President JD Vance. Secretary of...