Israel from the Inside with Daniel Gordis

According to the Reut Institute , in addition to all the challenges to Jewish life represented by the radical left (or “woke” world, as some call it), there is also a nexus between radical progressive groups and Islamist organizations, which have been ‘migrating’ from Europe to the US.  In light of the rise of identity politics in the United States, the collaboration between these two streams crea...

“I'm listening to the discourse around these elections, and there are those who are saying, like Tom Friedman, ‘the sky is falling in. Israel is finished. The Israel that we knew is certainly finished. Maybe Israel itself is finished.’ And then I hear others saying, ‘we've just had a democratic election. This just proves how democratic we are.’ And I don't buy either response. Something significan...

At this writing, Tuesday afternoon on Election Day, Israeli news is not yet allowed to publish exit polls, and what sort of coalition may emerge is anyone’s guess. One thing is clear, though—no matter what happens, no incoming government is going to make a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be done. This week when much is in question, bu...

One week from tomorrow, Israelis will head to the polls for the fifth time in about two and a half years. Why Israel ends up going to the polls so often, and how this rate makes Israel one of the least stable governments in the world, are subjects for a different conversation. For now, as we are in the final days of October, we turn to a specific disappointment of these upcoming elections, no matt...

That Israel plays a looming role in Jewish life — both among admirers and among critics — is obvious. Still, though, Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing, right? Gol Kalev, in his new book, argues “no,” insisting that Judaism has now morphed into Zionism. If Judaism 1.0 was Judaism of the Bible, and Judaism 2.0 was Judaism of the rabbis that preserved Jewish life from around 70 CE until the...

Many of the columns and podcast episodes in Israel from the Inside have touched on the notion of the “new Jew,” Zionism’s drive not only to create a sovereign Jewish state, but its goal of fashioning a Jew very different from the (in early Zionists’ eyes) weak, passive, often victimized Jew of Europe. Most people (myself included) argue that in creating the “new Jew,” Zionism has been extraordinar...

With a new “Iran deal” in the works (though whether it will come to be is impossible to say), we turned for this week’s podcast to my colleague at Shalem College, Colonel Dr. Eran Lerman, to ask a basic question that most of us can’t answer: “Why does Iran hate Israel with such intensity?” It’s not borders—we don’t share one. It’s not oil. It’s not water. It’s not being a Muslim country—look at th...

Dr. Einat Wilf is a leading thinker on Israel, Zionism, foreign policy and education. She was a member of the Israeli Parliament from 2010 to 2013, where she served as Chair of the Education Committee and Member of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Born and raised in Israel, Dr. Wilf served as an Intelligence Officer in the Israel Defense Forces, Foreign Policy Advisor to Vice...

Before getting to today’s topic below, a quick word about this Wednesday’s podcast on the subject of Iran, with Colonel Dr. Eran Lerman. With a new “Iran deal” in the works (though whether it will come to be is impossible to say), we turned for this week’s podcast to my colleague at Shalem College , Colonel Dr. Eran Lerman, to ask a basic question that most of us can’t answer: “Why does Iran hate...

The Mechinah movement in Israel, which we’ve mentioned several times, has existed for decades, but really took off after the assassination of Prime Minster Yitzchak Rabin in 1995. There was a desperate need, leading Israeli educators recognized, to develop programs for kids who had graduated high school but not yet begun the army, to think about Jewish tradition, democracy, civil society and the p...

Yes, President Biden has visited, and yes, there are elections coming up. Yes, relations with Saudi Arabia may be warming up. Turkey, too. But it’s so far been a relatively quiet summer in Israel, and we’re going to use that gift of quiet as a time to reflect broadly and to focus on a series of fascinating educational projects being conducted across Israel, all of them committed to deepening the J...

On this week of July 4th, a conversation with an American Jew who, as ambassador, had to give up his American citizenship in order to serve his country. For American Independence Day, his thoughts about his generation of American immigrants to Israel, those who followed, and those who still might … It’s hard to think of anyone else in the Jewish world who has distinguished himself or herself in as...

With all eyes in the U.S. focused on the forthcoming Supreme Court decision which might upend Roe v. Wade after fifty years of abortion rights for American women, we thought it would be interesting for the Israel from the Inside community to learn more about abortion law and reality in Israel. We spoke with Dina Shalev, Director of Lada’at (“Choose Well”), a reproductive rights organization based...

Now that we’ve celebrated Israel’s 74th anniversary, we’re officially into the 75th year of Israel’s life. Is that young? Old? Truth is, it’s somewhere in the middle. When Israel was admitted to the UN in 1949, it was the 59th state to join . Now that there are 193 countries in the UN, it’s clear that Israel is older than two-third of the world’s countries. The facts that Israel is no longer so re...

This Wednesday, late afternoon, thousands of Israelis will take part in a ceremony that’s almost unheard of outside of Israel. It’s called a tekes ma’avar , a “ceremony of transition,” and comes in the waning hours of Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers — Tuesday night/Wednesday), just before Yom HaAtzma’ut (Independence Day — Wednesday night/Thursday). The ceremony was born of the emo...

This cover from the magazine section of Makor Rishon , an Israeli newspaper, captured a long-brewing sentiment. The headline reads “The Enemy Within.” The smaller headline, in black, reads: “The murderous rampage in Be’er Sheva, which ended in the deaths of four Israelis, heightens the sense of insecurity and lawlessness felt by residents of the Negev. In order to deal with terror on the part of t...

It’s been almost a year since we launched Israel from the Inside , an attempt to create a different kind of Israel-dialogue— not left or right, religious or secular, native or immigrant, but rather, a mosaic of the many viewpoints that make up the richness of Israeli society. We’ve covered conflict and war, politics, music, art, literature, history and more. In the weekly podcast, we’ve interviewe...

Since the beginning of the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Ukraine more than two weeks ago, much attention has been focused on Israel, both from within and from without. There has been discussion of Israel’s careful dance expressing support for Ukraine without enraging Putin, Naftali Bennett’s risky decision to play some sort of mediating role, Israel’s rebuffing Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s request t...

In this week, when our focus is once again on rescue, and particular the Jewish world’s gearing up for a massive rescue, we share a conversation with Danna Harman, an Israeli journalist who, along with a few other Israelis, did extraordinary things to save Afghans who were left behind after the sudden American exit. Hers is a story of determination, grit, collaboration and true Israeli imaginative...

Every now and then, one reads a book so stunning in its insight and creativity that it’s a disappointment to finish it, and one is tempted to read it again, right then and right there. That’s how I felt about Amotz Asa-El’s book, The Jewish March of Folly , a fascinating rethinking of the lessons of Jewish history and the failure of Jewish leadership. (I was obviously not alone—the book became an...

Welcome to Israel from the Inside . Israel from the Inside is for people who want to understand Israel and Israelis, away from all the toxicity of the headlines. It’s for people who believe that Israel is neither hopelessly flawed nor beyond critique, but rather, a fascinating stage on which the Jewish people is working to recreate itself. For a taste of the variety of podcasts we’ve posted over t...

Israel currently has two recognized systems of law operating side by side: civil and religious. Israeli religious courts possess the exclusive right to conduct and terminate marriages. There is no civil marriage or divorce in Israel, irrespective of one’s religious inclinations. All Muslims must marry and divorce in accordance with shariya laws, all Catholics in accordance with canon law, and all...

A few months ago, on a Shabbat afternoon, I was reading A. B. Yehoshua’s novel, The Tunnel . In the novel, Yehoshua mentions an organization called “Road to Recovery,” through which, he said, volunteers meet Palestinians who are entering Israel for medical care at checkpoints, drive them to the hospitals to which they need to get, and then another volunteer picks them up and drives them back to th...

Mekudeshet is an award-winning, cultural organization that creates original art and music to reimagine Jerusalem from a center of conflict into a laboratory for connection between people of all kinds. In this episode, we speak with Karen Brunwasser, a Jerusalem-based civic activist and Chief Strategy Officer for Mekudeshet, to hear about their plan — what do they do, and how do they believe it cou...

In our most recent column, we spoke a bit about rabbinic courage. The rabbi we spoke about then lives in America, but in this episode of Israel from the Inside ’s podcast, we look at a courageous and creative rabbinic voice in Israel. If Judaism were to be refashioned for Israel, in a manner that brought together religious and secular, Ashkenazim and Mizrachim, young and old, and people of all pol...