Israel from the Inside with Daniel Gordis

Early Shabbat afternoon, we were chatting with friends who asked, “Did you hear about Tel Aviv?” We hadn’t. As we were off the grid for Shabbat, we had no idea that the Houthis had fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv in the middle of the night, that the IDF had failed to shoot it down (but by sheer luck, it did relatively little damage) and that our kids and grandchildren had spent part of the n...

When we first launched Israel from the Inside ’s podcast several years ago, I turned to a student at Shalem College, Shaked Jehuda, and asked her if we might use the melody she’d written for the classic medieval poem by Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gvirol and the video of her performance of that song with Eyal Gesundheit . Shaked graciously agreed, and for more than three years, her beautiful melody and inspi...

A quick note regarding yesterday’s post, which included a Google-translated Facebook post by our podcast guest, Professor Moshe Koppel. Google-translate, quite obviously, does not have the command of the English language that Professor Koppel does, and the translation was characteristically Google-translate-ish. But we neglected to note that the language in the screenshot we posted was not his, as...

Before we get to today’s podcast, I’m taking the liberty of remembering a treasured teacher, colleague and friend. Rabbi Dr. David Ellenson, who served for many years as the President of the Hebrew Union College, died in New York one year ago this week, in the early months of the war. His death left me wordless, and though I’d intended to write something about him last year, I couldn’t. A year lat...

Before we get to today’s podcast, I’m taking the liberty of remembering a treasured teacher, colleague and friend. Rabbi Dr. David Ellenson, who served for many years as the President of the Hebrew Union College, died in New York one year ago this week, in the early months of the war. His death left me wordless, and though I’d intended to write something about him last year, I couldn’t. A year lat...

About three weeks ago, I was rather aimlessly going through my Facebook feed, when I saw an ad for a kosher trip to Vietnam. I stared at it for a few minutes — I’d never thought seriously about going, so had no invested any time in learning what you’re “supposed” to see. I’d never heard of the tour company. Nothing about it, given my tendency to overdoing due diligence, made any sense. But it was...

The Himmelfarb School, founded more than a century ago, is one of the best-known “religious-Zionist” schools in Jerusalem. In other words, it’s what would be called in America a “religious public school.” Until recently, outside of Jerusalem, and certainly outside of Israel, few people had heard of the school—after all, who knows the schools of a different city? The past year, however, has tragica...

In July, Dekel Shalev, who along with her husband and three children, survived the attack on Beeri by hiding in a safe room for fifteen hours, told us her story in two parts. To accompany the video below that she just sent me, we’re linking again to these two segments, for those who would like to revisit them or hear them for the first time. Dekel Shalev on Israel from the Inside , Part I. Dekel S...

These are not necessarily easy times in Israel, but they are still fascinating times. Today, we meet Avi Dabush, a long time social activist in Israel, head of Rabbis for Human Rights, and a recent graduate of a unique rabbinical school program at the Hartman Institute, which trains as rabbis people from across the religious spectrum. Before we get to Avi, whose interview we’re making available in...

Why is there a Jewish state? Sounds like a ridiculous question, of course, but it’s really not. Imagine for a moment that anti-Semitism disappeared, and the Jews never again had to think about refuge. Imagine, as well, that our region changed entirely, and Israel was free (think Canada) to go about its business, without worrying about neighbors. Imagine, in other words, a world in which there was...

Israelis (like everyone else, I imagine) find television ads very annoying. So much so that when you’re watching the news here, when they break for advertising, there’s a little timer in the top left corner of the screen, counting down the minutes and the seconds until the broadcast resumes. At the bottom of the screen, it often says, “two more ads, and we’re back,” or three. Or whatever. But ther...

As we noted last week, Rabbi Irving (“Yitz”) Greenberg has been, for well over half a century, one of the most courageous, creative and influential voices in the American Modern Orthodox world. For me, personally, he has been a teacher and an inspiration for many, many years—as I told him in Part I of our conversation, I remember those days when the first early drafts of portions of his new book w...

Remember this photograph, which all of us Israelis saw live on TV last night as Yoav Gallant saluted the soldiers still fighting, after he was fired by Netanyahu. Prediction : this is one of those iconic photos that will be in the history books, assuming that last night was the beginning of what many people here fear it was. We had planned, as we noted yesterday, to post Part II of our conversatio...

It has been an excruciating week. Anyone following the goings-on in Israel knows that. A harrowing headline (Google translated screenshot) from YNet commented on a surreal reality unfolding these past few days in our part of town: In the midst of the unspeakable grief, though, these families have often managed to reflect the very best of what Israel is. The widow of Rabbi Avi Greenberg, z’l, knew...

When many people hear the words “Jewish Agency,” what first comes to mind are the emissaries whom Israel sends to Jewish communities abroad. Those Israelis who attend summer camps in the United States and elsewhere. Or “Shin Shinim,” who venture across the world, bringing Israeli content and an Israeli presence to synagogues, JCC’s, communities and more. Given that the Jewish Agency was only creat...

We attacked Iran? It’s hard to remember. The costs of the war in Lebanon (and Gaza) are proving so grievous that the fallen fathers, teachers, principals, rabbis, sons, uncles, brothers and friends are pretty much all anyone in our neck of the woods can think or talk about. The Horev School is a few minutes’ walk from our house. (English below on the Ynet screenshot is Google translated, but it’s...

I had occasion to visit StandWithUs’s exhibition called “Faces of October 7” yesterday at their center not far from the King David Hotel. Since there will be more visitors to Israel during Sukkot than there have been in a long time, I thought to share basic information about the exhibition. First, a word of thanks. It was almost three and a half years ago that Israel from the Inside launched. Our...

It’s getting dark here, and I don’t mean because the days are getting shorter. At least in my crowd, the WhatsApp flow is just sad. I was looking for a message earlier today when I found myself staring at an exchange I’d had earlier this morning with a dear friend. Still hadn’t found the message I was looking for, though, and more or less not focusing, came across this one, that I’d not noticed be...

The clip above, part of the longer video below , is a performance of Seder Ha-Avodah , the “Avodah Service,” by Yishai Ribo in Jerusalem a few years ago. In today’s column, we’ll explain a bit about the song, but perhaps more importantly, suggest that this phenomenon of classic liturgy meeting “secular” Israelis is actually much more than a cultural curiosity. Why? In this hurting and increasingly...

’ With October 7th now behind us and Simchat Torah just weeks away, it is clear to most Israelis that the war we are fighting is going to drag on for a very, very long time. A year? Several years? It’s impossible to know, though for an array of reasons, “another year” seems very, very optimistic. But what we do know is that the burden of this war is going to affect almost everyone. Young people (e...

Last night, in what has become classic Israeli fashion, Israel divided into two as it marked October 7th. There was an official government ceremony, presided over by Miri Regev, boycotted by most Israeli musicians and much of the public. There was also an alternate ceremony, in Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, that quickly became the hot ticket to get. Space, it was announced, would be limited to 40,000 p...

In the middle of the night last night, at around 2:00 a.m., I turned on the TV. The news had announced earlier in the day that over the course of the night hours, Channel 12 would be reading out the names of all the soldiers and civilians who have been killed since October 7, 2023. It would take, they said, the entire night. I clipped a very small portion (see video above) to give a sense of what...

My mom used to tell me that she always remembered where she was when she heard that FDR had died. She was only ten, she would remind us, but she remembered. And she always would. Depending on our age, most of us remember where we were, and maybe whom we were with, when we heard that war had broken out in 1973, or that the World Trade Center had been hit by two planes, or that the Challenger had ex...

Whenever this war ends, whether that is in a few weeks (very unlikely) or a few years (quite possible), Israelis are going to have to return to the question of what kind of country, constitutionally and Jewishly, this state should be. A year ago, before anyone could imagine what October 7 would do to the Jewish state and to Jewish history, hundreds of thousands of Israelis were taking to the stree...

I was sitting in shul yesterday morning, bright and early at 7:30, early enough that most of us typically just nod an almost silent “Shabbat Shalom” to each other until we’re more awake. (A few of us actually bring our coffee to shul.) A couple of minutes after I got seated, a friend of mine walked by me, but then stopped and turned around, and said to me, with no prompt: “My Holocaust survivor fa...