People of the Pod

If you're a high school senior or the parents of one, you're about to embark on a wonderfully stressful journey: picking the right college. If you're Jewish, that comes with a few extra considerations: Is there a Jewish a cappella group? How's the kosher food? What about BDS on campus? To answer these questions and more, we spoke with Laura Adkins and Aiden Pink, two young journalists at The Forwa...

As we recorded this episode on Thursday morning, southern Israel was battered by rockets from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Our guest, former IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel (res.) Peter Lerner, briefed us on the attacks before diving into the topic of the week: the Druze community's protest against the Nation-State Law and why he joined it. Our second guest was AJC Washington Director Alan...

Is President Trump trying to get Iran to come back to the negotiating table? During a press conference on Monday with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Trump indicated that he would be ready to meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. We therefore decided to open up the AJC vault and share with you a conversation we recorded with Emily Landau, a senior research fellow at the Institute...

Is Israel becoming a litmus test on the "woke" left? This week, Teen Vogue published an article that sought to tie issues of police brutality in the United States to Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. Our guest this week is journalist Emily Shire, who joins us to explain the evolution of Teen Vogue and give us a follow-up on her viral New York Times article from 2017, which asked if feminism...

President Trump had a headline-grabbing visit to Europe. During the trip, he called the European Union a foe of the United States and received sharp blowback for his deferential approach to contentious questions such as whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Over in Israel, a controversial bill that would define the character of the state passed over the objections of Israel's president a...

A confirmation battle is brewing. This week on AJC Passport, we dive into the world of U.S. Supreme Court nominations. Joining us to discuss this hot-button issue is AJC General Counsel Marc Stern, who has appeared four times before the Supreme Court and is one of the Jewish community's experts on the court, the separation of church and state, and religious liberty. Stern talks to us about Brett K...

A political earthquake just shook Mexico. This week, in a landslide victory, political outsider and left-wing nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the Mexican presidency with an anti-establishment and anti-corruption campaign. Joining us to discuss this dramatic development is Dina Siegel Vann, Director of the AJC Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs. Our second guest this...

Last week, we took you front and center at AJC Global Forum in Israel by bringing you the much-anticipated Great Debate. This week, we take you behind the scenes and bring you some exclusive conversations from our biggest event earlier this month. First up, friend of AJC Passport and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro (2011-17) discusses the outcomes of the embassy move to Jerusalem and Isra...

For those of you who were unable to join us in Jerusalem for the AJC Global Forum—or for those who want to relive the moment—we're bringing you this year's Great Debate. In the 2018 iteration of this AJC Global Forum staple, Member of Knesset Stav Shaffir of the Labor party faced off against Mayor Oded Revivi of the West Bank settlement of Efrat. Their question: "One State or Two States, Is There...

AJC Passport hits the road! This week's episode comes to you from Jerusalem. Recorded in front of a live audience for the first time, we sat down with journalist and author Matti Friedman to discuss one of the least reported-on angles of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the press that covers the struggle. Drawing on his years of experience as an AP reporter, Friedman talked with us about how the...

Can the stories Israelis and Palestinians tell about their history help them achieve peace? It's a question that keeps acclaimed author Yossi Klein Halevi up at night. This week's AJC Passport features a special conversation with Klein Halevi. He discusses grappling with this question and how it led him to write his latest book, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor. Hear him explain what he wants Pa...

Is Congress stepping up its efforts to combat rising anti-Semitism? In recent days, calls have rung out from Capitol Hill to fill the long-vacant position of Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism at the U.S. State Department. Also, a new bill was introduced that would help define anti-Semitism to better fight it in schools and on college campuses across the nation. Joining us to share...

What does the future of the Democratic party look like? There are competing visions and some cause more anxiety in Jewish voters than others. Joining us this week from South Bend, Indiana is Pete Buttigieg, a young mayor with an impressive list of accomplishments. Mayor Pete, as his constituents call him, is helping to reinvigorate his Midwest city. Hailed by President Obama as a rising star of th...

What's happening in Gaza? Is it a protest? An assault? A cynical media ploy? Some combination of the above? Join us for this week's episode of AJC Passport as we examine the disturbing news of renewed violence out of Gaza. We're joined by New York Times correspondent Isabel Kershner, whose coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the past 28 years gives her a unique vantage point on this w...

The "fix it or nix it" question has been answered. On Tuesday, President Trump announced that the U.S. is withdrawing from the JCPOA and reinstating crippling sanctions against Iran. The reaction in Israel and the Gulf was positive; Europe responded with a mix of disappointment and anger. But the question everyone is asking now is: what comes next? Joining us this week is Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the...

As May 12 nears, President Trump has a decision to make: will he or won't he waive sanctions on Iran as part of the nuclear deal (JCPOA)? In January, the President told the world that he would extend sanctions relief one last time so Europe and the U.S. could fix the deal's flaws. Now, as the next deadline approaches, leaders from Europe have visited the White House in an attempt to persuade the C...

This week on AJC Passport, we turn our eyes to Berlin where 2,000 Jews, Muslims, Christians, and others rallied in response to a bizarre anti-Semitic assault last week…against a young Arab man who had donned a kippah to prove to his Jewish friend that it was safe to wear one on the streets of Berlin. Deidre Berger, director of AJC Berlin joined us to explain exactly what happened and to discuss th...

This week on AJC Passport we celebrated a historic milestone: 70 years since the founding of the State of Israel. On this special occasion, we spoke with three figures—a politician, a historian, and an advocate—to hear their thoughts on Israel's anniversary, and their hopes for Israel's future. For a political perspective, we were joined by Israeli Member of Knesset Tzipi Livni, the leader of the...

This week on AJC Passport, we're bringing you rapid reaction to the hearings the Senate Foreign Relations held this week to determine whether to advance the nomination of CIA Director and former Congressman Mike Pompeo. Jason Isaacson, AJC's Associate Executive Director for Policy, joined us from Washington, D.C., to analyze the potentially contentious confirmation process and what Pompeo's transi...

As Jews across the world celebrated Passover, Palestinians in Gaza staged a massive protest on Israel's border. Armed Hamas terrorists fired on Israeli soldiers and tried to breach the border fence. Israel responded to the violence, prompting a great deal of international scrutiny. In this week's AJC Passport, we spoke with Ambassador Dennis Ross, a career diplomat who has spent much of his career...

In just a few short weeks, President Trump has reshuffled key foreign policy roles in his administration. In the latest episode of AJC Passport, we spoke with Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor in the George W. Bush administration. We discussed the import of these changes, and how the...

As hate incidents against Jews in Britain reach record levels, its Labour Party continues to be plagued by one anti-Semitism scandal after another. In our latest episode of AJC Passport, we speak with John Mann, Labour Party MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, to explore the deeply rooted anti-Semitic views of certain party members, and whether party leader Jer...

When Tamika Mallory attended an event hosted by the head of the Nation of Islam, notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, she exposed the Women's March movement she co-chairs to a torrent of criticism. In their belated response, the leaders of the Women's March distanced themselves from Farrakhan's anti-Semitism, but declined to reject him outright. We talked with Adam Serwer, Senior Editor at The A...

President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu met this week in Washington, to discuss issues critical to the U.S.-Israel relationship. In this week's AJC Passport, we unpacked the visit and checked in on the state of the crucial bilateral tie with former U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 2011-2017. We also chatted with The Jerusalem Post's Washington Bureau C...

From Nazis marching in Charlottesville to attacks on Jews in the streets of Europe, anti-Semitism persists around the world. In this week's AJC Passport, we talked with Ira Forman, the former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism at the U.S. State Department, about the international trends in anti-Semitic attitudes. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect...