Tel Aviv Review

Shmuel Rosner, journalist, editor and senior research fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute discusses his new book (co-authored with Prof. Camil Fuchs), Israeli Judaism , an attempt at a snapshot of current Israeli attitudes towards Judaism as a religion, as peoplehood and as tradition. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes...

Liza Rozovsky, culture reporter for Haaretz newspaper, writes about contemporary Russian culture under ongoing forms of political oppression, alongside artistic expressions of the experiences former Soviet immigrants to Israel. Her subjects touch on alienation, marginalization, subversion and defiance in literature, drama, art and politics. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by Th...

How did Ben Gurion and first post-war German chancellor Konrad Adenauer become sincere political allies just a few years after the end of the war? David Witzthum, historian and longtime journalist, explores how Germany and Israel built a critical and controversial political alliance, in his book, The Beginning of a Wondrous Friendship? The story of Israeli-German reconciliation 1948-1960 . Z3 Conf...

Historian and journalist Dr Tom Segev discusses his new book, A State at all Costs: The Life of David Ben-Gurion , a new biography of Israel's founding father that draws heavily on his newly declassified personal papers. Tel Aviv Review is supported by the Public Discourse Grant from the Israel Institute , which is dedicated to strengthening the field of Israel Studies in order to promote knowledg...

Jerusalem Post reporter Sam Sokol traveled the Ukraine numerous times from 2013 to cover Jewish communities as the country spiraled into conflict with Russia. He found that each side wanted to exploit the Jews for competing political purposes, documented in his book,  Putin's Hybrid War and the Jews: Antisemitism, Propaganda and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry . This season of the Tel Aviv Rev...

Elizabeth Tsurkov is among the few Israelis to have visited Syria since the war began. She might be the only one to have reached a sweeping range of people from Kurdish fighters to ISIS supporters to Alawites, for in-depth interviews about the future of the tortured country. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by  The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes humanistic, democr...

Alejandro Paz, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, discusses his book Latinos in Israel: Language and Unexpected Citizenship , an ethnographic study into the formation of an unusual migrant community. Tel Aviv Review is supported by the Public Discourse Grant from the Israel Institute , which is dedicated to strengthening the field of Israel Studies in order to promot...

In Zionism and Melancholy, The Short Life of Israel Zarchi , Nitzan Lebovic inhabits the mind and soul of a lesser-known early Zionist poet. The result is a literary, academic, psychoanalytic - and slightly melancholy - journey through a political movement, via the short life of a poet. The Tel Aviv Review is supported by the Public Discourse Grant from the Israel Institute , which is dedicated to...

In A Rich Brew: How Cafés Created Modern Jewish Culture , Shachar Pinsker shows how coffee houses then and now, there and here, helped give rise to modernity itself. The Tel Aviv Review is supported by the Public Discourse Grant from the Israel Institute , which is dedicated to strengthening the field of Israel Studies in order to promote knowledge and enhance understanding of modern Israel.

Joseph Zeira, Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses his new book The Israeli Economy , an introduction to all matters Israeli and economic. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel. Tel Aviv Review is also supported by the Pu...

What does it mean to live in the divided and unified city of Jerusalem? What are the different memories and narratives that inhabit its streets? Dana Hercbergs, a scholar of folklore and anthropologist, discusses the role of social history and anthropology in telling a different story of the city. Episode Discussion Forum Tel Aviv Review is supported by the Public Discourse Grant from the Israel I...

Dr Eitan Regev, an economist and Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, is a co-author of The Handbook on Vocational Training . Regev analyzes the downsides of Israel's excessive reliance on academic higher education which has hurt its economic prospects and social integration, and offers policy recommendations to rectify that situation. Episode Discussion Forum This episode of the Tel...

The Tel Aviv Review of Books is a new online English-language publication that seeks, by way of book reviews, essays, literary criticism, original fiction and poetry, to give the international reader a glimpse into the Israeli world of letters. The Tel Aviv Review's Gilad Halpern is joined by co-editors Akin Ajayi, Olga Kirschbaum and Alex Stein to discuss the whys and wherefores of a new magazine...

One of the most controversial questions about the Holocaust is whether it should be seen as a universal human problem, or a unique horror perpetrated by Germans on Jews. At the heart of this question lies the work of Christopher Browning, author of numerous books on the history of the Holocaust, survivors, the Final Solution, and the story of a German auxiliary police battalion - Ordinary Men - wh...

The rage against communism led some countries to diminish the historic fight against fascism under leaders they now loathe. Could this help justify neo-fascist revivals in the post-communist world? In "Red Star, Yellow Star," Dr. Jelena Subotic examines Holocaust memory in the former Yugoslavia and other post-communist countries, showing why memory is never just memory, and it is always political....

Israel's judiciary is under assault, according to some, or experiencing a necessary corrective to rampant judicial activism, according to others. Dr. Amir Fuchs, legal expert and the head of the Defending Democratic Values project at the Israel Democracy Institute, walks through the Knesset's attempt to change the judiciary and the balance of powers in Israel, what's behind it, and what it means f...

Dr. Peter Lintl, a researcher at the German think tank Stiftung Wissenschaft Und Politik (SWP), has the complex job of analyzing Israeli political trends to the German policy community. In this interview, he discusses how Germany views issues such as the Nation-State Law and the status of Israeli democracy, in the context of the sensitive Israel-German relations, and Israel-EU relations more broad...

Why does a Palestinian professor believe it is so important for his students to learn about the Holocaust? Mohammed Dajani talks about what he has learned from taking Palestinian students to Auschwitz, and why he believes his movement Wasatia - moderation - is the right path for Islam. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , which pro...

"Liberal" and "nationalist" sound like mutually exclusive forces that cannot coexist. Yet Yuli Tamir, scholar, peace activist and a former government minister, makes the liberal case for nationalism, and argues for a nationalism that is liberal, in her book Why Nationalism . This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , which promotes peace...

Moshe Sakal's novel The Diamond Setter brings old Middle Eastern themes into contemporary Israel, and weaves them into a story comprising of a rediscovered Jewish-Arab heritage, reinvented Israeliness, cross-border relations and homosexuality. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the s...

Shane Baker, a theater director and creator, recounts his unusual entry into Yiddish theater and his efforts to revive a once-glorious artistic tradition in the city. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by YIVO , dedicated to fostering knowledge of the ongoing story of Jewish life, with a focus on the history and culture of East European Jewry.

All societies are divided, and constitutions are supposed to set the rules for a peaceful life. Hanna Lerner is the expert on how constitutions around the world seek to express complex national identities, contain and prevent conflict. In her 2017 book co-authored with Asli Bali, Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy , it turns out Israel isn't the only country with a thorny constitutional...

Ken Krimstein, an illustrator and graphic novelist, discusses his new book  The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt :  A Tyranny of Truth . This episode of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by YIVO , dedicated to fostering knowledge of the ongoing story of Jewish life, with a focus on the history and culture of East European Jewry.

Michael A. Cohen (no, not that one) and Micah Zenko have a radical proposal: The world is getting better, not worse. Their book Clear and Present Safety looks beyond sensational and short-term political trends and finds that all global indicators have improved - as a result, Americans need not live in perpetual fear. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Ins...

Having experienced virtually the most devastating crisis in its history, what can the media do to safeguard democracy, in an increasingly hostile environment? Susan Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, analyzes the challenges of the American media in the age of Trump. This episode of the Tel Aviv Review was brought to you by the Israel Democracy Institute , an independent center of r...