Tel Aviv Review

Gregory Wallance, a New York-based attorney and writer, discusses his new book The Woman Who Fought an Empire: Sarah Aaronsohn and her Nili Spy Ring , telling the story of an Israeli icon - a young Jewish woman who during the First World War operated, together with a few neighbors and family members, a pro-British spy ring under the nose of the Ottoman authorities in Palestine. Her tumultuous life...

Eviatar Zerubavel, professor of sociology at Rutgers University, discusses his new book Taken for Granted: The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable . How do our linguistic priorities characterize the way we perceive the world, and how do they reinforce cultural norms? This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes humanistic, democratic, an...

Professor Erica Chenoweth, a scholar of international relations says that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of non-violent protests in the world. She knows because she counts them, rigorously; she also counts when they work and why. Her 2011 book Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict shows the data of violent and non-violent political action and anal...

Dr. Dror Yinon of the Program for Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies at Bar-Ilan University reviews a series of lectures on Existentialism that recently took place at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. He lays out the fundamentals of this philosophical tradition and analyzes its ongoing relevance in the age of populism and post-truth. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Le...

Dr. Keith Kahn-Harris, a British sociologist and commentator, discusses his new book Denial: The Unspeakable Truth. It attempts to analyze the emergence and growing prevalence of denialism - a quasi-nihilist reflex that subsumed healthy skepticism and fact-based debate. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes humanistic, democratic,...

How do societies recover from major violence and terrible injustice? How do they cope with collective trauma, perpetrators, guilt, and is there a road to forgiveness? Professor Ruti Teitel was among the pioneering scholars to probe the complex mechanisms societies use to exorcise the demons of conflict. Transitional justice is now central to understanding conflict and integral to resolution, large...

Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, the head of the Media Reform Program and the Open Government Program at the Israel Democracy Institute. She joins hosts Dahlia Scheindlin and Gilad Halpern to discuss media policy in Israel and the way government interference may infringe on the country's relatively robust freedom of the press. T...

Yedidia Stern is worried about disturbing the balance of a Jewish and democratic state, as the nation-state law threatens to do. He believes that Israel must be a Jewish state, but without a legal anchor for equality, society is in trouble. Religious life is being dominated by the ultra-orthodox; diaspora Jews, especially Americans, should have a say in public life but not too much. Legal scholar...

Can we reconcile between business development and safeguarding human rights? David Bilchitz, professor of law at the University of Johannesburg, proposes a legal framework to do just that in his new book, "Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Contexts and Contours" ( Cambridge University Press ). This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , w...

On this plenary session at the 2018 annual conference of the Association for Israel Studies, recorded at the University of California at Berkeley, Tel Aviv Review host Gilad Halpern, Prof. Chana Kronfeld and Dr Yael Segalovitz discuss the attempts to "de-ghettoize" Hebrew literature and study it in a broader and richer context, as well as the intercultural exchanges with other types of literature,...

Prof. Eva Jablonka , a philosopher of science at Tel Aviv University, discusses her forthcoming book The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul. Can we establish the development of conscience within the evolution process? And if so, how? 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 discour...

The role of the IDF in Israeli life cannot be overstated, past and present. But the country, and the army, are changing. So are the missions Israel undertakes and the nature of warfare. Why is the famous people's army seeing fewer and fewer Israelis turn up for the draft? What are the demographic characteristics of those who do serve, is the army a melting pot or a social hierarchy and what about...

Dr. Liora Halperin, assistant professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, author of  Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism and Language Diversity in Palestine 1920-1948 , tells host Gilad Halpern about the ideological as well as the practical aspects of the inculcation of the Hebrew language in pre-state Israel. This episode originally aired June 26, 2015.

Benjamin Netanyahu's endurance as Prime Minister is matched only by his mystique: what lies behind his grip on Israeli society? How did he climb to the top, and what is the price of his long stay at the summit? Anshel Pfeffer, of Haaretz and the Economist, has a new biography of Netanyahu following his strange brew of intellect and populism, poor taste and fine legal lines, fierce family loyalty a...

Jeffrey Herf, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Maryland, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the attitude of East Germany and the West German radical left towards Israel between 1967-1989, against the backdrop of the memory of the Holocaust as well as the Cold War. This episode originally aired on June 23, 2015.

Michael Sfard, one of Israel's leading human rights lawyers, chronicles the evolution of the legal pillars of Israel's military occupation of Palestinians, including deportation, settlements, torture policies and more. But his brand-new book  The Wall and the Gate , Sfard also tells of the lives and legal struggles of people who fight the policy with its very own tools: in Israeli courts. For each...

For South African Jews, support for Israel has ceased to be the one thing they can all agree upon. Three distinguished panelists debate the meaning, old and new, of engaging with Israel as South African Jews. Panelists: Michael Bagraim, an attorney and member of parliament for the Democratic Alliance, the opposition party, as well as a member and formerly the president of the South African Board o...

How did a country with the world's most advanced surveillance technology and minimal restrictions on using it end up with a citizenry that hardly minds? Israelis have displayed almost none of the data-squeamishness of their American and European counterparts, as long as it adds to national security. But the nature of data is changing. Professor Yuval Shany of the Israel Democracy Institute explain...

Isn't art always political, and when it is not, is it just bad art? And what is the role of art in shaping our political outlook, when the Israeli reality offers little escape from politics? Joshua Simon, a writer, editor and curator, will moderate a round-table discussion dedicated to those issues and more, with leading artists, thinkers and cultural critics. He offers hosts Gilad Halpern and Dah...

Dr Adam Mendelson, a historian and the director of the Kaplan Center for Jewish Studies and Research at the University of Cape Town, discusses his recently completed and trailblazing study that seeks to map out the attitudes and perceptions of Black South Africans towards Jewish people in three major urban areas in the country. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by  The Van Leer J...

How do you fight a war by becoming the enemy and still keep your identity? Who are the good guys who are the bad guys? What's the best action series on television today, why is it a psychological drama as much as a shoot 'em up, and is it real, fake, fair? As Season 2 hits Netflix, Avi Issacharoff, the co-creator of hit TV series "Fauda," tells all. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possi...

"I never thought I'd go back to live in South Africa," says Lorna Levy, a trade unionist and anti-Apartheid activist who spent decades in exile after being banned from her native South Africa. In her memoir, Radical Engagements: A Life in Exile, she reflects on her almost accidental activism, starting in her student days in 1950s Johannesburg. This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by...

What does economic history have to do with a country's national identity? In Israel's case, a great deal. The myth of a socialist ideal morphing into a neo-liberal global powerhouse is captivating but contains far more complex processes, and many run contrary to the national self-image. Follow the gestation and birth of Israel's economy under the shadow of war, peace and privatization in a discuss...

Prof. Deborah Posel, a sociologist at the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town, analyzes how racial tensions have played out in South Africa since the end of Apartheid in 1994. 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.

Yair Ettinger, a journalist and researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute's "Ultra-Orthodox in Israel" program as well as a fellow at the Hartman Institute in New York, is the co-author, together with Nissim Leon, of the recently published book A Flock With No Shepherd: Shas Leadership The Day After Rabbi Ovadia Yosef . It analyzes the causes of the movement's identity, leadership and popularit...