Tel Aviv Review

Prof. Yosef Toby, professor emeritus of Medieval Hebrew poetry at the University of Haifa, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the cultural golden age of Tunisian Jews, and their being torn between European acculturation and cultural conservatism.

Professor Meron Medzini, a Japanologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but also, perhaps surprisingly, a biographer of Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel between 1969-1974 - our very own Iron Lady. Professor Medzini's mother was a childhood friend of Meir, and Medzini served as her press secretary. His book is the work of a political scientist but is riddled with personal anecdotes th...

Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, author of numerous books including, very recently, Lincoln and the Jews: A history, which he co-edited with Benjamin Shapell. The book, which was published by St Martin's Press, recounts the relationship of the 16th president of the United States with a then still small and relatively uninfluential ethnic group, based on...

Dr. Gabriel Noah Brahm, associate professor of English at Northern Michigan University, is probably best known for co-editing the comprehensive  The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel . Today he talks to host Gilad Halpern about his forthcoming book, which dissects the theoretical underpinnings of the writing of Israel-bashers in academia around the world.

Prof. Alon Confino, a historian at the University of Virginia and at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, recently had his book  A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide  published in English by Yale University Press. Prof. Confino talks to host Gilad Halpern about the Nazi desire to remove the Jews not only from the present and the future, but also from the past.

Dr. Stefan Ihrig, a historian and post-doctoral fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, recently had his book  Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination  published in English by Harvard University Press. Dr. Ihrig tells host Gilad Halpern how rising Turkish nationalism in the wake of WWI served as valuable inspiration for the Nazis in the early Weimar years and beyond.

Dr. Paul Shrell-Fox, a rabbi and psychologist at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, tries to answer the question that's been troubling us for centuries. He explains to host Gilad Halpern how the Jewish intellect has developed over the years.

Dr. Michal Segal Arnold, a lawyer and political scientist, wrote her PhD thesis at the University of Pennsylvania about the American Indian Movement, a Native American pressure group. She explains to host Gilad Halpern how she lived for a year as the only non-Indian in Reservation Prairie Island in south-east Minnesota.

Omri Grinberg, an anthropologist at the University of Toronto,  tells host Gilad Halpern  about his research that focuses on the ethnography of the so-called Palestinian "children of the junction" – teenage boys from the West Bank who slip into Israel to work as peddlers.

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.

Dr. Amira Halperin, a communications scholar who has recently completed her PhD thesis at the University of Westminster, UK, is the first ever Israeli researcher to study the UK Palestinian diaspora. She discusses this community's use of new media with host Gilad Halpern.  

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.

Prof. Yosef Salmon, a Jewish history professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, is the author of  Do Not Provoke Providence: Orthodoxy In The Grip Of Nationalism , which was recently published in English by Academic Studies Press. He explores the history of the relationship between Zionism and Judaism with host Gilad Halpern.

Dr. Edna Barromi Perlman, a photography scholar and professor at the University of Haifa, speaks to host Gilad Halpern about the landscape photography in Palestine/Eretz Israel/the Holy Land, and how it became, just like anything else in the history of this place, an effective political and ideological tool.

Dr. Edna Barromi Perlman talks about the landscape photography in Israel and how it became an effective political and ideological tool.

Nachum Shiloh, who's about to complete his PhD at Tel Aviv University's Department of History, talks to host Gilad Halpern about his research that focuses on the history of Saudi elites in the first half of the 20th century. In our minds, Saudi Arabia, to this day, has been an ultraconservative, almost medieval society, with a clear hierarchy and a coercive leadership. But it turns out that is not...

Prof. Roberta Ronsethal Kwall, a legal scholar and the founding director of the DePaul University College of Law, has just authored a new book entitled  The Myth of the Cultural Jew – Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition . She explains to host Gilad Halpern why even the most secular Jews have imbibed the  halakha , whether they like it or not.  

Saudi Arabia has always seemed an ultraconservative society, with a clear hierarchy and a coercive leadership.

Dr. Susan Nashman Fraiman, an art historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, tells host Gilad Halpern about her recent research, which focuses on the emergence and evolution of candle-lighting practices – namely, the Shabbat Lamp – among the Jews of Ashkenaz.

Prof. Meir Amor, an Israeli sociologist teaching at Concordia University in Canada, has been a Mizrahi activist for decades, as well as a long-time researcher of the Mizrahi question. Prof. Amor talks to host Gilad Halpern about the principles of the Mizrahi struggle, theoretical as well as practical.

Dr. Michal Aharony, political philosophy and Holocaust studies professor at Beit Berl Academic College, recently authored  Hannah Arendt and the Limits of Total Domination: The Holocaust, Plurality and Resistance . Dr. Aharony talks to host Gilad Halpern about her work, which evaluates the Jewish-German philosopher's theories on totalitarianism through testimonies of Holocaust victims and survivor...

Dr. Avi Bareli, a historian of Zionism at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, recently authored  Authority and Participation in a New Democracy: Political Struggles in Mapai, Israel's Ruling Party, 1948-1953 . Dr. Bareli talks to host Gilad Halpern about opposition to Ben-Gurion's leadership from within the party, and how Israel's first prime minister was much less of a power-hungry, dictatorial l...

Evaluating the Jewish-German philosopher's theories on totalitarianism through testimonies of Holocaust victims and survivors.

Prof. Lev Grinberg, a sociologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, joins host Gilad Halpern to discuss his new book  Mo(ve)ments of Resistance: Politics, Economy and Society in Israel/Palestine 1931-2013 . He gives a fresh analysis of power relations between the political hegemony and the people, exploring seven instances in the history of Israel.

Dr. Adia Mendelson-Moaz of the department of Literature, Language and the Arts at Israel's Open University joins host Gilad Halpern to talk about her exploration of literary works written by four Israeli groups - Arabs, Mizrahis (Jews of Middle Eastern origin), Russians, and Ethiopians - focusing on the tension between collective and particular identities.