The Promised Podcast

On the week of a tense Jerusalem Day, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron talk about the capital city and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Al-Quds— An EU-funded, UN-midwifed Palestinian Authority plan sets out how Jerusalem will be developed as the capital of Palestine by 2030. Some Israelis...

On Don's birthday and the day before Miriam's, Don Futterman, Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —The MK Formerly Known as Ex-Member of the Coalition Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi— Mertz MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi quits the c...

Miriam Herschlag, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Nakba— Nakba Day memorializes as a tragedy the day when a Jewish State was reborn after two thousand tumultuous, stateless years. What can an Israeli Jew say to t...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Shireen Abu Akleh, Z"L— After Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian Al-Jazeera reporter, was shot and killed in cross-fire outside Jenin, everyone was sure...

Allison, Don, Ohad, Amit, Linda, Jeremy & Noah talk about what Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, means to them, on the eve of Israel's 74 th . All that and old Songs of Independence, made new again!

Sally Abed, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Violence Season— Is it inevitable that seasons of calm are replaced by seasons of violence, just as winter gives way to spring? —Shmandemic— Israel's government...

In this very-special episode, Noah tells the story of a kibbutz that surrendered to the Egyptian army in 1948, and the wounds that have never really healed.

Don Futterman, Noah Efron and superstar reporter Linda Gradstein discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra on Patreon   —Wages of Sin— Are the crimes of terrorists visited on their loved ones? —Rest in Peace?— Should dead people be dug up and downsized into ossuaries a yea...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and environmentalist & Judaicist extraordinaire Jeremy Benstein discuss  three  two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Wave?— Three terror attacks on civilians in three city centers in eight days, leaving eleven dead. Is Isr...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Half a Dozen Foreign Ministers— Not long ago, who could even imagine that the foreign ministers of Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, Egypt, the US and Israel w...

After an encomium to the late Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, Allison, Noah and Voice of America radio superstar Linda Gradstein discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Presidential Address— Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells Israelis that it's time to step up and he...

Miriam Herschlag, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —No Place for Politics— Yad Vashem won't host a speech by Volodymyr on the grounds that there's no place for politics when it comes to the Holocaust. But that...

Sally Abed, Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Showing Up— Should Israel take as many refugees from Ukraine as want to come? —Another Milestone— Sexual assault charges are dropped against a leading light of the g...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and URJ VP and Renaissance Rabbi Josh Weinberg discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Laying Low— Israel's leaders are heartsick about Ukraine and still nervously worried about Putin, and it shows in their mud...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and linguist, Jewish scholar and environmental activist Jeremy Benstein discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Left and Gone— Is there something about the way we see the world that drives Israel's leftists away...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Macaroni Acrimony— Each day brings new, anguished protests over rising prices. Does the government have an answer? —Eternity No More— Are ultra-Orthodox sold...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Damn that Winged Horse!— Reports that the police used Pegasus to spy on journalists, politicians, bureaucrats, and protestors sent us through all of Ku...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —That Word Again!— Amnesty International accuses us of being murderous racists committing crimes against humanity but, then, what's a little constructive crit...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and returning prodigal son, Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss  three  two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Tantura— "I was a murderer. I did not take prisoners," says a man who, in 1948, was a soldier for Israel in Tantura. —Les...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and returning prodigal son, Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Can't Spell 'Plea Bargain' Without 'Rage' and 'Pain'— Why are so many people so mad about a possible plea bargain that would ke...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. —Memorial Matters— There never was, and will never be, anyone like Yoram Taharlev, May his Memory Be for a Blessing. —In the Heights— Prime Minister Naftali Bennett exults that "This is the moment of the Golan Heights...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —From Ramallah to Rosh Ha-'Ayin— Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz meet in Gantz's living room. Cause for hope...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and Sally Abed discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon Link to Give to Standing Together   —This Would Not Have Happened a Year Ago— United Arab List head, Dr. Mansour Abbas, says that Israel always has been, and alway...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and and returning prodigal son, Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —"A Mandate" Anagrams to "A Tad Mean"— Israel's Corona Czar says the time has come to consider a "vaccine mandate." Is...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Listen to the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —F*ck'm!— Former US President Donald Trump says that former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never wanted to make peace, and doesn't know the me...