The Promised Podcast

Allison, Noah & Tel Aviv Review Host Gilad Halpern  discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Cities of Sanctity, Cities of Sin We discuss President Reuven Rivlin's suggestion that each city, town or neighbourhood decide for themselves how much attention to pay to religion; Is it time to let Tel Aviv be Tel Av...

Allison, Don and Noah  discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.   Israel is Burning We discuss the befuddled responses of politicians and our own to the 630 fires that blazed throughout Israel last week, some of which may have been set by arsonists wishing Israel harm. Our Identity Crisis We p onder the most...

Allison,  Don and Noah  discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Repealing Godwin's Law: How Do We Know When That "Again" We Never Want to See Has Arrived? We ask whether we owe it to our ancestors who were swallowed by the Holocaust to decry Trump, Bannon, et. al., as shoving us down the slippery slope into...

Allison,  Noah and Times of Israel Ops & Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.   The Odeum and the Odium: Israel's National Theater Live in the Settlements! We discuss the controversy over Israel's national theater company, Habima, performing in the most settlement-y of all th...

Allison, Noah and Tel Aviv Review host Gilad Halpern discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Lessons of the Trumpocalypse In what may be a historic first of an entire podcast episode recorded in fetal position, we wonder what we Israeli leftists can learn from the painful, frightening and massive defeat of t...

Allison, Noah and Don discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Jailing for the "Hate Wedding"? We ask whether the revelers at a settler wedding who were filmed waving guns, stabbing a picture of a murdered Palestinian baby, and singing incendiary songs should be prosecuted for their loathsome display, or inst...

Allison, Noah and Tel Aviv Review host Gilad Halpern discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Saving us from ourselves? We ponder with angst the decision of the director of human rights group B'Tselem to implore the UN Security Council to act forcefully against Israel, in order to bring about an end to the Oc...

Allison, Noah and Times of Israel Ops & Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. You say, "Al Aqsa," I say, "The Temple" Wonder what to make of the recent resolution by UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – chastising Israel for its treat...

Allison, Don and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. The Triumphs of Benjamin Netanyahu A recent essay asserted that PM Netanyahu's foreign policy has been much more successful than most Israelis realize, and that Bibi has guided Israel with a sure hand in tumultuous times. Could the Israeli Left be...

Allison, Don and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Show me a dreamer: The legacy of Shimon Peres, z"l We ponder the complicated legacy of Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres - for the country and, especially, for the left. Not being there The head of the Arab Joint List in the Knesset, Ayman...

Allison, Don and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Netanyahu to the UN: "You like us! You really like us!" In his startling speech at the UN, Prime Minister Netanyahu argued that the nations of the world really love us, even if they haven't noticed yet. Might he have a point? Shuttling Hassids for...

Don, Noah and journalist-extraordinaire Naomi Zeveloff discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. 38 billion bucks A $38 billion, ten-year military aid agreement has just been reached by Israel and the US. We discuss whether or not, in the long run, it makes Israel stronger - does more money really buy more sec...

Allison, Don and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Judenrein Palestine? Nein! PM Netanyahu released a YouTube video claiming that Palestinians advocate the "ethnic cleansing" of Jewish settlers as a precondition of peace negotiations: It's nutty diplomacy, but might he have a point about the posit...

Allison, Don and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Left behind? New polls show the Israeli left crashing and burning. What accounts for this recent slide in support, and what should the traditional Left be doing about it? From Zion shall come what ? The Israeli state is funding organizations that ...

Noah, author and professor Alon Tal, and legendary tour guide William Slott discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Too many Israelis? We discuss Tal's important, new book The Land is Full , claiming that we need fewer Israelis, not more, and that government policy ought to be changed to stem Aliyah and lowe...

Noah, TLV1's Gilad Halpern and The Forward's Naomi Zeveloff discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Ordination is the new B.A. Israel's Minister of Interior Aryeh Deri, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, has issued a ministerial executive order to count advanced Yeshiva education and Rabbinic ordination as eq...

Noah, TLV1's Gilad Halpern and Times of Israel Ops & Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Lapdogs of democracy We discuss the uncertain future of the new Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation, and the uncertain future of freedom of the press in Israel. What sort of a press d...

Noah, TLV1's Gilad Halpern and Times of Israel Ops & Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. IDF to Knesset: Shut up already! "We shall keep the rabbis in their synagogues and the generals in their barracks," Herzl wrote in 1896. Now, 120 years later, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eis...

Don, Noah and Times of Israel Ops & Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Expelled We discuss Israel's new "Impeachment Law," passed by Knesset members to allow Knesset members to prevent Knesset members from remaining Knesset members. Leaving the Left A slew of prominent and...

Allison, Don, and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Who killed social justice? Did the 2011 "social protests" – which began five years ago this week – leave any real mark on the country? If not, who is to blame? An officer and a chauvinist The new Chief Rabbi of the IDF and a rabbi who runs an arm...

Allison, Don, and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Into Africa PM Netanyahu recently visited Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. Is this part of a "periphery strategy" that aims to build relationships with the under-democratic developing world, as ties to Europe and the US seem to be deteriorati...

Allison, Don, and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Kids in beds How can we understand the failure of Palestinian leaders to condemn the brutal murder of a 13-year-old Jewish girl in her bed? Is deprizing the Left despising the Left? Ben-Gurion University president Rivka Carmi stripped human right...

Allison, Don, and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Brexit and the Jewish Question We discuss the various lessons Israelis are drawing for our own politics and our own futures from the Brexit vote (because, in the end, isn't everything really about us?). The forefathers are your fathers Why do sec...

Allison, Don, and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. I think I'm turning Haredi! Although a great many people fear that our schools, army, courts, and public square are undergoing an inexorable process of "religification," do the facts on the ground really justify these fears? And if not, where doe...

Allison, Don, and Noah discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Terrorists in Tel Aviv? A pleasure! We discuss reactions to last week's heartbreaking terrorist murders at Tel Aviv's Sarona Market. Why were some people here inspired to write on social media such bons mots as "So long as it's in Tel Aviv: A ple...