The Promised Podcast

Linda Gradstein, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Prisoner's Dilemma— A new Israeli proposal to bring home hostages puts the brakes on the war and signs some sort of pact with the Saudis. So why are religiou...

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. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Golan Heights?— We just witnessed the huge victory of IDF Reserve Major-General and former deputy chief-of-staff Yair Golan in the primary for Labor leaders...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Gantz and Gallant Game the Endgame— Two of five of the members of Israel's "War Cabinet" tell Prime Minister Netanyahu that he has to figure out what comes nex...

Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Now, Rafah— What are we to make of Israel's rolling incursion into Rafah? Oy. —On Film— There's a new hour-long movie about the rape and sexual assault of Israeli women on Oc...

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. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Days of Awe— What do Yom Ha-Zikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom Ha-Atzmaut (Independence Day) mean in this annus horribilis? How can we celebrate, now? —School D...

To mark Yom Ha-Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Noah describes the decades-long path Israelis followed to come to terms with the Holocaust, culminating in a record in 1988, fully 43 years after the camps were freed. (Out of concern for the environment, this episode is reused and recycled, though not reduced.)

At Passover Seders all around the world, a place setting was laid before a chair left empty for one of the 133 hostages held in Gaza. We look back at the 200 days of anguish, hope, and despair that divide Simchat Torah on October 7 from this week's holiday.

Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. —Going Too Farsi? (Or, the Persian Incursion)— We — with the help of the US, UK, Jordan and other capable allies — buffly rebuffed the biggest missile and drone attack on Israel ever. But what does it tell us about the past and augur for th...

Marking six months since the massacres and the start of the war, 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. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Us, Here— Whether and how we Israelis have changed, in light of all that has happened. Are we different than we we...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Families 2.0— The organization of the families of the hostages has decided to change strategies, linking its campaign to bring the hostages home to the campaig...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and newly-minted Doctor of Thinkology Gilad Halpern discuss 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   —Abstention Dissension— There seems to be a very fast decline in US-Israel relations, after the Americans abstain on a UN Secu...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and ubermensch writer Bradley Burston discuss 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   —Despite It All, Peace?— Is all we are sayin', just give peace a chance? —Amalek— Is it like reverse anti-Semitism? —The End of Israel— For...

Miriam Herschlag, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss 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   —אַ סוף צו אַ גאָלדען עלטער אין אַ גאלדענע מדינה— This month's Atlantic cover story argues that the "Golden Age" for American Jews has come to a close and, w...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Jerusalem, Mon Amour?— What's it mean that Jerusalem just elected to its city council a straight-up majority of ultra-Orthodox men? —Reckoning?— Is it time f...

Miriam Herschlag, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Going Local— They say that, in a democracy, even the most humble among us can be elected to public office. Now we know it's true! —Mayor for Life— Few posit...

138 days in, The Promised Podcast looks back.   —Premonition— —City of Slaughter— —Sally— —The Wheat Grows Again— —The Battalion's WhatsApp—

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Elections Now?— Billboards all over the country and full-page ads in the papers call for new elections now. Is this a good idea? —The Draft on the Draft: Get...

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. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Negotiating With Terrorists— Hamas finally sets out their demands in exchange for releasing the 136 living-and-dead Israeli hostages dragged to Gaza from their homes. Is there any...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss 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   —A Few Murderous Apples— A dozen United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) workers killed, raped and kidnapped on October 7, and one in four Gazan men who...

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. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —General Malaise— Former IDF Chief of Staff and member of Israel's "War Cabinet" says the government is not telling us the truth or making the right decision...

Linda Gradstein, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Why Did the Army Fail Us?— The first job of the army is to protect us at our borders. —Why Do We Still Believe In the IDF?— Even after everything went wrong,...

Miriam Herschlag, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Phase III— The last phase of the Israel-Hamas war is starting. Why don't we feel relieved? —South Africa v. Israel— Eighty years after the Holocaust ended,...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Basic— Israel's Supreme Court decides, by the thinnest of margins, to overturn an amendment to a "Basic Law" passed by the Knesset. Is that a good thing? —Oc...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss 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   —Back to the Basics of Bouncing Bibi?— Do you oust the man who is leading you in war? —"Under Renovation"— Does Israel have any Left left at all? —Watching th...

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   —What They Think About Us— More than half college-age American kids think Israel should be "ended and given to Hamas"? Really? —What They Think About Them— 72...