The Promised Podcast

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and star journalist 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   —Smells Like Zionist Spirit— Two small right-wing parties join to form "The Zionist Spirit". What's that all about? —Gimme Shelter— A judge...

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   —One Man's Extremist— Prime Minister Yair Lapid says he'll form a government "without extremists." What could possibly be wrong with that? —If I Can't Dance— 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. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Ben-Gvir, Bistu Schein?— The popularity of a one time acolyte of Rabbi Meir Kahane is growing leaps and bounds. Why? —Energy Drain— Why are the leaders of Is...

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   —Biden' Time— What is US President Joe Biden's visit to Israel much ado about, nothin' or sumpin'? —New Blue, or the Great White Hope— What do you get when a centr...

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   —The Torch Has Been Passed— Yair Lapid, once a weight-lifting, party-going, celebrity hunk, is sworn in as Israel's 14 th  Prime Minister. What a long strang...

Sally, Miriam, Ohad, Don and Noah tell stories of people who made and make our lives worth living. Plus, duets and collaborations by singers we love. (If the stories sound familiar, it is because, as renowned folklorist Joseph Campbell said, there are tales that live deep in our collective unconscious, that all of us know without being told. That, and because we've played them on the podcast in th...

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   —Going to the Polls!— Prime Minister Bennett decides to throw in the towel and take the country to new elections. What does it say about what was, what is, and...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and prodigal son Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida 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   —Dead Man Governing?— Is it time for Naftali Bennett to say when? —"I Am Not Mentally Ill!"— Why is ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suin...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and 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   —Temporary Regulations Make Temporary Governments— Israel's government fails to renew temporary provisional regulations first put into plac...

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...