What Matters Now

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, founding editor David Horovitz speaks with CEO of the British Board of Deputies Michael Wegier. Wegier has been the CEO of the Board, the umbrella organization representing Anglo-Jewry, for the past five years -- an increasingly fraught period, especially since October 7,...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with legal expert Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy . Almost immediately following Hamas’s murderous onslaught on southern Israel, humanitarian law expert Elkayam-Levy established and now heads The Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Cri...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, the Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy, Nickolay Ml...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur . On Sunday, former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced a joint run for this year's Israeli elections.  Immediately, polling showed that the combined electoral sl...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with author Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Rachel Goldberg-Polin began writing her new book, "When We See You Again ," as a way of finding some relief from her pain after she buried her son, 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was executed by his Hamas ca...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with journalist and debut author Aron Heller . Some 1.5 million Jewish soldiers fought for the Allies in World War II, and 250,000 of them died in battle. One of those who fought and returned was Heller's grandfather, Mickey Heller....

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with comic Shahar Cohen. Comedian Shahar Cohen, raised in Jerusalem and living in Tel Aviv, spoofs Israeli life and society. He dons wigs and plays a cast of mostly female characters who represent the range of Israeli society. In a wide-ranging inte...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl. Buchdahl speaks about being a rabbinic figure and representative of the mainstream American Jewry, particularly while on book tour for her recently published memoir, "Heart of a Stranger, An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Fait...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, the Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy Nickolay Mla...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host  Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and journalist Matti Friedman. The first half of our episode is dedicated to an in-depth discussion of Friedman's newest book, " Out of the Sky ," set for publication next week. The book is a deep dive into the meaning and myth s...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Bret Stephens, a The New York Times columnist and the editor-in-chief of Sapir magazine. Recent polling indicates that only roughly half of Americans support the US-Israel war against Iran's Islamist regime. Stephens weighs in on why the curr...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Einat Wilf, a former MK, author and CEO of the newly formed Oz party. Wilf describes the potential fall of the Iranian Islamic Republic's regime as a shift in the magnitude of the fall of the Soviet Union. We discuss the seismic ripple effect...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and public intellectual Micah Goodman. In the sixth day of the United States and Israel's joint war against the Iranian Islamic Republic, Goodman takes stock and allows himself to wonder: What if we actually won this war against the ev...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Oscar film nominee Meyer Levinson-Blount. “Butcher’s Stain" is nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the 2026 Oscars, after winning second place in the narrative category of the Student Academy Awards in the fall. The film fo...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. We begin the conversation with a bleak update on how Gazans are f...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Alice Miller, the CEO of Natan Worldwide Disaster Relief. Miller is nationally known for her landmark Supreme Court case in 1995, which opened the gates of the Israel Air Force to female fighter pilots. This decision paved the way for today's...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Unholy podcast hosts Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland. In this episode, Channel 12 news anchor Levi and Guardian columnist and BBC Radio 4's Jonathan Freedland look back on five years of podcasting together on "Unholy: Two Jews on the News," t...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur . The body of the final hostage, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, was recovered from the Gaza Strip this week and buried on Wednesday in his hometown of Meitar. Rettig Gur delves into the deep Jewis...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, we dive into the 12-member National Committee for the...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Israel Story producer Mitch Ginsburg. On February 20, 1979, the last 33 Israelis returned from Tehran upon the forced closure of the Israeli embassy. After the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khoumeini's new regime, the Israeli trade...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with stand-up comedian Liz Glazer, who is coming soon to Israel as part of the annual Comedy for Koby tour. On stage and off, the former law prof -- a graduate of New York's stalwart Modern Orthodox Ramaz high school -- is loudly and...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib , the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, we dive into the five likely scenarios that could play...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with cookbook author Adeena Sussman. In this conversation with the bestselling author of "Sababa" and "Shabbat," Sussman discusses the intersection of cooking, culture, and personal experiences as she continues melding her American Jewish background...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with James Pasch , the Anti-Defamation League's vice president of litigation. Pasch, is currently in Israel to meet with the plaintiffs in a massive lawsuit the ADL initiated against Iran, North Korea, Syria and Hamas, for their part in the Octobe...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host  Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Dr. Gilad Malach, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. Malach's research focuses on public policy related to Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, including issues critical to its integration into Israel's economy and socie...