What Matters Now

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 ToI editor David Horovitz . How do you cover a war when no objective, proven journalists are allowed to report independently in the war zone? And when one side of the conflict -- a terrorist regime -- floods international media with its narra...

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 Hebrew University Prof. Elie Podeh. Podeh, the Bamberger and Fuld professor in the History of the Muslim Peoples, recently published a research article, "Israel’s 2005 Disengagement from Gaza: A Multilateral Move Under Unilateral Fa&cce...

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 ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur . Last week, US President Donald Trump completed a four-day trip to the Middle East, his first official state visit of his second term. He struck economic deals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Em...

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 Eurovision mega-fan Tal Dahan, straight from Basel. Dahan is a volunteer reporter with the Hebrew-language EuroMix website, which has been the number one source for Israelis about the Eurovision for decades. This year marks Israel's 47th time...

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 Elana Kaminka, peace activist and bereaved mother. On October 7, 2023, Elana's firstborn son, Lt. Yannai Kaminka, 20 , a commander in the Home Front Command, was killed battling against Hamas at the Zikim IDF training base. His efforts and th...

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 coordinator of The Times of Israel's Those We Have Lost project, Amy Spiro, for this special episode in honor of Israel's Memorial Day to Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror. We explain about the genesis of our Those We Have Lost projec...

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 Prof. Manuela Consonni, director of Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Consonni, a leading scholar of Holocaust memory, gender, and post-war European culture, decided to mark Yom Hashoah...

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 Mitch Ginsburg, a producer at the Israel Story podcast. Ginsburg, a former military reporter for The Times of Israel, brings us a special episode from Israel's flagship podcast series, called The Hebrew Hobbit: A Passover Special. In it,...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg speaking with Idit Ohel, mother of hostage Alon Ohel. Ohel talks about her son, who was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival.  Ohel discusses what she knows about the injuries sustain...

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 author and scholar Dara Horn. Horn is the author of novels and non-fiction, including “People Love Dead Jews,” “Eternal Life,” “A Guide for the Perplexed,” and now her first book for young rea...

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg hosting and speaking with Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of released hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen. Dekel-Chen, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was a vocal and visible hostage parent throughout the months of his son's captivity. Sagui Dekel-Chen...

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 The Times of Israel editor David Horovitz. Recording at noon in ToI's Jerusalem office ahead of a planned fateful cabinet vote on the firing of Shin Bet head Ronen Bar tonight, Horovitz attempts to summarize this fraught Israeli...

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 philosopher and author Dr. Micah Goodman. As 24 living hostages languish in Gaza, Israel finds itself at a crossroads: Will the nation sign a deal with the terrorist group the Jewish state is bent on destroying or return to war...

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 ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. At a Cairo summit of Arab leaders on Tuesday, a consensus of states adopted an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza that would cost $53 billion and avoid displacing Palestinians from the e...

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 film critic Jordan Hoffman. Ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards on Sunday night, The Times of Israel's film critic gives his predictions on which of the five films related to Israel or the Jews will have any chance of taking home a...

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 senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. Ahead of a fateful day for Israelis in which Hamas for the first time will release the bodies of hostages who died on October 7, 2023, or in captivity, including potentially the Bibas family, Ret...

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 senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. On February 4, 2025, US President Donald Trump made a bombshell proposal to resettle the population of Gaza . The announcement caught the world by surprise and over a week later, no one is entire...

Welcome to a bonus episode of 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 senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. This week, we answer a slew of listeners' responses to our conversation last week, " Excruciating dilemmas as murderers set to be released, " about the painful issue of the rel...

Welcome to a bonus episode of 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 Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Dayan is leading Yad Vashem's delegation to Auschwitz to observe the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the death camp's libera...

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 comedian/filmmaker Adir Miller and his mother Marianne Miller, a child Holocaust survivor. On January 27, Marianne -- a well-known Israeli speaker and educator -- will address the United Nations General Assembly on International...

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 The Times of Israel's senior analyst, Haviv Rettig Gur . When this podcast conversation was recorded, the deal between Israel and Hamas for a hostage release and temporary ceasefire in Gaza had not actually been signed and seale...

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 The Times of Israel's senior analyst, Haviv Rettig Gur. This week, a committee appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to examine defense spending and IDF military force design for the future announced that the election o...

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 The Times of Israel's founding editor David Horovitz. Five years ago this week, The Times of Israel launched its Daily Briefing podcast to keep listeners updated on the latest news out of Israel and the region, from Sunday throu...

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 Yochay Sponder . After the 2012 Gaza War, the comedian began using his talent to make people laugh as a tool for pro-Israel advocacy in his heavily Hebrew-flavored English. This work has only ramped up since th...

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 Andrew Fox. Fox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, served in the British Army from 2005 to 2021, completing three tours in Afghanistan, including one attached to the US Army Special Forces. At the transatlantic thi...