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As westerners, as Jews, as supporters of Israel, we should know more about the Kabyle people, the largest of North Africa’s indigenous Amazigh groups, part of the Berber people.

On December 14th 2025, Kabylia declared independence from Algeria.

With their own language, culture, and a centuries-long tradition of autonomy, the Kabyle have maintained a distinct identity despite repeated periods of foreign rule and the oppression which always follows.

Is there future at a turning point.

Rogue state Algeria has sharply escalated its repression of the Kabyle people’s political, cultural, and religious life with churches forcibly closed and leaders in civil society facing escalating intimidation. Many detained without due process, and political expression increasingly criminalized.

And now, in the midst of this pressure, Kabylia issued a Declaration of Independence.

They believe in Britain’s moral authority and so a delegation came to our parliament in London.

The delegation waited until the final hour to learn whether Paris-based President-in-Exile, Furhat Merhenni would receive his UK visa in time.

But he didn’t get it.

But the story moves forward.

To understand what this moment means for Kabylia, for Algeria, and for the region, I spoke Murad Amellal, Chief of Staff to President Merhenni and his Special Envoy.

In our conversation, he walks us through the stakes, the strategy, and the sentiment around the world as Kabylia approaches what he calls a defining chapter in its modern political journey.

But there are big questions:

* If the leadership isn’t physically there, what does a Declaration of Independence actually do in practice?

* With the President-in-Exile, what happens next?

* If the declaration were issued on Algerian soil, just how would Algeria move to suppress it?

* How does President Merhenni’s role compare to leaders in Israel’s early statehood? Who is Ben-Gurion, Begin or Herzl?

* And find out why the Kabyle people’s cultural, linguistic and religious background embrace western values not those of Islamic extremism.

All that—and more—in my rangy conversation with Murad Amellal.

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Jonny Gould's Jewish State is supported by Dangoor Education and UK Toremet, promoting philanthropy.

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Today we explore the legacy of Joe Lieberman and the documentary movie Centered about his life. He remains to this day the only orthodox Jew to stand for vice president of the United States, on the ticket with fellow Democrat Al Gore, losing by the narrowest and most controversial of margins to George W. Bush.

And how he may have stood again as a Republican candidate alongside John McCain later in his career.

Centered, directed by Jonathan Gruber, who also made the brilliant Upheaval, the story of Menachem Begin, captures Joe Lieberman’s lifelong devotion to public service, moral conviction, and pragmatic leadership.

I was delighted to meet Rob Schwartz in London as the movie was screened here for the first time, a close friend of Joe Lieberman and a trusted partner through decades of public life.

Rob’s insider’s perspective as Senator Lieberman’s chief of staff, bring depth, warmth, and intimate understanding to his legacy celebrated in Centered.

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The BBC's top brass have lost their jobs over the institutionalised bias of their news coverage. But their news output which made them so famous and trusted around the world has let the rest of the corporation down for a very long time.

Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of News, Deborah Turness resigned over a series of scandals exposed by a memo written by Michael Prescott and leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

As a supporter of Israel, you'll have known for a long, long time how their news produced hostile output about the Jewish State - and today we meet a man who has dedicated his career to listening, watching and reading BBC Arabic's astonishingly antisemitic output.

He's CAMERA's Senior Arabic Researcher and he goes by an alias, "David Grom". CAMERA is The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.

I have bleeped out his real name both for his own protection and for the sad reality that we live in an incessant time of cancellation.

"David" talks about his editorial achievements, what he's found, particularly since October 7th and how "artwashing" is a growing part of anti-Israel sentiment in the growing arena of the podcast.

Jonny Gould's Jewish State is supported by you, Dangoor Education and UK Toremet, promoting philanthropy.

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A chunk of my background, both personal and professional, has been washed away.

I didn’t think football was supposed to hurt like this.

Banning a mere thousand or less Israeli football fans from Villa Park for a Europa League tie is a cause for deep sorrow.

But not just for me, an Aston Villa fan through my Holocaust-surviving grandfather who setup his typewriter shop bang next to Aston Station on the Lichfield Road, but for this generation of Villa fans and those to come.

Because football is supposed to be a thrilling, entertaining source of pride.

Not a dispensary for anger and shame, of imported hate and community breakdown.

Is the Beautiful Game still beautiful?

My generation and those that came before had the best of it. We enjoyed league title wins, European glory and trips to Wembley.

But it would have meant nothing without the communal joy and camaraderie it spawned.

And for this Jewish kid, it was a high voltage plug-in to the prevailing, sometimes overwhelming culture of my city beyond my upbringing.

So accepting they were of me, that by the age of 21, I was reporting my beloved team from the press box for the radio station covering the West Midlands and Shropshire.

When I returned as a national reporter to the old Trinity Road box years later, the stewards, dear old men, bowled me over with their effusive welcome back. Like that beautiful Archibald Leitch-designed stand, their unvarnished spirit is gone.

So this is my own very personal sadness about what football and the city that helped shape me has become.

The English game shunned politics, now it’s buried by it.

Snarling Islamist boycotters - an elected MP is trashing what was good here. For what?

They think it’s all over. It is now.

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The anger we feel as British Jews has reached a head as we mourn the two congregants from Heaton Park, who were killed on Yom Kippur inside the synagogue.

This episode also includes the regrettable appearance of David Lammy, the deputy prime minister in front of a furious community in north Manchester. Jonny Gould's Jewish State is proudly supported by Dangoor Education, the Rosemarie Nathanson Charitable Trust and UK Toremet, promoting philanthropy.

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Benjamin Netanyahu has called the recognition of a Palestinian state led by western nations 'sheer madness' - it shows 'murdering Jews pays off.' he added in defiant disgust.

All this as the United Nations General Assembly disgraced itself again as scores of so-called diplomats walked out en masse jeering, sounding more like a wrestling match than the highest chamber of world diplomacy - as Mr. Netanyahu began his address.

As you’ll hear Israel’s Prime Minister took apart the cowardice and appeasement which lies behind western leader’s recognition of Palestine.

Meanwhile, President Trump's 21-point peace plan for Gaza, unveiled at the UN to Arab and Muslim leaders, seeks a swift end to the October 7th war.

Listen to his first reaction to its unveiling and the Prime Minister's tough and uncompromising speech in front of the UNGA.

Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is supported by Dangoor Education and UK Toremet, promoting philanthropy.

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As Jews prepared for Rosh Hashanah around the world, the leaders of the UK, Canada and Australia declared for Palestine.

Rounding up the reaction from London and Jerusalem on a day millions feared would come, here's a bonus episode.

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Tanya Gold’s provocative article, Shameless: Exploiting the Holocaust is in the Autumn 2025 edition of the Jewish Quarterly, the magazine of stories, ideas, and debates shaping Jewish culture and history.

Tanya takes aim at the state of Holocaust fiction — think Schindler’s List, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Tattooist of Auschwitz. 

She passionately argues these stories push Jewish victims to the margins all too often, centering on non-Jewish heroes or romanticized narratives that soften the Shoah’s brutal reality. 

Why do these polished, mainstream tales dominate the raw, firsthand accounts of survivors like Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, or Zalmen Gradowski? 

And with antisemitism surging and Holocaust education under revisionist pressure from social media, what does it mean when these works are staples in UK classrooms? 

Let’s explore the ethics of Holocaust storytelling, and ask: are we remembering the past—or rewriting it?

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Jonny Gould's Jewish State is supported by Dangoor Education and UK Toremet. 

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The Labour government has a super majority in Britain’s House of Commons, the sixth biggest of all time, similar to Tony Blair’s in 1997 - but that makes it prone to backbench rebellion.

Even within its first year of government. As we’ve seen.

And as Sir Keir Starmer failed to win support to get his original welfare bill over the line, with big U turns on an inquiry into grooming gangs and winter fuel payments to the elderly, there’s also that queasy feeling when it comes to his government and Israel.

When Bob Vylan’s murderous chanting live on stage at Glastonbury was transmitted on the BBC, Wes Streeting’s shock reaction was that Israel’s embassy should get its house in order.

And now the Prime Minister has declared that Britain will recognise a Palestinian State unless Israel ceases its war on terror in Gaza.

That Starmer is trying to use recognition as a blackmail tool is not just monstrous - but from a parallel world to reality.

Hamas are delighted, they describe it as the fruits of their October 7th pogrom, no less.

So the PM's actions only serve to prolong the war, for generations, using Israel as a geopolitical football, just to head off a backbench rebellion and appease leading cabinet members who’d usurp him as leader if given the chance.

How do you feel about Labour? Did you vote for them?

Here are two Labour MPs who hold strong views which go against the prevailing winds.

I met Sharon Hodgson and Joani Reid at The Actions Matter Summit held in Vienna in December 2024, working for ELNET UK, the European Leadership Network. Their European arm organised it in partnership with the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

These interviews were recorded in the fraught weeks before British Israeli hostage Emily Damari was released from Gazan hell, a desperate crisis which really struck a deep chord with Sharon.

And Joani is the ultimate conviction politician. Her consituency in East Kilbride has no Jewish community and she has no Jewish family. She's a former councillor in Lewisham, so why is she so vocal in support of Jewish people?

Jonny Gould's Jewish State is supported by Dangoor Education and UK Toremet.

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Today, we’re honoured to share the agonising recollections of Keith and Aviva Siegel, survivors of Hamas captivity in Gaza.

They came to London and addressed the media at the Israeli Embassy in Kensington.

Abducted from their Kibbutz Kfar Aza home on October 7, 2023, Aviva endured 51 days, Keith 484, facing starvation, abuse, and torture, even attempts to force conversion to Islam.

Now reunited, they talk tirelessly for hostages still held.

I won’t sugar coat or redact any of what they said.

It’s most distressing in places. It brought me to tears when they talked about the Bibas family.

But please don’t turn off, don’t look away. Share with as many as you can because as Aviva says, if Hamas are allowed to do this, a worldwide tyranny becomes allowed and tolerated.

This is their mission to bring every hostage home.

Jonny's podcasts rely entirely on your generous support.⁠ Buy Jonny a coffee⁠, so he can keep making them. Thank you. Jonny Gould's Jewish State is proudly supported by Dangoor Education, the Rosemarie Nathanson Charitable Trust and UK Toremet, promoting philanthropy.

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Find all of Jonny's podcasts, recorded since 2018 and his writing by following his Substack. You can help support him with a coffee here!

It's the third year of Jonny Gould's Jewish State Schools Podcaster of the Year, presented with Dangoor Education.

Our winner from Year 6 is 10-year-old Meira Masher from Independent Jewish Day School in Hendon, London and she secured time for us with an international cricketer with an extraordinary story.

Mandy Yachad wore tzitzit at the crease while batting for South Africa. They’re on display at Lords, the Home of Cricket, in a permanent exhibition. Of course he played at Lord’s - wearing them!

And Mandy was no ordinary player.

He was an opening batsman who scored 14 centuries and 32 fifties in his 16-year first class career, spanning 109 matches - mostly during the apartheid era.

With much of his career falling during the international sporting boycott of South Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mandy was denied the opportunity during the prime of his career.

Mandy was named among the South African Cricket Annual five Players of the Year both in 1985 and 1991. He also played 21 times for his country at hockey too.

He eventually quit because he became religious and found it too difficult to observe shabbat.

Now at 64 with a lifetime of special memories, how does he reflect on his career? What's South Africa like these days and what was it like to grow up in an apartheid state?

This is Mandy Yachad in conversation with our winner, Meira Masher.

Find all of Jonny's podcasts, recorded since 2018 and his writing by following his ⁠Substack.⁠ You can help⁠ support him with a coffee⁠ here!

Jonny Gould's Jewish State is proudly supported by the Rosemarie Nathanson Charitable Trust.

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