- 1 hour 46 minutesThe "Great Things" Edition
Miriam and Noah talk about: 1) The "great deal" that US President Donald Trump struck with Iran, being a Memorandum of Understanding that does what now?, and (2) The resurgence of "communal singing" in Israel, and what it says about the state of our souls, and how nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
Plus: Old books, young love and memories on the highest rooftop in Tel Aviv!
18 June 2026, 2:24 pm - 1 hour 23 minutesThe "Linkages" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about: 1) Our strange, short, truncated warlet with Iran this week, and 2) New findings that point to a weird entanglement between Israeli attitudes towards climate change and our attitudes towards Netanyahu, the courts, the ultra-orthodox and most everything else we argue about here.
Plus: An old-new life for Kibbutz Manara and hip new music by the graduates of a not-known-for-being-hip youth movement, Noam.
11 June 2026, 2:15 pm - 1 hour 14 minutesThe "Saw It on YouTube!" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about President Yitzhak Herzog's alarmed warning that we are turning into animals, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's very viral election ad, about how leftist-wing sorts make right-wing sorts feel like less.
Plus: Remembering our friend, the ain't-no-one-like-her, poet-painter-peace-activist-therapist-story-teller Lisa Fliegel. Plus the good karma of Yonatan Razel as he convalesces in Shaarei Tzedek hospital.
4 June 2026, 2:56 pm - 1 hour 28 minutesThe "Fronts" Edition
Linda, Noah and Judah Ari Gross talk about the war with Iran and the peace with Gaza, and how US President Donald Trump's diplomatic ADD makes it close to impossible for anything good to come of our miserable wars.
Plus: Drawing hope from frogs, philanthropists and hotel buffet breakfasts. And some great new music.
28 May 2026, 2:04 pm - 1 hour 51 minutesThe "Can the Center Hold?" Edition
Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron try to make sense of why long-time allies and fellow-travelers of former Alternate Prime Minister and former IDF Chief-of-Staff Benny Gantz have lately left the Blue & White Party, wondering if it is the man or what he stands for. Then they are joined by special guest star Rabbi Joe Wolfson of JLIC-TLV to try and make sense of the many secular and egalitarian Tikkunei Leil Shavuot, all night sessions of study, song, discussion and meditation that have become so popular over the past years asking, what exactly are those things about?
Plus the changing face of Shavuot over the years and a few things that moved us over the week. And some great new music.
20 May 2026, 3:12 pm - 1 hour 40 minutesThe "Paths to Perdition" Edition
Miriam, Noah, and Deputy Director of the Geneva Initiative Tehila Wenger talk about: 1) The controversial opinion piece in the Times suggesting that Israeli guards and soldiers sexually assault Palestinian prisoners, and 2) Why Jerusalem Day has become an almost sectarian holiday for religious Zionists.
Plus remembering Marie Nahmias and a few things that moved us over the week.
14 May 2026, 1:49 pm - 1 hour 46 minutesThe "School Daze" Edition
Allison, Noah and (for some of the time) special star-ringer Professor Gordon Lafer talk about: 1) How the war with Iran seems to have quickened a surprisingly close strategic relationship between Israel and the UAE, and 2) How Israel is these days seen on college campuses, from the quad to the student union to the seminar room to the faculty lounge.
Plus an ambivalent tribute to artist Yair Garbuz and a few things that moved us over the week.
7 May 2026, 3:38 pm - 1 hour 21 minutesThe "This Feeling is Called Hope" Edition
Linda and Noah talk about 1) President Yitzhak Herzog's split-the-baby reply to Prime Minister Netanyahu's request for a pardon, saying he will host and mediate plea bargain negotiations: Is this clever or craven? 2) The announcement that former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid will run together in the upcoming elections, with Bennett atop the list, and whether the whole they make is bigger or smaller than the sum of its parts.
Plus new songs with words by lately fallen soldiers, a kid in Beirut who asks the IDF to blow up her school, and talking peace in Area C.
30 April 2026, 1:43 pm - 1 hour 34 minutesThe "Men & Gods" Edition
Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron talk about 1) The imposed cease-fires, and whether Israelis ought to worry we're becoming a vassal state, and 2) What explains why an IDF soldier thought it was right, or maybe just amusing, to take a sledgehammer to a statue of Jesus in a yard in a village in Lebanon.
Plus the joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Ceremony, an out of control bus-driver, and the lovely debut record of rising-star Noa Carsenti.
23 April 2026, 2:15 pm - 1 hour 33 minutesThe "Bombs and Balms" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about 1) Whether or not, as an essay in the New York Times suggests, war has become "not a strategy but the norm" for Israel, (2) The World Happiness Reports finding that Israelis remain among the happiest people on earth, including after October 7th: Why is this?
Plus Yom Hashoah, Yom Ha-Atzmaut and Noga Erez rocking Coachella!
16 April 2026, 2:16 pm - 1 hour 35 minutesThe "War is Over! (If You Ignore a Thing or Two)" Edition
Linda and Noah talk about: 1) The abrupt, maybe fleeting, end to the war with Iran, and what it means, and 2) The "Death Penalty for Terrorists" law recently passed by the Knesset (and destined to be struck down by the Supreme Court), and what it means.
Plus a wedding that changed a culture, a boy gone missing, and life underground.
9 April 2026, 1:22 pm - More Episodes? Get the App