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 and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

The United States is electing its next president on November 5 and according to a poll published this week, Israelis massively favor Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.

So ahead of next week's results, we take a closer look at exactly how Israelis are polling, which candidate they favor -- and some reasons why. We also learn how the current polling matches previous surveys of Israelis ahead of past US elections and who was actually elected in the end.

We also hear from Rettig Gur, who has been touring Jewish communities over the past week, what concerns he's gathered about both candidates from the American Jews he's spoken with.

And finally, we look at the recently published AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of Americans which, among other things, drills down into the US population's partisan divide on all things Israel and Middle East.

So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: This combination of pictures shows US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaking during a Get Out the Vote rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on October 30, 2024, and former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024. (Angela Weiss / AFP)

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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 and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

This week, a sukka that was reportedly put up by the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace caused a social media storm because of the cynical use of Palestinian iconography on a hut that was plastered with symbols of the Sukkot holiday and phrases in English and Yiddish. Rettig Gur weighs in on why this misuse of a (not kosher) temporary hut so irks many Jews.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated during a meeting with President Isaac Herzog and in other forums in his whirlwind Israel trip this week that the death of Hamas head Yahya Sinwar offers a window of opportunity to shift the course of the war.

We discuss how the US's input wouldn't have allowed the IDF to enter Rafah, where Sinwar was eliminated, and the frustrations felt by Israelis for a perceived shackling of Israel's capabilities.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: A sukka reportedly put up by Jewish Voice for Peace on a US campus that caused a social media storm, October 2024. (Social media/X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.

This week we speak with the editors of a new prayerbook -- "Az Nashir - We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need" --  written by women, for women, in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel.

The anthology was compiled and edited by Shira Lankin Sheps, Anne Gordon, and Rachel Sharansky Danziger, and it was published by The Layers Press, an imprint of The SHVILLI Center.

The three editors join Borschel-Dan in The Times of Israel's Jerusalem office this week and explain their impetus to tackle such an ambitious project and the decisions they made while putting it together, such as the inclusion of "visual prayer" -- 30 colorful illustrations by female artists.

According to the editors, the Hebrew-English tome is a prayerbook companion that emulates a long tradition of Jewish women writing prayers, supplications and liturgical poems in their own mother tongues. 

So this week, we ask Shira Lankin Sheps, Anne Gordon, and Rachel Sharansky Danziger, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: The editors of 'Az Nashir - We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need,' (from left to right): Anne Gordon, Rachel Sharansky Danziger and Shira Lankin Sheps. (courtesy)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.

Shortly after October 7, when the murderous Hamas onslaught on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza, Israel was pulled into defending itself and fighting Iran or its proxies on seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the West Bank and of course Iran.

But there is an eighth front that has emerged and is no less pernicious: the battle for public opinion and legitimacy.

Since war broke out, Israel advocate Aviva Klompas has used her robust social media platforms to provide a counter to the onslaught of anti-Israel hate.

As co-founder and CEO of Boundless, Aviva says she aims to reshape Israel education and confront antisemitism head-on. This war is affording her great opportunity. We speak about this advocacy work and her new book, "Stand-Up Nation."

So this week we ask Aviva Klompas, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: Author and Israel advocate Aviva Klompas (Zev Fisher)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.

This week, US bureau chief Jacob Magid is joined by journalist Joshua Leifer to discuss his new book Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life." 

Tablets Shattered made some extra headlines upon its release when a rogue Brooklyn Bookstore employee cancelled a rollout event because the emcee slated to interview Leifer identified as a Zionist.

The incident highlighted one of the critiques Leifer makes in the book regarding antisemitism on the American left.

But Tablets Shattered looks more broadly at American Judaism, arguing that it has peaked, in its current form. But it also offers a blueprint for putting the pieces back together. 

While a product of the Conservative denomination and an ardent left-winger, Leifer maintains that it is ultra-Orthodox Judaism that offers much of that blueprint, and we discussed why that is.

So this week, we ask Joshua Leifer, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: Journalist and author Jusha Leifer. (Courtesy)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan.

This week, ahead of the one-year mark of the October 7 massacre, we check in with philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman.

Best-selling author Goodman revisits a theory he discussed with Borschel-Dan on October 9, mere days after Hamas infiltrated Israel's south and slaughtered 1,200 and abducted 251 hostages back to Gaza. We hear about Goodman's idea of the "zero-sum game" that Israel must play to restore deterrence and maintain legitimacy and its results so far.

Now, a year into this ongoing war, we learn how the Israeli narrative of the war is shifting from perceiving it through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Today, two other narratives are increasingly gaining steam: One states that October 7 was an opening salvo to a regional war and the other zooms out even further and places it in the context of a realignment of the global axis.

We hear how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "right" in warning against Iran, but his coalition just may obstruct efforts to solve the conflict once and for all.

"We need new politics in order to defeat Iran," said Goodman.

So this week, we ask Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: Philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman. (Yonit Schiller)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

Last week, three women were arrested after distributing flyers with six hostages' faces in MK Yuli Edelstein’s synagogue in Herzliya, including a picture of him as a Prisoner of Zion alongside and the famous "Let My People Go" slogan used to support the refuseniks in the Soviet Union before being allowed to emigrate to Israel in 1987.

After a week of backlash to their arrests and his apparent support for them, Edelstein clarified that while he understands the hostage families' protests, he does "not forgive people who turn the hostages into currency to promote goals that have nothing to do with them.”

At the same time, there already are efforts inside most -- if not all -- synagogues throughout Israel to release the hostages: the longstanding prayer for the release of hostages that is found in most standard prayerbooks.

Rettg Gur and Borschel-Dan discuss the two sides' stances and question whether they are all that far apart on the issue of the hostages.

The two then turn to the question of whether or not Israel is basically experiencing an undeclared, low-burn regional war after a week in which a ballistic missile from the Yemenite Houthis reached Tel Aviv, a drone from Iraq was downed over the Sea of Galilee, along with the "usual" rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. Rettig Gur argues that even if Israel isn't currently in a regional war, it's time for one, but with one specific target.

And so this week we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, center, meets with Iraqi community members during his visit to Basra, Iraq, September 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Nabil al-Jourani)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan.

This week, we're joined by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, a leading voice in Conservative Judaism, who has served as head rabbi of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue since 2008.

We speak about his soon-to-be-published book, "For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today" (Harper Collins), which was written after the October 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 and abduction of 251.

The book is a blend of memoir, Torah study and reflection on what it means to be a Jew in the Diaspora today even as Israel continues its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Using the October 7 onslaught as a touchstone, the book is roughly divided into past, present and future and examines the connection between American Jewry and Israel throughout the decades. Cosgrove addresses concerns such as a new generation of young Jewish Americans who are proud of their religious heritage, but repudiate the nationalism exhibited by the Jewish state.

So this week, we ask Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, head rabbi of New York’s Park Avenue Synagogue, holding his new book, 'For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today,' September 11, 2024. (courtesy)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

This week, Israel was shattered by the news that six hostages, all previously thought alive, were discovered dead in a Gaza tunnel. The six hostages whose bodies were recovered over the weekend — Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi — were killed just days before troops found them, according to autopsies and the IDF.

They were all buried this week and hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Sunday demanding a hostage release deal, now.

Rettig Gur and Borschel-Dan have an open, painful conversation about what may be the two sides of Israel's Sophie’s Choice: between live hostages and, potentially, the military deterrence to prevent more Israelis from being taken.

So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: A display of 27 coffins of the hostages who were killed while in captivity in Gaza set up at Habima Square in Tel Aviv. (Zohar Ben Yehuda)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host Amanda Borschel-Dan.

This week, as campuses across North America open their doors for their fall semester, we speak with New York Times Opinion columnist Bret Stephens.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer recently wrote a column called, “What I Want a University President to Say About Campus Protests,” in which he channels a university president presenting his foundational principles, including, “the spirit of inquiry.”

In this week's episode, we hear Stephens's take on concepts that have evolved and flourished on campuses in the past several decades, including how critical theory has shifted faculties and the role of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI).

So this week, as students return to campuses, we ask Bret Stephens, what matters now?

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

IMAGE: The New York Times op-ed columnist Bret Stephens. (Jason Smith via JTA)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.

This week, we speak with Hebrew University in Jerusalem Prof. Aron Troen for a deep dive into two powerful issues facing him since October 7.

One draws upon his professional expertise: Troen is a professor of Nutrition Science and Public Health. His most recent research is dealing with whether or not there is a state of famine in the Gaza Strip during this war that Hamas launched on October 7 with the massacre of some 1,200, mostly civilians, in southern Israel.

But Troen is also an Israeli who was personally affected by the Hamas onslaught and among those killed on October 7 were his sister and her husband, who were murdered in their home on Kibbutz Holit, leaving three children, Troens nieces and nephew orphans. His nephew, who survived the murders of his parents, now lives with him.

We discuss in depth Troen's professional work and how he and his team dispelled reports of famine. And in the second part of our lengthy interview, we talk about his sister and how he and her children still believe we can work for a day in which the Palestinian and Israeli peoples can live side by side.

So this week, we ask Prof. Aron Troen, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

Check out the previous What Matters Now episode:

https://omny.fm/shows/times-will-tell/what-matters-now-to-yossi-klein-halevi-will-israel

IMAGE: Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. Aron Troen (Louis Weil)

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