Haviv Rettig Gur: Is the IDF justified in picking off Hamas terrorists?

Welcome to "A Mandatory Listen," a new weekly podcast in which The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan asks the big questions facing Israel and the Jewish people. For this inaugural episode, who better to ask "Is the IDF justified in picking off Hamas terrorists?" than The Times of I…

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Hamas is to blame for October 7 and Gaza's ‘collateral damage’

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 t…

Yohanan Plesner: 3 existential issues facing Israel’s voters

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 head of the Israel Democracy Institute, Yohanan Plesner. As millions of Israeli voters will cast a fateful ballot on October 27, what ar…

Jonathan Greenblatt: Surging antisemitism brings ADL to a moment of reckoning

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 CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. As antisemitism surges worldwide by some 900% over the past decade, Greenblatt e…

Yossi Klein Halevi: Why Jewish extremism is so seductive - and dangerous

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 Yossi Klein Halevi. The Hartman Institute senior fellow, writer and thinker joins us in our Jerusalem studio for a probing conversati…

Richard Priem: The ‘age of security’ has ended for US Jews

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 CEO of Community Security Service Richard Priem. While guarding his Dutch synagogue as a 17-year-old, Priem knew there were two places where…

Dan Ben-David: Israel is on the brink of a spiral of collapse

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 leading economist Prof. Dan Ben-David. Ben-David heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research and is a senior faculty member in …

Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz: Nothing is black and white in Israel's religious societies

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 Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, the director of the Israel Democracy Institute's Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for Shared Society and …

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Hamas still holds two million hostages

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 t…

Haviv Rettig Gur: Why is Israel still the first campaign stop for wannabe US presidents?

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. With the sudden death of US Sen. Lindsey Graham this week, Rettig Gur is asked to exp…