What Matters Now
A weekly exploration of one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World right now.
Episodes
Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler: How AI is poisoning the information well
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 Israel Democracy Institute senior fellow Dr. Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler. Shwartz Altshuler, the head of the IDI's Democracy in the Digital Age Program, weighs in on the nefarious ways in which AI is being used to manipulate hearts and minds --
Matti Friedman: As Israel plays king of the castle in Lebanon, what's its endgame?
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 and journalist Matti Friedman. On May 31, 2026, President Isaac Herzog attended the memorial ceremony for the fallen soldiers of the First Lebanon War (Operation 'Peace for the Galilee'), held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. On the same d
Dara Horn: The answer to the Jewish question
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 visited ToI's Jerusalem studio while on a break from this year’s International Writers Festival in Jerusalem, taking place May 25-28 at the city’s Mishkenot Sha’ana
Yishai Ishi Ron: Ex-commando writes novels about trauma and recovery
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with author Yishay Ishi Ron. Ishi Ron's award-winning 2023 book, "Dog," is about an Israeli combat officer returning from Gaza, grappling with PTSD and heroin addiction until a stray dog enters his life and helps save him. The novel became a bestsel
Michael Wegier: British Jews aren't living in fear, but they're certainly anxious
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, founding editor David Horovitz speaks with CEO of the British Board of Deputies Michael Wegier. Wegier has been the CEO of the Board, the umbrella organization representing Anglo-Jewry, for the past five years -- an increasingly fraught period, especially since October 7,
Cochav Elkayam-Levy: Hamas weaponized rape and humiliation on Oct. 7
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World. This week, host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with legal expert Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy. Almost immediately following Hamas’s murderous onslaught on southern Israel, humanitarian law expert Elkayam-Levy established and now heads The Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crim
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Israel has re-embraced Hamas rule in Gaza
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 the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, the Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy, Nickolay Mla
Haviv Rettig Gur: Political footballs and politicians' fumbles
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. On Sunday, former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced a joint run for this year's Israeli elections. Immediately, polling showed that the combined electoral sla
Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Mother of murdered hostage Hersh 'parcels out her pain' in book
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with author Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Rachel Goldberg-Polin began writing her new book, "When We See You Again," as a way of finding some relief from her pain after she buried her son, 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was executed by his Hamas cap
Aron Heller: 1.5 million-strong Jewish band of brothers
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 journalist and debut author Aron Heller. Some 1.5 million Jewish soldiers fought for the Allies in World War II, and 250,000 of them died in battle. One of those who fought and returned was Heller's grandfather, Mickey Heller. I
Shahar Cohen: 'My life' comic laughs about 'managing the war' with Nescafe in hand
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with comic Shahar Cohen. Comedian Shahar Cohen, raised in Jerusalem and living in Tel Aviv, spoofs Israeli life and society. He dons wigs and plays a cast of mostly female characters who represent the range of Israeli society. In a wide-ranging inte
Angela Buchdahl: This Passover, have faith in the story of the Exodus
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl. Buchdahl speaks about being a rabbinic figure and representative of the mainstream American Jewry, particularly while on book tour for her recently published memoir, "Heart of a Stranger, An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Fait
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Hamas triggered the Iran war. Now it may outlast the Islamic Republic
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 the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, the Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy Nickolay Mlad
Matti Friedman: Israel's forever wars in Lebanon
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 and journalist Matti Friedman. The first half of our episode is dedicated to an in-depth discussion of Friedman's newest book, "Out of the Sky," set for publication next week. The book is a deep dive into the meaning and myth surr
Bret Stephens: America and Israel are engaged in a common fight for civilization
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 Bret Stephens, a The New York Times columnist and the editor-in-chief of Sapir magazine. Recent polling indicates that only roughly half of Americans support the US-Israel war against Iran's Islamist regime. Stephens weighs in on why the curr
Einat Wilf: Fall of Iran an opportunity to uproot 'Palestinianism'
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 Einat Wilf, a former MK, author and CEO of the newly formed Oz party. Wilf describes the potential fall of the Iranian Islamic Republic's regime as a shift in the magnitude of the fall of the Soviet Union. We discuss the seismic ripple effect
Micah Goodman: How Israel and the US may prevent World War III
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 and public intellectual Micah Goodman. In the sixth day of the United States and Israel's joint war against the Iranian Islamic Republic, Goodman takes stock and allows himself to wonder: What if we actually won this war against the ev
Meyer Levinson-Blount: Oscar nominee's film 'Butcher's Stain' reveals life post-Oct. 7
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Oscar film nominee Meyer Levinson-Blount. “Butcher’s Stain" is nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the 2026 Oscars, after winning second place in the narrative category of the Student Academy Awards in the fall. The film fo
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: NGO admits Hamas controls Gaza's hospitals. Why now?
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 the Israel and Palestine discourse. We begin the conversation with a bleak update on how Gazans are fa
Alice Miller: CEO of Israeli disaster org on aiding Gazans post-Oct. 7
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 Alice Miller, the CEO of Natan Worldwide Disaster Relief. Miller is nationally known for her landmark Supreme Court case in 1995, which opened the gates of the Israel Air Force to female fighter pilots. This decision paved the way for today's
Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland: Two Jews on the news discuss all that is Unholy
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Unholy podcast hosts Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland. In this episode, Channel 12 news anchor Levi and Guardian columnist and BBC Radio 4's Jonathan Freedland look back on five years of podcasting together on "Unholy: Two Jews on the News," t
Haviv Rettig Gur: Hamas is holding Gazans hostage
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. The body of the final hostage, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, was recovered from the Gaza Strip this week and buried on Wednesday in his hometown of Meitar. Rettig Gur delves into the deep Jewish
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Inside the technocratic council set to rule Gaza
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 the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, we dive into the 12-member National Committee for the A
Podcaster Mitch Ginsburg: Escape from Tehran, an untold 1979 Israeli caper
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 Israel Story producer Mitch Ginsburg. On February 20, 1979, the last 33 Israelis returned from Tehran upon the forced closure of the Israeli embassy. After the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khoumeini's new regime, the Israeli trade
Stand-up comedian Liz Glazer: 'Israel is the reason I exist'
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 Liz Glazer, who is coming soon to Israel as part of the annual Comedy for Koby tour. On stage and off, the former law prof -- a graduate of New York's stalwart Modern Orthodox Ramaz high school -- is loudly and
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Five likely scenarios for Gaza in 2026
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 the Israel and Palestine discourse. This week, we dive into the five likely scenarios that could play
Adeena Sussman: Latke frying helps cooks cope with life's complexities
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with cookbook author Adeena Sussman. In this conversation with the bestselling author of "Sababa" and "Shabbat," Sussman discusses the intersection of cooking, culture, and personal experiences as she continues melding her American Jewish background
ADL's James Pasch: Taking on the Axis of Evil through lawfare
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 James Pasch, the Anti-Defamation League's vice president of litigation. Pasch, is currently in Israel to meet with the plaintiffs in a massive lawsuit the ADL initiated against Iran, North Korea, Syria and Hamas, for their part in the October
Dr. Gilad Malach: Haredi draft bill is a wedge issue for a divided nation
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 Dr. Gilad Malach, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. Malach's research focuses on public policy related to Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, including issues critical to its integration into Israel's economy and societ
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib: Hamas iron grip restores order, but Gazans aim to throw off shackles
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 Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse. This summer, Alkhatib flew over Gaza as part of the last days of the United Arab
What Matters Now to Prof. Asher Cohen: Academic boycott of Israel is 'catastrophic'
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 past president of The Hebrew University, Prof. Asher Cohen. During the eight years Cohen served as university president, Israel encountered numerous challenges, including the coronavirus epidemic from February 2020, the uproar over the Ju
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: The case for pardoning Netanyahu
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. BBC director-general Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, stepped down this week after being in the firing line for months over allegations of bias — incl
What Matters Now to Jordan Hoffman: The new Hollywood buddy film, 'Nuremberg'
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 film reviewer Jordan Hoffman. The duo beta-tests their soon-to-be-launched podcast series — so new it does not yet have a name — in which they will deliver entertainment news from a Jewish angle (aka Jangle) and review one new
What Matters Now to Eli Sharabi: Living with trauma and mourning
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with former hostage Eli Sharabi. Sharabi, whose bestselling book, "Hostage," was recently translated into English, spoke to What Matters Now a few days before burying his brother, Yossi Sharabi, whose body was recently released home to Israel after
What Matters Now to Orna and Ronen Neutra: Their son is still in Gaza
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Orna and Ronen Neutra, parents of Omer Neutra, a tank platoon commander who was killed on October 7, 2023, his body taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. The Neutras, Israeli-born Americans who have been living in the US for the last 20 years, tal
What Matters Now to Micah Goodman: End of Gaza war heralds a tectonic shift in Israel
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 and public intellectual Micah Goodman. Looking to the French for historical framing, Goodman proposes that Israel is on the brink of a new epoch -- the third Israeli republic. The author of influential works such as “Catch-67&rdq
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Israel's next front is its own fractures
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, marking two years since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel. To gain a sense of the Israeli public sentiment after two years of war, Rettig Gur analyzes a new survey c
What Matters Now to Rachel Goldberg-Polin: A deep hope for repair and relief
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Goldberg-Polin, who has become a well-known voice in the Jewish and Israeli world since October 7, 2023, when Hersh was taken captive by Hamas terrorists, speaks about the
What Matters Now to Yossi Klein Halevi: Struggling to make moral sense of the Gaza 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 Yossi Klein Halevi. This week, we speak with Hartman Institute senior fellow, author and thinker Yossi Klein Halevi from his Jerusalem home overlooking the back of the Mount Herzl National Military Cemetery. With that back
What Matters Now to Daniel Gordis: The lonely man of Zionism
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 Daniel Gordis. Gordis, an author, scholar, rabbi, activist and sometime Times of Israel blogger, is the creator of the popular Substack blog and podcast, "Israel from the Inside." He recounts how he began the blog in 2021 to pul
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Did Israel 'break the rules' in Qatar strike?
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. There are still lots of questions and not a lot of answers after a bold Israeli airstrike targeted a meeting of Hamas’s top leaders in Qatar’s capital, Doha, on Tuesday. According to
What Matters Now to Deborah Conway & Tamar Paluch: Australia is rife with antisemitism
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Australians Tamar Paluch and Deborah Conway, the editor and a contributor to "Ruptured, Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life Post-October 7," a book of essays. Paluch, who edited the book with Lee Kofman, discusses how the idea came f
What Matters Now to legal expert Menachem Rosensaft: Israel is not committing genocide
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 legal expert on genocide Menachem Rosensaft. Rosensaft is an adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School and lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches the law of genocide -- since 2008 at Cornell and since 2011
What Matters Now to Dennis Ross: There is a deal to be made to end the Gaza 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 former US negotiator, adviser and ambassador Dennis Ross. Today, Ross, an author and the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, also teaches at Georgetown University
What Matters Now to Prof. Dan Turner: Treating our enemies humanely makes us human
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. Dan Turner, the head of a pediatric gastroenterology unit at one of Israel’s most respected hospitals located in Jerusalem and Deputy Dean of the School of Medicine at the Hebrew University. Turner, alongside his work as a physici
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: When Temple Mount prayer is a call to settle Gaza
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's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. During the Tisha B'Av fast on Sunday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir again made headlines for going up to the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. There were two big differences this ti
What Matters Now to Daniel Taub: Still mourning, Israel is not ripe to talk peace - yet
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 Daniel Taub. Taub is an Israeli diplomat, international lawyer and author born in Britain in 1962. He moved to Israel in 1989, later serving in the IDF as a combat medic and as a reserve officer in the international law division. He st
What Matters Now to Dan Ben-David: Israel's moment of truth is here
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 the Department of Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University. Earlier this month, he wrote an op-ed in The T
What Matters Now to comic Guri Alfi: Israelis and American Jews must remain unified
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Guri Alfi, comic, actor and producer of "The New Jew." Recorded before the conflict with Iran, Alfi speaks about his experiences filming the second season of "The New Jew," a series he first created with public broadcaster Kan 11 in 2021 t
What Matters Now to Micah Goodman: Israel may soon remake the region
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 and public intellectual Micah Goodman. Just ahead of this week's What Matters Now recording, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump sat in the White House for a celebratory meal. The table was set for a grand a
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: When Israeli extremists go to war - against Israel
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 senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. Dozens of Jewish extremists set fire to a security installation and rioted outside a West Bank base overnight Sunday-Monday, days after an officer in the Israel Defense Forces was assaulted by settlers, who th
What Matters Now to director Daniel Syrkin: How 'Tehran' season 4 reflects Israel-Iran war
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Daniel Syrkin, director of the acclaimed TV series "Tehran." Recorded on Monday amid the ongoing conflict with Iran, Syrkin discusses the impact of the current geopolitical events on the storytelling of "Tehran" and the challenges of producing
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: The existential Israel-Iran War
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 senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. Since 3 am on Friday morning, Israel has been at war with Iran. We begin the program with a pause to look at how each of us sees this Israeli moment. Rettig Gur weighs in on how this war with Iran was inevitab
What Matters Now to Rabbi Noa Sattath: Global LGBTQ+ support for Hamas
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 Rabbi Noa Sattath, the head of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. For Pride Month, we discuss the history of the openly gay community in Israel and the connection between the LGBTQ+ struggle for equal rights and the broader struggle
What Matters Now to David Horovitz: Shedding light on war when the facts are dim
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 narrat
What Matters Now to Prof. Elie Podeh: When the IDF disengaged from Gaza, 20 years ago
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
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: What did Trump mean when he said...
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 Emi
What Matters Now to Eurovision mega-fan Tal Dahan: Politics, protests and camp in Basel
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
Bereaved mother Elana Kaminka: End the Gaza 'forever war'
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 tho
What Matters Now to The Times of Israel: That all Oct. 7 fallen are remembered
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
What Matters Now to Prof. Manuela Consonni: How women resisted the Nazis
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
What Matters Now to Israel Story's Mitch Ginsburg: A 1973 exodus from Egypt
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,
What Matters Now to hostage mom Idit Ohel: Let our captives go!
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
What Matters Now to author Dara Horn: Why Jews are the eternal scapegoat
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
What Matters Now to Jonathan Dekel-Chen: US feels like the hostages' only beacon
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
What Matters Now to David Horovitz: Terrible external threats, tremendous internal division
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
What Matters Now to Micah Goodman: What Israel can trust about Hamas
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
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Egypt's farcical plan for postwar Gaza
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
What Matters Now to critic Jordan Hoffman: 5 films for Jews to follow at the Oscars
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
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Why is Israel handing Gaza back to Hamas?
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
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Trump's Gaza plan is a warning
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 entirel
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Death penalty for terrorists?
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 relea
What Matters Now to Yad Vashem head Dani Dayan: What to do when 'friends' disappoint
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
What Matters Now to Adir Miller and mom Marianne: Getting the last laugh after the Holocaust
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
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Hamas's survival is Gaza's tragedy
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 sealed
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Israel's wishlist for US president-elect Trump
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
What Matters Now to David Horovitz: Freedom of the press under attack
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
What Matters Now to comedian Yochay Sponder: Post-Oct. 7 truth -- with laughs
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 the
What Matters Now to Andrew Fox: Cynical use of inflated death figures from Gaza
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
What Matters Now to Ksenia Svetlova: Women are the canary in the Mideast coal mine
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 Middle East expert Ksenia Svetlova. As the rebel factions in Syria continue to fight to wrest control -- from the fallen Assad regime as well as from each other -- one of the ways to measure how the country will emerge is to loo
