Allison Kaplan Sommer, Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Days of Awe— What do Yom Ha-Zikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom Ha-Atzmaut (Independence Day) mean in this annus horribilis? How can we celebrate, now? —School Daze— What should we make of the enraged protests raging on university campuses? Kids these...

To mark Yom Ha-Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Noah describes the decades-long path Israelis followed to come to terms with the Holocaust, culminating in a record in 1988, fully 43 years after the camps were freed. (Out of concern for the environment, this episode is reused and recycled, though not reduced.)

At Passover Seders all around the world, a place setting was laid before a chair left empty for one of the 133 hostages held in Gaza. We look back at the 200 days of anguish, hope, and despair that divide Simchat Torah on October 7 from this week’s holiday.

Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. —Going Too Farsi? (Or, the Persian Incursion)— We — with the help of the US, UK, Jordan and other capable allies — buffly rebuffed the biggest missile and drone attack on Israel ever. But what does it tell us about the past and augur for the future? —Passover, 5784— How is this Passover different from all other Passovers? Plus, a...

Marking six months since the massacres and the start of the war, Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Us, Here— Whether and how we Israelis have changed, in light of all that has happened. Are we different than we were six months and one week ago? —Us, There— Whether and how we Jews around the world have...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Families 2.0— The organization of the families of the hostages has decided to change strategies, linking its campaign to bring the hostages home to the campaign for “elections now.” Is the fight to get the hostages home entering a new phase? ...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and newly-minted Doctor of Thinkology Gilad Halpern discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Abstention Dissension— There seems to be a very fast decline in US-Israel relations, after the Americans abstain on a UN Security Council resolution that Israel expected them to veto. Are Israel and America, like Ross...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and ubermensch writer Bradley Burston discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Despite It All, Peace?— Is all we are sayin’, just give peace a chance? —Amalek— Is it like reverse anti-Semitism? —The End of Israel— For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra...

Miriam Herschlag, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —אַ סוף צו אַ גאָלדען עלטער אין אַ גאלדענע מדינה— This month’s Atlantic cover story argues that the “Golden Age” for American Jews has come to a close and, with it, maybe the “Golden Age” for America and the “Golden Age” for Jews. Is the US putting...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Jerusalem, Mon Amour?— What’s it mean that Jerusalem just elected to its city council a straight-up majority of ultra-Orthodox men? —Reckoning?— Is it time for soul-searching and spiritual reckoning over the death and destruction in Gaza? —Five...

Miriam Herschlag, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Going Local— They say that, in a democracy, even the most humble among us can be elected to public office. Now we know it’s true! —Mayor for Life— Few positions have more job security than mayor of a major city in Israel. —Jon Stewart Goes Viral...

138 days in, The Promised Podcast looks back.   —Premonition— —City of Slaughter— —Sally— —The Wheat Grows Again— —The Battalion’s WhatsApp—

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Elections Now?— Billboards all over the country and full-page ads in the papers call for new elections now. Is this a good idea? —The Draft on the Draft: Getting the Shaft?— A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. —Wartime Hookups— For our most...

Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Negotiating With Terrorists— Hamas finally sets out their demands in exchange for releasing the 136 living-and-dead Israeli hostages dragged to Gaza from their homes. Is there anywhere to go from here? —Bar-Raving Time!— Itamar Ben-Gvir is having a moment. —The New...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —A Few Murderous Apples— A dozen United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) workers killed, raped and kidnapped on October 7, and one in four Gazan men who work for UNRWA have ties to Hamas. What can you say to that? —Soldiers of the Dream— Have...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —General Malaise— Former IDF Chief of Staff and member of Israel’s “War Cabinet” says the government is not telling us the truth or making the right decisions when it comes to the war. What now? —In the Shadow of the Shoah— Seventy-nine years after...

Linda Gradstein, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Why Did the Army Fail Us?— The first job of the army is to protect us at our borders. —Why Do We Still Believe In the IDF?— Even after everything went wrong, and so many people died, we still trust the IDF. Why? —A New “Normal”— For our most...

Miriam Herschlag, Allison Kaplan Sommer and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Phase III— The last phase of the Israel-Hamas war is starting. Why don’t we feel relieved? —South Africa v. Israel— Eighty years after the Holocaust ended, Israel is on trial for genocide. —How Do You Podcast a War?— For our most unreasonably...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Basic— Israel’s Supreme Court decides, by the thinnest of margins, to overturn an amendment to a “Basic Law” passed by the Knesset. Is that a good thing? —October 90th— Are we stuck reliving over and over the nightmare of October 7? —A New PTSD...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Back to the Basics of Bouncing Bibi?— Do you oust the man who is leading you in war? —“Under Renovation”— Does Israel have any Left left at all? —Watching the War in Cinematic 4K— For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our...

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Don Futterman and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —What They Think About Us— More than half college-age American kids think Israel should be “ended and given to Hamas”? Really? —What They Think About Them— 72% of Palestinians on the West Bank think Hamas’s decision to do what it did on October 7...

William Blake once counselled “to see a world in a grain of sand.” In this very special podcast episode, Noah tries to see our troubled world right now, in a Whatsapp thread or a TikTok “For You.” —The Battalion WhatsApp— —Dog of War— —Post Hoc, Ergo TikTok—

Star journalist Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Kids Out— Every day for a week hostages got out of Gaza until, all of a sudden, they didn’t. —Kids In— When your kid calls to say he loves you. —The Jew-Hate on Other Campuses— For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special,...

Miriam Herschlag, Gilad Halpern and Noah Efron discuss two topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. Hear the Extra-Special, Special Extra Segment on Patreon   —Women & the War— Gender’s gotten weird (even weirder than usual) in this war. Miriam Schler, Executive Director of the Tel Aviv Sexual Assault Crisis Center, joins us to make sense of it. —That Thing About the Muses— So many paintings, songs, poems,...