Jewish Crossroads: Jewish Identity in Times of Crisis

Just days after Israel and Lebanon reached a framework agreement to begin the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of southern Lebanon, Tamar Ish Shalom sits down with one of the key figures behind the negotiations: Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter.

In this wide-ranging conversation with host Tamar and Ambassador Leiter discuss the strategic implications of the Lebanon agreement, the continuing challenge posed by Iran, and the evolving relationship between Jerusalem and Washington. They also explore the global rise of antizionism and disinformation, the future of Israel–Diaspora relations, and the difficult questions surrounding religious pluralism, Jewish identity, and the boundaries of the Jewish community.

From regional diplomacy to the future of the Jewish people, this is an in-depth conversation with one of Israel's most influential diplomats at a pivotal moment for the Middle East.
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In this episode of Jewish Crossroads, Tamar Ish Shalom sits down with Shmuel Rosner, one of Israel’s most thoughtful and wide-ranging public intellectuals.
A researcher at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), Rosner is also a columnist, editor, publisher, and longtime observer of Israeli society, American Jewry, and the evolving relationship between them. In an age of hot takes and fleeting headlines, he has built a career on careful analysis, intellectual curiosity, and a commitment to understanding complexity.
As the editor and owner of the Madad Project, Rosner oversees extensive survey research that tracks the attitudes of Israelis and American Jews, providing a unique window into the concerns, hopes, and divisions shaping Jewish life today. He is also the founder of the nonfiction imprint The Hedgehog and the Fox, and the author of numerous books, including the recently published English edition of Why Am I a Jew?
Their conversation ranges across questions of Jewish identity, belonging, and continuity. What does it mean to be Jewish in the twenty-first century? How are Israeli and American Jewish experiences diverging, and where do they still intersect? What can survey data tell us about the deeper cultural and moral currents shaping Jewish communities?
Drawing on a lifetime of research, writing, and reflection, Rosner offers insights that move beyond politics toward the larger questions of peoplehood, meaning, and the future of the Jewish story.
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In this episode of Jewish Crossroads, Tamar Ish Shalom sits down with Jon Polin, a man who never sought the public eye, but was thrust into it by unimaginable circumstances.
Together with his wife, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Jon became one of the most recognizable voices of the hostage crisis after their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was kidnapped on October 7 and held in Gaza by Hamas for 328 days. Over that time, they carried his story across continents and audiences, becoming for many the human face of a national trauma.
Even after Hersh was murdered and laid to rest in Israel, their role did not end. Jon continues to speak with a rare combination of moral clarity and compassion, resisting the pull toward hatred while refusing to look away from the hardest questions.
Now in the United States alongside Rachel’s new book, When We See You Again, they reflect on grief, love, and the enduring fight to bring the remaining hostages home.
In a conversation that moves between the personal and the political, they ask what it means to hold onto humanity in the face of loss. How does one live with such absence? And what does moral responsibility demand in a moment that resists easy answers?
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In this episode of Jewish Crossroads, Tamar Ish Shalom sits down with Rabbi Menachem Bombach, one of the most consequential voices to emerge from within Israel’s ultra-Orthodox world.

Over the past few years, he has founded and led educational institutions that preserve a Haredi identity while also teaching core subjects such as mathematics, English, and science, offering a different vision of how ultra-Orthodox life might engage with the broader fabric of Israeli society.

For some, he represents a model for the future. For others, a destabilizing presence. At a moment when questions of Haredi responsibility to work, to the state, to military service, and to Israeli society as a whole have become among the most contentious in Israel, Bombach’s approach stands apart. Rather than confrontational rhetoric, he is attempting to build an alternative from within.

Moving between questions of education and identity, belonging and anger, they explore whether gradual change can still keep pace with the urgency of the current Israeli moment. What does it mean to remain faithful to a community while challenging its assumptions? And is there still time for internal reform to succeed before the pressures from outside become overwhelming?

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In this episode of Jewish Crossroads, Tamar Ish Shalom sits down with Iranian-American author and journalist Roya Hakakian, a leading voice on Iran, exile, and the lived experience of life under the Islamic Republic.
Born into a Jewish family in Tehran, Hakakian left Iran at 19 in the years following the revolution, carrying with her both the memory of a vanished world and a deep understanding of the regime that replaced it. Her work, spanning memoir, journalism, and political analysis, has consistently illuminated the human realities behind Iran’s ideological machinery, tracing not only the repression within the country but also the broader influence of the regime beyond its borders.
Moving between past and present, personal memory and political reality, they explore how the current war reshapes our understanding of Iran’s trajectory. What has changed in the regime’s position, and what has not? How should we interpret the possibility of internal transformation? And what does it mean to speak about Iran not only as a geopolitical actor, but as a society still struggling under the weight of its rulers?
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