What Matters Now

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, 2023. Anti-Israel demonstrators routinely march through central London, Palestine Action activists have attacked Israeli targets, a cultural boycott of Israel has picked up steam...
We discuss how things have changed for Britain's Jews, especially amid a stream of antisemitic attacks, including deadly terrorism at a Manchester synagogue last Yom Kippur and the stabbing of two Jewish men in northwest London's Golders Green neighborhood last month.
Wegier talks about who is behind the violence, how the police are facing up to it, and the role of Keir Starmer's Labour government. We also look more widely at British politics from a Jewish context, with this month's local elections marked by the dramatic rise of the hard-right UK Reform party, and unprecedented gains by a Green Party engulfed in antisemitism scandals, under a Jewish leader who made vicious criticism of Israel a centerpiece of the campaign.
Finally, we look at the relationship between Anglo-Jewry and Israel, and the degree to which what Wegier describes as the "anxiety" in the community about day-to-day life is prompting thoughts of potential emigration to Israel.
So this week, we ask Michael Wegier, 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 Yitzchak Ledee.
IMAGE: Michael Wegier (courtesy) / Protesters gather near Downing Street during a 'national emergency' rally organized by the Campaign Against Antisemitism following a knife attack in Golders Green, in London, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
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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, 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 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children.
On May 12, the commission released a massive report that documents and chronicles Hamas’s systemic use of rape and sexual violence against women -- and men -- on October 7, while taking hostages and during their captivities.
Elkayam-Levy visited The Times of Israel's Jerusalem studio for this wide-ranging conversation. Listener discretion is advised.
Since the Hamas onslaught on southern Israel, Elkayam-Levy and her team of forensics and legal experts, alongside professional archivists and others, have carefully gathered witness testimony and over 10,000 pieces of visual evidence that prove the terrorists' use of sex abuse as a tactical war crime.
We hear about 13 categories of abuse perpetrated on people from over 50 nationalities. We learn that the tactic of broadcasting the crimes via livestreams has made Hamas heroes in the eyes of some fundamentalists who are already importing the terror group's sadistic methods, as seen in Syrian attacks on Druze in July.
Elkayam-Levy discusses the impossible mission of providing a voice for the voiceless and creating a historical database that accurately portrays the scope of the horror. She has faced unfathomable blowback and is clear-eyed about how the commission's report will be received.
So this week, we ask Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, 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 Yitzchak Ledee.
IMAGE: Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy (Muki Schwartz) / On October 13, 2023, Israeli soldiers inspect the site of the Nova music festival where at least 340 Israeli festival-goers were killed during the attack by Hamas militants on Oct 7, near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)
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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 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 Mladenov, is in Israel in an attempt to kick-start the Trump peace plan. He has previously urged the international community to pressure the Hamas Palestinian terror group to disarm and prevent another cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip.
This week, we hear why Alkhatib believes the current stalemate in Gaza is being embraced by both Hamas and official Israel.
But first, Alkhatib paints a dismal picture of life in the Strip -- rat infestations, sewage in the streets and a strong Hamas presence on the ground.
We learn about the recent elections for Hamas leadership and hear background about the leading candidates.
Finally, among all the darkness, Alkhatib shares pinpoints of light from among the people who are still not cowed by the terrorist regime.
And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, 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 Ari Schlacht.
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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 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 slate, dubbed “Together,” would win a total of 26 seats if elections were held Monday, placing them ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud as the Knesset’s largest party, according to Channel 12.
Later in the week, Opposition Leader Lapid told Bennett that he was willing to take third place, rather than second, on their joint electoral slate if it would help secure a broader merger with Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot.
On this week's episode, in the spirit of the newly completed NFL draft, we play fantasy football and weigh the merits of the current parties and politicians vyying for the Knesset in this year's election.
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 Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Haviv Rettig Gur (courtesy) / Green Bay Packers quarterback Taylor Elgersma (19) throws during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Indianapolis Colts, August 16, 2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
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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 captors in August 2024, after being held captive for 330 days in a Gaza tunnel.
Goldberg-Polin speaks about the process of writing the book, urged by her husband, Jon Polin, and how the book became a kind of answer to people asking her how she was.
The bulk of the book takes place after the Goldberg-Polins buried Hersh on August 31, 2024, and is an accounting of their lives in what Goldberg-Polin terms the Before and After.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
IMAGE: Author Rachel Goldberg-Polin joins host Jessica Steinberg for an episode of What Matters Now
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