A Mandatory Listen

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 sixth episode in the new series, we speak with historian Sir Simon Schama, who recently published a lengthy essay titled "Jew-Hatred: The Latest Edition."
In this cry from the heart, the professor of art history and history at Columbia University gives a broad-strokes history of antisemitism and delves into reasons why it is rising globally.
The award-winning author and cultural essayist for The New Yorker, who has written and presented more than 30 documentaries on topics including the Holocaust, brings forth recent examples from his own life in which Jews have experienced a new form of hatred, which he wryly labels "its latest edition."
In this free-flowing conversation, we learn about the haters' misperceptions and how bias is being transmitted virally today.
'Jew-Hatred: The Latest Edition' by Sir Simon Schama is out now and available here.
A Mandatory Listen podcast episodes are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Ari Schlacht.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 fifth episode in the new series, we speak with author Yossi Klein Halevi.
A deep pre-election political conversation had been planned for this episode. However, in a conversation that could have been called "Mann tracht un Gott lacht" (Man plans and God laughs), Borschel-Dan and Klein Halevi firmly pivot away from the profane -- politics -- and veer toward the sacred.
Spurred by questions on how he maintains equilibrium in the face of the fateful upcoming election, Klein Halevi, a longtime practitioner of meditation and Jewish spirituality, guides Borschel-Dan through his philosophical pillars.
What is faith -- and in what God? What is the purpose of prayer, and who is it for?
We hear some wisdom from Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook's teachings, as well as a mix of Eastern philosophies.
How does the activist aspect of Klein Halevi -- which sounds the shofar and warns the people of Israel of potential evils -- reconcile with the man of faith in the eternal nature of that same people?
A Mandatory Listen podcast episodes are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 fourth episode in the new series, we speak with Prof. Nechumi Yaffe, an ultra-Orthodox woman running for Knesset for the Charedi Public Party (HaTzibur HaCharedi).
A faculty member at Tel Aviv University since 2019, Yaffe is currently a tenured senior lecturer at the School of Public Policy and co-director of the Haredi Research Group at UCLA.
Among other fields of interest, Yaffe delves into the issues of poverty and identity in Haredi society.
We hear how the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel made Yaffe rethink the ideas of civil obligations and rights. While she believes that youths who are not fit for yeshiva can -- and should -- be conscripted into the IDF, she is deeply concerned with allowing the ultra-Orthodox community to remain strictly observant.
How can a delicate balance between religious observance and national burden be forged? Only through education, says Yaffe.
Over time, she relates, her friends and neighbors in the ultra-Orthodox world stopped accusing her of airing their dirty laundry in the secular public and began understanding the dire situation their community is in.
But will this increased awareness lead to a gain in the polls? Perhaps through the Haredi world's overlooked weapon -- women.
A Mandatory Listen podcast episodes are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 third episode in the new series, we speak with The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens -- also the editor of the SAPIR Journal -- who was in the country for a lightning reporting trip ahead of the Israeli election on October 27.
Stephens, who both supports and criticizes Israel, is increasingly the minority voice at the Gray Lady, where the Jewish state has decidedly lost the battle for public opinion.
But he thinks Israel shouldn't really care what others think about it.
"Let me put it this way: Would you rather have won the battle for public opinion and lost the war -- or vice versa? If that's the choice, I would say that Israel was better off losing the battle for public opinion," Stephens says.
Find out why he believes Israel couldn't have won both wars.
We discuss why the United States, until now, has been judged on its wartime operations through a different lens.
But has the Iran war changed all that?
A Mandatory Listen podcast episodes are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 second episode in the new series, who better to ask the big questions than a philosopher? We turn to author and public intellectual Micah Goodman for an in-depth conversation on the one burning issue that unites America's radical right and left.
Spoiler: They hate Israel.
But the reasons why the far left and the far right despise the Jewish state come from very different narratives, explains Goodman. Likewise, their "final solutions" for Israel would result in divergent conclusions.
In the second half of the program, we turn the tables and ask: Are Israelis aware that the fate of the Jewish state is an election issue in the US? Why is this fissure in the essential US-Israel relationship trumpeted as a main existential issue on Israeli politicians' campaign trails?
Israelis, says Goodman, need to wake up.
But will they?
A Mandatory Listen podcast episodes are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.