The Promised Podcast

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and wunderkind critic Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. --Unsettled!-- Settler leaders oppose Israel's annexation of any towns in the West Bank? Is this bizarro world? Are dogs cats? Is up down? --Through American Eyes-- Why was Bernie Sanders the main speaker at this week's big anti-annexation demonstration in Rabin Square? --Virtually Palestine-- What do we have to learn from virtual visits to virtual Palestine on our smartphones? --The Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality: It's a Man's World-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we discuss this week's dumbass appointment of a male MK named Oded Forer to head the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality. Another glass ceiling shattered? Another frontier tamed for the be-penised and betesticled among us? In short: Men, Is there nothing we can't do? All that and songs by 33 young, brilliant musicians from the Rimon School of Music!

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. --God & Country-- Are the ultra-Orthodox the big winners in Israel's new government? Does that make the rest of us losers? --18 Years of Death, Misery and Despair: There's an App for that Now!-- A new app/site lets Israelis who fought in Israel's long miserable war in Lebanon return virtually to the outposts where they froze and watched their friends die. But why? --Thrice the Advice!-- If you're an Israeli abroad, is it your responsibility to present the country in a good light? --Goin' Up!-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about what the corona-mess feels like now, as we leave lockdown and watch the numbers creep back up. (Hint: Yikes!) All that and bright songs by Sun Tailor!

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and wunderkind critic Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. --J'Accuse?, Non, J'Accuse!-- As his corruption trial begin, PM Netanyahu's supporters take to the streets to say their leader is a latter day Dreyfus, persecuted by a cabal of leftist judges and journalists. What should we make of that? --Exiled to Providence-- Are leftists leaving Israel as "political exiles"? --What is the Good Book Good For?-- As we celebrate Shavuot, a festival marking the giving of the Torah at Sinai, we can't help but wonder: What are we supposed to do with that book, anyway? --Was Israel's Response to COVID-19 Wrongity-Wrong-Wrong?-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we discuss an essay in Ha'aretz arguing that everything we'd done up to now to respond to coronavirus was wrongity-wrong-wrong. Has the time come to second-guess all we've done for the past months? All that and songs by Asaf Avidan, with and without the Mojos!

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. --The Vision of No Vision-- Prime Minister Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Gantz set out their visions for the future in the first meeting of Israel's new government, which are narrow and dryly technocratic. But is that really a bad thing in tumultuous times? --Leftism and Other Risk Factors-- Why are left-leaning Israelis suffering more from the pandemic than right-leaning Israelis? --Golda's Israel, and Ours-- Does a new documentary about Golda Meir, Israel's 4th Prime Minister, teach us something crucial about the country today? --"Anti-Semitism" or "Anti semitism"?-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about uber-historian Deborah Lipstadt's quixotic campaign to change the way the word anti-seminitism is spelled, striking the hyphen, and demoting the first S, about which Allison just wrote in an essay puckishly headlined, "Anti-antisemitism? A Battle Rages Over the Jewish Hyphen." All that and songs by Kosta Kaplan, off his debut record!

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and wunderkind critic Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. --Big Government-- Israel's new government is the largest in history, with 36 ministers. But can we expect big things from it? --Court TV?-- When Supreme Court hearings are broadcast on TV, does it humanize the justices, or just make them look small? --God TV?-- An Evangelical cable TV channel cheeses people off when it tries to convince Israeli Jews to accept Jesus in our hearts. But isn't that the sort of things we want to have in a "marketplace of ideas"? --Worrying About Our Loved Ones-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about (following a great article by Allison in Haaretz) what it is like to worry about loved ones living in the US, where the corona-news is so scary, at the moment when here in Israel things seem so much better. All that and songs by Frube, four talented kids from Sde Boker!

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. Non-Judgmental The Supreme Court rules that Benjamin Netanyahu is allowed to form the next government, and serve at its head, even though he goes to trial in two weeks for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Why? What's it mean for our future? Newton's Third Law of the Coronavirus? Is Israel going from being super cautious about coronavirus to not being cautious enough? Are we running amok to normality? Solidarities Israelis raise money to support a British woman suing Israeli young men who assaulted her in Cyprus. Why? The Fear of a Quick Exit For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about what it feels like, at this moment, to be going through the quick exit from quarantine that we are all going through here. All that and songs by Galli Allon!

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and Wunderkind critic Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. --Gradually, and then Suddenly -- Who killed Israel's Labor Party? --Art or Death -- Should the government support the arts like it supports the hospitals and the army, because art is an existential need no less important than health and defense? --Pandemic & Patriarchy -- Is the pandemic the best thing ever for patriarchy? Has the time come for "feminist civil disobedience"? --What's It Like Celebrating Memorial Day and Independence Day Under Corona-Lockdown -- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about what it was like to celebrate memorial day and independence day, under corona-lockdown. Hint: kind of delightful, and weirder than weird! All this and Adi Shaham!

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. --The Coalition Proposition: A Road to Perdition?-- Is the coalition agreement that PM Netanyahu and Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz just signed the end of democracy as we know it, the salvation of Israel, or maybe, just maybe, something in between? --Timor Mortis-est?-- Is it true what the director of Israel's Ministry of Health just said, that Israelis have less of a stomach for COVID-19 deaths than folks in other countries, and that that's a problem? --What is Israeli?-- Israel's celebrating our 72nd birthday, and still we've gotta aske: What is Israeli? --Preparing for Civil Unrest?-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about a just-leaked National Security Council report setting out a strategy for dealing with civil insurrection (!), as might break out in response to the coronavirus restrictions. Are corona-frustrations mounting here, like they seem to be in America? All that and songs by Romy Hanoch (the brilliant daughter of Shalom Hanoch, the godfather of Israeli rock'n'roll).

Allison Kaplan Sommer, Noah Efron and Wunderkind critic Ohad Zeltzer-Zubida discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. --No Go Tiations-- Why, O Why, can't Israel form a friggin' government? --Six Physicists, Two Computer Scientists, an Engineer, an Economist and a Psychologist-- Coronavirus doesn't distinguish by sex, religion or profession. But should that be true, too, of the committee tasked with devising our "exit strategy"? --Zionormativity (and the Queering of Yiddish)-- Do Israel and Zionism need to be "queered," now more than ever? --After We're Told That We Can Go Out, Do We Just Abide and Go Out?-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about whether, when the government says it's o.k. to go out to restaurants and send our kids to school, and take in a movie at the multiplex, we're going to feel comfortable doing it. All this and the smoky and ethereal moodiness of Bela Tar!

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. --Not With a Bang, but With a Tweet-- Labor head Amir Peretz tweets that he's merging his party into Blue & White, killing off once and for all the party of David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin. Should we mourn the loss? --What's Wrong with Bnei Brak?!?-- Why are most Israeli COVID-19 victims Ultra-Orthodox? Are all the others here who are outraged at Haredim justified in their anger? --The Dialectics of Dayenu-- Does the Passover Seder song, Dayenu, explain the difference between Israel's right and left? --How Is the Coronavirus Leaving Its Imprint on Our Passover?-- For our most unreasonably generous Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we talk about how the coronavirus is leaving its imprint on Passover, from how to prepare for it, to how we celebrate, to the new meaning it's come to hold for us. All that and songs by Israel's greatest polymath musician, Eli Dray.