Tel Aviv Review

Derek Penslar, professor of Jewish History at Harvard University, discusses his forthcoming book Zionism: An Emotional State, an interdisciplinary attempt to study the history of Jewish nationalism through a history of emotions lens. Join us on Patreon and help support the show

Dr Shivi Greenfield, political theorist and Deputy Director General for Strategy and Planning, discusses his book Judaism and Liberalism: A Metaphysical Tale of Two Siblings. In it, he claims that not only can the two coexist, they also stem from the same metaphysical source.

Itamar Mann, Professor of Law at the University of Haifa, specializing, among other things, in international law and legal theory, discusses his book Humanity at Sea: Maritime Migration and the Foundations of International Law.

Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Professor of Jewish History at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, specializing in religious and political thought in early modern and contemporary Judaism, discusses his new book Mishna Consciousness, Bible Consciousness: Safed and Zionist Culture. The book considers Safed (Tzfat), the old Jewish center in the Galilee, as the crux of a religious and political worldview that could – and still might – pose an alternative to the prevalent one. The episode is sponsored by the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History at UCLA and co-hosted by Prof David N. Myers.

Yuli Novak, the former director of Breaking the Silence, the IDF veterans' organization, reflects in her new memoir, Who Do You Think You Are, on her 2012-2017 tenure at the helm of the most reviled human rights group in Israel. This episode is part of a series co-sponsored by UCLA's Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and co-hosted by its director, Prof. Dov Waxman.

In this first-in-all-of-human-history, cross-over edition of TLV1's Tel Aviv Review and TLV1's The Promised Podcast, we discuss the open letter of more than 160 renowned historians of Jews, Judaism and/or Israel ("Israel on the Edge of an Abyss"), which opens, "We, historians of the Jewish people and of the State of Israel, accuse the sixth government of Benjamin Netanyahu of endangering the very existence of the State of Israel and the Israeli nation." Joining us is the author of the letter, the brilliant historian Orit Rozin.

David de Jong, a Tel Aviv-based journalist for the Dutch Financial Daily, discusses his book Nazi Billionaires: The Dark Histories of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties. The book, a collective biography of Nazi Germany's top industrialists and their heirs, sheds light on the dark corners of Germany's postwar Denazification.

Prof. Nir Keidar, legal historian and President of Sapir College, discusses his book David Ben Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy. How did Israel's founding father conceptualize the Republican idea and adapt it to the unique reality of the State of Israel, and in what ways is the Netanyahu Government's judicial overhaul a contradiction of the original vision?

Oren Kessler, journalist and author, discusses his new book "Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict," the first general-interest book in English dedicated to one of the key moments in the history of Jewish-Arab relations in Palestine and Israel. This episode is part of a series co-sponsored by UCLA's Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and co-hosted by its director, Prof. Dov Waxman.

Shuli Dichter, a veteran activist for a Jewish-Arab shared society in Israel, discusses his political memoir Sharing the Promised Land: In Pursuit of Equality between Jewish and Arab Citizens in Israel. The timing of its publication in English, when Israel seems to be moving in the opposite direction, is not a coincidence.