What Matters Now The Times of Israel

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.
This week, The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. 
Ultra-Orthodox men of military age have been able to avoid being conscripted to the IDF for decades by enrolling in yeshivas for Torah study and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption.
This week, a historic High Court ruling — which found that there is no legal basis for excluding Haredi men from the military draft -- brought the need for a true Haredi draft law into focus. 
So when Likud MK and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein delayed a vote on a Defense Ministry-backed “draft Security Service Law” due to what he said was a failure to reach a “broad consensus” on the matter, political pundits paid attention.
Likewise, polls indicated this week that a "fantasy" political party of former prime minister Naftali Bennet, Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman, New Hope head Gideon Sa’ar and former Mossad director Yossi Cohen would be the largest faction in the Knesset if elections were held today, winning 25 seats.
So this week, as more murmurings of discontent are heard by Likud MK -- and their voting block -- 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 the Pod-Waves. 
Illustrative image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves to his supporters after the first exit poll results for the Israeli parliamentary elections at his Likud party's headquarters in Jerusalem, March. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
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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 Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with Holocaust historian Prof. Jan Grabowski, the author of "The Hunt for the Jews."
We discuss how in recent decades the lexicon associated with the Holocaust has been usurped and recycled for any number of political purposes. Most recently, the terminology is showcased during Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza and accusations against the Jewish state of genocide have led international news.
We ask Grabowski, who is currently conducting research in Israel, about the use of terms such as "genocide" and "Nazi" during a period that the University of Ottawa professor calls "a-historic."
He speaks about the challenges of educating at western universities today -- especially as some students are calling for their Jewish peers and faculty to “go back to Europe.”
So this week, we ask Prof. Jan Grabowski, 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 the Pod-Waves. 
IMAGE: Prof. Jan Grabowski (Katarzyna Markusz)
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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 senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
On Tuesday, the United Nations published an annual report on children in armed conflict, which for the first time added the Israeli military, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to its list of worst offenders. The decision to add the IDF to what has become known as “the list of shame” was due to what the report said was its killing and maiming of children and attacking schools and hospitals. Israel asserts that it operates according to international law, taking steps to avoid civilian casualties.
And on Wednesday, a UN inquiry alleged both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, saying Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses, and that they included acts of “extermination.”
This week, we discuss the use of international bodies to delegitimize Israel and how international law -- developed in part by Jews -- no longer protects the little guys.
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 the Pod-Waves. 
IMAGE: Israel's legal team waits to hear the arguments of South Africa's legal team as part of South Africa case against Israel over Rafah offensive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, on May 16, 2024. (Nick Gammon / AFP)
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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 archaeologist Prof. Jodi Magness.
This Wednesday, Israel marked Jerusalem Day, which celebrates the reunification of Jerusalem following the 1967 Six-Day War.
But the capital has a rich and fascinating history of rulership changes since its foundation in circa 1000 BCE.
Magness just published her latest book, "Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades," through Oxford University Press. She stopped by The Times of Israel's Jerusalem offices to speak about the ancient eternal city's rulerships and populations throughout the eras.
“Jerusalem Through the Ages” is a 700-page weighty tome that delves into the city’s history through archaeological evidence and also texts, including the Bible and extra-biblical material such as the Egyptian Amarna Letters.
Magness is Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of 11 books, including "Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth," "Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus," and "The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls." From 2011 until 2023, Magness directed excavations at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee and uncovered its breathtaking mosaics.
So this Jerusalem Day, we take a quick break from our current war and ask archaeologist Prof. Jodi Magness, what mattered then?
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 
IMAGE: Prof. Jodi Magness in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on April 11, 2022. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/The Times of Israel)
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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.
October 7 was not the first time that rape was weaponized in warfare. If history teaches anything, it also won’t be the last.
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.
Elkayam-Levy is a Sophie Davis Post-Doctoral Fellow at Hebrew University’s Leonard Davis Institute’s program on Gender, Conflict Resolution and addition to lecturing at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Reichman University, she, along with her staff, has poured over thousands of pieces of documentation that chronicle Hamas’s systemic use of rape and sexual violence against women.
The silence and lack of condemnation of this violence from international bodies, including the 30-year-old United Nations office of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, has been deafening to Israeli women. But domestically, Elkayam-Levy was recently awarded the Israel Prize, the highest honor the state of Israel bestows, as well as other honors.
Borschel-Dan visited the headquarters of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children for a wide-ranging conversation. Listener discretion is advised.
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 the Pod-Waves. 
IMAGE: Law prof Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy (Martine Hami)
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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, hosted by deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
A month before the Hamas onslaught on Israel's south that would claim the life of his son, Rav Doron Perez inked a deal to translate to Hebrew his English-language book, "The Jewish State From Opposition to Opportunity: A Vision for Unity in Israel and Why the World Needs It."
In the book, the Johannesburg-born Executive Chairman of the Mizrachi World Movement, also a member of the board of the World Zionist Organization, aims to use an "old-new spiritual approach to the Jewish state," in part to help bridge the country's widening gaps.
And then, on October 7, the Perez family suffered a double blow in learning that eldest son Yonatan was injured and second child Daniel was missing. It was only after 163 days of uncertainty that the family learned that Daniel was indeed killed on that bloody Saturday after a heroic battle for the protection of Nachal Oz.
Now, Perez is reconciling this unmeasurable loss with his staunch Religious Zionism, even as some in Israel would give in to a very understandable anger and blame.
This week on What Matters Now, we talk about the past almost eight months in which the family incrementally learned of Daniel’s fate.
What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 
IMAGE: In this 2021 image, Rav Doron Perez (center) poses with his two soldier sons Yonatan (left, then 22) and Daniel (then 20), who was slain on October 7, 2023, and his remains captured by Hamas and taken to Gaza. (courtesy)
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