I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti

Jonathan Sacerdoti
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Journalist, broadcaster, and commentator Jonathan Sacerdoti engages in in-depth conversations with thought leaders, experts, and influential voices from around the world. Covering politics, culture, history, and current affairs, each episode delivers sharp analysis, valuable insights, and engaging discussions on the most pressing topics of our time. Cutting through the noise, this series provides informed perspectives on the issues shaping the world today.

  1. 2 hr ago

    UK Sanctions and the battle over Israel’s territory — how West Bank communities defy Britain's story, with Israeli British victim of terror Rabbi Leo Dee

    To donate to Meir Panim: http://meirpanim.org/rise-for-israelAs Britain introduces sanctions on Israel, Rabbi Leo Dee asks if British taxpayers should be funding the families of terrorists who murdered British citizens? And when Britain threatens sanctions against Jews living in the West Bank, who will actually suffer – Israeli settlers, Palestinian workers, or Britain itself?Rabbi Leo Dee’s wife Lucy and daughters Maia and Rina were murdered by Hamas terrorists in 2023. He speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti about how that tragedy thrust him into public life, his confrontation with the British Foreign Office and the extraordinary paradox he discovered: while his own family was ineligible for British compensation, UK money was helping to support the families of Palestinian terrorists.Dee, a British-born rabbi and former private-equity investor who lives in Efrat, challenges the conventional account of Israeli settlements, Palestinian violence and the two-state solution. He describes his relationships with Palestinian neighbours and workers, explains why he calls himself a “resettler” in Judea and Samaria, and proposes an alternative peace plan based on autonomous Palestinian city-states protected by Israel.This wide-ranging discussion also examines Edward Miliband’s proposed sanctions, accusations of settler violence, Britain’s increasingly hostile climate for Jews and Israel’s growing economic and technological strength. Dee argues that Israel can no longer be treated as a dependent nation: its cyber security, defence systems, water technology and rapidly expanding start-up economy have made it increasingly difficult for other countries to boycott.Subscribe for more interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@MrJonsac?sub...If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand why Rabbi Leo Dee believes Britain’s policy towards Israel punishes Jews, harms Palestinians and keeps alive a peace process that has already failed.💬 We Discuss:🇬🇧 How the British Foreign Office responded to the murder of three British-Israeli women💷 Why British money may support the families of Palestinian terrorists⚖️ The compensation denied to British victims of terrorism abroad🏠 What it means to live as a Jewish “settler” in Judea and Samaria📖 Why Rabbi Dee describes himself as a “resettler”🤝 Everyday coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians in Efrat🇵🇸 Why the Palestinians repeatedly rejected one-state and two-state proposals🏙️ Rabbi Dee’s alternative plan for autonomous Palestinian city-states🗺️ The controversy surrounding Israel’s E1 development plans🪨 How Israeli settlements are built around existing Palestinian towns and farmland📰 Claims of “settler terrorism” and the international media’s focus on Israel🛡️ Whether Israel is doing enough to prosecute violence by Jewish extremists✡️ Antisemitism in Britain and the possible decline of British Jewish life🚀 Why Israel’s start-up economy may emerge stronger from war🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, terrorism and the defence of Western democratic values.📲 Follow JonathanOn X: https://x.com/jonsacOn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansac...On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com👇 Comment below — are Britain’s proposed sanctions a principled response to settler violence, or collective punishment driven by political calculation?

  2. 29 Aug

    What is a multi-faith prayer room? Revealing how Islam quietly reshaped Britain’s public buildings

    Across Britain, thousands of supposedly “multi-faith” prayer rooms have appeared in airports, hospitals, schools, offices, museums and shopping centres. But have you ever been in one?They are presented as neutral spaces open to everyone – so who actually uses them? Are they genuinely shared places of worship, or has Britain quietly created a vast network of unofficial mosques while avoiding an honest conversation about religion, Islam and the decline of Christianity? Dr Andrew Crompton, former Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti about the strange architecture and hidden meaning of Britain’s multi-faith spaces. Crompton argues that attempts to remove every recognisable religious symbol do not create true neutrality. Instead, the arrangement of furniture, prayer mats, washing facilities and segregated areas often reveals which faith the room primarily serves. This wide-ranging discussion looks at why Britain has become embarrassed by public prayer, how Islam has been generously, but often unconsciously, accommodated, and what these anonymous rooms reveal about the country’s changing religious identity. We also examine the tensions between religious practice, secular institutions, sex equality and personal freedom, and ask whether Britain’s reluctance to speak frankly has produced a solution that satisfies nobody. If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/ 👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand how multi-faith prayer rooms spread across Britain, and why their true purpose is rarely discussed openly. We discuss: 🕌 Why many multi-faith rooms function primarily as Islamic prayer spaces🇬🇧 What these rooms reveal about Britain’s changing religious identity✝️ Why Christian symbols have largely disappeared from shared prayer spaces🛫 How Heathrow came to have 39 'mosques'🏥 Why prayer spaces have spread through hospitals, schools, offices and airports🚿 How prayer mats and ritual-washing facilities can transform a neutral room into a mosque⚖️ Is there a legal obligation to make a prayer room?🙏 Is Britain embarrassed by prayer and religion?🚪 Putting religion “in the closet”👩‍🦰 Sex-segregated worship and equality in the workplace🏫 Prayer rooms in schools and religious pressures🔮 What today’s prayer rooms tell us about Britain’s religious future Follow Jonathan: On X On Instagram On YouTube 🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, society, religion, politics and the defence of Western democratic values.

  3. 23 Aug

    Why Israel rejects Western guilt: Dan Scheuftan explains how survival and principle trump fashion

    Israel and the Jewish people are facing a dramatic collapse in their standing across much of the world. Israel is increasingly portrayed not merely as a country whose policies should be criticised, but as the embodiment of absolute evil: accused of genocide, colonialism and apartheid, while the legitimacy of Jewish collective existence itself is challenged. Is this simply the latest eruption of an ancient antisemitism? Or has something deeper changed in Western society that has made hostility towards Israel increasingly respectable? Dan Schueftan speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti, arguing that the central conflict is between the worldview increasingly dominant in Western institutions and the reality in which Israel has to survive. While much of the West has grown suspicious of nationalism, military force and even the idea that nations must defend themselves, Israelis have drawn almost the opposite conclusions from Yom Kippur, the Second Intifada and October 7. Israel cannot afford, he argues, to adopt fashionable Western assumptions about war, national identity and security when its enemies still pose an existential threat. The result is a country increasingly at odds with the political and cultural zeitgeist of the societies whose approval it once sought. Dan Shchueftan joins Jonathan Sacerdoti for a wide-ranging discussion about why Israel has become such a fixation of Western politics, whether Jewish life in Europe and America has a future, and why the moderate right may now offer Jews an alliance once associated with the liberal left. If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/ 👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand why hostility towards Israel has exploded across the West – and why antisemitism alone cannot explain it. 💬 We Discuss: 🇮🇱 Why Israel has become increasingly isolated from the Western political and cultural mainstream 🌍 The clash between Israel's survival instincts and the modern Western zeitgeist 🕊️ Why Western attitudes towards war and military force changed so dramatically ⚔️ What October 7 taught Israelis about deterrence, prevention and the use of force 🎓 How progressivism transformed universities, human rights activism and attitudes towards Israel 🇵🇸 Why Israelis largely reject Western guilt over the Palestinians ✡️ Is today's explosion of anti-Israel sentiment fundamentally about antisemitism? 🩸 How the ancient blood libel has been repackaged for the modern age 📰 Why Schueftan believes Western media helps legitimise some of the oldest accusations against Jews 🔄 How antisemitism can simultaneously serve radically different political movements 🤝 Why parts of the Western left and the developing world have found common cause against Israel 🌐 What international institutions reveal about the changing global order 🇪🇺 Why Schueftan believes Jewish life in Europe faces a profound crisis 🇺🇸 Could American Jewish life be heading in the same direction? 🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, Judaism, antisemitism, Islam, geopolitics and the defence of Western democratic values. 📲 Follow Jonathan On X: https://x.com/jonsac On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/ On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com 👇 Comment below — is today's hostility towards Israel primarily a new form of antisemitism, or the result of a much deeper ideological shift in the West?

  4. 10 Aug

    How Britain’s fight over Islam became a threat to Jewish life — Shimon Cohen explains how ancient Jewish traditions could soon become illegal in Britain

    Two ancient Jewish practices are increasingly being challenged in modern Britain and Europe: kosher slaughter and the circumcision of baby boys. Both can appear troubling to outsiders. Both raise legitimate questions about animal welfare, bodily autonomy and religious freedom. And both have a long history of becoming political battlegrounds over whether Jews can continue to live according to their traditions in European society. The debate over kosher slaughter has become entangled with a much larger argument about halal meat, Islam and immigration. Yet kosher production represents a tiny proportion of British slaughter, while vast amounts of halal meat enters the general food supply every day. When politicians demand bans on religious slaughter, are they really arguing about animal welfare, or about the religious communities themselves? Circumcision presents an equally difficult collision between ancient faith and modern values. Brit Milah remains fundamental to Jewish identity even among many Jews who are otherwise not particularly observant. But should parents have the right permanently to alter the body of an eight-day-old child for religious reasons? Shimon Cohen, director of Shechita UK and an advocate for religious freedom at the Conference of European Rabbis, joins me for a frank discussion about two practices at the heart of Jewish life – and why defending them requires answering the difficult questions rather than avoiding them. If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/ 👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand why kosher slaughter and circumcision have become political battlegrounds – and what banning them would mean for Jewish life in Britain and Europe. 💬 We Discuss: 🔪 What actually happens during kosher slaughter – and whether stunning really is more humane 🐄 Why mechanical stunning was never about animal welfare 🧪 The scientific argument over how quickly an animal loses consciousness during shechita 🇨🇭 The disturbing history of European bans on kosher slaughter ☪️ Why the explosion of halal meat has dragged Jewish practices into a much wider political fight 🥩 The difference between kosher, stunned halal and non-stunned halal meat 🏫 Are you unknowingly eating halal meat in restaurants, schools and other institutions? 🏷️ Does food labelling may make more sense than banning religious slaughter? 👶 What actually happens during brit milah and why circumcision remains so important to Jewish identity ⚖️ Where parental rights, bodily autonomy and freedom of religion collide 🩺 Why a mohel does not necessarily need to be a doctor – and how the practice is regulated 🚫 Why male circumcision and FGM are fundamentally different practices 🇬🇧 Whether ancient religious traditions can survive increasingly secular Western attitudes ✡️ What restrictions on kosher slaughter and circumcision would ultimately mean for Jewish life in Europe 🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, Judaism, Islam, religious freedom and the defence of Western democratic values. 📲 Follow Jonathan On X: https://x.com/jonsac On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/ On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com

  5. 2 Aug

    Pulling the strings: the hidden players behind the hate marches on Britain’s streets

    The vast demonstrations that filled Britain’s streets after 7 October 2023 have shaped politics, policing, Jewish life and public debate for nearly three years. Their scale gave them authority. Their repetition gave their slogans extraordinary reach. Their organisational structure deserves the same scrutiny routinely applied to every other force seeking to influence British public life. Behind the crowds sits an infrastructure of campaign groups, funding networks, organisers, political activists and international connections. Questions about who pays for that infrastructure, who coordinates it and what regulation applies to it go directly to the integrity of democratic politics. Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor joins me to discuss the organisation’s investigation into the movement behind Britain’s major anti Israel demonstrations. Please donate to support these important conversations: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support 👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand how protest movements acquire power, money and influence 💬 We Discuss: 💷 How organisations hide the source of money behind Britain’s mass demonstrations 🪧 Why supposedly spontaneous mobilisation looks identical all around the world 🏛️ Charity money, tax payer money, and highly political campaigning 🌍 American foundations and international activist platforms funding British protests 🧩 How leadership overlaps across multiple organisations 🧒 Targeting young people through activist training, universities and social media ☪️ The Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist actors challenging democratic life 🇮🇷 How demonstrations centred on Gaza can absorb wider ideological causes ⚖️ Gaps in the Charity Commission, Companies House rules and Foreign Influence Registration Scheme 🇬🇧 Does Britain need stronger institutions capable of examining ideological extremism? 🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, extremism, institutional power and the defence of Western democratic values. 📲 Follow Jonathan On X On Instagram On Substack

  6. 23 Jul

    How Britain and Europe rely on Israeli defence tech, whatever their leaders say — Yuval Steinitz on the catastrophic consequences of boycotting Israel and on Jewish survival

    Israel has become one of the most formidable developers of advanced defence systems in the world, despite its tiny size and population. Now, as calls to boycott its arms industry grow louder across Europe, Yuval Steinitz — Chairman of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and former Israeli Minister of Finance, Energy and Intelligence — tells Jonathan Sacerdoti how Iron Dome, David's Sling and the revolutionary Iron Beam laser have defended the country against more than 40,000 missiles and rockets in three years, and why he believes those pushing to disarm Israel are handing its enemies exactly what they want. As Britain reluctantly accepts its new Prime Minister, Steinitz responds to Andy Burnham's proposed arms restrictions on Israel, argues that singling out the Jewish state for boycott while ignoring China, Russia or Saudi Arabia is indefensible, and points out that British fighter jets and air defense systems already depend on Israeli technology developed by Rafael. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Yuval Steinitz about the hypocrisy behind BDS, the $2 laser rewriting the rules of warfare, Israel's rise past Britain, France and Germany in GDP per capita, the legacy of David Ben-Gurion, and what a defenceless Israel would mean for 8 million Jews. Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate 🛡️ Watch if you want to understand why disarming Israel would not bring peace, but risk a new Holocaust in the Middle East. 🎯 We Discuss: 🚀 How Israel intercepted over 40,000 missiles and rockets in three years 🇬🇧 Why Britain's new Prime Minister made Israel his first target ⚖️ The hypocrisy Steinitz sees in boycotting Israel but not China, Russia or Saudi Arabia 💡 The $2 laser beam that could end the era of missile warfare 🇫🇷 How France's arms embargo backfired and forced Israel to build its own defence industry 📈 How Israel's GDP per capita overtook Britain, France and Germany 🏭 The secret history of Ben-Gurion founding Rafael in 1948 🛰️ Why Britain's own fighter jets already rely on Israeli-developed technology 💀 Steinitz's warning: what a defenceless Israel would mean for 8 million Jews 🕊️ Why he still believes peace with the Palestinians remains possible 🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Israel, defence, Western politics and the forces shaping the Middle East. 👤 Follow Jonathan On X On Instagram On Substack 💬 Comment below — can the West keep criticising Israel's right to defend itself while relying on the very technology that defends it? #IronDome #IronBeam #Israel #IDF #IsraelDefense #BDS #JonathanSacerdoti #MiddleEast #IsraelNews #WesternCivilisation

  7. 14 Jul

    Why liberalism cannot defend Britain: Melanie Phillips on the West’s “suicide note”

    Can a Jew still be fully British when support for Israel is treated as evidence of disloyalty? Melanie Phillips tells Jonathan Sacerdoti why she shifted her centre of gravity from London to Jerusalem, how Britain’s cultural institutions turned against her, and why she believes the crisis facing Jews is inseparable from the wider collapse of Western confidence. Britain still inspires her deep affection. But beneath that attachment are harder questions. Has liberal tolerance become a refusal to defend civilisation? Can the West recover its Christian and biblical foundations without reviving its historic hostility towards Jews? Has anti-Zionism become a new loyalty test? Is Donald Trump’s faith in dealmaking blinding him to the nature of Iran and Hamas — and can anyone still break through a culture in which feelings have replaced objective truth? In this wide-ranging conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Orwell Prize-winning journalist and author Melanie Phillips about abandoning the Guardian worldview, finding a fuller Jewish identity in Israel, her criticism of the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Trump’s handling of Iran and Gaza, and her practical advice for Jews confronted with accusations about Israel. Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate 👁️‍🗨️ Watch if you want to understand why Melanie Phillips believes the struggle over Israel, Jewish identity and antisemitism is part of a much larger battle for Britain and Western civilisation. 🎙️ We Discuss: 🇬🇧 Why Jewish acceptance in Britain became conditional 🇮🇱 How Israel made her a 'more complete Jew' 💔 Melanie's increasingly unrequited love for Britain 🌍 Why she believes Israel and the West are ultimately defending the same civilisation ⚖️ Liberalism’s “suicide note” ✝️ The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Israel, Islamism and Christian history 🇺🇸 Why Donald Trump’s belief in deals may prevent him from understanding Iran, Hamas and ideological enemies ⚠️ How an American retreat could embolden Russia, China, North Korea and the Islamist world 📰 The Guardian article Melanie wrote despite knowing its underlying story was untrue 🧠 How the left transformed political disagreement into a struggle between moral goodness and evil 🗣️ Why conventional arguments defending Israel often fail ✡️ Why she remains optimistic, and why Jews must continue speaking even when they feel isolated or exhausted 🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Israel, British politics, antisemitism, Western civilisation, religion and the forces reshaping Jewish life. 📲 Follow Jonathan On X On Instagram On Substack 💬 Comment below — can Britain recover its culture and confidence without making Jewish life even less secure, or has the old relationship already broken down?

  8. 5 Jul

    How the West's own laws are being used to destroy it: Natasha Hausdorff exposes the ICC and UN

    Natasha Hausdorff tells Jonathan Sacerdoti that international law — the very system the West built to protect itself — has been turned into a weapon against Western civilisation, and that what is being done to Israel today will be done to Britain and America tomorrow. Behind the headlines about war crimes, genocide and starvation lies a harder story. What happens when the courts meant to deliver justice become political tools? When UN reports launder terrorist propaganda as established fact? When the photographs that moved the world turn out not to show what we were told they showed? And if "what starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews," what does the weaponisation of international law mean for every law-abiding nation that still fights by the rules? In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Natasha Hausdorff — barrister, international law expert and founder of the Centre for International Rule of Law — about how the laws of war are being inverted, why the ICC and ICJ have lost their credibility, how NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch built cases on Hamas sources they never verified, why the "State of Palestine" fails the basic legal test for statehood, and why the West's silence in the face of this abuse may be the most dangerous signal of all. Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate 👁️‍🗨️ Watch if you want to understand how international law — from the ICC to the UN Human Rights Council — is being turned against Israel and the West, and why the outcome affects every nation that still plays by the rules. 🎙️ We Discuss: ⚖️ Why Natasha Hausdorff founded the Centre for International Rule of Law — and what "the weaponisation of international law" actually means 🏛️ How rule-of-law nations treat law as a limit on power, while despots treat it as a tool to wield power 🔴 Why the ICC and ICJ increasingly look like political bodies rather than independent courts 📄 How the latest UN Commission of Inquiry "launders" terrorist propaganda into an official report on the targeting of children 🗂️ Why Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch relied on Gaza "local authorities" — while admitting they had no one on the ground 🔍 "Projection": how Israel's accusers are guilty of exactly what they accuse Israel of 🧾 Why the "State of Palestine" fails the Montevideo test for statehood — and how the ICC invented its own jurisdiction 🍽️ The starvation narrative: why over 3,000 calories per person per day were entering Gaza — and why up to 90% of aid was diverted by Hamas 🚸 The truth behind the "starving children" photographs — and the well-fed relatives cropped out of frame 🎓 How the international legal academy silences anyone who won't "drink the Kool-Aid" on Israel 🚧 Why Egypt sealed the border at Rafah — and how the international community became complicit in Palestinian suffering 🎖️ How a senior British general was attacked by his own colleagues for reporting honestly what he saw in Gaza 🌍 Why "what starts with the Jews doesn't end with the Jews" — and how lawfare will one day be turned on Britain and the US 🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about international law, Israel, the Middle East, antisemitism, and the forces reshaping the West. 📲 Follow Jonathan On X: https://x.com/jonsac On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansacerdoti/ On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com 💬 Comment below — has international law become a shield for the world's worst actors and a weapon against the nations that actually respect it? And if Israel is the test case, who's next? #NatashaHausdorff #JonathanSacerdoti #InternationalLaw #Israel #Lawfare #ICC #ICJ #Gaza #Hamas #Genocide #UN #AmnestyInternational #HumanRightsWatch #MiddleEast #RuleOfLaw #WesternCivilisation

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4.8
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About

Journalist, broadcaster, and commentator Jonathan Sacerdoti engages in in-depth conversations with thought leaders, experts, and influential voices from around the world. Covering politics, culture, history, and current affairs, each episode delivers sharp analysis, valuable insights, and engaging discussions on the most pressing topics of our time. Cutting through the noise, this series provides informed perspectives on the issues shaping the world today.

Information

  • Creator
    Jonathan Sacerdoti
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    70
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jonathan Sacerdoti
  • Show Website
    I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti

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