Episodes

How Should Diaspora Jews Express their Ideas About Israeli Politics? Note: This is the end of the season and our podcast will be on a brief hiatus. Keep subscribed for season 9! There are several factors that can make it complicated for diaspora Jews to express their opinions on Israeli politics. Here are a few: Lack of firsthand experience: Diaspora Jews may not have firsthand experience living in Israel or the Palestinian territories, which can make it difficult to fully understand the comp...

Should Israeli Reserve Soldiers Refuse to Serve as Protests? The protests against Judicial Reform have continued on a smaller scale over the past weeks. With Passover behind us, and the national holiday season underway, Israelis are gearing up for whatever is coming next. One aspect of the protests in particular has been hotly debated. Should reservist soldiers refuse to perform their duties (“miluim’ in Hebrew) as a form of protest? Over the course of the past few months, this has been a grow...

Nation State Law Israel's Nation-State Law, also known as the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, was passed by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in July 2018. The law enshrines Israel as a Jewish state and makes Hebrew the country's official language, while downgrading Arabic from an official language to one with "special status." The debate over the Nation-State Law has been largely divided along political and ideological lines. Supporters of the law argue that it ...

Is Israeli Democracy in Existential Danger? Once again, we turned to Chat GPT and asked a simple question. “Does the current judicial reform crisis mean that Israeli democracy is coming to an end?” Here’s the essential parts of it's answer: As an AI language model, I strive to remain impartial and avoid making predictions about political developments. However, I can provide some background information on the ongoing judicial reform crisis in Israel and its potential implications for Israeli d...

Do we wish for an Exceptional or Normal state? What do we hope for when we consider the Jewish State? Let’s consider our National Anthem: “As long as deep in the heart, The soul of a Jew yearns, And forward to the East To Zion, an eye looks Our hope will not be lost, The hope of two thousand years, To be a free nation in our land, The land of Zion and Jerusalem.” Is that hope to become a free nation like all others, or to become an exceptional lofty nation? I suppose it depends who you...

Should the IDF end the draft? Polling over the last few years shows growing support among Israelis for a professional, rather than a conscripted army. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has had a mandatory conscription policy since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. All Israeli citizens, with few exceptions, are required to serve in the IDF for a period of 2-3 years for men, and 2 years for women, after reaching the age of 18. So why, in recent years, has there been a growing debate...

Is there still a chance for a two-state solution? For the last nine decades, whenever outsiders looked at the conflict between Jews and Arabs between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea, they have come up with the same idea. Since both people have claims to the land, it will need to be split. A two-state solution refers to the idea of establishing two independent states for Israelis and Palestinians, respectively, living side by side within recognized borders. This usually means creatin...

Are Jews Indigenous to Israel? There are still some things you can Google, but now we also have Chat GPT. When we looked on google to define indigenous peoplehood, it said it means “inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists.” Does this concept apply to Jews in Israel? There are two ways to address this question. One is simply to answer it. The other is to question its relevance. It feels like it's important and relevant to the Zionist ca...

The Israeli Judicial Reform Debate This is certainly the most divisive topic in current Israeli politics. While many thousands protest every week, supporters call those protesters anarchists. We recorded this episode before all of the plan’s specifics were announced, we certainly called the issues correctly. This debate has been ongoing for several years, but is now reaching a crisis point. The main issue at the center of the debate is the balance of power between the legislative and judicial ...

New episodes on the way! Our new season is coming before you know it. We've reformatted in light of a different podcast landscape then when we started, back in 2016. (There are more options now for Israeli headlines in english) As educators, we decided that working out various issues that affect Israeli life, culture and politics is our strength. We thought it would be fun to take turns debating these topics in an informal way. Issues like judicial reform, the Nation-State law and the viabilit...