Journalist and public intellectual Masha Gessen is dismayed that the Biden White House has been condemning, not supporting, the numerous tent protests against Israel's war in Gaza on American campuses and worried that this decision will hand the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump. Speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podc…

In her first visit to Israel since October 7, Berkeley-based author and screenwriter Ayelet Waldman made the news carrying a sack of rice on her shoulder, she was arrested with a group of rabbis participating in a symbolic march to the Gaza border to deliver humanitarian aid. Neither she nor members of the group, Waldman tells Haaretz Podcast host …

If support for Israel becomes a truly partisan issue and political football in the United States, it will be "a disaster" that the people and the leaders of the Jewish state don't fully comprehend, says Professor Noah Feldman in a conversation with host of the Haaretz Podcast Allison Kaplan Sommer. Feldman is a Harvard Law School professor and publ…

Iran's firing of hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night marked a new escalation in a simmering war usually fought by proxies miles from Tehran. Iran's strike, which was largely intercepted by Israel and its allies, leaves lingering questions of global significance. On a special edition of the podcast, Haaretz reporter Linda Day…

Six months into Israel's conflict with Hamas, the solid support U.S. President Joe Biden's White House gave to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has taken a serious hit. Following the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers, a clash over a possible military operation in Rafah, and Israel's failure to provide a vi…

The controversy in Israel over the exemption of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military service "has reached a boiling point," former Haaretz journalist and author Yair Ettinger tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continually delayed confronting the issue in his years in power, Etting…

Haaretz journalist Sheren Falah Saab has been covering the unfolding disastrous humanitarian situation in Gaza for months. Even now, aside from reporting on the lives of Gazans as the war rages, she manages, from time to time, to deep dive into Arab culture, and write the kind of articles that she used to send in all the time before October 7. But,…

This special episode of the Haaretz Podcast features two of the standout sessions from the recent Haaretz-UCLA conference: Israel After October 7 First, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sits down with Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn to discuss the “perils” and “opportunities” that lie ahead for Israel in the afterma…

Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner, one of the first high-profile American Jewish artists to sharply and publicly criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians, speaks to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech, the Gaza War, antisemitism in the U.S., and the current production of "Angels i…

In a bold cover story in The Atlantic, journalist Franklin Foer declared "The Golden Age of American Jewry is Ending." On the Haaretz Podcast, he tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer how and why he reached the sobering conclusion that "an unprecedented period of safety and prosperity for Jewish Americans" is over. Allegiance to the Palestinian cause on…

Veteran columnist Bradley Burston opens his new book "The End of Israel: Dispatches from a Path to Catastrophe" with a stinging indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he believes is leading the country towards what could be its final chapter. He tells Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that in recent years, when the country wa…

In a recent op-ed in Haaretz, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers of knowingly steering Israel into an all-out war. During a wide-ranging conversation on this week's Haaretz Podcast, Olmert tells host Allison Kaplan Sommer that for Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and Netanyahu, Gaza is only the…

You can hear the drumbeats for immediate elections in Israel in demonstrations in the streets, on highway billboards, and in the headlines. After four months of putting politics aside to focus on the war in Gaza and the northern border, Israelis - in growing numbers - are finally asking when they will be able to take their growing frustration with …

The decision by Moody's credit rating agency to downgrade Israel's rating and outlook last week was a shock to the country after decades of growth and a rosy outlook for the future as its technology-driven industries flourished. Haaretz economics editor and commentator David Rosenberg explains to Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer why Israe…

Israel's former head of military intelligence, Tamir Hayman, now the managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies, joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Podcast to discuss Israel's war with Hamas and the key question: How far is Israel willing to go to bring 130-plus hostages home? While Hayman believes that the terms of a…

Thousands of Israelis are back on the streets, four months after the October 7 Hamas attack and the war in Gaza halted historic demonstrations against the Netanyahu government's plan to overhaul the judiciary. Joining host Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Podcast, reporter Linda Dayan explains how the protest movement has reemerged, and how war…

On this week's Haaretz Podcast, host Allison Kaplan Sommer holds a wide-ranging conversation with Chuck Freilich, Israel's former deputy national security adviser. Freilich, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, discusses the numerous troubling issues arising from Israel's conflict with Hamas. He says that in the "hot …