Ask Haviv Anything

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything ), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/ ), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur ).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/ ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur ).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews and lectures that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.In our current episode we ask: Are the allegations in NAZA true?If you appreciate what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Israel’s democracy wasn't designed in a grand constitutional convention. It was patched together quickly in the middle of a war in 1949. Yet, for nearly 80 years, this chaotic system miraculously prevented civil war and built a powerhouse state. Dr. Shany Mor, lecturer in political thought at Reichman University, joins the podcast ahead of the October elections to explain the hidden brilliance of the Israeli electoral system and how well-intentioned reforms like raising the electoral threshold spectacularly backfired to empower the extremes.If you’ve ever wondered why Israeli politics looks insane and still somehow works -- or whether it still will as the country’s crises seem to accumulate -- this is the episode for you.--This episode was sponsored by Congregation Adath Jeshurun of Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. “Congregation Adath Jeshurun was founded in 1858 and later became one of the original synagogues of the Conservative Movement. We at AJ, as it is widely known, are deeply appreciative of the historical perspective, political analyses, and theological contexts that Haviv provides. May we go from strength to strength.”--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Rosh Hashanah is the only major Jewish holiday that begins in total darkness — no full moon, no light on the road. And it is there, in deepest darkness, that the new year is born, that the new light kindles.Jewish tradition teaches that this pivot from darkness to light is a time of freedom, when Joseph first came out of Pharaoh’s dungeon, when the Jews first tasted freedom from Egyptian bondage.This Rosh Hashana, we ask what happens when an entire industry farms our attention for profit. From Proverbs to Rambam to the Ramchal's blind man walking the riverbank, we show that attention -- the world's most profitable commodity -- is also our most precious personal possession. That, at least, is a core principle of Judaism. And if it’s true, then the attention-hording rage-scrolling of social media, which now dominates our culture and claims much of our attention, is a form of slavery.This Rosh Hashanah, make this moment of darkness and awakenings a pivot in your own life, a moment for reclaiming your mind.---If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Israel helped rebuild the Haredi world after the Holocaust. It funds its institutions and sends its children to defend it. Why won’t more Haredim join them?Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer understands the anger. A Haredi rabbi who enlisted after October 7, he also understands why putting on an Israeli uniform can feel like crossing an existential boundary -- and why that boundary must change.In this installment of our election series, we explore the struggle inside ultra-Orthodox Israel: the parties and rabbis who hold power, the emerging challengers, and the growing demand for education, work, military service and a political voice. It’s a conversation about gratitude, shared sacrifice, and whether a community built to preserve the Jewish past can take responsibility for its future.--This episode is sponsored by an anonymous listener who asked us to say: “Thank you to Haviv for this podcast. Things get noisy in the diaspora. We really appreciate your clarity and voice.”--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Israel's first election since October 7 will be held on October 27 -- and the system it runs through is one of the simplest in the free world, which is exactly why the results look insane from outside.One district: the whole country. One ballot slip. You vote for a party, never a person.In this primer, Haviv walks through how a slip of paper becomes 120 Knesset seats: the 3.25% threshold that erased Bennett and Shaked's party in 2019 by just 1,380 votes, the Bader-Ofer leftover math that quietly rewards big parties and can decide the election, and the surplus-vote agreements filed by October 16 that could hand a bloc the last two seats -- and the country.Plus: why the most chaotic Knesset in memory produced the most stable government since 1973, why religiosity predicts an Israeli's vote better than income or ethnicity, the Haredi demographic numbers nobody can wish away, and the most under-covered story of the cycle -- Arab turnout.By the end you'll know what to watch on election night, and why Israeli broadcasts will be excitedly obsessing about "Bader-Ofer" on election night.--This episode is sponsored by David Allouch and is dedicated “to the next generation, among whom are my amazing nieces, Tali and Elsa; my equally amazing nephew, Ilan; and the children of my dear friend Binyamina, Shmuel, Freidel Esther and Eliyahu. May they all continue to thrive and bring their intellectual creativity to the world, as their ancestors did before them.”--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Can Gaza ever be rebuilt while Hamas remains armed? Gazan-American writer Ahmed Fouad Al-Khatib returns to trace Hamas’s rise — from Islamist charities and the slow remaking of Gazan society to authoritarian rule, October 7, and ruinous war. Drawing on his childhood in Gaza and his new book, Hamas and Its Two Million Hostages, Ahmed argues that foreign aid, international NGOs, and Al Jazeera helped Hamas entrench itself while ordinary Gazans paid the price. He and Haviv confront the hardest questions: Can Hamas be separated from Gazan society? Could a movement built around armed “resistance” ever disarm? And is there still a path from permanent war to Palestinian nation-building and coexistence?Ahmed's new book, Hamas and its Two Million Hostages is available at: https://www.amazon.com/Hamas-Its-Two-Million-Hostages/dp/1760646156/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1WYTUN2AK9KHF&di--This episode is sponsored by the family of Dr. Chalo Smukler, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, physician, and proud American Jew, on the occasion of his unveiling.Born in Paraguay and descended from Jews who fled persecution in Eastern Europe, Chalo was a leader from a young age in the Jewish youth movement Hanoar Hatzioni and first moved to Israel at sixteen. There he discovered a free society, a sense of Jewish brotherhood, and a refuge that would remain central to his life.He lived with humility, kindness, courage, and an extraordinary capacity to make every person feel heard and loved. He believed profoundly in the Jewish people, in Israel, and in tikun olam, the responsibility we share to build a better future for all humanity, Jewish or not.While he would have been dismayed by what Jews around the world have faced since his passing, he would have taken solace in a truth he deeply believed: that when the Jewish people stand together, there is nothing we cannot overcome.To all those whose lives he touched, his memory will forever be a blessing.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Why does the West misunderstand the Middle East? Best-selling historian Simon Sebag Montefiore returns to the pod to discuss The Cauldron, his sweeping new history of the region, from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of its modern states to oil, Islamism, revolution and the Arab Spring.The book is a kind of prehistory of present-day Western stumbling in the Middle East. Western powers repeatedly arrive with grand political theories — imperialism, nationalism, socialism, liberal democracy — only to watch them change beyond recognition or collapse on contact with the region’s deeper identities, loyalties and social contracts. It is a conversation about the states that endured, the ones that failed, and why the Middle East remains so intensely debated in the West — and so poorly understood.--This episode is sponsored by the Technion.Israel became the Startup Nation by turning talent into strength, ideas into industries. For more than a century, the Technion has trained the engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs who transformed Israel into the Startup Nation and delivered breakthroughs that changed the world. Now Technion scientists are advancing the next wave of innovation to help power Israel’s next chapter.Israel. Engineered by the Technion.Join us. Visit https://ats.org/rebuild .--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Van Jones came on the podcast a few months ago and said some things that lit up our inbox. A lot of praise, a lot of pushback.So he came back to answer your questions.Why did progressives spend twenty years building hierarchies of oppression and leave Jews off the list? Why do Black students on campus struggle to see Jewish vulnerability? What do you do with a community that hears "we're like you, we're Jewish," and thinks: do you want to trade spots?Van doesn't dodge. He also pushes back on how Jews frame the conversation. It's an honest conversation about campuses, Farrakhan and Black antisemitism, the NAACP voting to disarm Israel, and why the Jewish world "feels like David, but looks like Goliath" to outsiders. Van gives ground where he thinks the critics are right and takes it back where he thinks Jews are getting the Black community badly wrong.It’s a conversation that doesn't happen enough, and which Van is committed to advancing. That's why he founded the EXODUS Leadership Forum that brings together Jewish, Black and Jewish-Black leaders and activists. You can find out more about their work, including the 70 dinners Van discusses on the podcast, here: https://gather.exodusdinner.org .--Today’s episode is sponsored by SAPIR, the quarterly journal edited by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. SAPIR’s tagline is, “Ideas for a Thriving Jewish Future,” which is one reason the journal has devoted time and space to the future of Black-Jewish relations, one of the most powerful -- and imperiled -- political alliances in American history. The relationship is important to the thriving of both communities, SAPIR editors believe. I highly recommend Dana White’s article from a couple years ago on the role historically Black colleges and universities once played in building the relationship between Black and Jewish Americans.SAPIR is, unbelievably, free. Yes, you can receive this beautiful and enriching publication at your door four times a year at no cost. Subscribe today at http://sapirjournal.org/Haviv -- and your subscription will begin with the next issue on the theme of Influence. They won’t even ask you for credit card information. That’s http://sapirjournal.org/Haviv, or click the link in the episode show notes.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Dr. Dara Horn didn't want to write this book. She wanted to write more acclaimed novels. But after she published her bestselling essay collection People Love Dead Jews, readers kept cornering her with their own horror stories of antisemitism and one unfair question: can you help? She became the antisemitism Lorax.So she wrote the answer, and gave it the humdrum, unprovocative title: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question. It’s out September 1.Dara joins the podcast to talk about why antisemitism isn't a bigotry but a lie told by people who want power ("Jews are destroying what you value the most"); how a 1940s American Jewish strategy to be seen as a religion rather than a people left today's Jews defenseless; why American Holocaust education "eliminates pattern recognition" and outsources everything else people should learn about Jews -- about living Jews, not just dead ones -- to TikTok; and why "Zionism is genocide" is a KGB slogan older than most of the people chanting it.Plus: Harvard, Durban, data-poisoning the AI, Muslim allies with the Hebrew הנני tattooed on their forearms, and why Dara thinks this is the Jewish people's Queen Esther moment.--This episode is sponsored by SAPIR, the quarterly journal of ideas for a thriving Jewish future, edited by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. One of the most astonishing things about SAPIR, beyond the fabulous essays -- more than a few written by guests who’ve come on this podcast, including Reihan Salam and today’s guest Dara Horn -- is that it is free if you live in the United States!The print publication is beautiful and enriching. Every issue is devoted to a specific theme. If you sign up today your free annual subscription will begin with the forthcoming issue on the timely theme of Influence.Subscribe today at http://sapirjournal.org/Haviv – completely free of charge; they won’t even ask you for credit card information. That’s http://sapirjournal.org/Haviv, or click the link in the episode show notes.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Antisemitism is no mere prejudice. It's a potent political technology, perhaps the most effective negative campaign and coalition-builder in modern politics. Prof. Ruth Wisse, professor emerita of Harvard, now a senior fellow at the Tikvah Fund, joins the podcast to help us trace the “politics of the pointing finger” from Wilhelm Marr’s Antisemitenliga to the Arab League, from the Harvard campus’s grievance coalitions after October 7 to the rising figures on the progressive left and the populist right who find Jews the easiest, least costly villain on which to foist their anxieties and fears. Wisse argues that Jews cannot win this fight by trying argue with the charges being leveled at them; that Israel’s creation remains the great modern resurrection of a people; and that Jewish (and American) self-confidence is the only real answer to this challenge.--This episode is sponsored by Club Z. I spend a lot of time on campuses talking to young Jews who call themselves anti-Zionist without being able to articulate what the word actually means — without knowing the basic history of how Israel came to exist. That's not their fault. Nobody taught them. Club Z is working to close that gap. Since 2011, they've been teaching Jewish teens their own story. They focus on identity and history before advocacy, helping to transform students' understanding of Zionism from a slogan into a real, explicable word that speaks of the survival and thriving of a nation. They run year-round programs in New York, New Jersey, Boston, LA, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and new cohorts are forming right now. You can find more info at http://ClubZ.org.Here's the thing parents need to hear: You don't control what happens on campus. But you can college-proof your kid before they get there — give them the history, the confidence, the identity, so nobody can talk them out of who they are. That's what Club Z does for your child.This Labor Day weekend, Club Z is bringing a hundred teens to Central Florida for The Rising, a national leadership gathering featuring speakers including Colonel Richard Kemp and Shabbos Kestenbaum. There are only about 20 spots left, and no teen is turned away for lack of funds.Visit http://clubz.org/the-rising and use code ASKHAVIV200 for a listener discount.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything ), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/ ), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur ).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/ ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur ).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews and lectures that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.In our current episode we ask: What does Qatar want?If you appreciate what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything ), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/ ), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur ).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/ ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur ).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews and lectures that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.In our current episode we ask: Why not two states from the start?If you appreciate what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything ), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/ ), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur ).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/ ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur ).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews and lectures that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.In our current episode we ask: Why don’t Israelis trust the UN?If you appreciate what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything ), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/ ), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur ).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/ ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur ).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews and lectures that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.In our current episode we ask: Was Gaza still occupied after 2005?If you appreciate what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--The rise of Zohran Mamdani and the DSA are about far more than one politician or radical political moment. Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam joins us to explain why highly educated, upwardly mobile young Americans are embracing radical socialist and "Third Worldist" politics. We decode explain the cultural and psychological shifts powering America’s new left: the search for identity among young Americans, including a rapidly changing Muslim community, how elite universities have become the "madrasas" of a new political identity, the surprising parallels between early 20th-century Jewish radicals and today's Muslim activists, and why a generation disconnected from traditional family structures is finding meaning in political radicalism.--This episode is sponsored by our friends at the Technion.Israel became the Startup Nation by turning talent into strength. Ideas into industries.For more than a century, the Technion has trained the engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs who transformed Israel into the Startup Nation and delivered breakthroughs that changed the world.Now Technion scientists are advancing the next wave of innovation to help power Israel’s next chapter.Israel. Engineered by the Technion.Join us. Visit http://ats.org/rebuild .--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--The Gaza war may have stopped, but the struggle over Gaza’s future is only beginning. Hamas is rebuilding, Gazans remain displaced, and the American plan for disarmament, reconstruction and new governance appears stalled. Dr. Shira Efron, Gaza expert and senior fellow at RAND, joins Haviv to explain what is actually happening on the ground -- and why Israel’s failure to offer Gazans an alternative to Hamas may be its greatest strategic mistake of the war.--This episode is sponsored by Dee Dee Whitman and dedicated to Dr. Gary B. Witman, her late husband and father of their three wonderful adult children. In Dee Dee's words: "To my children, who all chose their respective spouses both wisely and lovingly, and who, not accidentally, are all Jewish. Our purpose in this life is to be who we are and to leave this Earth a little better than we entered it. Just marrying fellow Jews, bringing up Jewish children and being proud of who we are is a win not only for our family but for our religion. Gary and I are lucky parents and grandparents."--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Israel’s first special envoy to the Christian world, Ambassador George Deek, joins Haviv for a sweeping conversation about Christians in Israel, Palestinian Christians, the disappearance of ancient Christian communities across the Middle East, and the strange new alliance targeting Israel from both the far left and far right. Drawing on his own family’s extraordinary journey from Palestinian refugees to full participation in Israeli society, Deek offers a powerful argument for responsibility over victimhood -- and for building a future rather than remaining imprisoned by the past.--This episode is dedicated by Peter Fine of New York to his family in Israel. In his words: “Originally, my family’s name was Zavodnick. They came from Mezritch in today's northwest Ukraine. My maternal grandfather was the oldest of 5 brothers and came to New York via Canada around WW1. He came for many reasonsl but the one relayed to me the most was the fear of Cossacks and not wanting to subscribe to the ‘death sentence’ for Jewish people serving in the Russian Army.“After immigration to the US was essentially shut down for East European Jews in the 1920s, my grandfather's four younger brothers emigrated to Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. Most settled in and around Haifa. Name changes to Bar-Akiva and Zavod followed. They were an incredibly bright, energetic group. They started businesses and kibbutzim while one brother went to Spain in the 30s to fight with the anti-fascists and died in battle.“I had only a vague awareness of this family growing up in New York as my parents were preoccupied with the daily struggle of making a living, raising kids and caring for indigent relatives stuck in poorer neighborhoods in the city. As a student at NYU in the early 1980s, I met a cousin, Oded, who was a wandering soul and was working in a cafe in the East Village. He opened my eyes to the treasure of my mom’s family in Israel. A backpacking summer in Israel and then Europe in ’83 changed everything. I heard stories of the founding of Israel, relatives who had passed and of course service in various wars. I stayed with family in a kibbutz near the Lebanon border and the Carmel neighborhood of Haifa. We struggled to communicate in broken Hebrew, some English and a bit of Yiddish. I have traveled to Israel many times since and cherish my relationships with cousins there. Their courage, their intelligence and deep belief in the Zionist dream is inspiring. I often wonder how these decent, compassionate souls have been transformed into ‘colonialists’ and ‘imperialists’ by the mob that dominates the media and public discourse in the States. It’s outrageous."Thank you to Peter for sponsoring the episode and dedicating it to his family and its remarkable story. Many listeners have shared with us their family’s journey through the tumultuous 20th century, helping us all to better understand our collective story.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--America’s 250th birthday came and went. Americans celebrated – or fretted about – their past and looked forward to their future.Now, a week later, recorded on an ordinary Thursday that commemorates no great war or rebellion, Haviv offers belated good wishes for America’s next 250 years.The real miracle of America, after all, isn’t in epic triumphs of the sort commemorated on July 4, but in the ordinary, messy days between the holidays, in the humble, everyday pragmatism, built-in institutional humility and wild inventiveness that gave the world its first large-scale democracy.--This episode is sponsored by the adult children of David Altman and Eugene Roberts, two eminent Jewish-American rocket scientists who -- with full US government approval -- contributed vital expertise to Israel’s security. May their memories be a blessing! Am Yisrael Chai!--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Is the Iranian regime finally on the path toward collapse? In this episode, Iran-born political analyst Armin Navabi (from the YouTube channel Liberty Politics) takes us inside the mind of the Iranian people and the fractured Islamic Republic. We break down the four warring factions within the regime, the controversial strategy behind the Trump MOU (and why it might be doing more harm to the regime than the war itself), and why the Iranian resistance rallied behind Reza Pahlavi. Plus, why arming the Iranian people might achieve what air strikes could not.--This episode is sponsored by Torie Sepah and Ron Shatzmiller, husband and wife physicians, who run the Pasadena Neuropsychiatry Center in California. They are proud to be one of the few elite providers of Brainsway Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, an Israeli technology used for treatment-resistant depression. Ron was born in Israel and Torie was born in Iran. They would like to dedicate this episode to the memory of the 40,000 peaceful protesters murdered by the Iranian regime.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--In this episode, Haviv sits down with Sohrab Ahmari -- Iranian-born American conservative writer, JD Vance confidant and US editor at Unherd -- to hash out the big questions that now divide Israelis and Americans.Is the obsessive focus on Gaza and the West Bank legitimate moral scrutiny, or antisemitism wearing a new mask? Can Israel survive its undeterrable enemies -- Hamas, Hezbollah, and an Iranian regime that has spent 47 years treating its destruction as theology -- while its key ally fractures? Does Israel rely too much on "omnibelicosity?" Was Israel once a "moral beacon" of the West? And what benefit is there to such a status when facing a multi-front war against a theological death cult that demands your destruction?There are no comforting answers here. Only brutal dilemmas that will shape the next decade in the Middle East and in the US-Israel relationship.--This episode is sponsored by Julie and Frank Cohen and dedicated to the memory of those murdered on October 7, 2023.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--What’s the real history of antisemitism in the Muslim world?Haviv sits down with Prof. Meir Litvak of Tel Aviv University, one of Israel’s foremost scholars of modern Shi’a Islam, Iran, Islamism and Islamist antisemitism, to trace the story of Muslim hatred of Jews from Muhammad’s encounter with the Jews of Medina to the dhimmi system that arose in early Islam, from the medieval mix of tolerance and discrimination to the modern-day shock of European power, Zionism and the 1948 war.The result of this sweeping survey is neither a comforting myth of Muslim-Jewish harmony nor a simplistic story of eternal persecution. It is a harder, more disturbing picture: a long religious tradition of Jewish inferiority transformed in the modern age -- by European conspiracy theories, Muslim political collapse and the humiliation of defeat by Jews -- into one of the world’s most openly genocidal forms of antisemitism.And the final question is the hardest one: can Muslim societies find a way out?--This episode was sponsored by an individual who chose to remain anonymous but asked us to share this message: “I was invited to hear a former IDF officer, blinded in a Hamas tunnel, speak about the Israel Guide Dog Center. I wish to highlight this incredible organization. It is far more than a place for adorable puppies -- it’s a lifeline for people across Israel.“As the country’s only internationally accredited guide dog and service dog organization, it is transforming the lives of Israelis every day by providing guide dogs that restore independence and safety for the blind and visually impaired, PTSD service dogs that bring stability and healing to IDF veterans, and emotional support dogs that offer comfort to children with special needs and families coping with trauma.”Thank to our sponsor for that dedication. The Israel Guide Dog Center can be found at https://israelguidedog.org.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Haviv sits down with Dr. Micah Goodman, his former Maimonides professor, influential Israeli public intellectual, founder of the educational network Mabua, and co-host of the Hebrew podcast Mifleget Hamakhshavot, to confront what may be the most consequential development in human history.Micah argues that AI is not another technology. It is technology that creates intelligence, reversing the fundamental pattern of human progress in which human intelligence alone could create technology. We explore the emergence of behaviors no one programmed into these systems, including self-preservation and deception, and why some of the people at the cutting edge of AI assign disturbingly high probabilities to catastrophic outcomes.But we don't stop at mere doom-saying. We look into the quiet trade-offs already underway in this new world: what happens to our capacity to think, write, and form real human connections when we outsource those functions to machines that do them faster and often better, and with less risk.Micah argues that in the age of AI, ancient traditions may become more valuable than ever -- not as nostalgia, but as a deliberate compensatory culture to keep our humanity from atrophying.A calm, upbeat conversation about the end of the world as we knew it, and about fighting to preserve the truly precious things.--This episode is sponsored by Peter Fine, who asked to dedicate the episode to "my 3 children, Sarah, Robby and Katie, all children of Israel who God-willing will soon beget their own children of Israel. Lovers of family, fun and all things Jewish, they seem to have absorbed the primary lessons of being Jewish: Keep the historical chain of our people going and take joy in being Jewish. I am very proud of the people they have turned out to be."I hope they find in the Ask Haviv Anything podcast learning and insight into their history as Jewish people, the history of our cousins in Israel and some insight and language to understand the increasing complexity of living in a world that doesn’t seem to understand us and needs us to explain ourselves in a forthright intelligent way. The podcast helps me and I think will help them in the acquisition of these insights and language."Thank you, Peter, for that dedication.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).—Ross Douthat, author and New York Times columnist, joins the podcast to discuss this fraught moment in the US-Israel relationship. We discuss Netanyahu’s role in shaping Trump’s regime-change gamble in Iran, the limits of American willingness to absorb prolonged pain, how American identification with Israel – and not just hostility or bigotry in some political spaces – makes policy disagreements feel uniquely personal and intense. We also dig into Israel’s failure to explain its wars, especially in Gaza, and the rise of conspiracism on the American right.Ross comes to the conversation shortly after interviewing Vice President JD Vance on, among other things, the strained state of the US-Israel relationship. He offers some direct advice: Israelis must argue specifics, engage the center-left, and tell their story clearly, or risk losing reasonable supporters they cannot afford to lose.--Israel became the Startup Nation by turning talent into strength. Ideas into industries.For more than a century, the Technion has trained the engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs who transformed Israel into the Startup Nation and delivered breakthroughs that changed the world.Now Technion scientists are advancing the next wave of innovation to help power Israel’s next chapter.Israel. Engineered by the Technion.Join us. Visit https://ats.org/rebuild .--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).—Donald Trump has gone further against Iran than any American president before him -- and then, almost overnight, pivoted toward a ceasefire, negotiations, and open frustration with Israel. What's happening? What does it all mean for Iran's nuclear ambitions, American power, the US–Israel alliance, and the future of war?In this episode, we sit down with Matthew Continetti of the American Enterprise Institute to unpack the emerging Iran deal, the politics inside the Trump administration, JD Vance’s rising influence, the strategic meaning of the Strait of Hormuz crisis, and why missiles, drones, and interceptors may define the next generation of warfare.Matthew Continetti is the director of domestic policy studies and the inaugural Patrick and Charlene Neal Chair in American Prosperity at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as well as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal's "Free Expression" newsletter. He has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, The Free Press, National Review among other outlets. Mr. Continetti is the author of three books, including, most recently, The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism (Basic Books, 2022).--This week’s episode is sponsored by Cyril Khazan from Woodmere, New York, who asked to dedicate the episode "to the memory of my dad. Raised in the dark shadow of Babyn Yar, amid post-Second World War rampant antisemitism, he still taught me open-mindedness, inclusivity, and pride in being Jewish, warts and all. Thank you for upholding these values on your podcast."Thank you, Cyril.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).—In this episode, Batya Ungar-Sargon joins the show to discuss her provocative new book, "The Jews and the Left." We dive deep into the unique history of Jews in America -- a history that looks nothing like the conditional emancipation of European Jewry. Batya argues that American Jews were never an oppressed minority, but rather founding partners in the American project whose rights were viewed as God-given from the start, and why Jews don't know that history. We unpack why the Jewish community historically aligned with the Democratic party, the impact of Foucault and "woke" ideas on elite institutions, the strategic failure of Jewish institutions to understand the problem and push back, and why it is time for American Jews to stop bowing to ideologues who despise them. Batya argues this is a moment for reclaiming history, rejecting victimhood, and standing up with agency.--This week’s episode is sponsored by Cyril Khazan from Woodmere, NY, who asked to dedicate the episode "to my wife Masha, love of my life, who keeps reminding me that the best things in life ain't things. And thanks to her for pointing me at your great podcasts!"Thank you, Cyril.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews and lectures that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current episode tackles the latest flare up between Israel and Iran. We ask the obvious question: will this war ever be over?If you appreciate what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).—Is Trump winning or losing the negotiations with Iran? How long can America sustain the mutual blockade in Hormuz? How long can Iran? And who will blink first?To answer these questions, Haviv sits down with Iran analyst Rich Goldberg, former director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction at America’s National Security Council and now a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, to unpack the real state of Iran's military, nuclear and economic position after months of conflict. We ask whether Iran's nuclear program has been set back decisively, whether the regime can survive the mounting economic pressure, and whether America can sustain that pressure with Hormuz closed.And more broadly: Was this war a fundamental pivot in the effort to contain Iran, or just one more battle in the long war to check a regime that still seeks to dominate the region, export its ideology, and destroy the Jewish state?--This week’s episode is sponsored by the Technion, Israel’s premier technological university.Israel became the Startup Nation by turning talent into strength. Ideas into industries. For more than a century, the Technion has trained the engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs who transformed Israel into the Startup Nation and delivered breakthroughs that changed the world.Now Technion scientists are advancing the next wave of innovation to help power Israel’s next chapter.Israel. Engineered by the Technion.Join us. Visitats.org/rebuild.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).—Haviv sits down with philosopher, neuroscientist and podcaster Sam Harris to explore the moral and informational crisis gripping the West. Sam explains why his defense of Israel has nothing to do with identity politics and everything to do with the long-term threat of jihadism to open societies, a position he has held consistently since 9/11. We dissect the profound generational shift in attitudes toward Israel and Jews, backed by stark polling data on Holocaust denial and acceptance of political violence among young Americans.We explore how social media shattered our shared reality, creating a “funhouse mirror” effect that radicalizes both sides while making coherent moral reasoning nearly impossible; the rise of antisemitic conspiracy thinking on the right, particularly Tucker Carlson’s evolving rhetoric and the laundering of extreme voices; and we debate tribalism, dogmatism, the limits of secularism, and whether healthy particularism can survive in open societies.An honest, sometimes uncomfortable conversation on trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t seem to anymore.--This week’s episode is sponsored by Leah. The episode is dedicated "to my son Noah, who told me, 'I thought your stories of antisemitism were long ago and far away, it's a bit shocking to live through what's happening now'; to all young Jewish Americans experiencing a similar awakening; and to Haviv and Rachel, who are giving them the tools to come to their own conclusions and the information needed to defend their positions. Being part of this podcast and this community has been the silver lining of a crazy period."Thank you Leah.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything ), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/ ), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur ).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/ ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur ).—Historian Gil Troy joins the podcast to trace the remarkable story of Canadian Jewry, from its post-war flourishing in Montreal and Toronto to its current crisis of rising antisemitism and violence. We confront the “Europeanization” of Canada, the polite face of rising antisemitism, and what happens when a decent society stops defending its Jewish minority.--This week's episode is sponsored by the Feinberg family, who asked us to include this beautiful dedication: "Today we honor our mom and grandma, Sandy Danto, on her 75th birthday. Inspired by her parents, Regina and Saul Muskowitz -- Holocaust survivors from Poland -- Sandy has devoted her life to strengthening Israel and supporting the Jewish people. While rooted in the Detroit Jewish community, her impact reaches far and wide, guided by her belief that Jewish strength, learning, and unity are essential to our future. She leads with conviction, generosity, and deep care for others. We are so proud of the example she sets and the difference she continues to make. We love you and celebrate you today and always. Love, Aaron, Julie, Noa, Ari and Raya Feinberg."Thank you to the Feinberg family for that beautiful and sweet dedication.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything ), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/ ), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur ).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/ ) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur ).—Was the Zionist-Arab encounter always destined to end in displacement, war and suffering? That's what the settler-colonial theorists argue, and it's a claim that's moved from the fringes of academia into mainstream discourse on college campuses, op-ed pages and protest movements worldwide. It is a claim that has become almost definitional to left-wing politics in the West.In this episode, we sit down with Professor Alexander Yakobson of the Hebrew University, a scholar of ancient democracy, national identity, and the modern Middle East, to take these arguments apart, piece by piece, with the one thing the debate usually lacks: actual history.What really happened when the UN voted for partition in 1947? Why did the Jewish Agency beg both the Americans and the Soviets for an international enforcement force? How close was the IDF to losing the War of Independence, and what does that tell us about Zionist "inevitability?" Is the Nakba historically unique, or does it fit a painful pattern seen from Cyprus to British India to Greece and Turkey?--This episode is sponsored by Howard and Darlene Wolf, a Jewish couple from Tampa, Florida. They want to dedicate it to “the millions of Americans who have an unbreakable bond with the Jewish state of Israel, including the millions of evangelicals whose beliefs and reasons may differ from our own, but who nevertheless stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish state. Regardless of our motivations, whether religious or secular, may we all act on the critical need to align ourselves with America’s most trustworthy ally and the Middle East’s only democracy.”--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Longtime Fatah activist Samer Sinijlawi spent five years in prison during the First Intifada and then rose up the Fatah ranks. He eventually came to lead Palestinian outreach to Israelis. Sinijlawi was one of the rare Palestinian activists to explicitly condemn the October 7 massacre. He even visited Israeli victims. In the wake of the Gaza war, he now calls for a new and deep dialogue with Israelis — and is convinced Palestinian society can move on from the regimes of Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas. For example, in recent local elections -- including in Gaza -- opposition and technocratic lists that Sinijlawi helped advance sidelined both radical Islamist forces and Abbas's faction within Fatah. Is a new Palestinian political reality taking shape in the wake of the Gaza war?--This episode was sponsored by an individual who asked to remain anonymous, but asked us to share this message: Beit Issie Shapiro is Israel’s leading innovator in the field of disabilities, developing lifechanging services and solutions for children and adults with disabilities, including injured soldiers, as well as their families. Each year, they impact over half a million people in Israel and around the world through direct services, sharing knowledge, and training professionals. For more than 45 years, they’ve been creating solutions where none existed, opening doors for individuals and helping build a more inclusive society for all. You can learn more at https://beitissie.org.il/eng.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

What does it mean to be Jewish in Britain? What happens when centuries of hard-won belonging is suddenly called into question by destabilizing events?In this conversation on history and identity, we sit down with bestselling historian Simon Sebag Montefiore to trace the extraordinary story of British Jewry: from the arrival of Jews with William the Conqueror in 1066, through medieval blood libels and expulsion, to emancipation, empire, Zionism, civil rights and integration, and on to the modern crisis facing British Jews after October 7.We explore how British Jews became one of the most integrated and successful Jewish communities in the world, and why many now feel that a golden age is ending.Montefiore brings the sweep of history to the conversation, while confronting one of the most urgent questions facing Jews in the West today: Can liberal societies still protect Jewish belonging in moments of deep social fracture?--This episode is sponsored by "The Frozen Chosen," Haviv’s supportive Minnesota community. It is dedicated to the memory of Tchelet Fishbein, who was murdered on October 7 at Kibbutz Beeri. She was 18 years old. Tchelet lived in Kibbutz Urim and worked as a babysitter in nearby Kibbutz Be’eri along the border with Gaza. When Hamas invaded Be’eri, she and her boyfriend Dor Rieder, 23, both sought refuge in the home’s safe room. In a different home, 500 meters away, her mother, brother, 94-year-old grandmother, and the grandmother’s caregiver took shelter inside a bunker.What we know about Tchelet is not only how she died, but how she lived — with an instinct to protect others. In the midst of terror, she warned others to stay safe. Her first impulse was care, responsibility, connection. In the midst of the turmoil, Fishbein relayed an urgent message from the kibbutz’s group chat to her family, cautioning them: “Hamas terrorists disguised as IDF soldiers are knocking on doors. Please do not open the doors. Protect your lives. Share." From their bunker, her relatives witnessed neighboring homes being stormed and razed. Fortunately, they all emerged unscathed. But Tchelet and her boyfriend Dor were kidnapped by Hamas and murdered en route to Gaza.She was beloved by many. Tchelet and her mom were an important part of a layered support system for others, including lone soldiers near and dear to our Minnesota community. As the family noted, there are more stories than we will ever be able to tell. Even if we spend a lifetime speaking names and preserving memories, there will always be voices interrupted, dreams unfinished, and lives whose full beauty we will never fully know. May Tchelet Fishbein’s memory be a blessing. And may we honor her — and all those whose stories remain unfinished — through the continuous work of being together and truly hearing each other."--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews and lectures that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current episode tackles the New York Times’ Nick Kristof's oped claiming systemic sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners, which many listeners have asked us to respond to. We ask the obvious question: Is Nicholas Kristof right?If you appreciate what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current question: why don’t we talk about Egypt? If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--The Democratic Party is choosing party unity on Israel by ceding ground almost entirely to the anti-Israel wing. Hussein Mansour returns to the podcast to break down how this retreat of the Democratic center mirrors the DEI takeover a decade ago and other historic leftist collapses in history to a more radical wing. His analysis suggests that the shift is irreversible, that centrist Democrats will soon find themselves conceding more, and that this could have very bad consequences for the party going forward. From Fanon to Hasan Piker, inter-elite power struggles to the future of American power projection — this is a must-listen warning about the high cost of feeding the tiger you hope to ride.--There are few if any publications like SAPIR, the quarterly journal of Jewish ideas edited by Bret Stephens from the New York Times. You might remember we've hosted a number of people on the show to talk about topics they've written about for SAPIR: Coleman Hughes, for instance, about antisemitism in the African-American community, Alana Newhouse about why Zionism is useful to all. It's a beautiful publication not only in its content but in its physical appearance, and if you live in the United States you can receive it in print absolutely free. They won't even ask for your payment information.If you sign up now you'll receive the forthcoming issue on the theme of America, in honor of this year's semiquincentennial (250th birthday). Lots of excellent stuff in this issue about the current political crises in both the Democratic and Republican parties, the decline of education, particularly history education, in the U.S., and tangible suggestions for America as it turns 250. If you want to start receiving this excellent publication 100% free, go to https://sapirjournal.org/AskHavivAnything.Thank you to SAPIR for sponsoring this episode.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

The world feels unmoored. Identity is contested, nations are uncertain, and a technology-altered future feels increasingly abstract and vaguely threatening. So much is happening, so much is at stake. So why is everyone suddenly talking about the Jews?In this episode, Haviv sits down with writer and Tablet magazine founder Alana Newhouse to explore a striking idea: that the global obsession with Zionism isn’t really about Jews at all. It’s about something the modern West has lost -- and isn’t sure how to rebuild.From post-nationalism to technological upheaval to political extremism, we consider Alana's thesis that Zionism is less an ideology and more a kind of “social technology” for building meaning, cohesion and a future worth striving for -- and the uncomfortable but fascinating possibility that what looks like obsessive bigotry might actually be a kind of yearning.--There are few if any publications like SAPIR, the quarterly journal of Jewish ideas edited by Bret Stephens from The New York Times. You might remember we've hosted a number of people on the podcast to talk about topics they've written about for SAPIR: Coleman Hughes, for instance, about antisemitism in the Black community, Danielle Haas about the ideological rot in the human rights industry. It's a beautiful publication not only in content but in physical appearance, and if you live in the United States you can receive it in print absolutely free. They won't even ask for your payment information. If you sign up now you'll receive the forthcoming issue on the theme of America in honor of this year's semiquincentennial (250th birthday). Lots of excellent stuff in this issue about the current political crises in both the Democratic and Republican parties, the decline of education, particularly history education, in the US, and tangible suggestions for, well, America as it turns 250. If you want to start receiving this excellent publication 100% free, go to https://sapirjournal.org/AskHavivAnything.Thank you to SAPIR for sponsoring this episode.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon and Substack are also the platforms where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).Be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--In a world where recognition is said to be a precondition for legitimacy, Somaliland built one of Africa's most surprising success stories without stopping to ask for the world's charity or permission.In this episode, Haviv sits down with Ambassador Mohamed Hagi, Somaliland’s first envoy to Israel and a key architect of Israel's recognition of his country, to explore one of the most unlikely and revealing relationships in global politics. We talk about a country that built a democracy out of the ruins of a terrible war, built stable and competent institutions without international support, and is now stepping onto the world stage on its own terms.What does it mean when a deeply Muslim society embraces partnership with Israel? Why does Somaliland succeed where formally recognized states fail? And how does a small country navigate geopolitics, identity and survival in one of the most strategically fraught and vital corners of the world?--Thank you to the anonymous sponsor who asked to dedicate this episode to the victims of October 7.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or on Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon is also where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).Be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--A century-long alliance between America's Black and Jewish communities was one of the most important drivers of American democratic reforms. But that relationship has not stood the test of time. The two communities seem more divided than ever.In this honest and unflinching conversation, Haviv sits down with activist, journalist and entrepreneur Van Jones to confront that unraveling, the mistrust, the misunderstandings and the widening gap between two communities that once changed history together. From civil rights to October 7, DEI to Gaza, we ask what happened, why the two communities don't understand each other, and whether that old, consequential alliance can be rebuilt.--Thank you to the anonymous sponsor who asked to dedicate this episode to the victims of October 7.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or on Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. Patreon is also where you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Canada has long imagined itself as one of the safest, most tolerant societies on earth. For generations of Jews, it felt that way too. But something has changed, suddenly and profoundly. Synagogues have been shot at. Jewish schools targeted. People are hiding their identities, looking over their shoulder, taking down mezuzahs.In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Casey Babb to ask a question few outside Canada are even aware needs asking: what is happening to Canadian Jews?From the history of Jewish life in Canada to the shock of October 7 and its aftermath, we trace how a quiet, integrated community is now grappling with fear, isolation, and a growing sense that the country they helped build may no longer fully accept them. This isn’t just a story about Jews in Canada. It’s a story about what happens when a society loses the ability to confront its own realities -- and what that means for its future.--This episode was sponsored by Josh Sheptow and dedicated to the memory of Amnon Zilberspitz. Amnon was taken to the extermination camp at Auschwitz at age 20 with his brother and sister. Only he survived. After the war, he arrived at Kibbutz Dorot in 1947. On the Kibbutz he met Sara, the love of his life. Shortly after the War of Independence broke out, Amnon enlisted to fight. Amnon, the last of his family, fell in the Battle of Beit Guvrin at age 24. May we be worthy of Amnon and of all those who gave the only life they had to make the miracle of Israel possible.You can learn more about Amnon in a video by Ofer Winter and Shimon Engel produced by Dov Abramson Studio for the Beit Avi Chai memorial project.The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDOj-C4mq3E&list=PLv2rnAORLiVBbV9uGbYC0ZdPq23pg2xPW --If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that help us choose our topics, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

On the eve of Yom HaZikaron, Memorial Day, we explore the profound arc of Israel's national remembrance days -- from Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) through Memorial Day, into Yom Ha'atzma'ut (Independence Day), and ending with the quiet, almost unknown commemoration of Theodor Herzl’s yahrzeit. It is an arc of memory, sacrifice, and renewal -- not abstract, but usually personal and intimate -- that lies at the heart of Jewish strength and survival in a dangerous world.--This episode was sponsored by an anonymous sponsor who asked to dedicate it to the memory of those we lost on October 7.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Welcome to another installment of our short-form episodes that dive into often-asked questions about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current episode tackles the New York Times’ Ezra Klein’s recent video about the “one-state reality” of Israelis and Palestinians, which many listeners have asked us to respond to. We watched it and were disappointed. We ask the question: What does Ezra Klein get wrong?If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

A new Israeli election is coming -- and it may reshape everything. In this opening episode of our election series, I sit down with former MK and political thinker Dr. Einat Wilf, now leading the new Oz party, to ask a fundamental question: Has October 7 broken Israeli politics as we knew it? We dive into voter realignment, the possible collapse of old “tribes,” the Haredi draft crisis, and whether a new political vision can emerge, or whether the system is too entrenched to change.--This episode is sponsored anonymously in memory of Jack Rose and his son, Paul Lawrence Rose, and dedicated to the themes of Jewish survival, renewal, and education. Jack Rose’s parents and siblings were gassed in Nazi death camps. After serving with the Allies, he rebuilt his life in the UK, becoming president of Blackburn College of Technology and a robotics pioneer and publishing over fifty books. Honored by the Queen and UNESCO, Jack eventually reconnected to Israel, traveling often to the Jewish homeland. His son, Paul, transformed that legacy into scholarship as a leading historian of German culture and antisemitism. Before his 2014 death, Paul was editing a definitive manuscript, Antisemitisms, tracing the evolution of antisemitism. Both men were known for their warmth, generosity, and marvelous humor.In the spirit of renewal through education, we invite you to learn about Gan Condesa in Mexico City. After decades of Jewish life migrating to the gated suburbs, Gan Condesa is reclaiming a presence in the city’s walkable, cultural heart. Through its thriving Montessori and expanding community center, it is reconnecting unaffiliated families to their Jewish heritage. Visit ganmexico.com to donate or invest in this permanent Jewish home in North America’s largest city.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current question: why don’t we talk about Jordan? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Everyone’s asking who won. That’s the wrong question. This episode explains why the war isn’t over -- and what the real lessons of this conflict mean for Israel, Iran, and the future of war.--This episode was sponsored by an anonymous sponsor in honor of all those we lost on October 7 and in the ensuing years of war.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current question: why is the two state solution so difficult to achieve? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Passover is just around the corner. So we sat down with the ever-wise Rabbi David Stav to dig into the inexplicable contradictions at the heart of the holiday's traditional Seder meal -- and of Jewish life writ large.In the Seder's text, the Hagaddah, we are commanded to declare that “now we are slaves, but next year we shall be free” -- even if we live in freedom and prosperity. And we are commanded to thank God for "taking us out from slavery to freedom, from sorrow to joy, and from mourning to a festival" -- even in generations past when we were crushed beneath the yoke of oppressors and tyrants, and even in our own day when we must run to a bomb shelter to be safe.So which is it? Are we free? Are we still slaves?Rav Stav takes us through stories of Natan Sharansky, Hasidic rebbes in the ghetto, and Rav Kook’s wisdom to reveal Passover's deepest teaching -- that true freedom is an inner consciousness and moral choice, not mere political circumstance, and that the experience and remembrance of slavery teaches us how to value, safeguard and properly use our liberty.And that is why on the evening of April 1, in this time of war and sirens, violence and fear, Jews all over the world will once again affirm, as they have done for three millennia, that “next year we shall be free.”--This episode is sponsored by an anonymous listener who asked to share this note."Many thanks to Haviv, for all his insights. This episode is dedicated to Barbara S. from New Mexico on the occasion of her second Bat Mitzvah, with love from her kids and grandkids. Am Yisrael Chai."--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Trump says a deal may be coming to end the Iran war. Netanyahu says it could protect Israel’s interests. Iran’s regime says little that can be trusted. So what is really happening? Prof. Dan Schueftan returns to the podcast to help us step back from the daily headlines to ask the much bigger question: If this war ends now, who actually wins? And what’s at stake? From the Strait of Hormuz to the ideology of martyrdom, we ask whether free societies still have the nerve to confront movements built on destruction.—This episode is sponsored by a friend of the show who has dedicated the program to the Jews who first came to Trenton, New Jersey, and built a lasting community there.Our sponsor was born in Trenton, and he wants to thank his four families who at the turn of the twentieth century abandoned their homes in Europe and bravely crossed an ocean toward a new life. They came to Trenton with nothing but their religious faith and an unshakable belief that a better life was something worth building. They raised synagogues, built businesses, married and had children. And those children had children, including our sponsor today. This podcast is his way, after October 7, of honoring that legacy — and affirming that the Jewish story, our story, is one worth telling, worth celebrating, and worth protecting.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

In 1944, as the gears of the Holocaust turned toward Hungary, 32 young Jewish volunteers did the unthinkable: they parachuted into the genocide. They were a motley bunch, including a celebrated poet and a nearsighted 40-year-old pacifist. They were sent by the British to rescue downed pilots and by the Zionist leadership to save Jews. They stood almost no chance of success, and by every military metric, they failed. They organized no uprisings; they liberated no camps. Yet, as Matti Friedman reveals in his riveting new book Out of the Sky, their mission was never really about military tactics. It was about story-telling. They set out to show that even in the 20th century's deepest, darkest valley of death, a Jew must still strike a match. To prove that the Jewish people were no longer mere victims of history, but authors of it.Their fame in today's Israel suggests that in that, at least, they were successful.--This episode was sponsored by Patreon member Eric, and dedicated to the Southern California Hillel chapters at UC Riverside, Claremont Colleges, CalPoly San Luis Obispo, CalPoly Pomona, and University of Redlands. Thank you for helping young Jewish adults thrive in their identity and togetherness!--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

The rules of engagement just shattered. From the death of Ali Khamenei to the elimination of wartime mastermind Ali Larijani, Iran’s leadership hasn't just been eroded—it’s been erased. As the regime retreats into a fractured "mosaic" of local commanders and a collapsing barter economy, the US-Israeli coalition is pivoting to a final, surgical strike on the regime’s last lifeline: its internal energy grid. Can a regime built on the theology of "resistance" survive when it can no longer keep the lights on? We break down the apparent strategic shift from a war of missiles to a war of endurance.--This episode's sponsor asked to remain anonymous and dedicated the episode to honoring the memory of all those we have lost in the massacres of October 7 and in the wars and terror attacks that followed and continue to this day, including the brave American servicemen and women who have given their lives in the current war with Iran. May we remember them and may their memory be a blessing.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Terrorism scholar Dr. Bruce Hoffman joins the podcast to guide us through one of the most morally explosive chapters in Zionist and Israeli history: the Irgun, Lehi, the British Mandate, and the violent campaign that helped force Britain out of Palestine. Moving from Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem to the King David Hotel bombing, the Lord Moyne assassination, the hanging of the British sergeants, and the bitter intra-Jewish “Saison,” the conversation refuses easy answers and asks the hardest questions head-on: When is political violence terrorism, when is it insurgency, and why does terrorism so often work? The conversation is surprisingly urgent and immediate, as we connect Menachem Begin’s mastery of narrative and information warfare to Hamas, October 7, and Israel’s catastrophic failures in the information war. The parallels and lessons are haunting. Join us for this journey into history, ethics, propaganda, the necessity of statehood, and the frightening power of violence to change the course of history.--This episode is sponsored by Carmela and Uzi Levin of San Francisco who asked to dedicate it to the memory of Niv Raviv and Nirel Zini, a young couple who were brutally murdered by Hamas near their home in Kfar Aza on October 7 2023. Sadly, the Levins never met Niv or Nirel. They heard of their tragic story from Tami Raviv, Niv’s mom.Niv and Nirel met during their army service and moved to Kfar Aza in early 2023. On October 10, 2015, while serving in the IDF, Nirel was severely wounded during an operation. From then on, every 10th of October became a special day of celebration marking Nirel’s survival and rehabilitation. On October 10th, 2023, Nirel was planning to celebrate by proposing to Niv. But he never got the chance.Niv was pursuing a master’s degree in psychology and hoped to become a therapist.In their memory, Niv’s mother Tami founded the Niv Nirel Center in Beit Yannai, in collaboration with Dr. Kfir Feffer. The center is a tranquil sanctuary, overlooking the Mediterranean sea north of the city of Netanya. It offers world-class post-trauma treatment to combatants and survivors who so desperately need it. The Niv Nirel Center is the only place in Israel that operates an intensive day-care program, as well as a research unit that hopes to create a protocol that will allow the center’s successes in post-trauma rehabilitation to be replicated.It is truly moving and inspiring to see how Tami has been able to channel this bottomless sadness into a project of care, hope and love. A ray of light for a nation in search of healing.--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [email protected]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.