Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan, speaking with author and scholar Dara Horn.

Horn visited ToI's Jerusalem studio while on a break from this year’s International Writers Festival in Jerusalem, taking place May 25-28 at the city’s Mishkenot Sha’ananim cultural center

An author of novels and non-fiction, including “People Love Dead Jews,” “Eternal Life,” “A Guide for the Perplexed,” Horn's latest book -- her first for young readers -- is “One Little Goat.”

Her newest nonfiction work will be published by Simon & Schuster in September under the title, "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living."

We hear about how, after Horn published her bestselling work, "People Love Dead Jews," readers asked her for the solution to this problem. This week, she speaks about her new education initiative, Tell, which is bent on teaching American schoolchildren about real, living Jews, and Jewish culture.

To launch the wide-ranging conversation, Horn defines terms, explaining that Jews are not a religion, but a people with a religion. This difference, she states, is massive and must be internalized to understand the millennia of hate experienced by the Jewish people. 

Since the Hamas onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and the resultant retaliatory war in Gaza, there has been an outsized focus on the trend of "non-Zionist" or "anti-Zionist" Jews. Who are these Jews -- and are they significant in the chronicles of Jewish history?

And so, this week, we ask author Dara Horn, what matters now?

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.

IMAGE: AP

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.