Haaretz Weekly

By Haaretz

What's Haaretz Weekly about?

From Haaretz – Israel's oldest daily newspaper – a weekly podcast in English on Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World, hosted by Allison Kaplan Sommer.

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With all eyes on Gaza, West...

11.27.2023

While the world is watching the Israel-Hamas war unfold in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are suffering some of the worst violence and restrictions on their daily life in years. Since Hamas militants entered Israel on October 7 and ...

Haaretz Weekly episodes:

11.27.2023 With all eyes on Gaza, West Bank Palestinians are facing unprecedented violence While the world is watching the Israel-Hamas war unfold in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are suffering some of the worst violence and restrictions on their daily life in years. Since Hamas militants entered Israel on October 7 and ...
11.20.2023 This Holocaust survivor is used to fighting deniers on TikTok. Hamas apologists broke him A disinformation war is raging online and Israel is losing, says Omer Benjakob, Haaretz cyber and technology correspondent at Haaretz. It isn’t as if an effort isn’t being made by Israel to professionally curate and manage information about its war ...
11.13.2023 The cruel sexual violence that was part of Hamas' October 7 attack “I knew right away that sexual violence was part of the events of October 7, but obviously, I could not have known the extent of the cruelty that Hamas engaged in,” says Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, who served for 12 years ...
11.06.2023 'It's very personal': Inside Gaza with Israeli soldiers One of the first journalists to be embedded with forces in the Israeli army’s ground operation in Gaza, Haaretz senior columnist Anshel Pfeffer shares his observations with Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer after returning from a challenging battlefield. Pfeffer, ...
10.31.2023 ‘Some students on U.S. campuses think all Israelis are colonizers, so it's okay to slaughter them’ Prof. Dov Waxman has been on university campuses for several decades and experienced bursts of unrest following violence in the region and controversy over Israeli policies since the second intifada in the early 2000s. But what has happened since the ...
10.23.2023 'Anderson Cooper said, I have a video of your kidnapped son' The “alternative universe” Rachel Goldberg has been living in since her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, was kidnapped by Hamas, has included non-stop interviews with the media. Rachel and her husband Jonathan have appeared on the cover ...
10.17.2023 'He wrote me: My parents are dead, I need help' Brouria Carni Hadass lives in the tiny Kibbutz of Kerem Shalom on the Israel-Gaza border. On Saturday, October 7th, she went into the fortified safe room in her house when the first alarm sounded, quickly realizing this attack was "unlike ...
10.08.2023 'It's unthinkable. Hundreds of bereaved families, hundreds of hostages' Israel's reality transformed overnight this weekend and what looks like a major war is unfolding. Events are progressing rapidly, so in this week's Haaretz podcast, editor in chief of Haaretz, Aluf Benn, and Haaretz senior analyst Yossi Melman explain in ...
10.03.2023 'Israelis and Saudis have more to talk about than they realize' The prospect of a U.S-Saudi-Israeli deal, that would include the normalization of relations between the Jewish state and one of the most influential forces in the Arab world, intrigues citizens in all three countries. But while the opinions of Israelis ...
09.27.2023 Behind the Yom Kippur clashes in Tel Aviv How did Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff square become a battleground for religion and gender segregation on Yom Kippur and how did the conflict become so charged and bitter? In conversation with Allison Kaplan Sommer on the Haaretz Weekly podcast, Orly Erez-Lizhovski, ...
09.20.2023 "U.S. Jews don't understand that the Israel judicial coup is like nothing we've seen before" On this week’s podcast, Haaretz New York correspondent Judy Maltz talks to Haaretz Weekly host Allison Kaplan Sommer about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the U.S. and the unprecedented demonstrations against him on American soil. Thousands of Israeli expats ...
09.13.2023 'This could end in complete anarchy': Inside Israel’s Historic Supreme Court Showdown Constitutional expert Prof. Yaniv Roznai, an associate professor and Vice-Dean at Reichman University's Harry Radzyner Law School - and one of the leading academic voices in the protest movement against the judicial coup - attended the historic hearing at Israel's ...
09.05.2023 Israeli protest movement hopes to win over voters in local elections After dominating political conversation in Israel for the past eight months, the protest movement against the judicial coup – which has brought millions of Israelis out to the streets – made a strategic decision. In the nationwide municipal elections on ...
08.15.2023 “Worse Than the Pandemic”: Why the Judicial Coup is Bad for Israel’s Health As Israel wrestled with the assault of COVID-19 on its health care system, politics and public life, Professor Haggai Levine, an epidemiologist and chairman of Israel’s Association of Public Health Physicians, became a familiar face on Israeli television screens. Today, ...
08.08.2023 “The occupation is a motivation behind Netanyahu's judicial overhaul” As settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank continues to intensify, Haaretz West Bank correspondent Hagar Shezaf joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer to share her experiences covering the deadly incidents in Hawara, Turmus Aya, Um Safr, and, over the ...
08.01.2023 'Despicable and reckless' that Netanyahu won't commit to obeying the rule of law Israeli democracy is facing its biggest challenge since the founding of the state, after the Knesset passed the first law in its package of legislation designed to cripple the judicial branch. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, joins ...
07.25.2023 'It's a dark day in Israeli history and I don't see a way back' As former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk experienced one of the most devastating moments of the country’s history - the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, during the time of Israel’s deep divisions over the Oslo Peace Accords. ...
07.18.2023 Military Reserve Refuseniks ‘Are Defending Israel From an Internal Threat’ Among the numerous mass protests against the Israeli government’s controversial legislative moves to weaken Israel’s judicial system, the most influential effort has come from reservists in the country’s elite military units threatening to refuse to report for duty. One of ...
07.11.2023 'A Very Combustible Situation': Israel’s Judicial Coup Is Back Full Force As the Israeli streets explode in protests against the renewed effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to “neuter the judiciary,” Haaretz English editor-in-chief Esther Solomon joins host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz for an overview and explanation of the ...
06.27.2023 'Israel’s government ministers openly support settler violence' Despite the weakened position of Russian President Vladimir Putin following the weekend’s aborted coup, chances that Israel’s government will change its policy in the Russia-Ukraine conflict are extremely low, says Haaretz senior correspondent Anshel Pfeffer, who has covered the war ...
06.21.2023 'It stuck with me, how safe their life felt': A conversation about 'My Friend Anne Frank' In a special podcast in honor of Israel’s annual Book Week celebration, Haaretz Weekly is spotlighting two female Israeli journalists turned authors: Dina Kraft, co-author of Hannah Pick-Goslar’s memoir “My Friend Anne Frank”; and Ruth Marks Eglash, a journalist who ...
06.12.2023 Were Israel’s Secrets Hidden in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Bathroom? The Trump indictment rocking the United States contains numerous references to foreign countries and military battle plans that many believe relate directly to Iran and Israel – and may have even originated in Israeli intelligence sources. Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Amir ...
06.06.2023 Israel Parade Protests in NYC: 'This Is the Worst PR You Can Get' An unprecedented number of Israeli ministers and governing coalition lawmakers flew to New York City last week to participate in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade and the conferences and meetings surrounding it. Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels joins Allison Kaplan ...
05.31.2023 Being LGBTQ under Israel’s far-right government: ‘Going backward is not an option’ June 1 marks the beginning of Pride Month around the world, and in Israel, it is being launched with the annual Jerusalem March of Pride and Tolerance, the most tense of the month’s events. Alona Nir Keren, a lesbian Reform ...
05.24.2023 'Secular Israelis Are Mad as Hell and They're Not Going to Take It Anymore' As the protest movement against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul moved into its 20th week, there has been a clear shift in its focus. From battles over the billions of shekels in government budget expenditures on ultra-Orthodox schools that don’t ...
05.16.2023 'When Trump said: F**k Bibi, it wasn't a slip of the tongue' When journalist Barak Ravid’s book "Trump's Peace: the Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East" was published in Hebrew in 2021, two words in his text made international headlines. Bitter about the Israeli Prime Minister’s eagerness to congratulate ...
05.09.2023 Israel braces for Islamic Jihad response after Assassinations: What happens next? After Israel assassinated three senior members of Islamic Jihad and killed at least ten civilians in airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in the wee hours of Tuesday morning in a military operation, the country tensely braced for expected retaliation. Haaretz ...
04.19.2023 The one-state reality in Israel-Palestine: what does it mean for U.S. policy? Is it time for the international community to stop talking about a ‘two-state solution’ for Israel and the Palestinians, and begin instead to grapple with a ‘one-state reality’? That’s the argument four leading political scientists recently made in a thought-provoking, ...
03.27.2023 The urgent warning Netanyahu doesn't want to hear Prof. Karnit Flug was appointed as the first female governor of the Bank of Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013. Together they worked to stabilize and grow the country’s economy – particularly its flourishing high-tech sector. Now, she ...
03.22.2023 Why Israel's ‘Handmaids’ are fighting Netanyahu’s far-right government Women’s rights in Israel are under danger, warns Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a legal scholar and founding director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar Ilan University. The risk is coming from their own ...
03.14.2023 Why a former U.S. ambassador joined Israel's pro-democracy protests Martin Indyk, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel twice, made an unusual stop during a recent trip to Israel: He joined the massive Tel Aviv demonstration against Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to weaken the Israeli judicial system. “I am dismayed ...
03.07.2023 When Israel's Mossad chief met Vladimir Putin for the first time On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, Israel's top analysts and experts discuss one year to the war in Ukraine from an Israeli perspective. The conversation was recorded as part of the 2023 Haaretz-UCLA conference on Israel and the New World ...
03.01.2023 'For Israel, against Bibi': Why Israelis in NYC are protesting their own government It hasn’t taken long for the protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul in Israel, to find their way to the United States. On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, attorney Oz Benamram – an Israeli living in New York – ...
02.20.2023 Inside the Global Investigation that Exposed Israel's Agents of Chaos On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, host Allison Kaplan Sommer talks to investigative journalists Omer Benjakob and Gur Megiddo about their months-long investigation, in collaboration with Radio France, The Guardian and other leading international media outlets, that revealed the dirty, ...
02.15.2023 Is Netanyahu's corruption trial the real reason for Israel's judicial overhaul? The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is running the country as his corruption trial continues no longer shocks Israelis. But maybe it should? Yael Freidson, Haaretz’s legal correspondent, has covered the Netanyahu trial every day since it began in ...
02.07.2023 'Fauda' creator on the show's fourth season and Israel's third Intifada Trouble is brewing in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and an eruption of violence may be coming, warns veteran journalist Avi Issacharoff on the latest episode of Haaretz Weekly. Issacharoff should know: he is not only a leading journalist covering ...
02.01.2023 Israel's former military intel chief is worried, and not about Iran Each year, the Institute for National Security Studies publishes a list of Israel's most urgent security threats. In the past, it has pointed to threats from neighboring states and terror groups. But this year, the well-respected think-tank chose to highlight ...
01.25.2023 ‘Democracies can become tyrannies’: Why Alan Dershowitz fears Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz has been a friend and adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for decades. But when it comes to Netanyahu’s plan to significantly weaken the Israeli Supreme Court, Dershowitz has a sharp warning for the prime minister. ...
01.17.2023 Israel's Jewish Fundamentalists are in Power. Here's What You Should Know Israel's Jewish fundamentalists hold an unprecedented level of power in Benjamin Netanyahu's current government. What does that mean for Israeli democracy, for the U.S.-Israel relationship and for the broader Middle East? Our guest Dr. Tomer Persico, an expert on Jewish ...
01.11.2023 ‘Corrupt and dangerous’: Benjamin Wittes on Israel’s judicial overhaul The Israeli Supreme Court has a “huge amount of power while the foundation of that power is paper thin,” says Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and editor-in-chief of the Lawfare Blog, in an interview with Haaretz Weekly ...
01.03.2023 Netanyahu can no longer control the pyromaniacs around him Less than a week into his new government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had his first confrontation with one of his coalition partners when National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir insisted on going to the Temple Mount, the most provocative act ...
12.28.2022 ‘Time to resist’: Top Israeli civil rights activist prepares for Bibi's ‘nightmare government' “We live in a terrifying time, facing realities that we couldn’t have dreamt about in our worst nightmares,” says the executive director of Israel’s largest human rights organization, Noa Sattath, speaking with host Allison Kaplan Sommer on Haaretz Weekly. The ...
12.21.2022 Israel's new far-right government will turn back the clock for women Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, based on the support of Israel's far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, presents a real threat to the rights of Israeli women, warns Dr. Yofi Tirosh on this episode of Haaretz Weekly. Increasing the powers of religious courts ...
12.13.2022 The law professor fighting to stop a 'disaster for Israeli democracy' Israel's incoming government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up to mortally wound Israeli democracy, warns Prof. Yaniv Roznai, a leading Israeli legal expert who is sounding the alarm over the 'override clause' - a piece of legislation that would ...
12.08.2022 Haaretz Live from Washington: What next in Israeli politics? What exactly happened in the Israeli election? Where is the country heading as Benjamin Netanyahu returns to power with the most right-wing government in Israeli history? And do long-term voting trends offer any hope for the center-left? At the recent ...
12.01.2022 Will Netanyahu's far-right allies ignite a third Intifada? Listen to Amos Harel Terror attacks in Jerusalem and southern Israel; Palestinians killed in IDF raids across the occupied territories; tensions between Israel's military leadership and the country's incoming government; and an unstable, weakened Palestinian Authority on the verge of losing control. When these ...
11.23.2022 'Israel is a red state, U.S. Jews are blue voters': Eric Alterman on U.S.-Israel ties Journalist and historian Eric Alterman joins Haaretz Weekly to discuss his new book "We Are Not One: A History of America's Fight Over Israel." From Eisenhower's confrontation with Ben Gurion to Netanyahu's clashes with Obama, Alterman walks us through some ...
11.16.2022 Trump lost, Biden won: what the midterms mean for Israel On this week’s edition of Haaretz Weekly, host Amir Tibon welcomes Washington Post political columnist E.J. Dionne and Haaretz journalist Allison Kaplan Sommer for an in-depth discussion of the results of the 2022 midterms and their impact on the U.S.-Israel ...
11.07.2022 From Bibi to the midterms, a dramatic election season for U.S.-Israel ties With the most religious and right-wing Israeli government in history about to be formed following last week’s dramatic elections, what’s ahead for the U.S.-Israel relationship, and especially for Israel’s ties with American Jews? On Haaretz Weekly, host Amir Tibon and ...
11.03.2022 Israel election: Understanding Bibi's comeback Have Israel's election results got you down? No one parses the voters' choice like Election Overdose hosts Anshel Pfeffer and Dahlia Scheindlin. In the special one-hour season finale, they walk through all the nerdy data and critical commentary to make ...

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Haaretz Weekly

What's Haaretz Weekly about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Haaretz Weekly episodes:

With all eyes on Gaza, West Bank Palestinians are facing unprecedented violence

This Holocaust survivor is used to fighting deniers on TikTok. Hamas apologists broke him

The cruel sexual violence that was part of Hamas' October 7 attack

'It's very personal': Inside Gaza with Israeli soldiers

‘Some students on U.S. campuses think all Israelis are colonizers, so it's okay to slaughter them’

'Anderson Cooper said, I have a video of your kidnapped son'

'He wrote me: My parents are dead, I need help'

'It's unthinkable. Hundreds of bereaved families, hundreds of hostages'

'Israelis and Saudis have more to talk about than they realize'

Behind the Yom Kippur clashes in Tel Aviv

"U.S. Jews don't understand that the Israel judicial coup is like nothing we've seen before"

'This could end in complete anarchy': Inside Israel’s Historic Supreme Court Showdown

Israeli protest movement hopes to win over voters in local elections

“Worse Than the Pandemic”: Why the Judicial Coup is Bad for Israel’s Health

“The occupation is a motivation behind Netanyahu's judicial overhaul”

'Despicable and reckless' that Netanyahu won't commit to obeying the rule of law

'It's a dark day in Israeli history and I don't see a way back'

Military Reserve Refuseniks ‘Are Defending Israel From an Internal Threat’

'A Very Combustible Situation': Israel’s Judicial Coup Is Back Full Force

'Israel’s government ministers openly support settler violence'

'It stuck with me, how safe their life felt': A conversation about 'My Friend Anne Frank'

Were Israel’s Secrets Hidden in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Bathroom?

Israel Parade Protests in NYC: 'This Is the Worst PR You Can Get'

Being LGBTQ under Israel’s far-right government: ‘Going backward is not an option’

'Secular Israelis Are Mad as Hell and They're Not Going to Take It Anymore'

'When Trump said: F**k Bibi, it wasn't a slip of the tongue'

Israel braces for Islamic Jihad response after Assassinations: What happens next?

The one-state reality in Israel-Palestine: what does it mean for U.S. policy?

The urgent warning Netanyahu doesn't want to hear

Why Israel's ‘Handmaids’ are fighting Netanyahu’s far-right government

Why a former U.S. ambassador joined Israel's pro-democracy protests

When Israel's Mossad chief met Vladimir Putin for the first time

'For Israel, against Bibi': Why Israelis in NYC are protesting their own government

Inside the Global Investigation that Exposed Israel's Agents of Chaos

Is Netanyahu's corruption trial the real reason for Israel's judicial overhaul?

'Fauda' creator on the show's fourth season and Israel's third Intifada

Israel's former military intel chief is worried, and not about Iran

‘Democracies can become tyrannies’: Why Alan Dershowitz fears Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul

Israel's Jewish Fundamentalists are in Power. Here's What You Should Know

‘Corrupt and dangerous’: Benjamin Wittes on Israel’s judicial overhaul

Netanyahu can no longer control the pyromaniacs around him

‘Time to resist’: Top Israeli civil rights activist prepares for Bibi's ‘nightmare government'

Israel's new far-right government will turn back the clock for women

The law professor fighting to stop a 'disaster for Israeli democracy'

Haaretz Live from Washington: What next in Israeli politics?

Will Netanyahu's far-right allies ignite a third Intifada? Listen to Amos Harel

'Israel is a red state, U.S. Jews are blue voters': Eric Alterman on U.S.-Israel ties

Trump lost, Biden won: what the midterms mean for Israel

From Bibi to the midterms, a dramatic election season for U.S.-Israel ties

Israel election: Understanding Bibi's comeback