In this episode of Tel Aviv Diary, Marc is joined again by his friend Ehud Haik retired military officer, to take stock of Israel’s strategic reality—now that the landscape has shifted since Ehud’s last appearance. Last time they spoke it was before the ceasefire, beforehostages began returning, and before it was clear whether the regional balance had changed or merely rearranged itself. This conversation begins where Israelis are living today: Gaza, the uncertainty around what comes next, and the uncomfortable truth that Gaza can no longer be understood as an isolated front.

Ehud argues that, tactically, Israel has redrawn the map—enforcing what he calls a new border, the “Yellow Line,” and doing so aggressively. But sustainability, he says, depends less on Israel’s capabilities than on what external forces will permit. From there the discussion expands outward: Iran trying to re-carve its place after setbacks; Turkey pushing to emerge as a regional superpower and attempting to insert itself into Gaza; and Qatar working to preserve its influence and, in Ehud’s view, to help keep Hamas alive in some form. The key variable hovering over all of it is Washington—specifically what Donald Trump will allow, tolerate, or decide, and how much leverage Turkey and Qatar may have in that calculus.

The episode then pivots to the larger strategic dangers that may be building beneath the surface: the risk of Turkish “official” involvement in Gaza, the question of whether reconstruction becomes Israel’s primary leverage, and why a future war could arrive faster than people want to admit—especially if Hamas remains armed or if Turkey gains a foothold. From there, Marc and Ehud move into Iran: sanctions, internal regime pressures, executions, the nuclear question, missile production realities, and the widening advantage attackers gain in a cyber age shaped by AI. The conversation closes with Israeli politics and accountability: October 7 as a stain that cannot be erased, Netanyahu’s dependence on PR and delay, the draft crisis, and a warning that Israel may be rebuilding its future force structure without fully confronting what went wrong. Recorded on the eighth night of Hanukkah, the episode ends with a sober but fitting line: hope for the best—prepare for the worst.

In this hybrid episode of Tel Aviv Diary, Marc Schulman opens with a fast-moving roundup from overnight: the fallout from a Breslov Hasidim trip toward Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem/Nablus that ended in a hit-and-run of a Palestinian civilian, renewed friction around one of the West Bank’s most persistent flashpoints, and reflections—personal and political—on widening ultra-Orthodox riots in Jerusalem and Ashkelon as the conscription fight escalates.

From there, Marc turns to the broader strategic picture: another alleged Iranian espionage arrest, anxieties about what a future “round two” with Iran could look like, and cautious skepticism about claims that another Lebanon war is inevitable. He also breaks down fresh polling signals—tightening numbers, shifting blocs, and what they may (or may not) mean as Israel heads toward an election deadline.

The heart of the episode is an interview with Jack Lowenstein, a longtime Tel Aviv Diary subscriber living roughly 500 meters from Bondi Beach. Jack describes Australia’s Jewish community in a week of fear and solidarity—vigils, public Hanukkah lighting, the debate over “being seen” versus keeping a low profile, and sharp criticism of government and security failures. Their conversation widens into diaspora dilemmas: Aliyah as an “insurance policy,” the uneasy balance between safety and belonging, and why events far from Israel increasingly feel tied to Israel’s choices—and Israel’s image—at home.

In this episode of Tel Aviv Diary, Marc Schulman sits down with neighbor and new olah David Schlachter, who moved his family from the Bay Area to Tel Aviv in August 2024 after a decade-long plan collided with the realities of October 7 and rising antisemitism in the United States. David describes the family’s debate—stay in California or make the leap during wartime—and what it felt like to land, settle, and place three children into Israeli public schools just days before the school year began.

David also shares his unusual sabbatical project: building a “demographic mosaic” of Israel by creating 100 profiles that mirror the country’s population—by age, gender, geography, and background—then interviewing and photographing real people to match each profile. The result is a portrait-driven book, “Hinenu” (“Here we are”), designed to capture Israel at a singular moment: diverse, wounded, resilient, and intensely communal. Along the way, Marc and David talk about Tel Aviv’s transformation since 2010—food, coffee, skyline, and all—and why, in Israel, strangers are often ready to tell their life story if someone simply takes the time to ask.

Show notes: Hinenu: Israel at Ten Million is a new photography and oral-history book by David Shlachter that captures Israel through the lives of 100 people at the exact moment the country reached a population of ten million. Created during wartime and deep national uncertainty, the project pairs striking portraits with first-person stories that reflect Israel’s full demographic mosaic—Jews and Arabs, religious and secular, sabras and immigrants, elders and children—mirroring the latest census data.

Intentionally apolitical, Hinenu (Hebrew for Here we are) is an act of listening: a human portrait of a society still becoming itself, told in its own voices.

Learn more at www.HinenuBook.com

In this week’s Tel Aviv Diary (December 12), Marc Schulman reflects on newly released IDF-captured Hamas footage of six hostages later executed in the tunnels under Rafah—images of young Israelis lighting Hanukkah candles underground, trying to keep their spirits alive, as the country watches with grief and fury. Marc returns to Hostage Square after the storm, noting what has been dismantled, what still stands, and the clock still counting down—especially for the one last body not yet returned. He asks what comes next in Gaza as talk swirls around a Trump-backed plan, a looming committee, and conditions—Hamas disarmament, Israeli pullbacks, and controversial roles for Turkey, Qatar, and the Palestinian Authority—that collide with political realities in Jerusalem.

From there, the episode widens to Israel’s northern front, the uneasy truce lines, and a larger argument about defense: how much of Israel’s future security will be manpower, and how much can be technology—interceptors, lasers, surveillance, and eventually autonomous systems—without repeating the blindness of October 7. Marc then turns to the budget fight and the ultra-Orthodox draft crisis, tracing the issue from Ben-Gurion’s original exemptions through the Tal Law era and Supreme Court rulings to today’s political brinkmanship, committee shakeups, and a bill widely viewed as preserving exemptions rather than producing the soldiers the army says it needs. Finally, he surveys American politics and AI: a Trump national security doctrine that, in Marc’s view, reads like disengagement from the world; big-tech moves that reshape culture and power; and a regulatory retreat that leaves AI accelerating with fewer constraints—ending the week with hard questions, sharp skepticism, and a Shabbat Shalom from Tel Aviv.

In this episode of Tel Aviv Diary, Marc speaks with Alon Ben-Noon, founder and CEO of NeuroSense Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NRSN), about Israel’s bid to change the prognosis for ALS. Ben-Noon traces his path from early years in Nahariya, studies in industrial engineering and an MBA, and work at Perrigo and Teva, to launching his own consultancy and eventually founding NeuroSense. He recounts how meeting ALS patient and activist Shai Rishoni pushed him from advising biotech companies to building one, and how that encounter led to the development of PrimeC, a combination drug designed to target key ALS mechanisms such as neuroinflammation, iron dysregulation, and microRNA imbalance.

Ben-Noon explains what PrimeC has shown so far in trials—slowing functional decline by roughly 30–40% and improving survival by about 60% in a phase 2b study—and outlines the company’s next step: an international phase 3 trial in the U.S., Europe, and Israel, now cleared by the FDA. The conversation ranges from the scientific debate over whether ALS is one disease or many, to the realities of running a small public biotech company from Herzliya, raising capital, partnering with big pharma, and keeping focus through war and national trauma after October 7. Ben-Noon shares his cautious optimism about the timeline ahead, his hopes for eventually “beating ALS,” and why he believes Israeli ingenuity and persistence can help turn a devastating diagnosis into a treatable condition.

In this episode of Tel Aviv Diaries, Marc Schulman looks back at a fraught week in Israel and beyond. He begins with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s highly controversial request to end his corruption trial and the unprecedented intervention by President Trump, probing what it means for Israel’s judiciary, international standing, and political stability. Marc then turns to the new ultra-Orthodox draft law, explaining why it is seen by many Israelis as a “law of avoidance,” how it could entrench long-term exemptions, and why it is politically risky even within Likud’s own base.

From there, the episode shifts to Gaza and Lebanon: the tentative outlines of a second-stage Gaza arrangement involving international forces and reconstruction money, the debate over whether Israel should risk another war with Hezbollah, and the economic toll of prolonged conflict as tourism collapses and missile defense still needs years of rebuilding. Marc also unpacks the renewed tensions between Yad Vashem and the Auschwitz Memorial over Polish complicity in the Holocaust, Europe’s conflicted stance toward Israel—from Eurovision boycotts to buying Israeli missile defense—and the latest slide in President Trump’s popularity as hard-line immigration policies collide with economic realities. He closes with reflections on AI: how he uses it as a research tool for his own history writing, why it threatens to hollow out student learning if misused, and what a serious rethinking of education might look like in an age when machines can draft the paper—but can’t ask the questions.

This week on Tel Aviv Diary, we step away from the familiar voices of seasoned officials and veteran diplomats to hear from a very different Israeli generation. Our guest, Adam Penkin, offers a candid and strikingly nuanced look at the country through the eyes of a young man shaped by a global upbringing, elite combat service, and ongoing reserve duty during Israel’s most turbulent years.

Born in London, raised in Hong Kong, and brought to Israel as a teenager, Penkin speaks openly about his unexpected path into one of the IDF’s most prestigious combat units, the realities—and moral tensions—of reserve duty from Gaza to the northern border, and how service changes a person’s sense of the country. From his perspective on Palestinians and settlers to the failures of Israeli political culture, the crisis of civil–military trust, and the future of coexistence, Penkin brings honesty, introspection, and intellectual depth rarely heard in public conversations today.

This is an episode about a generation caught between war and idealism, identity and responsibility, frustration and hope. It is a conversation that challenges assumptions and widens the lens on Israel in 2025.

In this week’s Tel Aviv Diary, host Marc Schulman opens with a sobering look at the latest developments on Israel’s front lines. He reviews the near-final confrontation with the last Hamas operatives emerging from the Rafah tunnel system, and a problematic IDF raid inside Syria that, while achieving its primary objective, left six Israeli soldiers wounded and raised hard questions about planning, risk, and the use of reservists in complex operations. Schulman then turns to the disturbing video of Border Police troops apparently executing two detained Palestinians—revisiting the echoes of the Azaria case and probing what this incident reveals about discipline, hatred, and the erosion of norms in a society under prolonged stress.

From there, the podcast pivots to the political battle over the ultra-Orthodox draft. Schulman dissects the new bill before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, explaining why it is widely viewed as a bluff: a measure that restores funding and formalizes exemptions without meaningfully increasing Haredi enlistment. He explores the political calculus behind Prime Minister Netanyahu’s maneuvering—his dependence on ultra-Orthodox parties to pass the budget and avoid early elections—alongside the deep public anger over unequal burdens of service and what that might mean for Israel’s next electoral cycle.

The second half of the episode features an in-depth conversation with Adi Vaxman, co-founder of Operation Israel, a volunteer-driven organization that has delivered tens of thousands of pieces of critical equipment to IDF units since October 7. Vaxman describes how a desperate search for ceramic vests for lone soldiers turned into a full-scale logistical operation, powered by tech-savvy volunteers, improvised supply chains, and donors who wanted to see exactly where their money was going. From ceramic plates, medical gear, and drones to specialized training programs and mental-health retreats for reservists, she explains how civilian initiative has repeatedly filled gaps too slow or too cumbersome for the formal system to address.

Together, Schulman and Vaxman also examine the broader meaning of this grassroots mobilization—for Israeli resilience, for the relationship between the IDF and civil society, and for Diaspora Jews looking for tangible ways to support Israel beyond writing a generic check. It is an episode that moves between battlefield reality, political fault lines, and the quiet heroism of citizens who refused to stand on the sidelines, offering a grounded, unvarnished snapshot of Israel in a long and difficult war.

In this sweeping and intimate episode of Tel Aviv Diary, we sit down with Gershon Baskin—one of the most consequential and least understood figures in the Israeli–Palestinian arena. Baskin traces his path from a politically awakened teenager in 1960s America to a lifelong peacebuilder whose work has spanned Arab villages inside Israel, the first Intifada, the Oslo years, and nearly two decades of clandestine contacts with Hamas. In this rare, uninterrupted narrative, he recounts the early experiences that shaped his worldview, the creation of pioneering coexistence institutions, and his long, complicated role in hostage negotiations—culminating in the behind-the-scenes diplomacy that helped shape the events of 2024–2025.

Across the conversation, Baskin offers a historian’s memory, a negotiator’s candor, and an optimist’s resilience. He describes the human relationships that underpinned years of unofficial diplomacy, the turning points in his contact with Hamas, the regional realignments now driving new political possibilities, and why—despite trauma, distrust, and hard realities on both sides—he still believes the two-state solution is the only path forward. The result is a rare window into the mechanics of conflict, the fragility of peacemaking, and the stubborn hope that keeps both alive.

In this week’s Tel Aviv Diary, Marc Schulman opens with the tense standoff under Rafah, where a dwindling group of October 7th terrorists remain trapped in the tunnels as Israel methodically seals their exits and prepares for a final confrontation. From there, he shifts to Washington, tracing how the Saudi crown prince walked out of the White House with everything he wanted—F-35s, civilian nuclear understandings, and a headline “trillion-dollar” investment pledge—without offering normalization with Israel, and what that signals about Israel’s eroding political weight in both U.S. parties and in key American cities.

Back home, Schulman examines how Likud primaries and coalition politics are driving increasingly extreme legislation, including a mandatory death-penalty bill for terrorists, and how a government-designed commission of inquiry into October 7th appears aimed more at deflecting blame than uncovering truth. He then turns to the United States, where the Epstein tapes, shifting Republican coalitions, and a resurgence of antisemitism on both the far right and far left raise uncomfortable historical echoes. The episode concludes with a look at the breakneck advance of AI—from Google’s latest Gemini release to AI-generated video and the risk of an “AI bubble”—and how these tools are simultaneously empowering creators and destabilizing our sense of what is real.