As part of our special series sponsored by the German government, the Tel Aviv Review hosts Germany's Ambassador to Israel, Dr. Susanne Wasum-Rainer.

The Ambassador discusses Germany's vision at the start of its Presidency of the Council of the EU, challenges to the post-war global order, German-Israel relations, and her long professional connection to Israel.

This episode is part of a series made possible by the German Government which examines Israel's relationship with the EU and European countries.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

If healthy democracies depend on a well-informed citizen body, does disinformation destroy them? Can the average person know when to trust science, or spot bad information causing political and social mayhem?

In Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World, co-authors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin D. West argue that people have the power to judge data critically and independently – and they teach us how.

This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

Menny Mautner, Professor Emeritus of Law at Tel Aviv University, discusses his book Liberalism in Israel: History, Problems and Contingencies, analyzing the onset of the liberal agenda in Israel's political history, up to its precarious state at present.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

Prof. Ruth HaCohen-Pinczower, co-author of Singing Freedom: The Interplay between Music and Politics in the West, discusses the power of music as well as power and music.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

After decades of diplomacy, Oded Eran, former Ambassador to the EU and Jordan, now at the Institute for National Security Studies, provides a comprehensive checkup of Israeli foreign policy. He examines Israel's relations with the Middle East, India and China, the EU, the Palestinians and the US, and we consider what impact annexation – or COVID – will have on Israel's standing in the world.

This episode is part of a series made possible by the German Government which examines Israel's relationship with the EU and European countries.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was among the seminal events of modern Jewish history. The violence was memorialized in ways that shaped Jewish identity, from the early Zionist national narrative to Jewish American social activism. Prof. Steven Zipperstein examines the history, memory and myth of the violence in Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History.

This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

A politician you don't like might be running child prostitutes from a pizzeria. Election results you don't like were rigged. In their new book A Lot of People are Saying, Professors Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead argue that new conspiracists in Donald Trump's America have no evidence and no argument – in essence, no theory at all. Rosenberg explains how they harm democracy.

This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

In his authoritative book on the subject, Prof. Jan Werner Muller asked What is Populism; in other works, he considers "militant democracy," when constitutions protect countries from populist injury, Christian democracy, conservatives and populism, and how communities of democratic countries can deal with members who stray.

This episode is made possible by the Israel office of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which promotes peace, freedom, and justice through political education.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

Dr Gili Hammer, an anthropologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses her book Blindness through the Looking Glass: The Performance of Blindness, Gender, and the Sensory Body, exploring how visually impaired Israeli women grasp and perform the interface between blindness and gender.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.

In his new biography, Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent, Paul Mendes-Flohr explores the journey of the Jewish philosopher, from his early years as a polyglot cosmopolitan intellectual under the waning Habsburg empire, to a voice of political dissent in the new state of Israel.

This season is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel.