Noah Efron, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Don Futterman discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week. 

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Mind the Gap! In America in the age of Trump and Netanyahu, Israel has seemingly become a partisan issue. According to a new poll of Americans, 74 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, while 43 percent of Democrats do. There are various theories about why there is such a partisan gap. Is this partisanization of Israel in America a danger to us and if so why and, most crucial of all, what the hell ought to be done about it?

Putting the “Low” in Diplomat Numerous mutually conflicting explanations have been offered for why Israel's Diplomatic Corps is disintegrating. Why it has become so difficult to find young people making a career of diplomacy. More important, does the decline of the diplomatic corps really matter in the age of Twitter diplomacy and rapid and direct communications between leaders?

Venting on Rent, Dissent and Discontent When the country’s leading expert on and advocate of social housing and, especially, affordable rent policy attacks the government’s first serious attempt in more than a generation to legislate an affordable rent policy, you know that on the way to doing something right, someone went desperately wrong. What should be done with the present bill under consideration? What should be done more generally about affordable rent in Israel? What vision of the neighborhoods and cities we want ought to guide us in setting housing policy?

Music: Soul J. (Alon Bloom): 

Lo ha-Ben Shel Rothschild

Journey Called Life

Kach et zeh be-Eezy

Al Tivku