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

Elections!

Netanyahu calls new elections, spurring the talking heads to talk, the pundits to pund, the experts to expectorate, and all the rest of us to grasp our heads in our hands and rock back and forth while muttering, “Let something good come of this, Puleeeze, let something good come of this.”

Alternative Modernity in Kiryat Gat

Does a traditional “Ethiopian farm” in Israel, with mud storehouses and subsistence farming, challenge the way the rest of us live?

Rasah to Slash Our Stash of Cash?

Should Israel go “cashless,” or is that just more Big-Brotherization?

Extra Segment

We discuss a question sent in, in one variant or another, by a bunch of listeners: “Why don't you guys have any right-wing folks on your show to get a broader range of opinions? What's the value of talking just among yourselves? Whataya, chicken?”

Music

Yolanta and Rocker-Pocket, off their new debut record, Disteemia.

• Lo haya af pa'am shaket
• Avazi bar
• Ha-yaar hamechushaf
• Shir Eres Islandi