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.

They’d Like to Teach the World to Sing

Can a single political party long endure with some members who are Two-State Solution types and others who are Never-Palestinian-State sorts, and some members who see the ultra-Orthodox as partners and others who see them as anathema? The new centrist mega-party “Blue & White” does just that: Is it a civil war in the making?

The Prime Minister Israel Never Had

Tzipi Livni was almost Prime Minister and, as Foreign Minister, she almost signed a peace accord with the Palestinians. Why, then, do only one in a hundred Israelis support her, bringing her brilliant career to an ignoble end?

You’ll Weld ‘til we Tell You to Stop Welding

Are market forces making it impossible for welders, metalsmiths, carpenters, upholsterers, cobblers, tailors, and mechanics to do what they do in Tel Aviv? Is every meter of real estate in the city destined to be fancy housing for rich folks?

Extra Patron Segment

For our most intemperately generous Patreon supporters, we will discuss in our extra-special, special extra segment the Forward’s primer, “How To Speak About The Israel Lobby In A Non-Anti-Semitic Way,” the latest salvo in Opinion Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon’s copiously ambitious program to renovate the whole damn American Left, as a first step towards renovating American Jewish politics.

Music

Afor Gashum, who's celebrating 30 years of their hugely influential samizdat 1989 cassette, February.

• Pashut ve-Tiv’i
• Shir Pop ’67
• Hinei Ba ha-Geshem
• Tinshemet