Ahead of the holiday of Tisha B'Av, we bring you this special What Matters Now podcast:

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author Daniel Taub.

Taub is an Israeli diplomat, international lawyer and author born in Britain in 1962. He moved to Israel in 1989, later serving in the IDF as a combat medic and as a reserve officer in the international law division. He started his path in diplomacy in the Israeli Foreign Ministry in 1991 where he held many legal and diplomatic posts, including as  Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2011 to 2015.

In his new book, "Beyond Dispute: Rediscovering the Jewish Art of Constructive Disagreement," Taub synthesizes his years spent at negotiating tables as a diplomat with his lifelong learning of Talmud. 

Drawing on techniques from both spheres, Taub argues that disagreement can be even more constructive than easy consensus -- and is necessary for treaties to last.

We begin the program speaking about the Tisha B'Av holiday marked this weekend and how Israeli society today -- specifically, the painful ongoing debate over universal draft -- is coming close to the senseless hatred that tradition ascribes as a reason for the fall of the Temples. 

We then hear how one must pick a ripe time for negotiations, and how Taub's experiences on negotiation teams with Palestinians and Syrians make him think that Israelis, at the very least, are not ready to discuss a practical peace -- yet.

And so this week, we ask Daniel Taub, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Author Daniel Taub (courtesy) / Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man pray as they gather for the mourning ritual of Tisha B'Av, in the Old City of Jerusalem, August 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

US bureau chief Jacob Magid joins host Jessica Steinberg for today's episode.

With Canada announcing that it will recognize a Palestinian state in September, Magid discusses that Canada is conditioning its plan on Palestinian Authority reforms. 

Magid also looks at the latest vote in the Senate to block arms sales to Israel, as an extension of distrust of Netanyahu government. The resolution proposed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders didn't pass again, but a majority of Democrats voted against it, a first that shows the distrust of the Netanyahu government, says Magid.

As US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff makes his way to the region, Magid says that Gaza humanitarian aid is the main issue he'll presumably discuss with Netanyahu, with clear prioritization on how to aid the Gazans.

Magid also talks about the alleged shooting of a prominent Palestinian activist by a known Jewish settler and the clear differences in how the suspected settler, Yinon Levi, was treated by Israeli civilian law as opposed to the Palestinian suspects involved in the case, who are being handled by the Israeli military legal system.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Following France and UK, Canada says it will recognize Palestinian state in September

Israel said to warn Hamas it will annex parts of Gaza if no hostage deal reached

As Trump promises new Gaza aid plan, White House says details forthcoming

IDF court extends Palestinians’ remand after Israeli in same incident freed to house arrest

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Palestinians carry food supplies they received from the US aid center in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, July 30, 2025. (Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Political reporter Tal Schneider and diplomatic reporter Nava Freiberg join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Tuesday that the UK would recognize a Palestinian state in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the war and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and meets several other conditions, including recommitting to a viable peace process. This is happening while, for the past several days, high-level representatives at a UN conference have urged Israel to commit to a Palestinian state. We discuss fallout to Starmer's announcement, the “New York Declaration” and which other states may follow suit in potentially recognizing Palestine this fall.

In his announcement, Starmer said that Israel could forestall the recognition by reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, making clear that it will not annex the West Bank (or Gaza), and committing to a peace process that results in a two-state solution. This comes as there are increased rumors of plans to annex parts of the Gaza Strip. But are these rumors just a negotiation tactic? Schneider weighs in.

At the NY two-state solution conference this week, Arab and Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, signed a declaration condemning for the first time Hamas’s onslaught of October 7, 2023, and calling on the Palestinian terror group to release all the hostages it is holding, disarm and end its rule of Gaza, in a bid to end the devastating war in the Strip. Schneider and Freiberg explain that all may not be as laudable it seems.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

UK to recognize Palestinian state in Sept. unless Israel ends Gaza war, commits to peace

PM says ‘obstinate’ Hamas blocking hostage deal, as he weighs annexing parts of Gaza

In 1st, entire Arab League condemns Oct. 7, urges Hamas to disarm, at 2-state solution confab

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a statement inside No. 10 Downing Street after the cabinet was recalled to discuss the situation in Gaza, in London, July 29, 2025. (Toby Melville, Pool Photo via AP)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz joins host Jessica Steinberg for today’s episode.

The situation in Gaza remains incredibly problematic and unclear, says Horovitz, with a lack of independent journalism in Gaza, complicating the narrative. For the moment, Israel has reversed its policy regarding aid to Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t invite his two far-right coalition members, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to the cabinet meeting discussing an increase of aid to Gaza.

Horovitz discusses the mixed signals and strategic incoherence from the current government on this mix of issues. There is talk about getting aid into Gaza at the same time as unsourced reports that the army has proposed a tightened siege in the Strip, and held discussions of annexation or occupation in Gaza, offering a great deal of contradictory information, says Horovitz.

Horovitz also discusses the wave of recommendations about excluding Israel from academic projects alongside instances of Israeli tourists requiring security assistance in various EU locations, amid the rising tide of criticism against Israel. People feel deeply troubled by what they are seeing and hearing about Gaza, he notes.

Israeli negotiators are no longer in Doha for the ceasefire talks, although the terrorist organization Hamas has said it is trying to make this current proposal work. Horovitz says that Israel’s strategy is hard to fathom, given its insistence on military pressure in Gaza and Netanyahu’s continued endorsement of US President Donald Trump’s initial idea of helping Gazans leave, something that the US leader isn’t saying that any longer.

Check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

PM says Israel will ensure lots of Gaza aid; ministers said to mull occupation, annexation

‘You can’t fake that’: Trump sees ‘real starvation’ in Gaza, says Israel must do more

Image of Gazan child with genetic illness being used to falsely smear Israel, COGAT charges

Smotrich signals he won’t bolt coalition despite objecting to Gaza humanitarian aid

EU proposes cutting Israeli access to research funds over Gaza humanitarian crisis

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Palestinians at the site of an Israeli air strike, at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, on July 29, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

Yesterday, aircraft from Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan airdropped dozens of pallets of humanitarian aid in the northern and southern Gaza Strip. This morning, Israel says more than 120 truckloads of food aid were distributed by the UN and aid agencies in the Gaza Strip on the first day of a partial pause in fighting. Berman explores how Israel's currently softened position is playing out on the global stage and compares it to previous cycles in which Israel allowed more aid into the Strip.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to press US President Donald Trump on ending “the unspeakable suffering” in Gaza when they meet at the US president’s golf resort in Scotland today, according to a Downing Street spokesperson says. The meeting at Turnberry, southwestern Scotland, comes as European countries express growing alarm at the situation in Gaza. What is Trump currently saying about the war in Gaza?

Foreign Ministry director general Eden Bar-Tal summoned France’s deputy ambassador Mikaël Griffon for a reprimand at ministry headquarters in Jerusalem yesterday, over French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement last week that Paris would recognize a Palestinian state. During the dressing down, he accused France of undermining talks for a hostage release deal with Hamas, as well as future negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. Berman delves into the idea that all the pressure on Israel to end the war -- and this "prize" of a state to the Palestinian people -- could harm the ceasefire negotiations and drag out the war with an emboldened Hamas. And we ask, is the UK set to follow France's example?

And finally, the home of a Chabad rabbi in Dnipro was hit during a deadly Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city early Saturday. We learn about the "Shabbat miracle" that saved his family and hear what is happening with the Jewish community in Ukraine as the war marks some 1250 days.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Once again, Israel tried to restrict Gaza aid. Once again, it failed miserably

Trump: Israel will ‘have to make decision’ on Gaza war, images of starvation ‘terrible’

Hundreds of rabbis demand Israel stop ‘using starvation as a weapon of war’

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: An Israeli soldier stands next to a truck at the Kerem Shalom crossing between southern Israel and the Gaza Strip on July 27, 2025. (Carlos REYES / AFP)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Military correspondent Emanuel Fabian joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

Israel carried out its first airdrop of humanitarian aid into Gaza early Sunday since the start of the ongoing war against Hamas, and pledged to halt fighting in certain parts of the Strip in 10-hour stints and create safe passages for the United Nations to distribute goods to the Palestinian population. We learn what has been airdropped so far, what's on the horizon and how much aid awaits distribution along the border.

Fabian reports back on his trip late last week with the IDF to Gaza City. We learn that the troops are largely "fighting infrastructure" -- tunnels and booby-trapped buildings -- and that the Hamas battalion is largely defeated. Fabian wonders if this approach will indeed lead to the release of the Israeli hostages.

Law enforcement on Saturday arrested a man suspected of carrying out a car-ramming attack in central Israel last week that wounded eight IDF soldiers. Police said the suspect, named earlier as Arkan Khaled, a 27-year-old Israeli resident of Taybeh, was caught while hiding at a construction site in the town of Kfar Yona close to the Beit Lid junction where the attack occurred.

Israeli forces took over a pro-Palestinian activists' boat, Handala, that was attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip on Saturday night, and towed it toward the Ashdod Port. Handala is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which also dispatched the previous boat and was carrying 19 activists and two Al Jazeera journalists.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Two IDF soldiers killed when armored vehicle hit by explosive in Khan Younis

IDF reservist succumbs to wounds sustained last week in roadside explosion in Gaza

IDF airdrops aid into Gaza for 1st time, vows to implement ‘pauses’ for UN deliveries

Back in Gaza City again, IDF finds itself fighting ‘infrastructure,’ not terrorists

Suspect in Thursday car-ramming caught at central Israel construction site

IDF takes over pro-Palestinian activist boat attempting to break Gaza blockade

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Israeli Air Force staff prepare boxes of humanitarian aid ahead of an airdrop in the Gaza Strip, July 26, 2025. (IDF)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with leading economist Prof. Dan Ben-David.

Ben-David heads the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research and is a senior faculty member in the Department of Public Policy at Tel-Aviv University.

Earlier this month, he wrote an op-ed in The Times of Israel with the provocative headline, "‘Just not Bibi’ is not an action plan for a national pivot." In it, he lays out the need for a complete overhaul of swaths of Israeli society and institution -- and insists that this is the pivotal moment that it must be done.

“The demographic-democratic window of opportunity is closing at an exponential pace. This is the time for leaders who demonstrate that they grasp the gravity of this moment and what is required of them at the crossroads that we’ve now reached,” he wrote.

We drill down into Ben-David's vision for Israel 2.0 and its four cornerstones — educational overhaul, budgetary overhaul, a change in our system of government, and a constitution.

We also dive into the role that the ultra-Orthodox or Haredi community plays in implementing — or torpedoing — his vision.

And so this week, we ask Dan Ben-David, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Ultra-Orthodox Jews gather at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at Mount Meron during the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer, which marks the anniversary of the death of the Talmudic sage in Meron, northern Israel, on May 15, 2025. (Jalaa MAREY / AFP)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel's newest podcast series, Friday Focus. Each Friday, join diplomatic reporter Lazar Berman and host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan for a deep dive into what's behind the news that spins the globe.

The vast majority of the Zionists in the world are Christian. Israel’s closest allies are majority-Christian or officially Christian countries, and the world’s largest Christian denominations have many of their holiest sites in Israel.

At the same time, there’s no adviser for Christian Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office, no minister tasked with outreach.

On today's Friday Focus, we discuss three recent difficult incidents with the Christian world, which official Israel was diplomatically unprepared for.

Berman discusses the need for a point person, an office or even a ministry in the Prime Minister's Office who will be tasked with liaising with the Christian world -- just like what is found in the governments of our Muslim neighbors. 

Friday Focus can be found on all podcast platforms. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

For more on this topic:

Causing strategic, moral harm, Netanyahu lets others dictate Israel’s ties with Christians

Friday Focus with Lazar Berman: Attacks on Christians in Israel are national stain

IMAGE: Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, censes during Sunday morning mass at the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Family in Gaza City on July 20, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

New York reporter Luke Tress joins host Jessica Steinberg for today's episode.

As New York City Mayor Eric Adams establishes the Anti-Semitism Task Force, Tress examines the comprehensive plans of the citywide project, its political implications, and the recent incidents of vandalism linked to anti-Israel activism.

Following the vandalization of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's office in the Bronx in response to her vote on funding for Israel's Iron Dome defensive system, Tress discusses the trend of activists vandalizing politicians' offices due to their perceived support for Israel.

He also explores the work of an American scholar who studied and wrote about the historical roots of anti-Zionist slogans, tracing their origins back to the Soviet Union and examining how the language of anti-Zionism has permeated modern activism and modern leftist rhetoric, and has roots in Soviet propaganda.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

‘AOC funds genocide in Gaza’: Anti-Israel activists vandalize Ocasio-Cortez’s NY office

Pro-Palestinian activist in New York charged by feds for torching 11 police vehicles

Columbia University suspends and expels dozens of students over anti-Israel unrest

Why are US socialists so anti-Israel? Scholar lays out Soviet roots of anti-Zionist rhetoric

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Anti-Israel protesters in Times Square, New York City, June 16, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

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Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Legal and settlements reporter Jeremy Sharon and Knesset reporter Ariela Karmel join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

We begin the program with an update on the ongoing saga of the attempts to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. On Sunday morning, the five-member ministerial committee recently set up to dismiss the attorney general voted unanimously to recommend that the government to dismiss her. We hear what are the potential next steps toward firing her -- and probable backlash.

Yesterday at the Knesset conference called “The Gaza Riviera – from vision to reality,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich endorsed a “security annexation” of the northern Gaza Strip and claimed that Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir favors the idea. Dozens of right-wing politicians and activists claim they are set to "right a historic wrong" that occurred 20 years ago with the 2005 Disengagement. Karmel sets the scene.

Israeli authorities have said they are taking control of the management of the Tomb of the Patriarchs holy site in Hebron, in order to carry out construction work at the flashpoint West Bank shrine. Sharon explains how there is precedent for this temporary control and delves into why the move is so controversial this time.

And finally, in June, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced that it had opened an investigation into “matters related to the Israel-Hamas armed conflict,” with the possibility of uncovering “a perpetrator of core international crimes — such as genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.” This announcement sparked concern among dual Israel-Canadian citizen soldiers. Karmel wrote an in-depth piece on the topic and shares the soldiers' fears.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Ministerial panel votes unanimously to recommend firing the attorney general

Smotrich: Gaza will be ‘inseparable part of Israel,’ IDF chief favors ‘security annexation’

Israel to take administrative control over Tomb of Patriarchs for construction work

‘I’m afraid to go home’: Canadian IDF soldiers fear fallout from war crimes probe

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: An Israeli settler youth, wearing an anti-disengagement T-shirt that reads: 'A Jew doesn't expel a Jew,' September 27, 2005. (DAVID FURST / AFP)

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