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 Prof. Manuela Consonni, director of Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.

Consonni, a leading scholar of Holocaust memory, gender, and post-war European culture, decided to mark Yom Hashoah, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, with an exhibition at the Mount Scopus campus called, "Faces of Women's Resistance."

The exhibition looks at how women -- Jewish and non-Jewish -- resisted the Nazi regime. Like men, many were fighters, partisans and rescuers, but also the sheer survival of their family was put on the shoulders of many mothers.

We discuss definitions of resistance and what means were available to women during the Nazi regime.

And finally, we delve into the use of Holocaust language when discussing the hostages kept by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

So this week, we ask Prof. Manuela Consonni, 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: Two young women who managed to survive over a year in the concentration camp at Belsen, Germany, are shown, April 30, 1945. (AP Photo)

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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 Mitch Ginsburg, a producer at the Israel Story podcast.

Ginsburg, a former military reporter for The Times of Israel, brings us a special episode from Israel's flagship podcast series, called The Hebrew Hobbit: A Passover Special.

In it, Ginsburg charts the tale of a number of Israeli POWs who took upon themselves the unlikely task of translating JRR Tolkien's "The Hobbit" while imprisoned together in an Egyptian jail.

In a vivid soundscape, Ginsburg brings a 360-degree account of life before, during and after their detention -- for the soldiers and those they left behind.

This Passover holiday, we hear the improbable story of a group of Israeli men who formed a mini-kibbutz in the heart of an enemy country's prison and what happened after their exodus from Egypt.

So this week, we ask Israel Story's Mitch Ginsburg, 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: An undated photo of the POW group who together translated 'The Hobbit' into Hebrew prior to their release from an Egyptian prison in November 1973. (courtesy)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg speaking with Idit Ohel, mother of hostage Alon Ohel.

Ohel talks about her son, who was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival. 

Ohel discusses what she knows about the injuries sustained by Alon on October 7, including shrapnel in his eye, and she firmly demands that he receive medical attention.

She says she deeply believes that despite his injuries and captivity, he is surviving and will continue to do so until he's released home.

She explains what she's heard from released hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Eliya Cohen, who were kept captive with Alon, and we hear how Alon endures, playing imaginery piano on his chest as a musician, whistling favorite songs and talking about his family.

Ohel says that her son, like her, has always meditated, and she assumes he is still doing so as one of the many methods that has allowed him to survive so many months underground.

She discusses what it's like to mark another Passover without her son, and the need for the entire country and Jewish nation to rally behind the remaining hostages, in order to push the government toward an extension of the hostage deal.

So this week, we ask hostage mother Idit Ohel, 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: Idit Ohel, mother of hostage Alon Ohel, speaks during a rally calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, March 8, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

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

Horn is the author of novels and non-fiction, including “People Love Dead Jews,” “Eternal Life,” “A Guide for the Perplexed,” and now her first book for young readers, “One Little Goat.”

A graphic novel, "One Little Goat," was dreamed up by a young Horn and written decades later alongside the uniquely grungy illustrations of Theo Ellsworth.

The program's first half delves into the book's trippy storyline and how she arrived at it. As Horn remarks on her website, "'One Little Goat' is a quirky, dryly funny, Passover-themed graphic novel featuring a lost matzah, a never-ending seder and a time-traveling talking goat."

In the second half of the program, we hear some about the ideas Horn proposed in her bestselling work, "People Love Dead Jews," and she speaks about her new education initiative, Mosaic Persuasion, which is bent on teaching American schoolchildren about real, living Jews and Jewish culture.

We hear about how the Hamas massacre of 1,200 in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, has -- and has not -- shifted American discourse. And Horn points out the Jews' driving counter-culture DNA that has been passed down from generation to generation, much like the rituals of the Passover seder.

And so this week, we ask author Dara Horn, 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. 

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with arts and culture editor Jessica Steinberg hosting and speaking with Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of released hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen.

Dekel-Chen, a dual Israeli-American citizen, was a vocal and visible hostage parent throughout the months of his son's captivity. Sagui Dekel-Chen was taken hostage on October 7, 2023 from Kibbutz Nir Oz, while his pregnant wife and two young daughters were hiding in their safe room.

He talks about the relief that he and the family felt upon seeing Sagui released home to Israel, the challenges that Sagui and the rest of the family and Nir Oz community still face, and the sense of rebirth that Sagui feels post-captivity.

For 496 days, Sagui didn't know if his own family had survived, as well as extended members of his family and friends.

Dekel-Chen also reflects on the sense of abandonment felt by many hostage families from the Israeli government throughout the months of the war, and particularly now, as the army has returned to fighting in Gaza, leaving 59 hostages still in captivity.

He speaks about the tremendous support he and the other hostage families received from the US government, from both the Biden and Trump administrations and his surprise that American Jewish organizations didn't join together to support the hostage families.

And so this week, we ask history professor Jonathan Dekel-Chen, 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: Freed hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen with his father Jonathan aboard an IDF helicopter en route to the hospital soon after his release from 498 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza, February 15, 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 deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with The Times of Israel editor David Horovitz.

Recording at noon in ToI's Jerusalem office ahead of a planned fateful cabinet vote on the firing of Shin Bet head Ronen Bar tonight, Horovitz attempts to summarize this fraught Israeli moment.

As the Israel Defense Forces troops are again entering the Gaza Strip for ground operations, fears of a crumbling Israeli democracy are bringing thousands to the streets, alongside others who reject the notion of a renewed war in Gaza without a hostage deal first.

Horovitz takes us through a litany of issues fueling the domestic strife and assesses how Israel again finds itself at a crossroads.

"All of us want Israel to survive and to thrive and we have two things simultaneously: We have terrible threats from without and we have tremendous division from within," says Horovitz. "This is extremely dangerous for Israel."

And so this week, we ask ToI editor David Horovitz, 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: Israelis march in a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his plans to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security service, in Jerusalem on March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

 

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with philosopher and author Dr. Micah Goodman.

As 24 living hostages languish in Gaza, Israel finds itself at a crossroads: Will the nation sign a deal with the terrorist group the Jewish state is bent on destroying or return to war against Hamas to apply pressure for the captives' release?

Goodman explains how both sides of this dilemma see their arguments as protecting the nation. We hear, however, how the quests for national security and solidarity may appear to be in conflict with each other -- and how to overcome that paradox.

And as Goodman pushes for Israel to sign a deal to release the hostages -- living and dead -- he explains how we must trust Hamas "to give Israel 17 reasons to restart the war." He cautions it must be a war that is launched at Israel's discretion, backed by national consensus and with the determination to realize the goal of destroying Hamas.

And so this week, we ask Micah Goodman, 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. 

Illustrative: A Palestinian boy carries a toy gun while standing with members of Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, during a rally in Gaza City on May 24, 2021. (AFP / Emmanuel DUNAND)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

At a Cairo summit of Arab leaders on Tuesday, a consensus of states adopted an Egyptian reconstruction plan for Gaza that would cost $53 billion and avoid displacing Palestinians from the enclave -- in contrast to US President Donald Trump’s “Middle East Riviera” vision.

The over 100-page “Early Recovery, Reconstruction, Development of Gaza” plan envisions a Gaza Administration Committee, made up of independent technocrats, to manage an initial six-month transitional phase. It also urges elections in all Palestinian areas within a year, if conditions support such a move.

The rub? The plan doesn’t explicitly tackle the issue of Hamas and how the terror group will be disarming -- if at all. It also pushes for a Palestinian state before addressing any of the armed Palestinian factions.

Rettig Gur dissects elements of the plan and weighs in on its seriousness. 

And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, 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: In this photo provided by Egypt's presidency media office, Arab leaders pose during the emergency Arab summit at Egypt's New Administrative Capital, just outside Cairo, March 4, 2025. (Egyptian Presidency Media Office via AP)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with film critic Jordan Hoffman.

Ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards on Sunday night, The Times of Israel's film critic gives his predictions on which of the five films related to Israel or the Jews will have any chance of taking home a statue.

We hear about how the ongoing war in Gaza is creating off-screen drama for a film, "September 5," that has nothing to do with the current conflict but dares to show Israel as a victim after the country's athletes were massacred in the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Hoffman weighs in on the merits of "A Real Pain" and pronounces it an excellent addition to the pantheon of Jewish film. About "The Brutalist," he has some reservations, although he applauds the film overall. 

We learn how the Bob Dylan bio-pic may not have anything really overtly Jewish about it, but that it's not a slam to Members of the Tribe.

And finally, Hoffman discusses the Palestinian/Jewish Israeli co-production that is hardly a coexistence project, but rather a "From the River to the Sea" production. 

And so this week, we ask Jordan Hoffman, 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: This image released by A24 shows Adrien Brody, left, and Guy Pearce in a scene from 'The Brutalist.' (Lol Crawley/A24 via AP)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

Ahead of a fateful day for Israelis in which Hamas for the first time will release the bodies of hostages who died on October 7, 2023, or in captivity, including potentially the Bibas family, Rettig Gur discusses how the iconic little red-haired boys have entered all Israelis' heart to become everyone's children.

We hear how the series of staged hostage-release ceremonies are a way for the terrorists to mock Israelis and show Gazans who is in charge. He wonders what could make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continue with this farce into a second phase of the hostage release-ceasefire deal.

We hear about a recent poll from the Israel Democracy Institute on support for proceeding to the second stage of the ceasefire agreement and learn that an overwhelming majority of Arab respondents -- and a large majority of Jewish respondents -- support continuing with the second stage if the first stage is completed as agreed.

But for a prime minister who wants to remain in power, is the will of the people enough for him to take a step that is unpopular with his coalition? What could be on the horizon that is a grand enough gesture to secure the next election?

And so this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, 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: Graffiti of Shiri and Yarden Bibas and their sons, Ariel, left, and Kfir, right, who were taken captive by Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, February 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

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