Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with comic Shahar Cohen.

Comedian Shahar Cohen, raised in Jerusalem and living in Tel Aviv, spoofs Israeli life and society.

He dons wigs and plays a cast of mostly female characters who represent the range of Israeli society.

In a wide-ranging interview, Cohen discusses how each character represents part of him as well as what Israelis are feeling, particularly over the last two and a half years of war, first with Hamas, and now during the war with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Cohen thinks of himself as the comic who is expected to walk Israelis through war and trauma, offering a form of therapy. He talks about the need for escapism and relief following the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, when more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and 251 people taken hostage.

With an upcoming tour in the US, and one million views and counting on his most recent videos about his Nofar character as a soldier in the IDF Home Front Command, Cohen joked, "I actually manage the war 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 Ari Schlacht.

IMAGE: Comic Shahar Cohen from 'That Girl in the Alert Room,' March 2026 (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 Jessica Steinberg speaking with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl.

Buchdahl speaks about being a rabbinic figure and representative of the mainstream American Jewry, particularly while on book tour for her recently published memoir, "Heart of a Stranger, An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity and Belonging."

Buchdahl weighs in on the current rise in antisemitism entering the workplace and discourse, and how it has made Jewish identity rise to the fore as a kind of primary identity.

Speaking to the Times of Israel right before Passover, Buchdahl discusses the master narrative of Passover and the need to have faith in Jewish continuity and to hold on to resilience and grit in the face of oppression.

Buchdahl speaks about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the conversations she's held with people deeply connected to the mayor about her concerns.

The Central Synagogue rabbi talks about her congregation's Zionism, their reactions after the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, and their deep connections to hostage families over the course of the two years of the war in Gaza.

She also speaks about her own connection to Israel as a second home, even when she takes issue with some of its policies and actions of the government.

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

IMAGE: The sanctuary of Central Synagogue in Manhattan, New York, photographed in 2010, and where Rabbi Angela Buchdahl is senior rabbi (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 deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign for Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.

This week, the Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov revealed the principles of the disarmament proposal submitted to Hamas earlier this month. He urged the international community to pressure the Palestinian terror group to accept the offer in order to prevent another cycle of violence in the Gaza Strip.

But before diving into what these principles entail, we place Hamas and the Gaza Strip into the context of the current US-Israel war on Iran.

Hamas, argues Alkhatib, triggered this war -- and potentially the downfall of the Islamic Republic -- through its murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Will it now be the last terror proxy standing?

And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, 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 Ari Schlacht.

IMAGE: Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, February 27, 2026. (Abed Rahim Khatib/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 Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with author and journalist Matti Friedman.

The first half of our episode is dedicated to an in-depth discussion of Friedman's newest book, "Out of the Sky," set for publication next week. The book is a deep dive into the meaning and myth surrounding a team of Jews living in British Mandate Palestine who -- after escaping the Holocaust -- parachute back into Nazi Europe in 1944.

The most famous of the unit is Hannah Senesh, whom readers will know as the tragic young woman who heroically attempted to save Jews and left behind Hebrew poetry, including "Eli, Eli." In his new book, Friedman busts myths surrounding the mission's participants and then tells their even more stunning real tales.

In the second half of the program, we draw upon Friedman's personal experiences in Lebanon, which he recounted in a previous book, "Pumpkin Flowers."

We discuss the crossroads Israel again finds itself as it contemplates a large ground maneuver on a road too well-traveled in southern Lebanon.

And so, this week, we ask Matti Friedman, 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 Gabriella Jacobs and edited by Yitzhak Ledee.

Matti Friedman / Troops of the 300th 'Baram' Regional Brigade operate in southern Lebanon, in a handout photo issued by the military on March 18, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)

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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 Bret Stephens, a The New York Times columnist and the editor-in-chief of Sapir magazine.

Recent polling indicates that only roughly half of Americans support the US-Israel war against Iran's Islamist regime. Stephens weighs in on why the current conflict can be both "Trump's war" and a just war. 

Far from feeling that Israel dragged the US into this war, he says that for the first time in recent history, the US has a partner with whom to wage a war. "This war is different, not because it's a war for Israel. It's a war with Israel," says Stephens.

But is the American public capable of internalizing the Iranian regime as an existential threat? In answer, Stephens asks whether a patient with stage II cancer should be advised to wait to treat it until it develops into stage IV. "Thank goodness we're acting now rather than just waiting on events," says Stephens.

Assessing today's global dynamics and the authoritarian axis of Iran, Russia, North Korea and China, he turns to the 1930s, when the world was experiencing a series of conflicts that eventually led to World War II. He warns there is no Hollywood ending in sight.

And so this week, we ask Bret Stephens, 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 Gabriella Jacobs and edited by Ari Schlacht.

IMAGE: New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (YouTube screenshot) / Beirut, Lebanon, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

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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 Einat Wilf, a former MK, author and CEO of the newly formed Oz party.

Wilf describes the potential fall of the Iranian Islamic Republic's regime as a shift in the magnitude of the fall of the Soviet Union.

We discuss the seismic ripple effects on Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. Wilf proposes that this moment is a window of opportunity for Israel to end the ideology of "Palestinianism" -- the end to the Jewish state -- that could quickly shut again.

She talks through Israel's need to create firm civil borders of its control in the West Bank and to maintain military control of the remaining areas and have what she calls, "an active occupation."  

And in the final portion of our conversation, we hear why Wilf formed her new party at this time and what it stands for.

And so this week, we ask Einat Wilf, 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 Gabriella Jacobs and edited by Ari Schlacht.

IMAGE: Motorbikes drive past a billboard depicting Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center, handing the country’s flag to his son and successor Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, right, as the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stands at left, in a square in downtown Tehran, Iran, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

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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 author and public intellectual Micah Goodman.

In the sixth day of the United States and Israel's joint war against the Iranian Islamic Republic, Goodman takes stock and allows himself to wonder: What if we actually won this war against the evil regime?

We discuss the trickle effect on the Iranian people, the Mideast region and the world at large.

At this historic juncture, Goodman is hopeful that not only will World War III be averted, but peace may come to the region as Israel's existential threats are neutralized.

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 Eli Katzoff and edited by Ari Schlacht.

IMAGE: Dr. Micah Goodman/ A billboard showing a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Jessica Steinberg speaking with Oscar film nominee Meyer Levinson-Blount.

“Butcher’s Stain" is nominated for Best Live Action Short Film at the 2026 Oscars, after winning second place in the narrative category of the Student Academy Awards in the fall.

The film follows Samir, an Arab butcher in Tel Aviv, who sets out on a journey to prove his innocence after he’s accused of removing posters of the hostages kidnapped to Gaza.

Levinson-Blount discusses his own background as the inspiration for the making of the film during his studies at Tel Aviv Film School, which he describes as a "paradise," particularly during the two years of war.

He talks about the themes of the film -- which draws on Levinson-Blount's own experiences working in Israeli supermarkets -- and revolves around a general thread of suspicion regarding the Arab community in Israel.

The debut director also discusses how the film's story builds suspicion, then breaks that expectation, showing that people tend not to know that much about one another.

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

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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 Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, the head of Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse.

We begin the conversation with a bleak update on how Gazans are faring on the ground and hear anecdotes of poor hygiene and price gouging in the Strip. As the festive holy month of Ramadan begins, the lack of basic necessities becomes more stark for those who must fast all day but cannot feast at night.

We then turn to the sudden announcement this week from Doctors Without Borders that it has suspended non-critical medical activities at Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis due to the presence of armed men at the medical facility and “a recent situation of suspicion of movement of weapons.”

Alkhatib brings multiple examples of prior knowledge of the "armed men" in the hospital since Hamas's October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel. He accuses the NGO of looking the other way as the terror organization took over hospital wings and turned them into prisons and torture chambers. So why did the international humanitarian group in Gaza decide to take notice now?

And so this week, we ask Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, 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 Ari Schlacht.

IMAGE: Palestinians hang decorations beside the rubble of destroyed homes as they prepare for the holy month of Ramadan in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

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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 Alice Miller, the CEO of Natan Worldwide Disaster Relief.

Miller is nationally known for her landmark Supreme Court case in 1995, which opened the gates of the Israel Air Force to female fighter pilots. This decision paved the way for today's female combat soldiers and made Miller a household name.

However, that was just the start of Miller's incredible journey that has taken her around the globe -- and her work as an aeronautical engineer may even reach the moon.

Today, Miller serves as the head of an NGO that brings volunteer medical staff and therapists into international disaster zones. In the past year alone, teams have landed in Syria, Mexico and are shortly taking off for Mozambique.

Following the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel, the organization began work in Israel for the first time -- and eventually, also in the Gaza Strip.

We learn about the principled decision that has Israelis serving Gazans as we ask Miller, 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 Ari Schlacht.

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