Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

Over 30 years ago, American political consultant, James Carville quipped during former US president Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Today, a growing chorus of Israeli economists are echoing this phrase while attempting to pause the government’s judicial overhaul legislation in the hopes of maintaining Israel’s up-till-now flourishing growth.

“We are now at a crossroads and I’m extremely concerned. But when I look back I think we’ve done tremendously well and that’s why I think we have so much to lose," Prof. Karnit Flug, a former governor of the Bank of Israel, told The Times of Israel this week.

Today, Flug is a Vice President of Research and the William Davidson Senior Fellow for Economic Policy at the Israel Democracy Institute and a professor in the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University.

Flug is hardly alone in her concerns: This week, the Bank of Israel issued its Financial Stability Report for the first half of 2023. It warned that growing and prolonged uncertainty around the implications of the controversial legislation poses a threat to the country’s financial system and economy.

In our talk, Flug gives concrete examples of what she and other analysts are seeing, right now.

So this week, we ask Prof. Karnit Flug, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Karnit Flug is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, vice-president at the Israel Democracy Institute and former governor of the Bank of Israel (courtesy Israel Democracy Institute)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

This week, the Knesset passed the first contentious judicial overhaul bill into law. So, six months after getting perspective from philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman in the inaugural What Matters Now episode, I went back for more.

“Two constitutional instincts have been unleashed and are clashing with each other: The Israelis who want to be empowered through government versus the Israelis who want to be protected from government. I think that’s what’s happening in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and all over Israel as we’re talking,” says Goodman, the author of the best-selling “Catch-67” and “The Wondering Jew.” His book, “The Last Words of Moses” recently hit shelves in English.

For much of the past six months, Goodman has been performing a unique kind of reserve duty: speaking with people from all sides of the judicial overhaul conflict, from teams of politicians during the negotiations at the President’s Residence — at the request of President Isaac Herzog — to squadrons of pilots who are on the brink of refusing service -- again, at the request of the IDF.

In keeping with this Tisha B’Av week, this is an in-depth and quite sober conversation. But, as you will hear, Goodman is, as always, a dedicated optimist.

“I think the cynics will determine what happens tomorrow and next week, but I think it’s the optimists who will determine what will happen next year and two years from now,” he says.

So this week, we ask philosopher Dr. Micah Goodman, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Philosopher and public intellectual Dr. Micah Goodman (Yonit Schiller)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

What is the tipping point between democracy and dictatorship? Why do some nations fall under one supreme leader’s sway? And what actually is the perfect storm that can turn a thriving democratic nation into a totalitarian nightmare?

“Economic ruin, war, massive immigration, no money, no water, no nothing... this is a recipe for a strong leader to take over and for the army to have a coup d’etat,” according to Dr. Yonatan Freeman, our guest on this week's What Matters Now.

Freeman is an international relations and media expert, who lectures at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem on national security, government and politics, Israel’s relations with the world and civil-military relations.

This week, the Brothers in Arms protest group is signing on thousands of IDF reservists to a document objecting to the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, stating “We will not serve in a dictatorship.”

At the same time, hundreds are marching from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to build a tent city near the Knesset ahead of next week’s fateful vote on the Reasonableness Bill.

All of this is to prevent what they see as steps leading to a dictatorship.

However, unlike most Israelis you meet today, Freeman is passionately optimistic about the strong state of Israel’s democracy. So this week, we ask Dr. Yonatan Freeman, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: International relations expert Dr. Yonatan Freeman lectures at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (Jenny Pepperman)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

Since 1981, the archetypical image of an archaeologist has included a wide-brimmed brown hat, a brown leather jacket — and, of course, a bullwhip.

This week, with a new Indiana Jones film having hit screens across the globe, we wondered how this Hollywood legend has affected the careers of the actual, digging-in-the-trenches excavators here in Israel today.

So we met up in Jerusalem with Prof. Aren Maeir, who recently published an essay, “On My ‘Colleague’ Dr. Jones and His ‘Publications’” and discussed how archaeology has shifted from the first Indiana Jones installment until today.

“I think this has nothing to do with archaeology, and if anything, I would say it’s almost anti-archaeology in many ways, but, it has brought archaeology to the public’s interest in a very very significant manner and numerous archaeologists in the field for the last several decades have come to the field of archaeology because of the Indiana Jones movies," said Maeir, the head of Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Archaeology and the longtime director of The Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project.

After watching the new Indiana Jones film, "Dial of Destiny," we ask Prof. Aren Maier, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Prof. Aren M. Maeir at the Tell es Safi/Gath excavation, summer 2021. (courtesy)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

This week, the Knesset’s Constitution Committee restarted deliberations over pieces of judicial overhaul legislation after compromise talks in the President’s residence broke down.

75 years after its foundation, Israel’s rules of procedural governance are still unclear, and clearly hot-button issues as the country heads into a 26th week of judicial overhaul protests.

But from the first announcement of the judicial overhaul in January, our guest this week, Prof. Yedidia Stern got to work: In cooperation with other former heads of law schools and under the aegis of President Isaac Herzog, they came up with a first compromise solution — which was turned down.

Today, he’s bring to the podcast a partial solution, what is called a thin constitution. Stern, who is now the head of the Jewish People Policy Institute, talks about the procedural constitution as well as earlier attempts in Israeli history to write a constitution and why they didn’t work out.

But when, several months ago Stern brought the first potential judicial overhaul solutions to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, he didn’t receive the welcome he’d been expecting.

"I formed a group of 10 law professors, trying to figure out a professional solution to this situation and we met with Simcha Rothman, and we met also with [Justice Minister] Yariv Levin. So when Yariv Levin, first meeting, entered the room, he gave us a big smile... he looked at me, pointed with his finger and told me, 'The whole thing is because of you, Prof. Stern.'"

Find out how Levin's former teacher was an impetus for his judicial overhaul work today as we ask Prof. Yedidia Stern, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

 IMAGE: JPPI head Prof. Yedidia Stern, a leading Israeli legal scholar. (Courtesy JPPI)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

On March 22, 2022, four Israelis were murdered in a stabbing attack in Beersheba. In the same week, a terrorist shot and killed five civilians in Bnei Brak. Days later in Hadera, another terrorist attack occurred in which two Border Police officers were killed and 12 civilians were injured.

After this bloody week, the IDF initiated Operation Break the Wave, which the army defines as “a counterterrorism operation conducted to thwart future attacks and apprehend those involved in terrorist activities against Israeli civilians.”

It’s been 15 months since the operation's launch and again this week Israel was rocked by a bloody week, including the killing of four more citizens in a terrorist shooting.

So we reached out to Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser. He is the former head of the research division in the IDF’s Military Intelligence division and former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

Among his other current roles, Kuperwasser heads up The Institute for the Research of the Methodology of Intelligence. And at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) think tank, he specializes in the security dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

According to Kuperwasser, the current flare-up of Palestinian armed violence is not coincidental, but the fruit of a carefully cultivated extremism that surrounds Palestinians on all sides. And the region's many terror groups are all too ready to embrace any volunteer.

“That’s why I’m totally against this idea of lone wolves. These are not lone wolves. These are wolves that were bred by the incitement that comes from all these places. And once you prepare them mentally to be a wolf, eventually they are going to carry out a terror attack,” said Kuperwasser on Wednesday.

In this week of yet another surge in terror, we ask security expert Yossi Kuperwasser, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the research division in the IDF’s Military Intelligence division and former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs outside the Nomi Studios in Jerusalem, June 21, 2023. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

This past weekend, Israel marked a tragic milestone: In the first half of 2023, over 100 Arab citizens have died by violence.

Just like its manifestation in every community throughout the world, this scourge has many faces — organized crime, domestic violence, random acts of anger, and more. But according to polling by the Abraham Initiative, for several years running, members of Arab communities have said that the issues that most concern them are crime and violence, well above civil status, racist legislation and the stalemate in the peace process.

However, many Arab citizens of Israel feel that the Jewish state just isn’t putting the resources into fighting the wave of violence in a long-term, comprehensive way.

"People are talking about it as the violence in the Arab society. First of all, it’s the violence in the Israeli society," said Prof. Mona Khoury, the Vice President for Strategy and Diversity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Khoury, a full professor at the Hebrew University School of Social Work, sat with The Times of Israel in her Mount Scopus office this week. Much of her research focuses on children and adolescents' deviant and delinquent behaviors.

But instead of merely studying the phenomena, she has concrete suggestions for breaking the cycle of violence.

This week, when all eyes are finally on the uptick of violence in Arab communities, we ask Prof. Mona Khoury, what matters now.

The following transcript has been lightly edited.

IMAGE: Prof. Mona Khoury, Vice President for Strategy and Diversity, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (Sharon Gabay)

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

Eleven years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his much-quoted "Iranian nuclear duck" speech at AIPAC warning against United States plans for a nuclear deal. Fast forward to today and we hear reports that the United States is now looking for a “less for less” deal to stave off that Iranian duck’s final launch.

This week alone, Iran made international headlines as it claimed it had developed a hypersonic missile capable of traveling at 15 times the speed of sound. We were likewise told that Iran will head a naval alliance in cooperation with other Gulf states. And we heard that Iran is set to reopen its embassy in Saudi Arabia.

There are new truces in the region and a re-embrace of Syria in the Arab League. And that’s just the beginning.

This week, Dr. Jonathan Spyer, the director of research at the Middle East Forum and editor of Middle East Quarterly, gives us a whirlwind tour of the new alliances threading through a tangled region.

A freelance security analyst for Janes Information Group and a columnist at the Jerusalem Post, Spyer is also an on-the-ground journalist who has entered Syria, Lebanon and Iraq numerous times and is the author of the 2018 book “Days of the Fall: A Reporter's Journey in the Syria and Iraq Wars.”

And so this week of increased news out of Iran, we ask Jonathan Spyer, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Dr. Jonathan Spyer on a reporting trip in Mosul, Iraq, September 2017. (courtesy)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish world — right now.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his cabinet meeting with an announcement that his government will draft a decision to establish a new ministerial committee -- that he will head.

In his remarks, Netanyahu stated, “The fight against the cost of living tops our government's list of national priorities. We will take determined and strong action to lower prices in all areas."

Our What Matters Now guest this week points out that this new Netanyahu-led committee is perhaps the fifth such task force the government has established to study the cost of living since 2011.

But lawyer and "people’s lobbyist" Rachel Gur is ready to take up the fight to lower Israel's outlandishly inflated prices.

Gur moved to Israel from the United States at age 17 and served in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. After demobbing, she earned an L.L.B. and B.A. in political science from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and an L.L.M in Legal Theory from New York University Law School. (She also married The Times of Israel's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.)

Like any reputable lobbyist, she knows how to walk the halls of power: From 2011 until a few years ago, Gur served in senior positions in the Israeli government.

Today the Director of Public Policy for Lobby 99, Gur is an expert in the fields of Israeli legislation, regulation, and public policy.

But what makes Lobby 99 different from other pressure groups is that we, the people, set the agenda.

This week, as the cost of living is again on the cabinet’s agenda, we ask Rachel Gur, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Rachel Gur, Director of Public Policy for Lobby 99. (courtesy)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

This week, Jews all over the world will mark the holiday of Shavuot by reading from the Book of Ruth. In this biblical tale, disaster and famine strike and an elderly widow called Naomi loses her two sons. Childless, she tells her daughters-in-law to return to their parents’ homes in Moab and says that she will make her own way back to her family in Bethlehem.

One daughter-in-law, Orpah, regretfully leaves. The other, Ruth, says the famous lines, “Where you go I will go, and where you slumber I will slumber. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”

And with that, she joins the People of Israel and eventually becomes the ancestor of the much-heralded King David.

The Book of Ruth was written about 2,500 years ago. However, argues our guest this week, it couldn’t be more relevant today as a model of “creative halacha.”

Israel Prize-winning Bible scholar Prof. Yair Zakovitch joined The Times of Israel this week in his Hebrew University book-lined office to discuss the societal context of the Book of Ruth and the halachic “problems” it solves.

The author of best-selling works on the Bible was born in the pluralistic northern city of Haifa in 1945 and joined the faculty of Hebrew University in 1978. When awarded the Israel Prize for Bible in 2021, then Education Minister Yoav Gallant said, "Yair Zakovitch is one of the most original Bible researchers in the country and the world."

To bring the Bible to the next generation, Zakovtich helped found the Hebrew University's Revivim program, a prestigious teacher-training program for outstanding university students, who sign on to teach in state schools post-graduation.

In our in-depth conversation on the Book of Ruth, we hear how the scroll's author — in opposition to the writers of the contemporary prophets — offers a scripture of compassion in solving that era's challenge with intermarriage.

We also hear about today’s rampant biblical illiteracy and why it is immensely important for secular Israelis to readopt the Bible for themselves.

This Shavuot week, we ask Prof. Yair Zakovitch, What Matters Now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

IMAGE: Prof. Yair Zakovitch in his Hebrew University of Jerusalem office, May 23, 2023. (Amanda Borschel-Dan/Times of Israel)

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