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. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.