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    History

    Ask Haviv Anything

    “Ask Haviv Anything” is a podcast about history, a podcast you, dear listener, will help to shape and direct, focusing not just on what I want to talk about but on what you want to learn and discuss. Nothing is off limits. We’re going to talk about big and painful things, and also beautiful and fascinating things, wars and identities and painful history. And also more light-hearted things. Humor matters, especially when facing tough subjects.

    Join me on this journey.

    A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

    Advertise

    Copyright: © Haviv Rettig Gur

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    Latest Episodes:
    Episode 35: Solving hunger in Gaza with Prof. Yannay Spitzer Aug 08, 2025
    Show notes

    Professor Yannay Spitzer is an economic historian who has studied food and hunger. His efforts over the past month to get real reliable data on hunger out of Gaza and publicize it to Israelis, data that is neither delayed nor politicized like the many claims of rampant hunger made over the past 22 months that turned out to be either inaccurate or untrue, helped change the conversation in Israel and surge aid into the strip.


    Professor Spitzer joins us to explain what went wrong, why Israeli officials thought there was much more food available to Gazans than there really was, why the UN's own numbers seem to agree with them even now, why it's so hard to get food to ordinary Gazans - and what all this tells us about the state of Hamas and the future of Gaza.


    This episode was dedicated by an anonymous sponsor to the memory of the remarkable Herbert Pagani, artist, composer and author, and in particular to commemorate the essay he shared on French TV in the mid-1970s titled “Plea for my Land,” a powerful and timeless defense of Jews and Israel that should be heard by all. Pagani was a self-described leftist and humanist, and a passionate defender of Zionism.


    You can find “Plea for my land” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPpYQGv_jDI


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 34: My life in Al-Qaeda, a conversation with Aimen Dean Aug 06, 2025
    Show notes

    Aimen Dean was once a fervent young jihadi fighter, a passionate believer in radical Sunni Islam who had memorized the Quran by 12 and was fighting in the Bosnian jihad by 16.


    Haviv talked to Aimen about the religious and psychological journey of a young jihadi, his experiences in the wars in Bosnia and Chechnya, his recruitment by Bin Laden himself in the mountains of Afghanistan, and his sudden and powerful disillusionment, both political and religious, that led him to become an MI6 spy in Al Qaeda's ranks.


    They talked about present-day Islam, the "deradicalization" that Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa underwent in recent years, possible better futures for Gaza and whether Israeli-Palestinian peace was still possible. We also talked about why he thinks it's time to end Western experiments in reforming Middle Eastern governance and fall back on what he sees as the most natural and inclusive form of government for the region: The paternalistic monarchy.


    This episode was sponsored by David and Karen Divine, who asked to dedicate it to someone we lost on October 7. This episode, we remember Abed Rahman Ziyadne, 26 of Rahat, part of Israel's Bedouin Arab community, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists on the Zikim beach, north of Gaza, on October 7, 2023, along with his girlfriend, Yulia Chaban.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 33: Thoughts for Tisha B’Av - We live in history Aug 03, 2025
    Show notes

    Our Patreon subscribers asked for a dvar Torah, a short homily, on the Jewish fast day of Tisha B'Av, which commemorates many of the great tragedies of Jewish history, including and especially the destruction of the two Temples in Jerusalem millennia ago.


    Tisha B'Av, Haviv argues, is a window into the Sages' conception of history, their view of the brokenness of the world reflected in the tragedies of history, and the power of the study of history to mend that brokenness.


    This episode is sponsored by Alex and Betty Verjovsky in honor of Sayeret Tzanchanim, the reconnaissance company of the Paratroopers Brigade, in memory if their fallen and wounded, and the soldiers who have been fighting since October 7 and have paid a heavy price for Israel's defense. The sponsors' close friend, the unit's top NCO, is finally retiring after 35 years of service.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 32: Hunger and the Gaza war Jul 31, 2025
    Show notes

    There is now hunger in Gaza, widespread and dangerous. It's less dire than Western media claims, but could reach those proportions if it isn't reversed through an aid surge.


    How did we get to this point? What were Israeli officials thinking?


    And what does the current crisis tell us about the state of the war?


    This episode was sponsored by an anonymous sponsor who dedicated it to the bravery of our friend Shaked Haran, whose story is told in episode 5 of this podcast. On October 7, Shaked's father, uncle and aunt were killed in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be'eri, and seven members of her family, including her mother and two cousins aged 3 and 7 were taken hostage, launching a long and grueling fight for their liberation that Shaked helped lead for the family.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 31: The century-old harbinger of October 7, a conversation with Yardena Schwartz Jul 27, 2025
    Show notes

    Welcome to a special episode of Ask Haviv Anything. This episode was a live conversation with author Yardena Schwartz taped last week at Martha's Vineyard and hosted by Chabad on the Vineyard.


    Please note: Patreon subscribers have asked us to address the dramatic pivot in the IDF's strategy in Gaza and the question of widespread hunger there. We're now working on such an episode to provide an analysis and overview of what's happening and what it means. As always, if you have suggestions for topics, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything


    The conversation with Yardena covers her book Ghosts of a Holy War about the 1929 Hebron massacre. We discuss the events of that year, what it tells us about the next century of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, and the startling parallels to October 7.


    This episode's sponsor asked to remain anonymous but dedicated the episode to his Slovak Jewish Holocaust-survivor grandparents who survived Auschwitz, Mauthausen and other camps and moved to Israel at the founding of the state.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 30: How the Middle East broke, a conversation with Hussein Aboubakr Mansour Jul 21, 2025
    Show notes

    Hussein Aboubakr Mansour was born and raised in Egypt before fleeing to the United States and dedicating his life to understanding how the Arab world came to be defined by state failure, religious extremism and all the rest of the region's many crises.


    His conclusions, laid out in a recent essay in the magazine Mosaic, are an extraordinarily innovative new path. It isn't a crisis of internal Islamic failure, as conservative thinkers argue, nor a crisis forged and sustained purely by Western imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and the other nefarious isms of the left-wing lexicon.


    It is something stranger and more interesting: An imbibing into Islamic form and language of European romantic ideas about nation, history and revolution that went so deep as to almost replace (Hussein speaks of a kind of forgetting) the traditional Islamic sense of what Islamic and Arab culture once were.


    In this longer-than-usual episode, we take a deep dive into Hussein's thesis, and then we try to apply it to the Jews.


    This episode was co-sponsored by Tovit and Mike on behalf of their son Rafi and his unit, Battalion 202 of the Paratroopers and all of our brave IDF soldiers protecting our country and fighting our enemies.


    “This episode was also co-sponsored by the family of Larry from Encino, California in in honor of his birthday. They asked to dedicate the episode to the IDF’s reservist pilots, who 10 -- even 20 -- years out of active service, with families and full-time jobs, continue to serve with incredible selflessness. Their achievements during the Iran war were nothing short of heroic.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 29: After the Druze massacre, can Israel make peace with Joulani? A conversation with Druze activist Rania Fadel Dean Jul 17, 2025
    Show notes

    The clashes in Sweida in southern Syria this week focused world attention on the plight of the Druze and questions about the nature of the new Syrian government. Videos and claims of atrocities drove hundreds of Golan Druze to rush into Syria to the rescue of their brethren. Israeli strikes in Damascus against Syrian forces raised the stakes and led to questions, including in Israel itself, about how Israel can protect the Druze while not sacrificing an expansion of the Abraham Accords.


    Rania Fadel Dean comes from a prominent Israeli Druze family. Her organization, Covenant, seeks to teach Americans about the Druze community. She joins us to share an Israeli Druze perspective, including what she's hearing from friends and family members in Sweida.


    This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, strong supporters of Israel who recognize Israel's centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They asked to dedicate this episode to lone soldiers serving in the IDF.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 28: The Gaza Paradox Jul 14, 2025
    Show notes

    As hostage talks seem stalled and the war grinds on into its 22nd month, doubts about Netanyahu’s strategy and intentions have become ubiquitous.


    Netanyahu has given many reasons to distrust him, including his simple refusal to explain the strategy for removing Hamas and Israel’s vision for a post-Hamas Gaza.


    But it isn’t enough to criticize Netanyahu’s strategy or even to argue he doesn’t have one. To offer an effective critique, critics need to suggest a better strategy for removing Hamas and securing a better future for Gaza.


    So far, criticism of Netanyahu has either avoided this step or suggested that Hamas cannot, in fact, be disentangled from Gaza, that Gaza’s future is inevitably a Hamas future.


    In this episode, we dive into these questions. We ask what it would mean for both Israelis and Palestinians if Hamas is, as the critics claim, unremovable.


    This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, strong supporters of Israel who recognize Israel’s centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They asked us to say that they are proud to sponsor this episode of “Ask Haviv Anything” because this podcast makes understanding the Middle East a bit easier. They have dedicated this episode to the courageous and incredibly imaginative women and men of the Mossad, who make television look boring and simplistic in comparison to their daring exploits behind enemy lines.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.


    Episode 27: Music amidst trauma - a conversation on life in a war with Aya Korem and Adam Ben Amitai Jul 07, 2025
    Show notes

    There are many ways to process and manage painful and difficult times. After the massacre of October 7 and the multi-front war that ensued, many Israelis turned to music, and often to the powerful ballads and melodies of singer-songwriter duo (and married couple) Aya Korem and Adam Ben Amitai.


    Aya and Adam join us in a special song-laden episode to take a look back at 21 months of pain, resilience, solidarity and, in the end, also hope.


    This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, who believe in Israel's centrality and importance for the Jewish world.


    They chose to dedicate this episode to Edut710en.org, a grassroots, volunteer-driven initiative established in the wake of October 7 to listen to, document, preserve, share and amplify the voices of survivors, first responders, and entire communities who experienced Hamas’s brutal attack firsthand. Over 1,600 testimonies have already been recorded to this date—many of them accessible at www.edut710.org.


    We hope you like our new musical intro, written just for us by the incomparable Adam Ben Amitai.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur


    Episode 26: How Iran’s regime subverted Shia Islam - with Hussain Abdul-Hussain Jul 04, 2025
    Show notes

    The Iranian regime has long claimed to be the bearers of Shia Islam's vision of messianic redemption. The Supreme Leader, who ruled under regime founder Ruhollah Khomeini's ideology of "wilayat al-faqih," or Guardianship of the Jurist, created a new model of a revolutionary conquering Shiism that was previously unknown in Shia Islam, at least in its Arab version.


    We are joined in this episode by Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a Shia Muslim writer and analyst in Washington DC and research fellow at FDD. Hussain grew up in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War and in Lebanon toward the end of the country's devastating civil war.


    Arab Shiism, Hussain argues, is not what the Iranian regime has tried to make of it, and once freed of the financial, political and often violent influence of Khomeinist "revolutionary" ideology, will revert to its traditionally peaceful ways.


    This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, strong supporters of Israel who recognize Israels' centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They chose to dedicate this episode to the memory of Igal and Amit Wachs, 53 & 48, American-Israeli brothers who died on October 7, 2023, defending their home of Netiv Ha'asara in the Gaza envelope.


    Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.


    If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠haviv@askhavivanything.com⁠.


    A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur


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