The Promised Podcast

Latest Episodes:

WhyWhyWhy! "Sweat" Aug 17, 2018

Show notes

This episode of WhyWhyWhy! features true stories on the theme of "Sweat" as told by Anna Levine, Ephraim Rinsky, Susan Warchaizer, Libby Weiss, Mira Fox, and Israeli basketball legend Tal Brody.

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The next live WhyWhyWhy! storytelling event will be held Sept. 3rd (details) and will feature the theme, "Good Deeds, Bad Deeds."

Pitch us your story or just come have a beer and listen. Either way, you have nothing to lose but your chains! Well, also your sobriety, as the evening is free, with a one drink minimum.

The "International" Edition Aug 16, 2018

Show notes

Twenty years ago, a week after Israel celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, a 26 year-old former drag-queen and trans woman won the world's biggest song contest, The Eurovision. She also forever changed the way we Israelis see ourselves.

In this very special edition of The Promised Podcast, Noah tells her story, and explains why he thinks that in this moment of anxiety and dreadful Nation-State laws, Dana International represents the humane and decent Zionism so many of us long for.

The "Big, Beautiful Wall" Edition Aug 09, 2018

Show notes

Times of Israel Ops & Blogs Editor Miriam Herschlag, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.

A Big, Beautiful Wall?

In building a massive 10 meter high wall all along the northern border with Lebanon and Syria, are we surrounding ourselves with ghetto walls of our own devising?

Primum Non Nocere

Nurses strike to keep from being punched, slapped and stabbed. How did our hospital wards and clinics become so damn violent?

Living Small

Co-housing takes off in Israel, launching an age of what some call "Kibbutz 2.0." Is this the result of an admirable embrace of communal values, or because young folks here are being crushed by the levers of capitalism?

Extra Segment: Pen Pals

For our primo Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we discuss, with ambivalence, a challenging Times of Israel essay by writer Yossi Klein Halevi called, "Letter to My Palestinian-Israeli Neighbors," exploring what, if anything, is the thread linking Palestinian and Jewish Israelis.

Music

Arutz Hakibud

Or Barvaz (עור ברווז)
Kacha zeh Etzleinu (ככה זה אצלנו)
Muzarnik (מוזרניק)
Tania (טניה)

The "Blood, Sweat & Milk" Edition Aug 02, 2018

Show notes

Hear this week's extra segment.

Blood

Are Druze Israelis first among second-class citizens?

Sweat (and Splendor) Was the rise of a Sephardi Ultra-Orthodox in 1983 the turning point of Israeli history?

Milk

"Stay the hell out of our bras!," say some Israeli women to the government. Are they right?

Extra Segment: But God Said, "Love Thy Straight Neighbor"

For our primo Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we ask if the anti-LGBTQ letter signed by 200 rabbis is a sign of confident strength or scared-sh*tless weakness?

Music

Sharif & Friends

Sharif, Itzik Krief, and Maor Ben Simon - Abba Mechapes Otkha
Sharif and Dudu Aharon - HaKol Koreh be Tel Aviv
Sharif & Zahava Ben - Le-Ehov
Sharif and Eti Levi - Gever B'li Milah

The "The Revolution Will Be Corporatized" Edition Jul 26, 2018

Show notes

Don Futterman, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.

Listen to the extra special, special extra segment.

Radical Tail Wagging a Moderate Dog?

Polls show that Likud voters are socialist, gay and lesbian supporting, religious pluralists, who are far to the left of their leaders on most matters: How can this be?

B2LGBTQ

Hundreds of Israeli corporations rush to support LGBTQ activists after the Knesset fails to extend to gay men the right to use surrogates to bear children. Business usually avoid politics like the plague: why is this issue different?

Street Smarts

Experts find that Dizengoff is the best street in Israel. But what makes a street great? And why are we so bad at creating hip and happening streets?

Extra Segment: Kinderguardians Come to Washington: One Congressman Seriously Hurt

For our primo Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we discuss the segment of Sasha Baron Cohen's new Showtime series, Who Is America, in which he impersonates one Col. Erran Morad, an Israeli lobbying American Republican gun rights activists and congressfolk, to adopt a faux Israeli program called Kinderguardians, aiming to arm kids tots. What the hell sort of image are these American Republicans carry around of Israel, that made Baron Cohen's ruse seem plausible?

Music

Shalom Gad Vehayahalomim

BeTzorat Mabool
Pesalim
Sof HaMidbar (recorded live in TLV1 Studios)
Sigariah be-Shekel

The "It's Finally Nice & Legal! Israel is a Jewish State!" Edition Jul 19, 2018

Show notes

Don Futterman, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.

Check out the extra segment.

It's Finally Nice & Legal! Israel is a Jewish State!

Israel passes its long embattled "Nation-State" law, declaring that this is definitely, but definitely, a Jewish state. It probably won't mean much in practice, but it is one helluva symbolic statement. Question is, though, just what is it stating?

Rigged

Two of Israel's leading environmental NGOs to break ranks with protesting activists, and support the plans of the government and huge energy corporations to build a gas rig just ten kilometers from shore. They say they're doing what's best for the environment, but shouldn't environmental NGOs do what is best for the activists they represent? At the end of the day, who do NGOs answer to?

The Promised Proscenium, or, A Light Unto Netflix

"Start-Up Nation" is soooo 2008. With hits on Broadway, on the silver screen, and on Netflix, Israel of 2018 is a "Stage & Screen Nation." How the hell did that happen?

Extra Segment: Birthright Israel, Birthright West Bank?

For our primo Patreon supporters, in our extra-special, special extra segment, we discuss the newest trend on Birthright tours, demonstrably getting off the tourbus near the end of the trip, and FB live-ing yourself as you go visit Palestinians in the occupied territories. We admire the young folks when they take a stand, but why does this protest feel, well, a little entitled and sour?

Music

Yagel Haroush & Shir Yedidot Ensemble

Yedidi Ro'i
Yafah ve-Tamah
Yedid Nefesh
Shaar Petach Dodi

The "Don't Know Much About History" Edition Jul 12, 2018

Show notes

Don Futterman, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.

Hear this week's extra segment.

Pole Position

The Prime Ministers of Israel and Poland issue a joint declaration about WWII, asserting that Poles mostly treated Jews benignly. Historians of the Holocaust express outrage. And, anyway, should Israel's Prime Minister be signing agreements about what's true and false in Jewish History?

Seeds of Doubt

A bunch of eager, energetic religious folks want to move together into a down-and-out Tel Aviv neighborhood, volunteer in the schools, open a synagogue, teach adult ed, and organize public celebrations of holidays, all in hopes of making their new neighbors a bit more Jewish. Should they be stopped or saluted?

Muskeljuden No More?

What are sports for, in a Jewish State?

Music

Mira Awad

All I Want (by Joni Mitchell)
Think of Others (Words by Mahmoud Darwish)
We Can Work It Out (with Noa)
Bahlawan

The "Left=Bereft?" Edition Jul 05, 2018

Show notes

Gilad Halpern, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.

On this week's extra segment, we invite Gabriel Noah Brahm to join us to discuss academic boycotts of Israel.

Avi Gabbay's Excellent Imposture (With Apologies to Stephen Herek)

Labor Party Head Avi Gabbay pays shadowy consultants to post faux-Facebook pages trashing centrist rival Yair Lapid. Is Gabbay just a politician who is in it to win it, or is he yet another politician who has lost his soul?

Right=Bright, Left=Bereft?

A new poll finds that Israeli right-wingers, who tend to be poorer than the national average, are optimistic about the country's economic future, while Israeli left-wingers, who tend to be richer than the national average, are pessimistic about the country's economic future: Was PM Netanyahu right when he said that leftists like us are just sour-pussed nattering nabobs of negativism?

More Notes on Camp (with Continued Apologies to Susan Sontag)

What happened to good old summer camps when kids slept on rocks under stars and sang around campfires? Why have they yielded to space camp, video game camp and veterinary medicine camp?

Music

Tabarnak, in honor of their debut album, Maurice Academi.

Ha-Shir Ha-khi Tov Hu Ba-Olam
Ya Sefel
Acordover
Le-hitraot ya Henunim

The "Put Away for Take Away?" Edition Jun 28, 2018

Show notes

Outgoing International Director of Haaretz Charlotte Halle, Allison Kaplan Sommer, and Noah Efron discuss three topics of incomparable importance and end with an anecdote about something in Israel that made them smile this week.

Hear this week's extra segment.

Put Away for Take Away?

First Lady Sara Netanyahu is indicted for charging taxpayers $100,000 for fancy take-out (while also charging the taxpayers for a full-time chef). Should the wife of a Prime Minister really stand trial for bilking the public coffers for cardboard cartons of comestibles?

Bougie's Golem

Former Labor head and present-day chair of the opposition, Yizhak "Bougie" Herzog, is elected to head the venerable, old Jewish Agency. But is the organization better off dead?

The Council for the Preservation of Historic Inefficiency?

Should Israel's government subsidize such quaint anachronisms as artisanal bread-baking and clothes-making, for the sake of preserving a once-beloved cultural heritage destroyed by the globalization, corporatization and factorization of pretty much everything?

Music

The White Screen, HaMasach HaLavan:

Tembel, Tembel
Rak Ba-Kever
Indianim
Nipagesh ba-Olam ha-Ba

WhyWhyWhy! "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution!" Jun 26, 2018

Show notes

This episode of WhyWhyWhy! features stories on the theme of "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution" as told by Judah Ari Gross, Margot Saffer, Don Futterman, Adam Nice, Varda Spiegel, Avinof Frumer, Marcia Freedman, and Naomi Henoch.

The next live event will be held on July 23rd (details) and will feature the theme, "Sweat." Pitch us stories about your sweaty situations! Or just come to have a beer and listen. Either way, you have nothing to lose but your chains! Well, also your sobriety, as the evening is free, with a one drink minimum.

Subscribe to the WhyWhyWhy! podcast.