The Promised Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The "Seventy Short Reasons" Edition Apr 18, 2018

Show notes

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

Conscript Kids

Does our wont to see all IDF soldiers as our kids, the safety of each and every one of whom is irreducibly and axiomatically important to us, prevent us from thinking morally, or even strategically, about the army?

Self-Portrait

A Ukrainian immigrant portrays the trauma of her absorption into Israeli culture, especially at the hand of Mizrahi men, in a new controversial exhibit at the Israel Museum. Is there something racist about this heartbreaking display?

Seventy Short Reasons

On the occasion of Israel's 70th anniversary, a round-robin of the top 70 reasons we love this place!

Music

Gazoz, "Likhvod ha-Kayitz" (With Mazi Cohen, Central Command Band, 1976-1978, Gidi Gov & Danny Sanderson, Fighting Pioneering Youth Band, 1969-1972)

Shalom Hanoch (Fighting Pioneering Youth Band, 1966-1968) "Mechakim La-Mashiach"

Nadav Guedj (Education Corps Band, 2016-today), "Ulai Nedaber"

DJ Gal Malka and various and sundry from the Army Troupes, "Ayn Lach Ma- Lidog,"

The "Guns, Jews and Steel" Edition Apr 12, 2018

Show notes

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

The extra segment for Patrons is available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/will-he-speak-18137370

Gaza

Is Gaza's "Great March of Return" a non-violent protest, or a dangerous attempt to breach Israel's border? Are IDF sharpshooters defending Israel's sovereignty or wounding and killing unarmed protesters, or both?

Bring Your Seat to an Upright Position

When a flight attendant asks if you wouldn't mind swapping seats with an ultra-Orthodox Jew, should you (a) kindly agree in the name of civility or (b) righteously refuse in the name of freedom and equality?

Edifice Complex

Israel's Housing Minister proposes filling Israel's skyline with huge stainless steel Stars of David, to offset the many minarets, steeples and spires that dot the horizon today. Why do we care whether ours is bigger than theirs?

Music: Yael Badash

Oneg Shabbat

Gvarim, Gvarim

Ma Yesh Bah she-Eyn Bi

Be-Halomi

Why, Why, Why! "Crossing the Red Sea" Apr 05, 2018

Show notes

Our debut episode of Why, Why, Why! features stories on the theme of "Crossing the Red Sea" told by Abe Silver, Jodi Davidovitch, Yaser Abu Areesha, Nancy Cahners, and Guy Sharett.

About "Why, Why, Why!"

An evening (and a podcast) of people sharing a true story for an audience while sipping a beer and pondering life in the holy land.

Why "Why, Why, Why!"?

There is a great gulf between the way people discuss Israel, and the way we live our lives here. Lots of talk about Israel happens in high dudgeon and low spirits: with anger, resentment, disappointment, frustration, irritation, grievance and worry.

For all that, life here is different and brighter. The rhythms of the sidewalks and supermarkets are weird. People are curious. Hebrew carves up the world in surprising ways. Boundaries turn out to be permeable. And everyone is always talking, advising, counselling, dissenting and suggesting.

What can bridge the gulf between the severe way Israel appears in the papers and the loopy way we experience it on the street are stories: true stories of our lives the way we lead them, with their moments of weird abasements, moments of grace and moments of transcendence.

Why Why Why! aims to capture some of these stories and share them live and on the podcast.

The "Still Leaving Egypt, After All These Years" Edition Mar 29, 2018

Show notes

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

Looking for this week's extra segment? It's available on www.patreon.com/promisedpodcast

The Curious Case of the Constancy of Bibi Boosters and Believers

How and why do so very many people (if polls are to be believed) still love Netanyahu with a force that seems to be growing with each revelation of possible corruption?

Low Marx

Is moving from a public "higher higher education" system to a mixed public-private system is a step forward, a step back, or one of those other fancy dance steps that turn you around and leave you breathless?

Still Leaving Egypt, After All These Years

What lessons should we, today, in Israel of 2018, take from the story of the Exodus and the 40 years that followed?

Music: Aya Korem

Mehandeset Mahshevim

Rona Omeret

Yonatan Shapira

Davar Aharon

The "Who Surveils the Surveillors?" Edition Mar 22, 2018

Show notes

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

Looking for this week's extra segment? It's available on www.patreon.com/promisedpodcast

Surveilling Belligerents

Israel's got a machine-learning AI system for identifying lone terrorists before they act. Should this bit of real-scifi-Minority Report-ism make it easier for us to sleep at night, or cause us to toss-and-turn in Orwellian angst?

Surveilling Rabbis

An activist spends long hours going over videos of rabbinic lectures, getting the sexist and homophobic bits on the nightly news. Is this smart progressive politics, or kind of creepy stalking?

Surveilling Prices

Israel's Chamber of Commerce says the time has come to repeal a law mandating little sticky price-tags on every item in the supermarket, in favor of smart screens, q-codes and surge pricing in the freezer aisle. Is this the voice of progress, or of rapacious capitalists who want to squeeze a little more cash from consumers?

Music: The Amazing Persian-Georgian Groove of Hadar Maoz!

Lali Lavat

Azizam

Hadar Maoz Esh Avotay

Labhoi Turo Blues

The "Judaism: The Theme Park" Edition Mar 15, 2018

Show notes

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

This week's extra segment is available to our patrons on www.patreon.com/promisedpodcast

Gaza: A Moment Before

Israeli politicians and military brass have begun sounding the alarm about the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, where electricity is available for four to eight hours a day and where municipal services are being cut in half. While the military threat form Gaza appears containable, it is less clear that Israel can contain the ramifications of a total humanitarian collapse in Gaza. How can and should Israel act to forestall or prevent the humanitarian crisis that is about to swallow Gaza whole?

Show Me a Hero (and I'll Write You a Tragedy)

Mizrahi journalists and activists, are calling for the name of journalist Aryeh Gelblum name to be stripped from a cul-de-sac, which was named after him after his death in 1991. That's because wrote that immigrants from Arab and North African lands possessed a "superlative primitiveness." Should Israel purge the names of those who described Mizrahi Jews as ignorant from the public sphere?

Judaism: The Theme Park

A massive new project is being planned for the relatively remote Israeli city of Dimona: the "Park of Wonders", a theme park based on Judaism. "The park will have the same rides and the same layout [as Disney World] but with content," the project's CEO says. What, if anything, does it say about the place of Judaism in Israel, in Zionism, in the hearts and minds of Jews, in the 21st century?

Music: Omer Adam, in honor of this week selling out his May 24 concert Sami Ofer Stadium in Haifa, in less than 3 hours (including 40,000 folks signing up for the waiting list):

Aharei kol ha-shanim itach

Mahapecha shel simha (with Lior Narkis)

Az halachti

Matzati ba-Aron

The "Broadening Horizons" Edition Mar 08, 2018

Show notes

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

Looking for extra segments and other patron-only perks? They're available to our patrons on www.patreon.com/promisedpodcast

A Kinder, Gentler AIPAC

The huge convention of a new and improved AIPAC, now containing progressives!

Wicked-pedia?

Ha-Michlol ("The Entirety"), an ultra-Orthodox, user-generated Wikipedia, aims to create "the largest Jewish encyclopedia in history, which includes articles on all issues pertaining to the Torah, Jewish values and the history of the Jewish people, but also knowledge pertaining to mankind and from all the secular [hulin] fields – written in clean language according to the Jewish worldview." Is it a step towards a greater appreciation, on the part of Haredim, of western, secular knowledge, or a step away, or both, or neither)?

Worn Only Once, For Drinks at the King David

Two young Israelis have launched MINE, a website that allows folks to sell off their unwanted, unused, nearly-new expensive designer clothes, and allows the hoi polloi to buy them at a discount. They claims to be motivated by a desire to enable middle-class people to buy what they formerly couldn't afford, and to help the environment by discouraging "fast fashion". So should we be forsaking the mall for MINE?

Music: Nili Fink

The "Assassination, Prevarication & Narration Peroration" Edition Mar 01, 2018

Show notes

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

Looking for extra segments and other patron-only perks? They're available to our patrons on www.patreon.com/promisedpodcast

Kill First!

Two thousand and three hundred: That's how many targeted killing operations Israel has carried out over the years, Israeli journalist and author Ronen Bergman estimates in his stunning new book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. The book traces the history of a key strategy in the history of Israel's intelligence and security apparatuses, and raises questions about its ethical and practical aspects. When (if ever) are these assassinations justified, and are they even a smart idea?

Legislating Innocence

Poland's explosive "Holocaust complicity bill" may or may not be about to become law. After Israel raised concerns about the proposed penalty for anyone accusing Poland of complicity in Nazi crimes, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki's explanation that the Holocaust also had its "Jewish perpetrators" then sparked further outrage. Poles had good reason to be lumped together with Germans as perpetrators of the Holocaust, but Poles also have a lot to answer for. So what is Israel to do?

Won't Anyone Think of the Tour Guides?

Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin recently proposed a bill that would allow unaccredited tour guides to lead many (though not all) tours. Currently, a prospective guide needs to take a two-year course, a practice resulting in remarkably well-educated guides. But some ask why Israel can't have architects devising their own tours of cities' buildings, for example. Is liberalizing tour guiding another small step for post-modern freedom, or is it one liberalization too far?

Music: Lior Perla, in honor of his newest record, Bein Kotlei ha-

Zeman, released just this week!

Shoom Davar

Bein Kotley HaZman

Halev Hazeh

Ad Hasof

The "Eyes on the Prize" Edition Feb 22, 2018

Show notes

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

Looking for extra segments and other patron-only perks? They're available to our patrons on Patreon.

Left to Decide

Israel's liberal-left Meretz party will hold its first-ever primary to pick its next leader in March, and the candidates have brought to the party new energy, excitement, voters, and vision to an entity whose relevance in contemporary Israeli politics is often called into question. The leadership race has developed into a vital debate into how the Left should present itself to voters and pursue change. What can we learn from this fascinating race?

Prize Possession

David Grossman the great Israeli writer who just seven months ago won one of literature's most prestigious awards, the Man Booker Prize, last week learned that he would, on Israel's 70th Independence Day, receive his homelands most prestigious award, the Israel Prize. But an essay this weekend in Haaretz by Israel's leading civil rights lawyer Avigdor Feldman argued is that, in these days, to take the prize is an act of collaboration with a government with which people of principle ought no longer collaborate. Should Grossman, for decades one of the clearest voices of conscience on the Left, turn down the Israel Prize as a powerful and percussive expression of that conscience?

The (Harsh) Reality of Marriage

The most popular new show on Israeli TV is a science-based reality show called "Wedding at First Sight." The show begins with scientific experts, who designed and administered examination protocols exploring the psycho-social-cognitive and physiological profile of thousands of volunteer singles, scientifically-identifying five heteronormative pairs, if science is to be trusted, are exquisitely compatible with one another. Each of the couples is sent on a luxurious honeymoon, at the end of which they will settle down to live together for 40 days, at the end of which they need to decide whether to continue their lives as married folks or dissolve their union. Does the success of the show, which is so retro, with the role of traditional matchmaker filled by science, reflect a wish for a simpler time when your parents, or your youth movement, pretty much ensured that you'd find a mate?

Music: Sputnik Hi-Fi

Eretz ha-Rakavot (ארץ הרכבות)

Ha-Laila hakhi Tov (הלילה הכי טוב)

Hashmal (חשמל)

Hol (חול)

The "Tragic Flaws" Edition Feb 15, 2018

Show notes

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

Looking for extra segments and other patron-only perks? They're available to our patrons on Patreon.

Bribes, Fraud and Breach of Trust

Israel's police have recommended indictments against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying "a sufficient evidentiary foundation has been established" for suspicions of soliciting and accepting bribes, fraud, and breach of trust. Netanyahu's party is standing by its man, while coalition partners are cautiously maintaining support. Opposition leaders are calling for him to resign. Should he? Regardless of personal opinion, what response befits the situation?

The Lie

Yaakov Perry, former head of the Shin Bet secret service, has resigned from his post as a Member of Knesset for the centrist Yesh Atid party, after it was learned that he lied about his military record. Should such a lie disqualify someone from serving in politics today? What is so distressing about learning that he lied about this issue specifically?

Tile and Error

Studio Ceramics, a premier boutique purveyor of high quality wall and floor tiles, is the first company ever sued under a new Israeli law banning "discrimination according to place of residence" after telling a journalist who lives in a settlements that it "does not deliver to the territories." Should Studio Ceramics ought to be forced to deliver their tiles and toilets to the territories, even if doing so is (a) more dangerous, (b) more expensive, and (c) a contravention of their political beliefs?

Music: Ariel Horowitz

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