Unholy: Two Jews on the News

Latest Episodes:

The Final Sprint and What to Watch for on Election Night Oct 22, 2026

Show notes

Reunited in the same studio in Tel Aviv just five days before Israelis head to the polls, Yonit and Jonathan dive into the high-stakes homestretch of an election that feels less like routine politics and more like a referendum on the country’s soul. Jonathan reports from the ground—from the packed, expat-heavy El Al flight from London to a campaign rally with Gadi Eisenkot—while Yonit parses the razor-thin bloc arithmetic, the damaging fallout from the Yonatan Urich Qatari funding investigation, and the electoral tightrope Benjamin Netanyahu is walking with ultra-Orthodox draft evasion.

They also look across the Atlantic to the agonizing choices facing Jewish voters in Michigan’s midterm contest, award our Chutzpah trophy to an American envoy in urgent need of an English dictionary, and find an unexpected, deeply moving Mensch in the southern desert dust.

Don't miss Unholy's Livecast on Election night, October 27th: https://unholy-podcast.com/live/

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Why one word blew up the Israeli election campaign – with Matti Friedman Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

With just a week to go, Israel’s election campaign caught fire at the weekend, thanks to an incendiary intervention by one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s most ardent media supporters. Channel 14’s Yinon Magal re-opened a deep racial divide when he repeatedly referred to Netanyahu’s prime challenger, Gadi Eisenkot - whose family roots are in Morocco - as a “monkey”.

What are the origins of the Mizrahi-Ashkenazi divide in Israeli society - and what place does it continue to play in the life and politics of the country? Yonit is joined by journalist and author Matti Friedman for a deep examination of a key Israeli faultline.

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Netanyahu, Eisenkot and the 61 Problem Oct 15, 2026

Show notes

Twelve days before Israel votes, Yonit observes that the national mood is neither Britain in 1997 nor America in 2008 - a nation certain that it’s on the brink of change - but one of pure tension on both sides. In the final stretch, Binyamin Netanyahu is on an interview blitz, making no secret of his plans to maintain his current coalition while insisting Itamar Ben-Gvir will not be defense minister—a denial Jonathan reads as an outright forecast.

Meanwhile, Gadi Eisenkot warns voters that his slate must be the largest in the anti-Bibi bloc, Naftali Bennett takes the lead for a joint ticket while his partner Lapid goes conspicuously quiet and Jonathan wonders if Netanyahu can simply peel off defectors after election day. Then, the electoral arithmetic that will decide the night: why the Arab parties sit outside both blocs, and whether a minority government could actually function.

Plus: Chutzpah of the Week from an American campus, a strictly kosher if high Mensch award and a reminder that Unholy goes live on election night, 27 October, the moment the exit polls drop.

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Can you trust the polls? with Dahlia Scheindlin Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

Two weeks before Israel votes, the polls seem to be telling two different stories — Channel 14 has the Netanyahu bloc at 63 seats, Channel 12 has it at 49. Dahlia Scheindlin, pollster and senior analyst at Haaretz, who has advised nine Israeli election campaigns, tells Yonit and Jonathan the picture is far less wild than it looks. Why do six of eight pollsters agree while two keep drifting? Who is actually still undecided, and does the much-discussed wave of expats flying in to vote amount to anything? Why have October 7 and everything since barely moved an electorate that has been shifting one way for fifteen years? And what is the iron rule that lets a pollster name your vote before you know it yourself — in an election whose result, she argues, now rests in the minds of six men.

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The Ghost of October 7th, Wild Polling — and a Response to Mamdani Oct 08, 2026

Show notes

Three years after October 7th, and eighteen days before Israel votes, this third anniversary felt different from the first two — and yet it may not move a single vote. With no state commission of inquiry, a flydubai near-disaster that echoed the state's failures and polls that point in wildly different directions, Yonit and Jonathan ask if the question of Netanyahu's responsibility has already been priced in by the Israeli electorate. They discuss whether a restrained, divided opposition is fighting according to the rules against a campaign that is not, and whether Avigdor Lieberman could end up in the prime minister’s chair - as the leader of a realigned right. Outside Israel, Zohran Mamdani and the Green Party of England and Wales approached October 7th in something other than solemn mood. Plus: a crowded field for Mensch of the Week and a Chutzpah award that takes aim at punctuation.

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Amir Tibon on October 7, three years on - and Israel's election Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Three years ago this week, Amir Tibon spent ten hours in a safe room in Kibbutz Nahal Oz with his wife and daughters while Hamas gunmen moved from house to house. They stayed there until he was rescued - by his father, a retired general, who had driven down from Tel Aviv with a pistol to get them out. Amir has now moved with his family back to the kibbutz.

Jonathan talks to Tibon — Haaretz journalist and author of The Gates of Gaza — about that return, why the third anniversary feels heavier than the first two, and why he lies awake over the election on 27 October as well as over the gunfire still audible from Gaza. Is the coming vote a verdict on the failure of 7 October, or on who can stop the next one?

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/KXcVvPmzQpo

00:00 Unholy Conversations - 3 years since October 7th
01:13 Introduction to Amir Tibon's Story
05:01 The Impact of October 7th on Amir's Family
08:52 Returning to Nahal Oz: A Journey of Resilience
13:42 Reflections on the Third Anniversary of October 7th
18:46 The Political Landscape and Future Concerns

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Yuval Raphael on Nova, healing and Eurovision Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

A note to listeners: This episode includes a Nova survivor’s account of October 7, including descriptions of traumatic events that some listeners may find distressing.

Three years after the Nova festival massacre, Yuval Raphael is going back to Re'im — to sing at the memorial, on the ground where she survived eight hours in a roadside shelter. This week she sits down with Yonit for a conversation about what those three years have actually been like. Why a girl once too frightened to sing outside her own bedroom chose to represent Israel at Eurovision in Basel, and what the booing did to her on stage. What she asked a social worker from her hospital bed, and why she now tells her story over and over — to ambassadors, to the UN, to Gen Z. And the two rules she offers a country still learning how to grieve, one of them gentler than you might expect.

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/zCvdAhuWfms

00:00 Unholy Conversations - 3 years since October 7th.

01:46 Introduction to Yuval Rafael

04:45 Returning to the Nova Festival Site

07:30 The Healing Journey After Trauma

10:31 Advice for Coping with Trauma

13:18 Retelling the Survivor Story

27:31 The Impact of the Nova Festival Massacre

35:34 Representing Israel at Eurovision

40:36 Reflections on a Generation's Trauma

(קרדיט צילום: יאיר סיגרון)

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Drama in the skies - politics on the ground Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

As a wave of euphoria and relief sweeps Israel, following the attempted - and foiled - hijacking of Flight FZ1073, Yonit and Jonathan delve deep into the story and its implications. They discuss the courage and ingenuity of the passengers who took on a co-pilot apparently bent on causing the mass death of a plane full of Israelis, what the episode says about the character of the country - and what its impact might be on this month’s all-important elections.

Plus: they assess a failed effort to unite the opposition as they seek to eject Benjamin Netanyahu from office, ongoing violence in the West Bank and a world that increasingly refuses to shake Israel by the hand.

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🗳 Unholy Elections 2026, every election episode: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLtdPcFD_Urw

#Unholy #IsraelElection2026 #Netanyahu

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Mansour Abbas: The Man who would be Kingmaker Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Watch this interview in Hebrew and English subtitles: https://youtu.be/zh-KenD4s5w

Ra'am has done something no Arab party in Israel has tried before—put a Jewish, Zionist former police major general on its slate. With the election weeks away, Likud wants the party disqualified, much of the opposition insists it won't sit with it, and some in his own community call its leader a traitor. Yonit and Jonathan sit down with Mansour Abbas, the man who first took an Arab party into an Israeli governing coalition. What did bringing Yoav Segalovitz on board cost him at home? Does he say the same thing in Hebrew as he does in Arabic? What does "Islamist" actually mean to him? And if Netanyahu calls after October 27th—will he answer?

00:00 Intro
00:15 Yoav Segalovitz joins Ra'am
03:39 An Arab seat for a Jewish politician?
06:31 Will the opposition really refuse to sit with Ra'am?
11:15 Why Arab turnout lags
13:45 The threats on his life
16:16 Netanyahu or Eisenkot: does it matter to Arab voters?
20:34 Breaking away from the Islamic Movement
26:01 What does "Islamist" mean?
32:53 Hebrew vs Arabic: does he mean what he says?
40:02 Is the two-state solution too tired?
47:22 Who's the next prime minister, and would he sit with Netanyahu?

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The Disqualification Games, German angst — and Wayne Rooney’s Bubbe Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

Decision day approaches for the judges who will determine who is - and who is not - allowed to stand in the Israeli elections on 27 October. The supreme court is likely to overturn a move by the government to ban the main Arab parties, but more unpredictable is the fate of one individual politician from the Arab nationalist party, Balad - a man who seemingly wrote in praise of the 7 October attacks. Yonit and Jonathan debate the legal and political aspects of the case - and the wider effort by Benjamin Netanyahu to cast his lead opponent, Gadi Eisenkot, as dependent on Arab support. Plus: have elections in Germany made the country newly unsafe for Jews? And who is the soccer legend who could soon be known as Roo the Jew?

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