Hamas's rule in Gaza is a theocratic dictatorship. But its roots lie in the 19th-century movement for Islamic reform that believes modernization, science and even political liberalization. How did the great liberalizing theologians of the late 19th century, from Al-Afghani to Abduh to Rida, become Hamas? Join us for a story that raises the startling possibility that the deradicalization of Gaza could come from within. This episode is sponsored by “the Frozen Chosen, Haviv's supportive community ...
May 30, 2025•56 min•Ep. 16
Jerusalem Day falls on May 25th this year. It is the day of Jerusalem's unification in the 1967 Six Day War, and so a symbol of both Jewish rescue from the genocidal plans of its enemies, a palpable experience of strength and redemption just two decades after Auschwitz, and also a symbol of the perils and moral problems of Jewish power, the day Israel found itself ruling another people. It is the day of the Jews' homecoming to their sacred places, but also of political grandstanding and ideologi...
May 26, 2025•20 min•Ep. 15
If the requirements of international law mean that Israel is effectively prohibited from defeating its enemies or protecting its borders, should Israelis turn their backs on international law? Why do we need "law?" Isn't it enough to just do our best to be as moral as possible? After all, the institutions of international law seem so unfair to Israel. Just this past year, Israel was made to stand in judgment, accused of genocide, before a judicial panel whose president hails from an enemy countr...
May 18, 2025•48 min•Ep. 14
After a delay (Haviv got a bad flu), we're happy to share a great panel with Haviv and Prof. John Spencer that took place at the Woodbury Jewish Center in Woodbury, New York on May 7.Thank you to Rabbi Jason Fruithandler and Rob Dwek for hosting, and to the Malin family for sponsoring the speaker series this event was part of. Haviv and John talked about whether victory was in the cards against Hamas, what it would require, and whether Israeli society would persevere; about claims of starvation ...
May 13, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 13
Qatar has just 330,000 citizens but controls vast wealth due to its plentiful natural gas. It has used that wealth to support radical and violent terrorist groups and regimes throughout the Middle East and to wield enormous influence in the West, including among American politicians and universities.In today's episode, I asked Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and host of its Morning Brief podcast, if Qatar really is as bad as Israelis think, ...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 12
As the Trump administration tries to strike a deal curtailing Iran's nuclear program, I turned to Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levi, an Iran expert and proud Persian Jew, to try to take us past the headlines and political elites to the conditions and hopes of ordinary Iranians. Dr. Mazalian paints a dire picture. Desperate shortages of clean water, electricity and gas, a collapsed currency, a third of the population under the poverty line, an oppressive religious police, the highest rate of executions i...
Apr 28, 2025•51 min•Ep. 11
Palestinian advocates like to quip that the current war "didn't begin on October 7." That's true, of course, though unhelpful. It didn't begin in any one specific place. There are no singular first causes in history. When we choose the beginning of the story, we choose its framing and meaning.For most Israeli Jews, the story of the current war might be said to have begun in the fall of 2000, in the great collapse of Oslo that still casts its long shadow on the Israeli political psyche.This is th...
Apr 22, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 10
Passover is upon us, the seder is Saturday night.Freedom, the Sages teach, is not an end, it is a path; no mere escape from Pharaoh's tyranny but a becoming, filled with substance and responsibility and devotion; no one-off achievement but a ceaseless struggle to secure and deepen who and what we are.This bonus episode offers a few short thoughts that I teach my children at our seder each year about the meaning of this holiday, and thus the meaning of our peoplehood and freedom.This episode is s...
Apr 11, 2025•17 min
The Abraham Accords have the potential to transform the Middle East. The very fact that they survived the Gaza war proves their resilience. Indeed, trade between Israel and its Abraham Accords partners has risen dramatically and stayed high through the war.And now the “kit” of dozens of agreements drafted between Israel and the UAE, from the overarching peace agreement to treaties on cellphone network interoperability and double taxation, stands ready to be copied over to a Israeli-Saudi peace.B...
Apr 10, 2025•49 min•Ep. 9
Is Zionism colonialism? Are Jews an authentic people, or merely a religion? What about Palestinians? What are Zionism’s moral costs, and what are those of opposing Zionism? I asked one of my teachers, Hebrew University historian Prof. Alexander Yakobson, some of the great questions now being advanced in Western academic and progressive discourses about Israel. Alex has that special fearlessness of an intellectual who takes the other side's position seriously. It makes his answers all the more va...
Apr 03, 2025•53 min•Ep. 8
What if everybody is right on judicial reform? Israel's highest court is immensely and unreasonably powerful. But if it is weakened, what other checks stand in the way of the tyranny of the majority, that great Achilles' heel of democracy since the dawn of Western civilization? This question is especially urgent for Israel, whose politics are more Middle Eastern than Western, more tribal than ideological. It's not unreasonable to weaken the court, but it would be disastrous to do so without broa...
Mar 28, 2025•57 min•Ep. 7
Abandoning the Democrats is a losing strategy for Israel, says Rep. Ritchie Torres, perhaps the most outspoken supporter of Israel in the US House of Representatives. The fight over Israel inside American politics is a proxy for a much larger battle over the future of the Democratic Party and the character of America, he argues. Those who don't like Israel, he says, tend to take a dim view of the promise of America. And who is Clarence Jones, and why does Torres consider him "the greatest living...
Mar 25, 2025•41 min•Ep. 6
Warfighting has resumed in Gaza. Israel's message is clear: Gaza's future depends on Hamas releasing hostages and surrendering its control of the territory. But there is a larger pivot underway, a regional strategic realignment. Hamas once hoped its attack on Israel would trigger a broader regional war. In a sense, it succeeded, relegating Gaza to a marginal arena in the larger strategic struggle. That alone, gives Israel a freer hand to resume war whenever it wants. Hamas is now truly strategic...
Mar 19, 2025•25 min
This is a podcast about history, but also about this moment in history. Today's episode is a special one. Many of you asked about the hostages, about the activism of their families, about their shattering experiences on October 7 and how they have worked to piece their lives back together since. I can think of no better way to begin to answer these questions than by posing them to our good friend Shaked Haran. There's no one story of the hostage families. Their experiences vary, their opinions o...
Mar 13, 2025•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 5
Israeli Jews are the last surviving remnant of dozens of devastated Jewish communities across three continents. How did this history shape them? What do they understand about the world that few others see? Join Haviv Rettig Gur for a deep dive into the historical experience that shaped this largest community of Jews ever. Thank you to Joe and Shira Lieberman for sponsoring this episode in honor of those we lost on October 7th. Please join me on Patreon to support this project: https://www.patreo...
Mar 06, 2025•59 min•Ep. 4
In our first interview episode, Haviv Rettig Gur sits down (virtually) with Prof. John Spencer of West Point, one of the foremost experts in urban warfare who has made a special study of Israeli warfighting tactics and strategy. Many subscribers to this podcast have asked us why Israel doesn’t seem to have won this war, why Hamas is still standing after 17 months of fighting and why Israel must still negotiate for its hostages. For answers we turned to Prof. Spencer. We learned about the IDF’s a...
Feb 26, 2025•54 min•Ep. 3
Recorded Thursday, February 20th Israelis watched horrified on Thursday, as Hamas gunmen conducted a ceremony handing over four coffins, two of them with the bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, aged 1 and 4, when they were murdered in Gaza, along with their mother Shiri. Oded Lifshitz, 83, was the fourth body handed over to Israel. Around the ceremony, Gazan civilians cheered and threw rice, people brought their kids to watch. What should we make of this gruesome spectacle, of a festival conducted o...
Feb 20, 2025•21 min
American Jews constitute the biggest, wealthiest, most influential and safest Jewish diaspora community in Jewish history, and also among the most Jewishly illiterate and profoundly anxious about their future. There's a good reason this immense and powerful community is also culturally weak and unsure of itself. There is deep history behind its illiteracy, a story of tragedy and trauma, rebellion and rebuilding. We unpack it all in this episode. Thank you to Joe and Shira Lieberman for sponsorin...
Feb 18, 2025•44 min•Ep. 2
It’s hard for a modern Jew to grasp the depth of marginalization and ostracism that even the most assimilated of Austrian Jews experienced in the 1890s. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, began his journey as a passionate assimilationist, a deep believer in European modernity and Germanic culture. It was only when these hopes were dashed that he turned, as a drowning man to a life raft, to political Zionism. Here is the untold story of how Herzl found Zionism. (Spoiler: It w...
Feb 13, 2025•51 min•Ep. 1
*Recorded Saturday night, February 8, 2025*First reflections in response to Hamas's hostage release ceremony in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza on Saturday, when Israelis discovered the extent to which the hostages had been tormented and starved. Episode first aired Sunday on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything).
Feb 10, 2025•22 min
"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. Please join me on Patreon to...
Feb 05, 2025•28 min
