Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Is it "fascist" to believe a state can belong to a specific people? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable re...
Feb 15, 2026•16 min•Ep. 90
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Who benefits from continuing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resourc...
Feb 12, 2026•15 min•Ep. 89
Is American Jewish identity weakening before our eyes? Are American Jews, caught in a whirlwind of hatred directed both at Israel and at the Jews themselves, turning their backs on their Jewish identity? Jonah Platt joins the podcast to talk about the growing numbers of Jews moving in the opposite direction: From quiet assimilation to unapologetic, intentional pride. We confront the sobering data on the rise of antisemitism among Gen Z and discuss Jonah's defiant hope that the "switched-on" gene...
Feb 07, 2026•55 min•Ep. 88
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: How can you support a better Palestinian future? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take p...
Feb 05, 2026•21 min•Ep. 87
The inimitable Prof. Dan Schueftan joins Haviv to break down a "profoundly dangerous" turn in the Middle East. With Saudi Arabia shifting away from its alliance with Israel and the Emirates and Turkey consolidating a "puppet state" in Syria, the regional map is being redrawn. Schueftan warns that the "moderate axis" has blinked, leaving Israel to face a sophisticated Turkish adversary that is ideologically rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood and strategically positioned to disrupt Israeli interests...
Feb 02, 2026•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 86
In these strange times, it is easier than ever for a Jew to learn -- and easier than ever to remain ignorant. We sit down with Dr. Noam Weissman, executive vice president of the educational nonprofit OpenDor Media, to tackle a looming crisis: a generation of Jews who no longer know their own story. From Harvard Law students paralyzed by campus slogans to the staggering reality that 62% of Jewish day school students cannot define Zionism, this episode exposes the "malpractice" of outdated advocac...
Jan 31, 2026•59 min•Ep. 85
This week, Israel finally brought home the remains of its last hostage, 24-year-old Ran Gvili. To outsiders, the sheer scale of the national sacrifice and the collective exhalation of relief that followed his return can seem like a mystery. Every nation honors its fallen, but few go to the lengths Israelis do to reclaim a body from the hands of the enemy. In this episode, we use the upcoming holiday of Tu Bishvat as an entryway into the Jewish psyche. We explore the idea of "hesed shel Emet" -- ...
Jan 29, 2026•48 min•Ep. 84
The fall 2024 Israeli operations that decimated Hezbollah’s missile arsenal and leadership structure marked a pivotal turning point for the Middle East. To understand the wreckage left behind and the organization's resilient global web that is already hard at work helping it to recover, I am joined by Matthew Levitt, one of the world’s leading experts on counterterrorism. Levitt pulls back the curtain on Hezbollah’s "Golden Rule"—the less you know, the better—and explains how a group traditional...
Jan 26, 2026•49 min•Ep. 83
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: 'From the River to the Sea' - Lost in Translation? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take...
Jan 25, 2026•9 min•Ep. 82
Andrew Fox is a frontline conflict researcher who has visited Gaza, Syria and Lebanon to study Israeli deployments and strategy there. He joins the podcast to talk about what he calls Israel’s ticking diplomatic clock — the inevitable moment when Israel finds itself where Europe is now: suddenly shorn of American backing and having to navigate an increasingly chaotic region and world. We discuss Israel’s strengths, its weaknesses, how Israel itself contributed to its diplomatic troubles, and wha...
Jan 22, 2026•58 min•Ep. 81
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East.Our current question: Who is Hamas and what do they want? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our mon...
Jan 19, 2026•10 min•Ep. 80
Iran is burning. The streets are full of marchers demanding an end to the regime. Thousands of protesters have been murdered by the regime in recent days — we may never know exactly how many. President Trump is threatening military action. But is all this enough to bring down the regime? How do you dismantle a revolutionary Islamist government that has proven impervious to domestic protest and international pressure? Here’s how. — This episode was sponsored anonymously by a family friend of form...
Jan 14, 2026•35 min•Ep. 79
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: What was the First Intifada? What was the Second Intifada? What does it mean to “globalize the intifada?” If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions wher...
Jan 13, 2026•21 min•Ep. 78
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Did Israel intentionally target civilians in Gaza? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take...
Jan 09, 2026•13 min•Ep. 77
From Manchester to Bondi Beach to Denver, from Tucker Carlson to Nicolas Maduro to Zohran Mamdani to the most significant and mobilizing political ideologies of today’s Muslim world, Jews seem to loom large in the imaginations of elites. They’re attacked physically and verbally and politically. The old obsession has well and truly returned. What does this return mean for the future of these societies? And for Jews? The Egyptian-American writer and thinker Hussein Aboubakr Mansour returns to the ...
Jan 06, 2026•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 76
Iran’s streets are in tumult. The latest protests are of a scale not seen before. New sections of Iranian society are in the streets — middle class merchants, the elderly and others. The protestors have more strident demands than in the past. And a regime that knows its legitimacy has been compromised by rampant corruption, systemic state failure, the collapse of the currency and economy and the 12-day war in June against Israel. Our guest today is Roya Hakakian, a writer, poet and human rights ...
Jan 02, 2026•53 min•Ep. 75
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Why the global outrage at Israel's Somaliland recognition? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, ...
Dec 31, 2025•13 min•Ep. 74
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Is military aid to Israel a good deal for America? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take...
Dec 30, 2025•9 min•Ep. 73
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising stands as one of the few shining moments of (temporarily) successful Jewish resistance in the bottomless evil and despair that was the Holocaust. Heroes of the uprising like Mordechai Anielewicz and Yitzhak “Antek” Zuckerman form part of the national civic religion of Israeli Jews, and of Jewish commemoration ceremonies worldwide. But the men of the uprising didn’t do it alone. Without Zivia Lubetkin, Tosia Altman and the other women couriers and fighters, the uprising...
Dec 29, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 72
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Why the heck does America support Israel? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in ...
Dec 25, 2025•15 min•Ep. 71
Between the outbreak of the Jews’ Great Revolt against Rome in the year 66 CE and the final suppression of the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135, the Jews of the Roman Empire constituted the empire’s single biggest headache. None of the countless conquered peoples controlled by that world power had ever rebelled quite so often or for so long. Jewish memory, largely forged by the rabbinic account of these revolts as doomed failures, tends to minimize their scale and impact and the chances they had for suc...
Dec 23, 2025•53 min•Ep. 70
Until October 7, Israel’s politics were consumed by the fight over the government’s judicial reform proposals. The issue drove hundreds of thousands of Israelis to the streets in protest. It triggered all the anxieties of right and left, to sharpen class and ethnic and cultural divides, to raise fears over minority rights and the future of Israeli democracy. But in all those stormy months, there was very little in the way of serious and sober debate about Israeli institutions, checks and balance...
Dec 19, 2025•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 69
After the massacre at Bondi Beach, anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein returns to the podcast to help us make sense of the new Jew-hatred. Antizionism, Adam argues, may be a form of hatred of Jews, but it's a far cry from the classical antisemitism of the 19th and 20th centuries. It's also not mere criticism of Israeli policies or governments. So what is it? And how do you fight it? Adam Louis-Klein is an anthropologist and writer whose work focuses on Jewish peoplehood, indigeneity, and contemporar...
Dec 17, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 68
This Hanukkah began in darkness, in the brutal massacre of Jews in Sydney, Australia. Our hearts are broken, but our light is not dimmed. In this episode, we dive into the meaning of Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition and draw lessons from it for these painful times. This episode is sponsored by Donna Silbert and Kevin Foley and dedicated to the memory of Thomas Irwin Glasser. Tom Glasser was murdered by Islamist terrorists as he worked at his desk in the south tower of the World Trade Center on S...
Dec 15, 2025•49 min•Ep. 67
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Do BDS campaigns help Palestinians? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our mo...
Dec 05, 2025•13 min•Ep. 66
The internet has democratized information. Or so we are told. The world's knowledge is now at everyone's fingertips. No government and no power structure can gatekeep what everyone sees and hears. But as our lives increasingly move online, we are all discovering just how many forces are at work trying to control and manipulate the flow of information online. The information that comes our way is driven by algorithms shaped by corporations or foreign governments. And those who know how to game th...
Dec 02, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 65
Izabella Tabarovsky is a scholar of Soviet antizionism and contemporary antisemitism, a contributor to many books and a senior fellow at the Z3 Institute. Her latest book is “Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide.” It’s available here: https://www.amazon.com/Be-Refusenik-Jewish-Students-Survival/dp/B0G2GKWKCJ/ref=zg_m_bs_g_8975368011_m_sccl_1/142-8265824-8567764?psc=1 Today we are going to dive into the story of Soviet Jewry and the ideological war carried out by Soviet authorities a...
Nov 28, 2025•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 64
Noam Dworman is the owner of the legendary Comedy Cellar comedy club in New York. He a lifelong New Yorker, a podcaster and an astute observer of his city and his country. What does he make of the incoming mayor and his anti-Israel views? What about the rabid new antisemitism on the Carlson-Owens right? And how does he understand the weak responses to both by American Jews? And finally: Will America weather these challenges, or has American Jewish life become less safe going forward? Today’s epi...
Nov 25, 2025•56 min•Ep. 63
Today's episode is a very special show which was recorded live on November 10, 2025 at the Finchley United Synagogue - Kinloss in London. Haviv had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Jewish Chronicle Editor Daniel Schwammenthal. We had a great discussion about growing antisemitism in England, the war in Gaza, the possibility of upcoming elections in Israel and the many challenges facing Israelis and Jews today. We would like to thank Jonathan and Debra Field, who have been long-time supporte...
Nov 20, 2025•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 62
Welcome to our new short-form episodes interspersed with the regular interviews that dive into an often-asked question about Israel, Jews and the Middle East. Our current question: Is criticizing Israel antisemitic? If you like what we do here, please join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything. There you can ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join in our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our mon...
Nov 19, 2025•11 min•Ep. 61
