Dr. Ido Shahar, a lecturer in Middle East history at the University of Haifa, is the author of the recently published Legal Pluralism in the Holy City: Competing Courts, Forum Shopping and Institutional Dynamics in Jerusalem . He lays out for host Gilad Halpern his "organizational ethnography" of Muslim state courts in Jerusalem, how they interact with other legal entities, and how they affect the city's heterogeneous Muslim population. Song: Shai Tsabari - Lavi Oti This season of the Tel Aviv R...
Jan 08, 2016•21 min
Prof. Ghil'ad Zuckermann, a professor of linguistics at the University of Adelaide in Australia, and Dr. Gitit Holzmann, a lecturer in Jewish philosophy at the Levinsky Teachers' College in Tel Aviv, discuss the linguistic, educational, and political implications and limitations of the crown jewel of the Zionist enterprise: The revival of the Hebrew language. Song: Alma Zohar - Egotrip This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes humani...
Jan 04, 2016•27 min
Dr. Roni Weinstein, a historian of Judaism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explores with host Gilad Halpern the origins of Jewish mysticism (in 16th and 17th century Palestine), which influenced Jewish orthodoxy for centuries to come. Song: Sivan Talmor - I'll Be This season of the Tel Aviv Review is made possible by The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute , which promotes humanistic, democratic, and liberal values in the social discourse in Israel....
Jan 01, 2016•19 min
Holocaust survivor Simon Malkes has dedicated his recently published memoirs to the man who saved him, a Nazi officer called Karl Plagge, for whom he lobbied Yad Vashem for recognition as a Righteous Gentile. Malkes tells host Gilad Halpern his story. Song: Ninet - Child
Dec 28, 2015•20 min
Adi Sherzer, a doctoral fellow at the Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, explores with host Gilad Halpern the construction of the Israeli national narrative in the early years, bridging statehood and millennia of Jewish tradition. Song: Karolina, Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Loren Oden - Feel Alive
Dec 25, 2015•21 min
Dr. Orli Sela, an environmental and legal historian at New York University, explores the evolution of the perception of water abundance and its place in the state building effort, before and after the establishment of the State of Israel. Song: The Secret Sea - Afterlife
Dec 19, 2015•21 min
Dr. Rony Klein, professor of political philosophy at Tel Aviv University specializing in French political thought, explores how late 20th century Jewish philosophers posed a challenge to the ideas of Enlightenment that were the predominant themes in their intellectual sphere. Song: Ivri Lider - Makom Leyoter
Dec 18, 2015•21 min
Dr. Aviva Tal, professor of Yiddish literature at Bar-Ilan University, discusses with host Gilad Halpern the forgotten history of Jewish criminality in the early 20th century, and how central it was to Jewish life during that period. Song: Evyatar Banai- Matanot
Dec 12, 2015•21 min
Dr. Ran Zwigenberg, professor of history and Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University and author of the recently published Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture , explores with host Gilad Halpern the parallel cultures of commemoration that emanated from the two biggest catastrophes of the Second World War: Hiroshima and Auschwitz. Song: Doda - Elef Kaba'im
Dec 11, 2015•19 min
Dr. Hadas Cohen, a post-doctoral fellow at the Social Science Research Center in Berlin, discusses with host Gilad Halpern her analysis of the construction of Israeli identity through transgressions and aberrations from it, specifically the case of the "traitress" Tali Fahima. Song: Russo and Weinberg - Travel
Dec 05, 2015•24 min
Dr. Yakir Englander, a Jewish philosophy scholar at Harvard University and expert on interfaith dialogue, both as an activist and a scholar, reviews with host Gilad Halpern the role of religion in perpetuating and assuaging conflict, in the Israeli-Palestinian context and beyond. Song: Omer Netzer - Couldn't Love You Any More
Dec 04, 2015•24 min
Dr. Ido Yoav, a sociologist and anthropologist at Sapir College, joins host Gilad Halpern to analyze the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on its 20th anniversary, through the perspective of the sociology of emotions. The lesson: It could happen again, and for the reasons you may think. Song: Gan Khayot - Yareakh Kakhol
Nov 28, 2015•22 min
Dr. Dara Barnat, a poet and culture scholar at Tel Aviv University, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the universal message of the great 19th-century American poet, and how it influenced future generations of Jewish-American poets in their quest to come to terms with their composite identity. Song: Russo & Weinberg - My Man
Nov 27, 2015•19 min
Dr. Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler, historian of architecture at Sapir Academic College and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the post-colonial perspective she espouses when studying the history of architecture in Israel throughout the 20th century. Song: Marina Maximilian - Tango
Nov 21, 2015•25 min
Dr. Omri Asscher, head of the Translation Diploma Track at Beit Berl College and a post-doctoral fellow at the Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies and the State of Israel at the University of Haifa, explains to host Gilad Halpern how Israeli literature was modified by translators and editors to conform with the prevalent worldview of American Jews. Song: Red Band ft. Sarit Hadad - Baby Can I Hold You
Nov 20, 2015•17 min
Dr. Boaz Lev Tov, academic director of the Time Tunnel at Beit Berl College, talks to host Gilad Halpern about the benefits of oral history in understanding the lives and interactions of ordinary people in Israel throughout the generations. Song: Tsliley Ha'ud - Ani Gedalia
Nov 14, 2015•24 min
Prof. Hillel Cohen, a Middle East historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the author of the newly published 1929: Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict . He talks to host Gilad Halpern about how the violent Palestinian uprising of August 1929 was a watershed moment for the Jews and Arabs in Palestine, and for the entire world. Song: KerenDun and Echo - I'll Follow You
Nov 13, 2015•24 min
Assaf Gamzou, curator at the Israeli Cartoon Museum in Holon, gives host Gilad Halpern a review of a new exhibition that tells the Bible stories in caricatures, and ponders the link between cartoons and Judaism. Song: Maor Cohen - Adam Acher
Nov 07, 2015•23 min
Elliot Jager, journalist, political scientist, and commentator, is the author of the recently published The Pater: My Father, My Judaism, My Childlessness. He takes host Gilad Halpern through a semi-autobiographical exploration of what it means to be a childless Jewish man today, in Israel and beyond. Song: Eatliz - One of Us
Nov 06, 2015•23 min
Prof. Steven Gimbel, philosopher of science at Gettysburg College in the United States, is the author of the recently published Einstein: His Space and Time. He analyzes with host Gilad Halpern what factors propelled Albert Einstein to be the most celebrated scientist of our time, and what part his Jewishness played in it. Song: Dudu Tassa - Mishtara
Nov 03, 2015•21 min
Prof. Monty Noam Penkower, Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at the Machon Lander Graduate School of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, is the author of Palestine in Turmoil: The Struggle for Sovereignty 1933-1939. He talks to host Gilad Halpern about the period during which two intractably adversarial national movements were formed in Palestine. Song: Gidi Gov - Bil'adayich
Nov 03, 2015•28 min
Prof. Warren Brodsky, a music psychologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and author of the recently published Driving With Music: Cognitive-Behavioral Implications , explains to host Gilad Halpern why you should be extra careful before you choose the playlist for your daily commute. Song: Berry Saharof - Od Chozer Hanigoon
Oct 24, 2015•26 min
Dr. Adi Moreno, a sociologist at the University of Manchester in the UK, studies how the increasing phenomenon of gay couples starting families affects preconceptions about family and continuity in Israel. She sits down with host Gilad Halpern. Song: Keren Ann - Lay Your Head Down
Oct 23, 2015•22 min
Dr. Ron Schleifer, head of the Center for Defense and Communication at Ariel University and author of Psychological Warfare in the Arab-Israeli Conflict talks to host Gilad Halpern about an invisible, yet extremely effective, element of warfare in the protracted Middle East conflict and beyond. Song: Ester Rada - Monsters
Oct 17, 2015•26 min
Dr. Cecile Kuznitz, director of Jewish Studies at Bard College and author of YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation retraces with host Gilad Halpern the history of the 90-year-old Yiddish Scientific Institute from Interwar Poland to Postwar America. Song: Tuna ft. Shlomi Saranga - Lama Lo Achshav
Oct 16, 2015•27 min
Dr. Assaf Nativ, post-doctoral fellow in archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the author of Prioritizing Death and Society: The Archaeology of Chalcolithic and Contemporary Cemeteries in the Southern Levant . He explains to host Gilad Halpern how comparing burial practices that are millennia apart can shed light on each other, and on the human condition. Song: Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad feat. Karolina & Loren Oden - Feel Alive
Oct 10, 2015•18 min
Dr. Yonatan Mendel, the director of the Center for Jewish-Arab relations at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, is author of the recently published " The Creation of Israeli Arabic: Security and Politics in Arabic Studies in Israel." Dr. Mendel explains to host Gilad Halpern why generations of Israeli high school students who specialized in Arabic are unable to string a sentence together. Song: Guy Mazig - Levad Bamidbar
Oct 09, 2015•30 min
Jeffrey S. Gurock, professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University, delves into the realm of counterfactual history in his recently published The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jews, 1938-1967. Talking with host Gilad Halpern, he imagines a very different existence for the community had the Second World War taken a different course. Song: Noa Shemer - Noa
Oct 02, 2015•27 min
Dr. Jonathan Rynhold is a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University and the author of a new book The Arab-Israeli Conflict in American Political Culture, which can be bought here . The United States is the only western country where support for Israel has reached an all-time high in the 21st century - Dr. Rynhold explains to Gilad Halpern why this is. Song: Asaf Avidan & The Mojos - Hangwoman...
Sep 26, 2015•27 min
Dr. Asaf Romirowsky, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, has co-authored a new book Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief. He talks to host Gilad Halpern about the involvement of American religious groups in diplomacy and refugee relief during Israel's War of Independence and its immediate aftermath. Song: Ehud Banai - Florentin
Sep 25, 2015•20 min