Breakdown of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in 20 seconds: The year is 1947 and the UN announces its Partition Plan for Palestine, also known as resolution 181. Promptly, the Arabs residing in the region open fire on Jews. Eventually a war breaks out and the exodus of 700,000 Palestinians ensues. This has turned into one of the most controversial debates in modern history. What caused the Palestinian exodus in the years 1947-1949? There’s the mainstream Zionist narrative, more or less that Arab...
Jan 01, 2019•42 min
September 3, 2011. Close to half a million people hit the streets in Israel, 300 thousand of them in Tel Aviv, wielding their megaphones and posters, shouting at the top of their lungs, “The nation demands social justice!” This was the climax of the 2011 social justice protests which took place in Israel. What started as a small protest against the rise in housing prices quickly transformed into a national phenomenon that took the country by a storm and encompassed a wide range of issues from he...
Dec 25, 2018•1 hr 10 min
This morning the sun rose. Birds were chirping and the middle east was still turbulent. Yes, even when Israel is not making headlines on CNN, things still tend to get pretty messy down here. We may not always feel it in our rose-colored-bubble of TLV, but the wheels of evil forces keep spinning, enemies are conspiring against us and we’re always prepared for the next war, which might be the last. It is in times like this that it’s good to have someone around who can actually understands the midd...
Dec 18, 2018•49 min
”Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning”. This perfectly crafted sentence opens probably one of the most important novels of the 20th century, written by probably one of the most important novelists in modern literature. It was written by a 30-something year old Jew from Prague. In his short life he went on to write several books that would make his name almost synonymous with modern literature. That name is Fr...
Dec 11, 2018•45 min
Let’s do a little thought experiment. Imagine you’re going to your local supermarket. When you leave your house, or your apartment building, do you take a right or a left? Think about the next steps. When do you turn? How do you know when to turn? When do you cross the street? Or if you’re in a car, how many traffic lights do you pass? Now let me ask you something a little more specific. How many meters exactly is it to your closest supermarket? What cardinal direction is it in exactly? Unless y...
Dec 04, 2018•48 min
The battle against BDS is a sort of David vs Goliath style fight. On one side you have the BDS supporters, heavily funded by foreign governments and NGOs, reinforced by celebrities, activists and an army of social media justice warriors. And on the other side you've got a handful of eloquent volunteers who stand as a human shield, trying to protect what’s left of Israel’s dignity in the world. The battle is not an easy one at all. Ask Hen Mazzig. Hen is an Israeli Jew from Mizrahi descent (we’ll...
Nov 26, 2018•47 min
Two Nice Jewish Boys discuss the aftermath of the Pittsburgh attack, Israeli and Diaspora Jewish relations, and much more in this cross over episode with Shmuel Rosner of Rosner's Domain. Tune in and subscribe to get updates about our weekly episodes! (Photo: www.wtae.com)
Nov 13, 2018•48 min
Like it or not, the 21st century is the century of Islam. This 1,400 year old religion has around 1.5 billions believers, and its philosophy and morals are profoundly shaping the world in which we live. Like any religion, Islam has its beauty as well as its dark sides. To some parts of western society, Islam is associated with warmongering, cruelty and terror. To others, it’s just another religion to be respected alongside Judaism and Christianity. Many know the story of the two most dominant st...
Nov 06, 2018•53 min
Hi-tech and innovation have brought many good things to the world. Social media connected us to one another and in doing so gave power to the citizens of the world. Search engines gave us access to knowledge and the day may come when autonomous cars will rid us of accidents on the road and save millions of lives. But start-ups may also have dark sides. Facebook helped, unwittingly, spread fake news and foreign governments used it to intervene in the democratic process in America. Bitcoin and oth...
Nov 01, 2018•48 min
Elisha Abas was a talented kid. The great-Grandson of the legendary Russian pianist Alexander Skriavin, Elisha’s talent was noticeable as early as age 4, when he started learning Piano at the Jerusalem conservatory. By the time he was 11, he had already performed with Leonard Bernstein in Carnegie Hall, as Isaac Stern sat in the audience watching. But alongside his passion for music, young Elisha was also drawn - like so many other Israeli kids - to the game of soccer. And soon enough the boy re...
Oct 23, 2018•48 min
You've heard it before: the fact that the Jewish religion has survived in exile for more than 2000 years is nothing less than a miracle. And really, if you think about it, what are the odds that such an odd religion would persist, especially amidst the multi-billion strong titans of Christianity and Islam? But somehow, it did. For generations upon generations, people said the same prayers in an ancient language they often didn’t even understand. They followed the laws of a God they had never see...
Oct 15, 2018•50 min
An opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a bit like superman boxers - everybody’s got one. And it seems that nowadays no matter where you go - be it indonesia or wyoming - anyone with a pulse will tell you that while it’s true that Arafat said NO to Barak’s peace offer in 2000, it doesn’t really count since Barak was a lame duck by then. There’s one thing, though, that the discussion about the conflict really lacks. It’s subtle, yes, but if used wisely, it has the potential to redefi...
Oct 09, 2018•47 min
Operation Peace for Galilee. The Lebanon War. The First Lebanon War. The 1982 Lebanon War. It’s got a lot of names. The first full blown war the IDF engaged in across its border with Lebanon. The war ended in 1985 - you know, if you look on Wikipedia. But 15 years followed, 15 nameless years. 15 years in which Israeli soldiers - 18 to 21 year old kids - were stationed within Lebanese territory embroiled in a long, drawn out, seemingly endless affair. 15 years of casualties. 15 years of trauma bo...
Oct 02, 2018•52 min
The Internet is a double edged sword - on one hand, it connects people, it entertains, it informs, educates and inspires. But it’s also time consuming, highly addictive and often puts the spotlight on a more sinister side of humanity. Well, if there’s a winning chance for the positive side of the net, it must be thanks to Meir Kay. Meir is an independent content creator on Youtube, a vlogger and an internet personality. He started uploading videos in 2010, and has since become incredibly success...
Sep 25, 2018•55 min
Walking down the streets of Tel Aviv, it’s practically impossible to ignore the humble, yet still extraordinary architecture of this seaside city. Rothschild boulevard, the Neve Tzedek neighborhood, Allenby street - certain parts of Tel Aviv really feel like a film shoot set in the early parts of the last century. One of the styles that strongly influenced this period and today is so iconic to Tel Aviv, is Bauhaus, or more accurately, International Style Architecture. In Tel Aviv, you can’t miss...
Sep 17, 2018•53 min
Americans love reading. And often, more than 140 characters. While here in Israel the number of book readers is at a constant decline - the US book industry is flourishing - not without the help of course of Amazon and others who ushered the book into the digital age. The e-book revolution brought a true disruption to the field of novel writing. Now, when you no longer need a publisher to get your book out there, many aspiring authors try their luck by digitally publishing their own work, and so...
Sep 10, 2018•56 min
4 years ago, under the sweltering heat of Nineveh in the kurdish region of Northern Iraq, the small city of Sinjar came under attack by ISIS forces. The Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, caught off guard, retreated, abandoning the civilians of Sinjar without warning. The outcome was devastating. Thousands massacred. Women and children taken into slavery. A population dissolved by evil. Of course, all this appeared in the headlines, it flashed across our television screens but beneath the surface of th...
Sep 03, 2018•57 min
In the 1990’s the Iron Curtain finally came down, making it possible for approximately 1 million Russian Speaking Jews to flee and immigrate to Israel. It was the biggest single immigration wave in Israel since the 1950’s. But many things have changed since Israel began accepting immigrants - or Olim as they are called in Hebrew, in the golden years of the 50’s. Then, the concept of the melting pot, embraced by Ben Gurion in the hope of creating one homogenous Israeli culture - kept the Israeli ...
Aug 27, 2018•45 min
In today’s world every one of us is a pseudo-photographer. The ubiquity of advanced photography devices has turned us into compulsive picture snappers. But despite this inflation of the photographed image, in fact, perhaps now more so than ever, it remains true that there is much more than just pressing a button in the capturing of a moment. Ziv Koren, one of Israel’s most prominent and world-renowned photographers, has been in the business for almost 30 years. Throughout his life, Koren has doc...
Aug 20, 2018•48 min
Behind every great man stands a great political strategist. As far as political earthquakes go, Donald Trump’s victory in November 2016 was at least an 8 on the Richter scale. Right up until the last second, no one saw it coming. But a few people were probably less surprised than most of us and one of them is surely Steve Bannon. Considered by many to be the architect of Trump’s rise to the White House, Bannon is certainly a controversial figure. To most, he’s a either the despicable leader of t...
Aug 13, 2018•57 min
Science and Religion. The ultimate standoff. It’s hard to imagine two more dichotomous extremes, right? Well, maybe not. Maybe these age old rivals have much more in common than we have been led to believe. Maybe the mythologies that make up religion have nestled in them some deeper truths. Maybe science is a mythology of its own. Do the two not ultimately attempt to answer the same underlying questions: How was the universe created? How did life on earth begin? How does our consciousness work? ...
Aug 06, 2018•45 min
What makes someone a Jew? Some might say: I’m a Jew because I believe in Judaism, and I feel Jewish. But to many, including most Orthodox and conservative rabbis, that’s not enough. Some might say: I’m Jewish because I’ve been converted. But the State of Israel, for example, doesn't recognize Jews who were converted by reform and conservative Rabbis. And to many, even those who converted by the most stringent of laws, are not REALLY Jews, and referred to as “Meguyar” or "Converted" But some peop...
Jul 30, 2018•42 min
Never underestimate the task of a journalist. In the maelstrom of political commentary which seems to pull every news outlet into its powerful grip, it’s probably pretty difficult to swim against the newsfeed and remain true to, well, truth. Especially in today’s endless stream of information. Many English speakers in Israel, and around the world, turn to the Times of Israel for honest reporting on the Middle East. Reading through their articles, you get a sense that the Times of Israel is not l...
Jul 23, 2018•41 min
Reading through a list of Achinoam Nini’s performances, you can’t help but be taken aback by the sheer magnitude of her career. Carnegie Hall, Olympia in Paris, the Colosseum, just to name a few. From humble beginnings, Nini, or Noa as she is known outside of Israel, has conquered the world with her music. In 1994, in the presence of Pope John Paul II, Nini performed Ave Maria for a live audience of 100,000 and a television audience of millions at the Vatican in Rome. In 2000, Nini recorded “La ...
Jul 16, 2018•54 min
Humans yearn for beauty from the moment they are born. And though nature has the ability to supply us with pretty impressive amounts of it, we decide, time and time again, to prove that we can do better, and bigger. It’s hard to know when it was that people started designing things but one thing’s for sure: today, design is deeply intertwined with each and every aspect of our lives. From the mug of coffee you’re just about to sip from, to the handle on your bathroom door, and even the app which ...
Jul 10, 2018•43 min
Undoubtedly, over the past several weeks, you’ve received countless emails from services ranging from Spotify to that restaurant in Ashburn, Virginia whose app you once downloaded to get 10% off their late night delivery, updating you on their new privacy policy. This was due to a little regulation recently passed into law by the EU called GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation. It can be easy to get lost in the conversation about privacy but it is an important conversation to have. In fact,...
Jul 03, 2018•49 min
Every nation needs a mythical hero, a key figure in its history that against all odds, rebelled and fought the malicious powers that be in order to promise a future. To us, Zionist Israelis, the Aharonson family and the Nilly underground is as close to a mythical legend as it gets. So much has been said and written about the British and their ruthless 31 years of occupation in Israel/Palestine between 1917 and 1948. But many seem to forget that before the British, the Ottoman Empire ruled this l...
Jun 24, 2018•48 min
Few figures in Israeli politics, or in global politics for that matter, arouse such extreme levels of both antagonism and diehard support as the man the world has come to know as Bibi. Benjamin Netanyahu was the inheritor of a long dormant dynasty known as the Revisionist movement which eventually developed into the Likud, Israel’s current ruling political party. Every human who rises to such levels of fame and infamy, becomes to a certain degree, mythological. But not too many people know the s...
Jun 18, 2018•50 min
When we hear about cyber attacks, systems getting hacked and ransomware, we usually imagine a bunch of masked hoodlums in a dark basement, probably on the outskirts of Moscow, plotting to bring anarchy upon the world. What we seldom imagine, though, are a bunch of intelligent, successful computer scientists in a luxurious office, looking for security breaches, hacking into systems, and sometimes even taking part in cyber warfare. Keren Elazari was a geeky kid in the 90s when she discovered, at a...
Jun 11, 2018•50 min
Yariv Bash had a simple idea: taking Israel to the moon, for the first time. To pursue his new dream he quit a luxurious job in the prime ministers office, and founded the NGO SpaceIL. Together with his co-founders, they quickly joined Google’s spaceX competition, battling with groups from all around the world to be the first to send a spacecraft to the moon. For many years, spaceIL was leading the competition. But then something unexpected happened. Bash, an enthusiast of extreme sports, had a ...
Jun 05, 2018•47 min
