Shows / The Promised Podcast
The Promised Podcast
An inside view of how Israel can warm your heart and make your blood boil. It's a show hosted by folks who live in and love Israel even though it drives them crazy, and who each week discuss the latest in Israeli politics, culture, and society.
Episodes
The Promised PodcastThe "Well, Glad That's All Settled!" Edition
Miriam Herschlag, Tehila Wenger and Noah Efron talk about the whos, whats, whens and whys of this week's elections, and what they say about us today and augur…
The Promised PodcastThe "Tim Gunn's Fashion Guide to Israel's Elections" Edition
Linda Gradstein, Judah Ari Gross and Noah Efron ask, for each of the 13 parties that are most likely going to be in the next Knesset, why for their voters…
The Promised PodcastThe "Generis, sure, but Sui?" Edition
Miriam and Noah talk about (1) Whether or not it's true, like so many people are saying, that the upcoming elections are maybe the most consequential in the…
The Promised PodcastThe "The Case for Netanyahu" Edition
Allison, Judah and Noah talk about (1) Why, despite all the hardships and miseries of the past three years, Benjamin Netanyahu is still a viable candidate for…
The Promised PodcastThe "Denominators, Common & Otherwise, are Hard!" Edition
Tehila Wenger, Rotem Ur Soco and Noah Efron talk about (1) The so-called "Statement of Principles" signed this week by the leaders of the so-called "Parties of…
The Promised PodcastThe "Fruit of the Beautiful Tree" Edition
In a very special episode in celebration of the holiday of Sukkot, Noah goes on about the etrog, its complicated past, and the hope it holds for the futures of…
The Promised PodcastThe "Screenings" Edition
Tehila Wenger, deputy director of the Israeli branch of the Geneva Initiative, and Noah talk about why so many Jewish-Israeli politicians and parties rule out…
The Promised PodcastThe "New Beginnings & Grisly Ends" Edition
Linda, Judah and Noah talk about (1) the weird party mergers and odd-couples running together for Knesset in the upcoming elections, and what these strange…
The Promised PodcastThe "Two Years of Mourning Hersh" Edition
Two years ago, this week, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin and Libi & Orly Goldberg-Polin buried their son and brother Hersh. The rest of us did, too. In…
The Promised PodcastThe "New-Fangled Marranos" Edition
Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron talk about (1) a new "working man's ultra-Orthodox party" that wants science in the classroom and Haredim in the boardroom and…
The Promised PodcastThe "Allison's Girl Makes Good!!!" Edition
The Jerusalem Post's Hannah Brown and Noah Efron talk about (1) the criminal harassment of Abu Rida and the Hassan families in Qusra, (2) the surprising…
The Promised PodcastThe "Elections Inflections & Insurrections" Edition
Linda, Judah, and Noah talk about (1) The new parties springing up in the "middle" of Israel's electoral map, between the Netanyahu bloc and the anti-Netanyahu…
The Promised PodcastThe "Love and the City" Edition
In this very special episode, Noah shares love letters he heard walking the streets of Tel Aviv with Lucy the Dog, on a new "Love Letters" app made by genius…
The Promised PodcastThe "The Other Guys" Edition
Linda and Noah talk about (1) What has become of the "Religious Zionism Party," after its sort-of primaries made it a settler-only affair?, and (2) What are…
The Promised PodcastThe "Picking Sides" Edition
On Tisha B'Av, Allison Kaplan Sommer, Judah Ari Gross, and Noah Efron talk about (1) this week's primaries in the "Democrats Party" and what they say about…
The Promised PodcastThe "Blitzed!" Edition
Star teacher and activist Rotem Ur-Soco, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron talk about what to make of 1) The "blitz" of legislation passed by the government in…
The Promised PodcastThe "Basketball Courts & the Other Kind" Edition
Geneva Initiative Deputy Director Tehila Wenger, Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron talk about: 1) The Cabinet's dramatic statement implying that the government…
The Promised PodcastThe "One Thousand Days" Edition
Linda, Judah and Noah talk about: 1) The grim milestone marking one thousand awful days since October 7, and what these one thousand days have been for us, and…
The Promised PodcastThe "Winners & Losers" Edition
Linda and Noah talk about: 1) a Hebrew University poll finding that eleven out of twelve Israelis think that Iran "won the war", and 2) the eviscerating new…
The Promised PodcastThe "Great Things" Edition
Miriam and Noah talk about: 1) The "great deal" that US President Donald Trump struck with Iran, being a Memorandum of Understanding that does what now?, and…
The Promised PodcastThe "Linkages" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about: 1) Our strange, short, truncated warlet with Iran this week, and 2) New findings that point to a weird entanglement between…
The Promised PodcastThe "Saw It on YouTube!" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about President Yitzhak Herzog's alarmed warning that we are turning into animals, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's very viral…
The Promised PodcastThe "Fronts" Edition
Linda, Noah and Judah Ari Gross talk about the war with Iran and the peace with Gaza, and how US President Donald Trump's diplomatic ADD makes it close to…
The Promised PodcastThe "Can the Center Hold?" Edition
Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron try to make sense of why long-time allies and fellow-travelers of former Alternate Prime Minister and former IDF Chief-of-Staff…
The Promised PodcastThe "Paths to Perdition" Edition
Miriam, Noah, and Deputy Director of the Geneva Initiative Tehila Wenger talk about: 1) The controversial opinion piece in the Times suggesting that Israeli…
The Promised PodcastThe "School Daze" Edition
Allison, Noah and (for some of the time) special star-ringer Professor Gordon Lafer talk about: 1) How the war with Iran seems to have quickened a surprisingly…
The Promised PodcastThe "This Feeling is Called Hope" Edition
Linda and Noah talk about 1) President Yitzhak Herzog's split-the-baby reply to Prime Minister Netanyahu's request for a pardon, saying he will host and…
The Promised PodcastThe "Men & Gods" Edition
Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron talk about 1) The imposed cease-fires, and whether Israelis ought to worry we're becoming a vassal state, and 2) What explains…
The Promised PodcastThe "Bombs and Balms" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about 1) Whether or not, as an essay in the New York Times suggests, war has become "not a strategy but the norm" for Israel, (2) The…
The Promised PodcastThe "War is Over! (If You Ignore a Thing or Two)" Edition
Linda and Noah talk about: 1) The abrupt, maybe fleeting, end to the war with Iran, and what it means, and 2) The "Death Penalty for Terrorists" law recently…
The Promised PodcastThe "Egypt Within Us" Edition
Linda, Noah and journalist Judah Ari Gross discuss: 1) the Jewish thugs attacking, hurting and terrorizing Palestinians on the West Bank and, relatedly, 2)…
The Promised PodcastThe "Radio Days" Edition
Ninety years ago this week, Hebrew was heard on airwaves as the Voice of Jerusalem had its first broadcast. The feint echoes of the thing are worth listening…
The Promised PodcastThe "Confounded, Unbounded & Undergrounded" Edition
In this gala return of the Podcast, Miriam and Noah talk about (A) What this thing with Iran is, (1) Whether these days we're seeing a new, more Strangelovian…
The Promised PodcastThe "Ran's Sheloshim" Edition
Today marks the thirtieth day since we buried Ran Gvili, the hostage who came home last. The thirty day mark, the Sheloshim, signifies the end of the period of…
The Promised PodcastThe "'We Did Nothing Special': Remembering Uri Lupolianski" Edition
Uri Lupolianski was the first ultra-Orthodox mayor of Jerusalem, and he was convicted of corruption. A week after his death, Noah says that he was also a…
The Promised PodcastThe "Candles in the Wind and Candles in the Window" Edition
In this last episode before our two month break (save for an occasional special, check your feed!) Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron talk about (1) What to make…
The Promised PodcastThe "Aftermaths" Edition
Allison, Don and Noah talk about (1) whether we are being buffeted by what some experts call a "mental health tsunami," after all that has happened, and (2)…
The Promised PodcastThe "Pardon Me?" Edition
Miriam and Noah talk about (1) the Prime Minister's request that the President pardon him, to put an end to our long, national downer, and (2) what to make of…
The Promised PodcastThe "Old Ends & New Beginnings" Edition
Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron talk about (1) our slow slouch seemingly back towards war on four fronts – Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran – why is it happening…
The Promised PodcastThe "Keeping the Peace?" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about (1) the spike in thuggish thuggery of young Jewish thugs, throwing rocks, beating with sticks, setting fires, sparking fear among…
The Promised PodcastThe "All the iPhones in the Sea" Edition
Miriam Herschlag, Noah Efron and managing editor at eJewishPhilanthropy Judah Ari Gross talk about (1) the storm of protest and worry over the discovery that…
The Promised PodcastThe "The Big Picture" Edition
Noah talks about the big questions about Israel's future with historian, journalist, public intellectual and podcaster Marc Shulman.
The Promised PodcastThe "So Maybe He Did Know What He Was Doing?" Edition
Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron talk about (1) the on-again-off-again fragility of the ceasefire, visiting death on both sides, and (2) whether or not Prime…
The Promised PodcastThe "To Arrive Where We Started" Edition
Allison and Noah talk about what the hell they make of the neither-fish-nor-foul liminal state we find ourselves in now and what the hell the future holds for…
The Promised PodcastThe "Two Years & Twenty Points" Edition
Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron talk about (1) US President Donald Trump's "Twenty Point Plan," to bring home the hostages and end the war, and (2) On the…
The Promised PodcastThe "Atonement, Judgement, Compassion, Forgiveness, Pardon, and Repentance" Edition
For this Yom Kippur, we return to stuff that gave us solace and understanding in the past.
The Promised PodcastThe "Reckoning with Reckoning" Edition
Linda Gradstein, Don Futterman and Noah Efron talk about (1) The very viral essay by Yossi Klein Halevi, pressing Israelis to finally engage in the moral…
The Promised PodcastThe "Spartan and Smartin'" Edition
Linda and Noah talk about (1) Israel's newest invasion of Gaza City, and Prime Minister Netanyahu's chillingly Strangelovian gird-your-loins speech ahead of…
The Promised PodcastThe "Reckoning and Wreckoning" Edition
Miriam and Noah talk about (1) Israel's bombing of Qatar, in failed hope of killing the leaders of Hamas, with the possible result of killing the negotiations…
The Promised PodcastThe "Sixteenth Sheep" Edition
Noah wonders why the show people here in Israel most want to see—more than at any time in the country's history, and maybe in all of Jewish history—is a…
The Promised PodcastThe "Elul, Baby!" Edition
Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron talk about (1) Benny Gantz's proposal to form a "Government of Hostage Redemption" and why everyone hated it, and (2) The…
The Promised PodcastThe "The Big Questions" Edition
Allison Kaplan Sommer, Sara Hirschhorn and Noah Efron discuss (1) when is it genocide, and does it matter if people use that word or not, and why, and (2)…
The Promised PodcastThe "More War, More Bloodshed" Edition
Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss (1) the thinking behind the Prime Minister's decision (and his "Security and Diplomatic Cabinet") to extend and…
The Promised PodcastThe "Gaza: Yesterday & Tomorrow" Edition
Linda Gradstein, Gilad Halpern and Noah Efron discuss (1) the 20th anniversary of the "disengagement plan" and the evacuation of 21 Jewish towns in Gaza, and…
The Promised PodcastThe "No Guide to the Perplexed" Edition
Allison Kaplan Sommer, Linda Gradstein and Noah Efron discuss (1) Hunger in Gaza, and (2) French, English and Canadian plans to recognize the state of…
The Promised PodcastThe "Reuniting & De-uniting" Edition
Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss (1) The dramatic moments this week when hundreds of Druze from Israel crossed into Syria to help Druze in Suwayda under…
The Promised PodcastThe "Means, Ends & Mean Ends" Edition
Linda Gradstein, Gilad Halpern and Noah Efron discuss (1) What to make of the New York Times Magazine's percussive essay called, "How Netanyahu Prolonged the…
The Promised PodcastThe "Washington, Doha & Oslo" Edition
Miriam Herschlag and Noah Efron discuss (1) Prime Minister Netayahu's trip to DC to break bread with President Donald Trump, to dot the I's an cross the T's on…