Unholy: Two Jews on the News

As stabbing against Jews in Golders Green rises up, again, the question of security of Jewish communities around the world,  Israel starts the countdown: 6 months to the elections. Yonit and Jonathan discuss the Golders Green knife attack and the wave of antisemitism hitting Britain since October 7th; the Bennett–Lapid merger and what it means for Israel's October elections; whether the Iran–Israel war is on pause or simply reloading; Jake Sullivan's bombshell statement on arms sales to Israel; and — in the awards — Israeli police cutting a Palestinian flag from a Jewish man's kippah, and King Charles delivering a Magna Carta reminder to Congress that Democrats jumped to their feet for. 

Watch us on youtube: https://youtu.be/tCqzaU-DlPM

This week on Unholy Conversations - Howard Jacobson: https://youtu.be/aB-eNbxb41w

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Howard Jacobson has screamed "liar" at the BBC, lost friends over a newspaper article, and started asking his wife whether it's still safe to live in London. Now he's written a novel about all of it.

*Howl* is the story of Ferdinand Draxler — Jewish headmaster, reluctant marcher, man on the edge — who watches the world he believed in applaud the October 7th massacre and descends into a rage that may or may not be madness. Jacobson says he borrowed quite a lot from the last two years of his life.

In this Unholy Conversations episode, Jacobson talks with Yonit and Jonathan about the ungovernable anger behind the novel, why he chose comedy as the only honest vehicle for it, the friends who wrote accusing him of celebrating Palestinian deaths, the Manchester synagogue where he was bar mitzvahed and which was attacked on Yom Kippur, and the question he can't shake: what would we have done in Berlin in 1932?

 

Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/aB-eNbxb41w

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Yonit Levi
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Israel's 78th Independence Day arrives in the shadow of a three-year war — and a nation more divided than ever. As US-Iran talks stall and the Lebanon ceasefire holds by a thread, Yonit and Jonathan take stock of where Israel stands: from the parallel ceremonies splitting the country, to Rahm Emanuel's seismic break from past support for Israeli military aid, to Ezra Klein's "one state reality" argument — and why Yonit thinks it misses half the picture.

Then: a joyful detour. Adeena Sussman, author of the forthcoming Zariz: 100 Easy, Breezy, Tel Aviv-y Recipes, joins to talk about cooking through a war, the fusion of Jewish and Israeli identity on the plate, and why every pot of Sabbath stew is a political act.

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Yonit Levi
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Rachel Goldberg-Polin has stood before the UN, met with presidents, and worn a number on her chest every single day until there were no more hostages in Hamas captivity. Now, months after Hersh was murderd, she sat down and wrote a book.

When We See You Again is not a hostage story and not a political reckoning. It is, as Rachel describes it, a painful love story — a grief memoir written "with one finger from underneath a truck," with no distance, no perspective, and no pretense that any of that is coming soon.

In this conversation with Yonit and Jonathan, Rachel talks about the moment a released hostage told her Hersh had heard her voice in captivity, why she refused to name the officials who promised and delivered nothing, the 87 pages she cut and called "the suitcase," and how Hersh's memory will become a "revolution for go.”

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As Israel marks one week out of 40 days of missiles from Iran, Yonit and Jonathan take apart the week's impossible contradictions: Netanyahu delivering a triumphalist Yom HaShoah speech while 400 kilograms of enriched uranium remain intact in Iran; a fragile Lebanon ceasefire that almost no one trusts; 40 Democratic senators voting against arms transfers; and Italy's far-right prime minister — until now Israel's last ally in Europe — quietly moving toward the exit.

They also clock a historic election in Hungary, what Orban's fall means for the Israeli opposition, and whether Gadi Eisenkot is the figure who finally changes the picture.

 

CHAPTERS: [00:00] Intro

 [02:30] Two kinds of sirens — explaining Yom HaShoah to kids during active war 

[05:00] Yom HaShoah: the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and why Israel chose this date 

[06:00] The war breakfast menu — 40 days and no off switch 

[08:44] Iran ceasefire: fragile, murky, and far from over 

[14:42] Netanyahu's Holocaust Day speech — and what it got wrong 

[20:47] Israeli elections: Eisenkot, Bennett, and the Orban lesson from Hungary

 [27:00] Democrats break with Israel: Slotkin, 40 Senate votes, and who lost America 

[33:45] Italy's Meloni shifts — even the far-right is moving 

[40:41] Chutzpah Award: JD Vance tells the Pope to be careful about theology 

[43:30] Mensch Award: Parents Circle joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony

 

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🎙️ THE HOSTS
Yonit Levi
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Jonathan Freedland
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📩 Contact: [email protected]
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