Unholy: Two Jews on the News

This week Jonathan is in celebratory mode—and no, it's not only because it’s the festival of Shavuot, but because his beloved Arsenal finally won the Premier League, sparking a spontaneous tribal gathering of ‘marauding revellers’ in North London.

Meanwhile, Yonit and Jonathan unpack the volatile situation with Iran, and ask where President Trump’s vague threats of a renewed strike are heading.

Then, it's wall-to-wall condemnation for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose grotesque 56-second video taunting Gaza flotilla detainees was a nightmare for Israel’s defenders especially.

And Jonathan describes his visit to the Nova exhibition in London, which offers a powerful, heart-rending glimpse of the human faces of the October 7th massacre and the shocking refusal of much of the world to look directly at what happened on that day. Plus: a musical mensch for the ages.

Watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRENGUF2AAI

 

⏱ CHAPTERS:

[00:00] Shavuot: Celebrating the Unsung Holiday 

[09:20] Iran's Threats and Trump's Unpredictability

[17:00] Israeli Politics: Elections and Coalition Dynamics

[23:12] Ben-Gvir's Controversial Video: A PR Nightmare for Israel 

[29:15] The Political Landscape in Israel

[39:02] The Impact of the Nova Exhibition

[45:30] Chutzpah and Mench

 

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Two and a half years after October 7th, the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children has published its comprehensive report — 300 pages of meticulously corroborated evidence documenting what was done to women, men, children, and hostages on that day and in captivity since. This week, Yonit and Jonathan speak with Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the founder and chair of the Commission, 2024 Israel Prize laureate, and expert in international law and human rights — the woman who spent more than two years immersed in 10,000 photographs and videos and 430 testimonies so the world could not look away.

They discuss what the evidence reveals about the scale and calculated nature of the atrocities, why so many feminist organisations around the world fell silent, the new legal concept of “kinocide” that the Commission had to coin because no existing term could capture what had happened to families — and what it means that the person who stared deepest into this abyss still believes in peace.

Watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpNOrhqCJ6E

00:00 Introduction

00:43 The scale and scope of the evidence

02:55 The 13 documented patterns of abuse

06:18 What Hamas intended — terrorizing a nation for generations

09:15 How the evidence points to deliberate strategy, not random violence

10:50 Coining “kinocide” — when existing legal language wasn’t enough

14:21 Destroying family bonds: the most intimate atrocities

16:26 Gathering evidence when so much was destroyed and victims were silenced

19:39 Institutional denial — UN Women, Judith Butler, and feminist silence

22:30 Why colleagues looked away: antisemitism and dehumanization

24:38 The report as legal and historical document

27:46 The New York Times report and the question of diversion

31:07 The personal toll — two and a half years immersed in the evidence

34:15 Can this wound ever heal?

35:21 After everything: still a believer in peace

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Yonit and Jonathan discuss a week brimming with unresolved questions. Did Benjamin Netanyahu really travel to the UAE during the war with Iran? Why would he leak it now, and what led the UAE to issue such a quick denial? After a trip to China, where is Donald Trump heading on Iran?

And inside Israel, as the political drama intensified with United Torah Judaism threatening to break ranks with the coalition over the draft bill's failure, could elections be held in September? And what role could be played by a possible plea bargain for Netanyahu?

Finally, there’s a crowded field for our mensch award this week – who will come out in front: a 100 year old international treasure or a newborn baby?

Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7QkyKrD0Km0?si=LrarQpAPjOBhB2WS

 

David Attenborough Tribute: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYFyK6boqC2/

 

⏱ CHAPTERS:

[00:00] Intro — Netanyahu, Trump, and the week in news

[00:43] Yonit's book in Hebrew — "Don't Feed the Lion" lands in Israel

[05:13] Jonathan's Jewish tour of Porto — and the cross that means Jewish house

[09:29] Netanyahu's secret UAE visit — what really happened

[13:10] The UAE denial — implausible deniability explained

[15:10] Iran ceasefire suspended animation — everyone preparing for the next round

[16:01] Trump in China — could Beijing unlock the Iran deal?

[17:20] Lebanon vs. Iran at the UN — the embryo of a new Middle East

[20:13] Israeli elections — United Torah Judaism breaks with Netanyahu

[22:36] Will Netanyahu even run? The plea deal question

[24:10] Western Wall bill — criminalizing non-orthodox practice

[27:15] Gaza: Hamas not disarming, humanitarian aid down 37%

[33:38] Nick Kristof's NYT piece — the controversy explained

[40:40] Chutzpah: Miki Zohar blames October 7th on Bennett-Lapid

[43:02] Mensch: Tom Holland on antisemitism

[44:20] Mensch: David Attenborough turns 100

[46:48] Mensch: Abe Foxman, the last Jewish pope

[47:30] Baby Aviv — Unholy's first baby 🎉

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Maoz Inon lost his parents on October 7th. They were in their safe room, 200 meters from the Gaza border wall, when Hamas came. Aziz Abu Sarah lost his brother — the person who raised him — after he was tortured in an Israeli prison during the First Intifada. Two days after October 7th, Aziz wrote Maoz a letter. Maoz wrote back. That exchange became a friendship, a journey across the Holy Land, and now a New York Times bestselling book: "The Future Is Peace."

This is not a polemic. It is not a policy paper. It is an invitation — to sit with grief that belongs to both sides, to doubt the narratives handed to you, and to imagine that the conflict will end. Because, as Maoz says, it will. The only question is when and how many more lives are lost before it does.

Yonit and Jonathan talk with them about Hamas, religious extremism, on what peace would actually look like, on whether Israelis have any reason to trust again. 

 

Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/0nJ3q4kvVPs

⏱ CHAPTERS:

[00:00] Intro — who are Aziz and Maoz?

[00:47] Maoz: the last phone call with his parents on October 7th

[02:57] Aziz: losing a brother who was his parent

[04:34] The kind of people Maoz's parents were

[08:12] Aziz reaches out — what the letter said

[09:47] Why Aziz wanted to learn Hebrew

[14:23] Are they the minority? How do you make peace mainstream?

[16:36] What would peace actually look like?

[20:18] Yonit pushes: what about Hamas, what about religion?

[24:44] The travelogue — hospitals, holy sites, and shared grief

[26:38] Do Israelis and Palestinians have to give up their narratives?

[33:27] What do Aziz and Maoz still disagree on?

[38:48] Closing — the book, the journey, the invitation

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The Iran war may be over — or it may not. In the space of a few hours this week, Washington ordered warships into the Strait of Hormuz, paused the operation, threatened to resume bombing at higher intensity, and then declared peace was near. 

Yonit and Jonathan cut through the chaos — and ask the question the ceasefire deal still hasn't answered: what happened to Iran's nuclear stockpile? 

Also this week: Bezalel Smotrich calls October 7th "a tactical failure" and says including Arab parties in government would be a thousand times worse. Gadi Eisenkot and former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen join forces. Netanyahu's plea deal murmurs get louder. The UK goes to the polls with antisemitism front and center. And the Chutzpah and Mensch awards both go to the same unlikely figure: Nick Cave, who told a hostile fan to go F himself — and blamed his wife's absence.

Watch us on Youtube: https://youtu.be/R-2p4tL6e7E

[00:00] Intro — Jewish American Heritage Month

[06:54] Iran ceasefire chaos — what is Washington actually doing? 

[10:14] The nuclear question the deal still hasn't answered 

[15:21] Israeli politics: Bennett-Lapid merger recap 

[17:43] Eisenkot + Yoram Cohen join forces 

[21:10] Smotrich calls October 7th a "tactical failure" 

[26:46] Netanyahu: plea deal or Saudi peace card? 

[31:05] UK local elections — Jews as political football [37:05] Chutzpah & Mensch: Nick Cave vs. Lee from Bournemouth [41:10] Ted Turner — a different kind of media owner

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Yonit Levi
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