Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

Inspired by an op-ed by David Brooks in the New York Times called “Why We Got It So Wrong,” the pair discuss how a similar misconception of the political landscape may afflict Israel's center-left as it did the Democratic party.

Rettig Gur discusses a newer face on the political landscape -- October 7-hero and Democrats head Yair Golan -- and talks about how his rise is in many ways a return to "classic" Labor. But, he adds, the classic Labor electorate is rapidly aging -- or fleeing that party.

We hear about a party so far-left as to be an anomaly -- Hadash -- and how extremely controversial comments from its "token" Jewish member MK Ofer Cassif have recently seen him suspended from the Knesset for six months.

We learn that Israel's many parties are a remnant of Israeli tribalism -- which may or may not be how Israelis are voting today.

So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Head of the Democrats Yair Golan at the Knesset in Jerusalem on November 6, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

At the start of the war in retaliation for Hamas's murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces reported that more than 100 percent of reservists called up for duty had shown up — nearly 300,000 reservists in total, marking the largest-ever call-up of reservists in Israel’s history.

This week, we learned that there has been a significant decline in the rate of reserve soldiers showing up for duty and the turnout rate in the reservist units currently fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip has varied between 75% and 85%.

In an effort to bolster the standing army, over the summer, the IDF Personnel Directorate sent out 3,000 draft orders to Haredi men aged 18-26. Out of those 3,000 men, only around 10% have shown up to be drafted into the military.

The IDF’s overall goal for the just concluded draft period — about four months — was 1,300 ultra-Orthodox soldiers. Ultimately it reached just over 900, including those who were drafted outside of the 3,000 new orders.

This means that the IDF has seen an 85% increase in the number of Haredi soldiers joining the army, compared to the same draft period in previous years. However, the military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — 75% of whom will be combat troops.

In our conversation this week, we hear personal anecdotes about the service of Borschel-Dan and Rettig Gur's family this year and how they fit into the broader Israeli experience. We also learn about rising resentment among many segments of Israeli society over the entrenched refusal of Haredim to draft in necessary numbers -- and what could be a way out.

So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: An IDF soldier walks among Haredi Jewish men during a protest against a potential new draft law that could end their exemptions from military service in Jerusalem, October 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.

This week, we hand the mic over to Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and an author, thinker and writer for The Times of Israel and many other outlets.

Recently, Klein Halevi shared with us his longtime interest in interviewing Rabbi Irving Yitz Greenberg, whom he called one of this generation's most important Jewish theologians.

Greenberg has been a central figure in the creation of a post-Holocaust Jewish identity and in establishing Holocaust commemoration projects like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. He is a leader in inter-denominational Jewish pluralism and in Jewish-Christian interfaith dialogue.

Now, at age 91, Greenberg has published his magnum opus, “The Triumph of Life,” which, according to Klein Halevi, offers a brilliant and original argument for a new understanding of Judaism.

So this week, we ask both Yossi Klein Halevi and Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

Image: Left to right: Author Yossi Klein Halevi. (Shalom Hartman Institute); Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg (Courtesy)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.