Unpacking Israeli History
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Unpacking Israeli History
Join self-confessed history nerd Dr. Noam Weissman on a journey through the fascinating and sometimes controversial events and personalities that have shaped Israel’s past and present. Each week, Noam explores the layers of Israeli history, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the cultural forces a...
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195 episoder
Tel Hai: Rethinking Israel's Founding Myth
Tel Hai is a small historic site in the Galilee where, in 1920, a tense standoff between Jewish farmers and Arab fighters erupted into a deadly firefi...
Special Crossover: Can Israelis And Palestinians Ever Live In Peace? With Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib
Will the war ever truly come to an end? Can two populations with so much pain find common ground? Or is the hurt too deep, too vast to overcome? There...
The Old Playbook Behind New York Magazine’s Habibi City
Noam Weissman unpacks the firestorm around New York Magazine’s "Habibi City" issue and traces the deeper historical pattern behind it: the demand that...
Durban 2001: How Zionism Became a Dirty Word
In August 2001, Jewish delegates arrived at the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban expecting to fight bigotry. Instead they walked into what...
Why Israeli Elections Never Produce a Clear Winner
How do Israeli elections actually work? Israelis don't vote directly for prime minister, no party has ever won a majority, and a party with just a han...
Live from Camp Tel Yehudah: Teens Talk Antisemitism, Identity, and Israel
What do Jewish teens really think about Israel? Noam Weissman takes the podcast to Camp Tel Yehudah for a special live episode, exploring Israel, Octo...
Israel's Eurovision story: Boos, ballads, and breaking up with Europe (Part 2)
A little Israeli boy from a poor Yemenite family grew up, transitioned, and became the most scandalous, fabulous Eurovision winner in history: meet Da...
Israel's Eurovision story: How a Middle Eastern country crashed Europe's biggest party (Part 1)
Why does Israel compete in Eurovision if it's not even in Europe? In Part 1, Noam Weissman unpacks how Israel went from Eurovision newcomer to music p...
Live from Camp Lavi: Teens Take on Israel's Toughest Moments
It's summer. Where else do you want to be? Sleepaway camp, obviously.
Unpacking Israeli History packed its bags and went to camp. Noam We...
Israel Open Mic: Is the Palestinian flag Illegal in Israel?
A man is detained over a kippah bearing both the Israeli and Palestinian flags. Was it legal? Noam unpacks the surprising history of the Palestinian...
Should We Retire the Word ‘Zionism’? With Haviv Rettig Gur
Noam sits down with Haviv Rettig Gur in Jerusalem to unpack why Israel feels like a tinderbox, whether it's time to retire the word "Zionism," the deb...
50 Years Since Entebbe: Operation Thunderbolt
Fifty years ago, Air France Flight 139 took off from Tel Aviv on the morning of June 27, 1976. No one could have suspected that the soon-to-be-hijacke...
Nas Daily: The Identity Crisis October 7 Forced Me to Face
Does identity define us or limit us? Noam searches for answers with Nuseir Yassin, better known as internet personality Nas Daily.
Nas D...
The Battle for Jerusalem: Ammunition Hill
In June 1967, Israeli paratroopers fought one of the Six Day War's bloodiest battles to reunify Jerusalem. Ammunition Hill, a fortified Jordanian stro...
Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman [Special Crossover]
Noam Weissman joins Yael Steiner and Jonathan Schwab over at Jewish History Nerds for a special crossover episode on Yitzhak Rabin through the lens of...
Hezbollah Revisited: The Origins of Iran's Most Powerful Proxy
To understand why Iran and Israel are fighting, you have to understand Hezbollah. Noam Weissman revisits the story of Iran's proxy in Lebanon, which h...
The Scandal That Changed Israel Forever: The Rotten Business (Part 2)
In 1954, a group of young Jewish idealists in Egypt were recruited by Israeli intelligence to plant bombs in Western institutions, only to be betrayed...
The Scandal That Changed Israel Forever: The Lavon Affair (Part 1)
The scandal that changed Israel forever began with a failed secret operation in Egypt in 1954. Young Egyptian Jews, recruited by Israeli intelligence,...
How to Kill Israeli Self-Criticism
Israel is no stranger to self-examination. In 1948, Ben-Gurion distributed a poem accusing Israeli soldiers of murder. In 1982, hundreds of thousands...
Real abuse, Reckless Reporting: Haviv Rettig Gur Dissects Kristof's Israel Prison Story
Journalist Haviv Rettig Gur joins Noam to respond to Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column alleging sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israel...
Masada: The Making of a Myth (Part 2)
How did an ancient story of mass suicide become the cornerstone of Israeli national identity? In Part 2, Noam traces Masada's unlikely revival, from f...
Masada: The Siege That Became a Legend
A mountaintop. A siege. A mass death that became legend.
But what if the story of Masada isn’t what we think it is?
In this...
Live with Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Grief, Faith, and Hersh
When Rachel Goldberg-Polin buried her son Hersh, she heard part of herself go into the ground with him. Recorded live before nearly 1,000 people at Te...
Live from London with Scott Galloway: Why the Jewish People Need Better Storytellers
Scott Galloway is one of the most influential voices in the world. He's a professor, bestselling author, and podcaster with millions of followers. Wha...
What Hasan Piker Got Wrong About Einstein and Zionism
Hasan Piker weaponized Albert Einstein on Pod Save America to condemn Zionism. But he left out most of the story. Noam addresses Piker's troubling sta...
Israel's Greatest Paradox with Micah Goodman
Why did Israel's enemies, Sinwar, Khamenei and Nasrallah, all believe Israel was on the verge of collapse? Israeli philosopher Micah Goodman joins Noa...
Is Israeli-Palestinian Peace Still Possible? Ittay Flescher Says Yes
Host Noam Weissman sits down with Ittay Flescher, educator and education director at Seeds of Peace in Jerusalem, for an honest conversation about whe...
Revisiting Osirak: The Airstrike That Shocked the World
We're revisiting one of our most important episodes: the story of Operation Opera, Israel's 1981 surprise airstrike on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor,...
Holy Wars and Sacred Ground: Live from Atlanta with Yardena Schwartz
In this special live episode from Atlanta, Noam Weissman sits down with journalist and author Yardena Schwartz to explore two of the most contested pl...
Israel Open Mic: What Does the Shekel Reveal About Israel?
A listener question about Israel's currency sends Noam on a fascinating journey through Jewish history. From secretly printing Israel's first bills in...
The Kibbutz Movement : From Frontier Defense to Modern Israel (Part 2)
In Part 2 of our series on the history of the kibbutz, Noam Weissman explores how these communal villages helped shape Israel’s borders, identity, and...
The Iran War Explained with Haviv Rettig Gur
As war between Israel and Iran intensifies, Noam Weissman sits down with journalist Haviv Rettig Gur to unpack what’s really driving the conflict. Is...
The Kibbutz Movement: Israel’s Radical Social Experiment (Part 1)
What is a kibbutz, and why did it play such an outsized role in Israeli history? In Part 1 of this two-part series, Noam Weissman traces the origins o...
Special Episode: For Such a Time as This: Purim, Persia, and the Iran War
Missiles in the sky. Purim on the calendar.
As Israel confronts Iran, Noam steps back from the headlines and turns to the Book of Esther,...
What Became of Zionism?: The History of Israel (Part 5 of 5)
In the finale of our five-part series on the Jewish people’s ancient relationship to the Land of Israel, we move into the modern era, when Israel’s de...
Emergency Episode: Inside the Attack on Iran with Avi Melamed
In this special episode, Noam Weissman sits down with Middle East expert and former Israeli intelligence official Avi Melamed to unpack the forces dri...
When Zionism Became a State: The History of Israel (Part 4 of 5)
The dream came true. And then reality arrived.
In the 4th episode of our epic series tracing the Jewish relationship to the Land of Israe...
The Formation of "Modern" Zionism: The History of Israel (Part 3)
As the modern world takes shape, the Jewish longing for Zion turns political. In Part 3 of this five-part series on the history of Israel, Noam Weiss...
When Zionism Went Into Exile: The History of Israel (Part 2)
After the Second Temple falls in 70 CE, the Jewish story shifts from sovereignty to survival--and Zion becomes a memory carried through exile. In Part...
Before Zionism Had a Name (Zionism 1 of 5)
Zionism didn’t begin in the 19th century. It didn’t start with pamphlets, politics, or Theodor Herzl. In Episode 1 of a five-part series, Noam Weissma...