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Unholy: Two Jews on the News
Unholy Media
300 episodes
Yonit Levi of Israel's Channel 12 News and Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian are two of the most prominent journalists in the world today. They are also Jews. Each week, join what MSNBC's Rachel Maddow calls "two great, smart smart smart hosts" as they dissect and debate current events shaping Israel, Jewish life - and the wider world. Their blend of nuanced discussion and sparkling conversation, featuring a dazzling range of guests, is why New Yorker editor David Remnick calls himself a “proud, avid listener," why Ira Glass says he "completely enjoys this show" and why Malcolm Gladwell calls it an "incredibly fun podcast". For a weekly fix of globally informed talk – including nominations for the greatest act of chutzpah and outstanding mensch of the previous seven days – there’s only one destination. Make every Friday morning Unholy. Contact us via: unholy@unholy-media.com
Episodes page 1 of 6
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Decision Day - and the General aiming to topple Netanyahu, with David Remnick
Join us on Unholy Live on YouTube the moment the polls close: https://youtube.com/live/EUhNvryZQSo?feature=share After a dizzying final weekend of campaigning, in which Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis that if he…
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The Final Sprint and What to Watch for on Election Night
Reunited in the same studio in Tel Aviv just five days before Israelis head to the polls, Yonit and Jonathan dive into the high-stakes homestretch of an election that feels less like routine politics and more like a…
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Why one word blew up the Israeli election campaign – with Matti Friedman
With just a week to go, Israel’s election campaign caught fire at the weekend, thanks to an incendiary intervention by one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s most ardent media supporters. Channel 14’s Yinon Magal re-opened a deep…
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Netanyahu, Eisenkot and the 61 Problem
Twelve days before Israel votes, Yonit observes that the national mood is neither Britain in 1997 nor America in 2008 - a nation certain that it’s on the brink of change - but one of pure tension on both sides. In the…
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Can you trust the polls? with Dahlia Scheindlin
Two weeks before Israel votes, the polls seem to be telling two different stories — Channel 14 has the Netanyahu bloc at 63 seats, Channel 12 has it at 49. Dahlia Scheindlin, pollster and senior analyst at Haaretz, who…
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The Ghost of October 7th, Wild Polling — and a Response to Mamdani
Three years after October 7th, and eighteen days before Israel votes, this third anniversary felt different from the first two — and yet it may not move a single vote. With no state commission of inquiry, a flydubai…
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Amir Tibon on October 7, three years on - and Israel's election
Three years ago this week, Amir Tibon spent ten hours in a safe room in Kibbutz Nahal Oz with his wife and daughters while Hamas gunmen moved from house to house. They stayed there until he was rescued - by his father,…
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Yuval Raphael on Nova, healing and Eurovision
A note to listeners: This episode includes a Nova survivor’s account of October 7, including descriptions of traumatic events that some listeners may find distressing. Three years after the Nova festival massacre,…
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Drama in the skies - politics on the ground
As a wave of euphoria and relief sweeps Israel, following the attempted - and foiled - hijacking of Flight FZ1073, Yonit and Jonathan delve deep into the story and its implications. They discuss the courage and…
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Mansour Abbas: The Man who would be Kingmaker
Watch this interview in Hebrew and English subtitles: https://youtu.be/zh-KenD4s5w Ra'am has done something no Arab party in Israel has tried before—put a Jewish, Zionist former police major general on its slate. With…
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The Disqualification Games, German angst — and Wayne Rooney’s Bubbe
Decision day approaches for the judges who will determine who is - and who is not - allowed to stand in the Israeli elections on 27 October. The supreme court is likely to overturn a move by the government to ban the…
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The Haredi Playbook: MK Yitzhak Pindrus on the Draft, Coalition Red Lines, and the Future of the Community
With Israel deep in an election campaign and the country still grappling with the strains of a multi-front war, the fiercely contested exemption of ultra-Orthodox men from the IDF draft remains the issue threatening to…
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Polls, Naza, Macklemore
With Yonit feeling a little under the weather, Jonathan is joined by friend of the podcast, Haaretz military affairs analyst Amos Harel (also, author of 6:29). They discuss a new poll showing Benjamin Netanyahu gaining…
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Ilana Dayan on Israel's Most Crucial Choice
As Israel heads into what may be the most consequential election of its history, the country is still arguing less about where it's going than about how it got here. This week, Yonit and Jonathan sit down with a titan…
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The Lists, the Sanctions, and six weeks to go
September 8th was the deadline for Israeli parties to file their lists — and Netanyahu reached it less organised than he'd have liked, with a rival on the right running alone, a reserved slot for his own Channel 14…
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Rabbi Angela Buchdahl on forgiveness, Zionism and Mamdani
The Jewish new year arrives with the word ‘Zionist’ deemed an insult and a technology that never forgets anything that anyone has ever said or done. Following Unholy tradition, Yonit and Jonathan usher in the season of…
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Rock Bottom Politics and the Art of the If-Pology
Seven weeks out from an election that in many ways is a referendum on culpability for October 7th, Benjamin Netanyahu tells Channel 14 that if only they had woken him earlier that fateful day, everything would have…
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Gordon Brown on Nationalist Populism, Israel and Hope
The former UK Prime Minister and Chancellor joins Yonit and Jonathan for the latest of our Unholy Conversations — on the void populist nationalists have moved into, on the difference between hope and optimism, on the…
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The 60-Day Countdown, Sledgehammer Politics -- and Dolly Parton
Join as Friend of the pod: https://www.patreon.com/cw/Unholypod With sixty days to go until the Israeli elections, the political jockeying enters into overdrive. Yonit and Jonathan break down the high-stakes coalition…
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Andy Nyman on saying "F-You" to Hitler on stage
It's the end of summer, and Yonit and Jonathan are taking a break from the news with a nugget of pure Jewish joy. Andy Nyman — the West End actor, writer, director and magician currently starring as Max Bialystock in…
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Bibi's Primary Battles, Gaza Deadlines, and the Plus-sign "Plot"
Send us your questions at: https://www.speakpipe.com/Unholy Visit our website to learn more about Unholy and become a friend of the pod: www.unholy-podcast.com Sixty-eight days from the election, the hardest problems…
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The Middle East Cauldron - with Simon Sebag Montefiore
Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore returns to Unholy to discuss his sweeping new book, The Cauldron: A History of the Middle East between 1900 and 2026. He tells Yonit and Jonathan that understanding the region…
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Clash with the White House, clash on the West Bank
Benjamin Netanyahu has said no to Donald Trump's 15-point Gaza plan, and the refusal is flat rather than fudged. In the West Bank, extremist settlers have besieged two Palestinian families in the village of Qusra,…
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The mediaeval image of the Jew - and why it’s lasted. With Miri Rubin
Three of the oldest myths about Jews — relating to money, blood and the way they look — were forged in medieval Christian Europe, mostly in places where there were almost no Jews to observe. Miri Rubin, professor of…
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Trump moves on Gaza, Netanyahu moves on his opponents
With Yonit away, Jonathan is joined by Anshel Pfeffer, Israel correspondent of the Economist, as they discuss the muted reaction to the announcement made by Donald Trump of what he hoped would be hailed as a…
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Heather Reisman on How Canada's Jews Became a Target
Just over 400,000 Jews call the country home, a community that lived through what many call a golden age of acceptance before watching it fracture. Jewish Canadians, under 1% of the population, are now the target of…
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Likud against the world, Democrats against each other
Ninety days before Israel votes, the campaign is revealing much about both the candidates and the country. The defense minister boasts about applying different detention rules to Jewish and Arab citizens — at a primary…
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Rahm Emanuel
Fresh off his tour of Israel and Europe, this week on Unholy Conversations, Yonit and Jonathan speak to Rahm Emanuel—former Chief of Staff, Congressman, Chicago Mayor, Ambassador to Japan and perhaps future…
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Trump’s Saudi nuclear deal, Israeli elections get real
A nuclear deal between Washington and Riyadh breaks overnight — and Israel learns the terms from the same press release as everyone else. This week, Yonit and Jonathan dig into what the US–Saudi agreement does and…
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First Time Voters in Israel
This week, Yonit and Jonathan sit down with three first-time voters — Aviv, Yael and Dror — to talk about the topics that will shape these election - the judicial overhaul, whether Arab parties belong in a coalition,…
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Espionage in Iran, election manoeuvres in Israel - and unlikely football glory
The US-Iran war is back on. The ceasefire has collapsed, the naval blockade is reimposed, and Israel is asking if a moment is coming when the missiles turn its way. With Yonit away, Jonathan is joined by New Yorker…
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Jews and Football: a forgotten story - with David Bolchover
As football fans across the globe gear up for the World Cup final on Sunday, Jonathan talks to the author of a new book that uncovers a hidden story: the Jewish players who were once football’s biggest stars. David…
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Bibi’s dash to remake Israel, Rahm Emanuel’s warning and a wedding to beat the odds
Donald Trump declares the Iran ceasefire dead, while a new poll has alarming news for Benjamin Netanyahu: New York's trenchantly anti-Israel mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is more popular with American Jews than he is. This…
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Danielle Haas on NGOs, Antisemitism & Institutional Bias
A new report accuses the world's most trusted human rights organizations of a problem that goes far beyond anti-Israel bias: antisemitism, and a culture that pushes out Jewish staff for naming it. This week, Yonit and…
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1,000 Days, Election Maneuvers & America at 250
A thousand days after October 7th — and Benjamin Netanyahu wants to talk about unity. This week, as Israel edges closer toward elections, Yonit and Jonathan discuss a prime minister campaigning on togetherness after-…
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Jason Burke on Iran, Entebbe - and how to fight global terror
A wave of antisemitic terror swept across Western Europe this spring — and one man appears to have been behind it all. This week, Yonit and Jonathan hear the full, remarkable story as they sit down with Jason Burke,…
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Reality bites: Trump, Bibi and the Mamdani Effect
The new reality of Washington’s relationship with Israel is slowly sinking in — and it’s not pretty. As JD Vance grows visibly chummier with Qatar and Pakistan than with Israeli officials, Yonit and Jonathan discuss…
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Naftali Bennett
Israel just learned that the US and Iran have agreed to a deconfliction cell with Lebanon — and Israel wasn't in the room. As the dust settles on a war whose outcome is, at best, ambiguous, Yonit and Jonathan sit down…
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E-Signed, Sealed, Delivered
As the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding is signed in Versailles — covering a ceasefire, sanctions relief, and billions in unfrozen assets, but saying nothing about uranium enrichment, centrifuges, ballistic…
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Nir Bar Dea on the New World Order, AI, and Israel's Risks
This week’s Unholy conversations is a rare interview with Nir Bar Dea, CEO of Bridgewater—the world's largest hedge fund. Bar Dea moves beyond market trends, framing our current moment as a volatile collision between a…
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Bibi’s Tightrope, Eisenkot’s Rise, Iran’s Shadow, and the U.S. Primary Wars
Yonit is joined by Yaakov Katz, author, columnist and former editor of the Jerusalem Post, and together they try to make sense of a week that had it all: a 17-hour mini-war with Iran, Trump growing visibly impatient --…
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Dr. Galit Atlas on Trauma and Emotional Inheritance
Israeli children are still running to shelters. The hostages are home, but the wars keep coming. And somewhere underneath it all — the October 7th trauma, the Iran strikes, the hostages, the endless sirens — something…
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Special Update - Iran and Israel Clash, Trump says 'Stop'
Iran broke a two-month ceasefire on Sunday night, launching missiles at Israel after Netanyahu struck Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut. By Monday, Trump declared an immediate stop — but the questions it raised won't…
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Bombs and F-bombs: Trump, Netanyahu and ceasefire talks
The fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government is overshadowed by an already notorious phone call where Donald Trump reportedly dropped multiple F-bombs on Benjamin Netanyahu for threatening…
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Amos Harel on the Anatomy of a Failure - how October 7 happened
This week, Yonit and Jonathan sit down with acclaimed military and intelligence analyst Amos Harel to discuss his new book 6:29 -Anatomy of a Failure — a devastating, meticulously reported account of October 7th and…
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Ceasefire talk, hostage politics and Logan Roy
A US-Iran deal appears to be taking shape — and Israel isn't in the room. As diplomatic back-channels buzz and American strikes on Iran continue under a ceasefire that apparently requires bombing to maintain, Netanyahu…
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Franklin Foer on why fatalism isn't a strategy for American Jews
Franklin Foer is the man who declared that the golden age of American Jewry is over - or at least ending. Two years on — in the aftermath of October 7th and the Gaza war, collapsing bipartisan support for Israel, a…
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Flotilla Disgrace, Election Fever and Football Joy
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…
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Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy On the sexual violence of October 7
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…
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Bibi's secret visit, Israeli election timetable - and a veteran mensch
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…
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