Warning, sexually explicit material: This week we're speaking with sex therapist Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus, who is the Clinical Director at New York’s Maze Women’s Sexual Health center. Bat Sheva, who is a practicing Modern Orthodox Jew, is also a licensed social worker and treats a swath of women, including from the most ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of New York. Parents: This is a very frank conversation about sex, porn, and masturbation. The discussion is focused on heterosexual marital sex, but if you’re not up for that, please stop listening now and join us again next week. Image: Dr. Bat Sheva Marcus (Nusrat Mulla)
The Times of Israel's Senior Analyst Haviv Rettig Gur talks political transparency and budget this week on the podcast. At least a third of Israel’s cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, have failed to produce a declaration of their personal assets, more than three months after the legal deadline. Gur explains why this matters -- and why no one will do anything about it. Then, Gur does a deep dive into why Netanyahu isn't keen to pass the 2020 budget, and how tens of thousands of lives are affected. And finally, why are top economy bureaucrats dropping like flies? Image: Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Benny Gantz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seen during a vote at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on August 24, 2020. (Oren Ben Hakoon/POOL)
This week w're speaking with Prof. Eric Cline about his newest book, “Digging up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon.” Cline is Professor of Classics and Anthropology at The George Washington University in DC and the author or editor of over 20 books. It’s a work of non-fiction, but some of the tales he tells here are frankly juicy and that’s pretty amazing since it’s about the early days of Chicago’s Oriental Institute and its 1920s and 30s excavations at northern Israel’s Megiddo. Megiddo is known both in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles as a place of great battles. For come Christians, it is the site of the final battle. Cline spent 20 years co-directing the current excavations at Megiddo until 2014. Today, when not hampered by COVID restrictions, he is a co-director of the Tel Kabri excavations. Image: Prof. Eric Cline at Megiddo (courtesy)
This week on The Times of Israel Podcast, we're bringing you a recent conversation with philosopher and best-selling author Dr. Micah Goodman that was part of The Times of Israel’s new Behind the Headlines video events. Other interviewees in the series have included Israeli writer Etgar Keret, performer Neshama Carlebach, and Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy about their new ‘memoirfesto,’ ‘Never Alone.’ Join our Times of Israel Community and be the first to see other upcoming events. Image: Dr. Micah Goodman delivers his acceptance speech for the 2014 Marc and Henia Liebhaber Prize for Religious Tolerance. (courtesy)
This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we’re speaking with two members of the world music band Yamma, singer Talya G.A. Solan and winds player Yonnie Dror. Other band members include Aviv Bahar, Nur Bar Goren and Avri Borochov. The band incorporates Jewish music traditions from across the Mediterranean and Africa, and draws on the musicians’ musical and ethnic backgrounds. Their runaway hit is strangely enough a setting of Psalm 104. The Youtube video alone has gotten almost 6 million views. If you enjoy their music and this talk, check out more of their songs on YouTube and at their website YammaEnsemble.com Image: Yamma Ensemble (Ruth Luar)
The Tomb of the Patriarchs is revered by all Abrahamic religions and is considered by Jews to be the second holiest spot after the Temple Mount. Like at the Temple Mount, no recent archaeological study has been permitted at the site, but a recent scientific study was conducted by Ariel University archaeologist, Prof. David Ben-Shlomo. This is the first high-tech study of the cave’s pottery. Ben-Shlomo co-authored an article charting the systematic compositional analysis of four vessels that were taken from the cave (in Arabic: al-Ḥaram al-Ibrahimi or Ḥaram el-Khalil) in an unauthorized underground incursion in 1981. Spoiler: Ben-Shlomo’s new scientific study found that these vessels are typical of Iron Age IIB (late ninth and eighth centuries BCE) Kingdom of Judah. Hear how the vessels got into his hands and about excavations of ancient Hebron. Image: A general view of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in the West Bank town of Hebron, June 22, 2017. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
This week we’re speaking with Dr. Rabbi Levi Cooper about rabbinic responses to pandemics throughout Jewish history. We’ll speak about how even hundreds of years ago, Jewish communities grappled with contemporary everyday questions, such as whether to limit synagogue attendance, and if so — who should attend? We’ll also discuss a Kabbalistic prayer practice based on the Temple incense ritual that is still being said from on high -- from a helicopter above Jerusalem, in fact. As you’ll quickly hear, Levi is originally from Australia. He immigrated to Israel as a young man, served in the IDF’s Golani Brigade and earned three law degrees, culminating in a Ph.D., from Bar-Ilan University. Today Levi teaches at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies and is a Teaching Fellow at Tel Aviv University’sBuchmann Faculty of Law. He is a prolific writer and a communal rabbi in Tsur Hadassah, just outside of Jerusalem. Image: Dr. Rabbi Levi Cooper at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies (Courtesy of Pardes)
This week, to mark the start of the school year here in Israel, we’re revisiting a live Times of Israel/Beit Avi Chai event with one of Israel’s greatest educators, Prof. Alice Shalvi. Back in January 2019, Shalvi spoke with Jewish World editor Amanda Borschel-Dan onstage at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem in honor of the publication of her memoir “Never A Native.” The memoir has since been awarded the National Jewish Book Award for Women's Studies. Shalvi will soon celebrate 94. Among her many achievements, she is an Israel Prize Laureate, and as one of the country's pioneering religious feminists, she is one of the founders of the Israel Women's Network. In addition to years teaching at the Hebrew University, Shalvi established the Pelech High School for Girls, a school that still continues her tradition of strong learning -- and strong women. Image: Prof. Alice Shalvi (Debbie Cooper)
US-born, Jerusalem-based lawyer Dr. Susan Weiss founded of the Center for Women’s Justice in 2004 to lead the legal battle for equality, dignity and justice for women under Jewish law in Israel. Among other issues, the center is currently involved in a high-profile case involving the Israeli chief rabbinate’s revocation of Jewish status from a three-generational family with roots in the Former Soviet Union. The brief: When the matriarch came to Israel over 30 years ago, like all immigrants, her Jewish status was checked and confirmed. Likewise, during her own and her two daughters’ subsequent marriages. But during one of the daughters’ divorce proceedings, her disgruntled husband alleged his wife is actually not Jewish. After a series of court hearings and opaque checks, the rabbinate has since declared the entire family not Jewish — including the children born here in Israel to parents married by the rabbinate itself — and that all of their marriages are null. So who you gonna call? Teaming up with an organization called DOR 1.5 that is made up of young Russian-speaking Israelis, Susan’s center has recently petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court over what she labels the rabbinate’s over-reach. Image: Dr. Susan Weiss, founder of the Center for Women's Justice. (courtesy)
This week on The Times of Israel Podcast we’re speaking with Rachel Gur, who is a lawyer and a Knesset lobbyist. Rachel works for Lobby 99, which is the world's first crowdfunded nonprofit public interest lobbying firm (https://lobby99.org.il/en). Before she became a lobbyist for the people, Rachel served in senior positions in the Israeli government, including as a legislation advisor and senior advisor to several government ministries. She is truly an expert in Israeli legislation, regulation, and public policy. Full disclosure, she’s also married to The Times of Israel’s senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur, but we won’t hold that against her. Image: Lobbyist/lawyer Rachel Gur. (Courtesy)