"Ask Haviv Anything" is a podcast about history, a podcast you, dear listener, will help to shape and direct, focusing not just on what I want to talk about but...
Recorded Thursday, February 20thIsraelis watched horrified on Thursday, as Hamas gunmen conducted a ceremony handing over four coffins, two of them with the bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, aged 1 and 4, when they were murdered in Gaza, along with their mother Shiri. Oded Lifshitz, 83, was the fourth body handed over to Israel. Around the ceremony, Gazan civilians cheered and threw rice, people brought their kids to watch.What should we make of this gruesome spectacle, of a festival conducted over the coffins of little children?Some thoughts on what Israelis, and with them, the whole Jewish world, just witnessed.Thank you to Joe and Shira Lieberman for sponsoring this episode in honor of those we lost on October 7th.
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Episode 2: The lost history of American Jews
American Jews constitute the biggest, wealthiest, most influential and safest Jewish diaspora community in Jewish history, and also among the most Jewishly illiterate and profoundly anxious about their future.There's a good reason this immense and powerful community is also culturally weak and unsure of itself. There is deep history behind its illiteracy, a story of tragedy and trauma, rebellion and rebuilding.We unpack it all in this episode.Thank you to Joe and Shira Lieberman for sponsoring this episode in honor of those we lost on October 7th.
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Episode 1: The Untold Story of Herzl's Journey to Zionism
It’s hard for a modern Jew to grasp the depth of marginalization and ostracism that even the most assimilated of Austrian Jews experienced in the 1890s. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, began his journey as a passionate assimilationist, a deep believer in European modernity and Germanic culture. It was only when these hopes were dashed that he turned, as a drowning man to a life raft, to political Zionism.Here is the untold story of how Herzl found Zionism. (Spoiler: It wasn’t the Dreyfus Affair.)Thank you to Joe and Shira Lieberman for sponsoring this episode in honor of those we lost on October 7th.
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Extra: Hamas holds Gaza's future hostage
*Recorded Saturday night, February 8, 2025*First reflections in response to Hamas's hostage release ceremony in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza on Saturday, when Israelis discovered the extent to which the hostages had been tormented and starved.Episode first aired Sunday on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything).
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Episode 0: History That Matters
"Ask Haviv Anything" is a podcast about history, a podcast you, dear listener, will help to shape and direct, focusing not just on what I want to talk about but on what you want to learn and discuss. Nothing is off limits. We're going to talk about big and painful things, and also beautiful and fascinating things, wars and identities and painful history. And also more light-hearted things. Humor matters, especially when facing tough subjects.
Join me on this journey.
"Ask Haviv Anything" is a podcast about history, a podcast you, dear listener, will help to shape and direct, focusing not just on what I want to talk about but on what you want to learn and discuss. Nothing is off limits. We're going to talk about big and painful things, and also beautiful and fascinating things, wars and identities and painful history. And also more light-hearted things. Humor matters, especially when facing tough subjects.
Join me on this journey.
New Zealand