Terms for a new intermediary hostage-ceasefire deal appear to have been reached through direct negotiations between the US and Hamas, against the backdrop of reports that President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it would be ‘very inappropriate’ for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities militarily.

We’ve spent a lot of time on this podcast lamenting what has gone wrong on U.S. college campuses and within higher education overall. But, there are initiatives being launched and new schools and departments being founded that should give students and aspiring students (and their families) a lot of hope.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin returns to Call Me Back to help us prepare for Shavuot after she helped so many of us navigate our Passover Seders.

It’s been almost two years since the chant ‘globalize the Intifada’ has gone mainstream. Is what happened in DC a manifestation of that chant, or is this a lone-wolf incident? If we look around the globe - from Canada, to France, to Germany, Sweden, the UK and Australia - it looks like the US might be joining an already established club, albeit, a bit late. How should the Jewish community in the US, and Jewish communities around the world prepare, if this is indeed a global intifada?

I have been moved by the reaction to my speech at the annual State of World Jewry Address in the last episode. In Part II of that evening at the 92nd Street Y, I sat down with Rabbi David Ingber, following my address, for a conversation. Rabbi Ingber picked up on some of the ideas in my talk…to probe some more…and push me on several of the issues I raised.

Dan’s address expanded upon many of the topics we often discuss on Call Me Back, but it primarily focused on the challenges ahead for Diaspora Jewish communities in a post-10/07 world. Dan also laid out a first draft of an action plan for Jewish Peoplehood that is no longer prominent and weak but one that is instead Jewish and strong.

Hamas has released hostage Edan Alexander, a US-Israeli citizen, in what Hamas is calling a “gesture of good will” to US President Donald Trump. All of this while the IDF has been preparing a large-scale offensive in Gaza and as the Gulf Summit is about to start in Saudi Arabia where President Trump will be meeting with Arab leaders to discuss further US investment and the future of the Middle East.

A lot is happening, and it’s happening fast. So instead of taping today, Sunday, and releasing Monday morning as we usually do, we will be taping Nadav Eyal and Amit Segal on Monday morning and releasing the episode later in the day. In the meantime, in case you haven’t caught up yet, here’s a quick update on the events that took place this weekend.

It is unclear at this point if this military plan is going to be implemented, or if it is used as leverage on Hamas as a negotiating tactic. That said, Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich said on Monday that “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word’ occupation.” 

Next week, President Trump is heading to Saudi Arabia to convene a summit with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman. The agenda? Arms deals, AI partnerships, and a substantial Saudi investment pledge. Israel isn't on his itinerary, although Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has just announced that he will be traveling to Israel in advance of President Trump’s Middle East trip, and that Secretary Hegseth will be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Katz and Israel’s military leadership. He will then travel to Saudi Arabia to accompany President Trump on his travels.

The Iran-backed Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday morning. The IDF said it tried to intercept the missile using Arrow and THAAD systems, but failed. A number of US and international airlines have since suspended flights in and out of Israel. This was the first time the Houthis had successfully hit Israel’s national airport. To help us understand what happened and possible next steps, we are joined by Call Me Back regular Nadav Eyal for an emergency episode.

Reflecting on how far Israel has come, and where it may go from here, we are joined by bestselling author and senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Yossi Klein Halevi, to discuss the debt we have to Israel’s founders, and to the soldiers who have fallen in its defense. 

This episode of Call Me Back is something of a hybrid between our show and a preview for What’s Your Number? It was our pleasure to sit down with our new hosts, Yonatan Adiri & Michal Lev-Ram, to discuss the historic transformation Israel has been undergoing since October 7th, 2023. 

In this episode, we discuss a number of the charges, explanations, and counter-charges. But the stakes here go well beyond politics. To understand the forces shaping this highly divisive debate, we are joined by journalist and author Ari Shavit, whose work has long examined the fault lines of Israeli society—most recently in his book, The Third Temple.

With both Tehran and Gaza in mind, we turn to two of Israel’s leading journalists: Nadav Eyal, senior analyst at Yediot Achronot, and Amit Segal, senior political analyst at Channel 12 - to understand Israel’s standing on these two critical fronts.

Seven years after President Trump scrapped the Iranian nuclear deal, the U.S. is now engaged in direct negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran to try to reach a new deal. Yet the talks in Oman have so far raised more questions than answers, especially as Steve Witkoff has just clarified the administration's objective with regard to Iran’s nuclear program, and as new reporting emerges of possible U.S.-Israel deliberations over military options.  

As we step into this next chapter, we want to get to know you better so here is a link to a 2 minute survey – we’d be grateful if you could fill it out and send our way. This is a separate survey from the one we provided almost a year ago, so please, even if you’ve filled out that survey, we ask that you spend 2 minutes on this one as well.

In response to escalating tensions with Iran, the US, over the past month, has been quietly — and not so quietly — ramping up its military presence in the region, signaling it’s preparing for the possibility of direct confrontation with Iran. Six B-2 stealth bombers, capable of carrying bunker busting weapons, have been deployed to Diego Garcia, a remote base in the Indian Ocean that's well within striking distance of Iran. At the same time, while missile defense systems have been repositioned to guard against Iranian retaliation, the US Navy has extended the deployment of the Harry Truman carrier strike group and has sent in the USS Carl Vinson, adding serious firepower to the region.

Jews began celebrating Passover during the actual exodus from Egypt, sometime in the 13th–15th century BCE, and the tradition has continued—evolving but unbroken—ever since. To honor this tradition, we will be doing something different on this Call me Back episode - we will be talking about Passover, and about what this tradition can teach us about this paradoxical moment.

It was a historic week in Gaza, as tens of thousands of Palestinians protested against Hamas in the largest demonstrations against Hamas in Gaza’s history. While the protests seem to have dissipated amidst a violent crackdown by Hamas and the killing of several protest leaders, these demonstrations could have a meaningful impact on Gaza’s future. To discuss the context behind these protests and where they might lead, we sat down with a native of Gaza who has been one of the most outspoken voices against Hamas in the Palestinian diaspora. 

For this special episode of Call Me Back, we sat down with two long-time friends, Dina Powell McCormick and Senator Dave McCormick, to speak about their new book, Who Believed in You: How Purposeful Mentorship Changes the World. We also discussed Senator McCormick’s work on Israel/Middle East foreign policy. 

Israelis are bracing for a crisis between the Government and the Judiciary, after the Government took the unprecedented step of firing the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, prompting Israel’s Supreme Court to freeze his suspension. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have made clear their intent to move forward with Bar’s dismissal, and have already started the search for his replacement. 

Today we discuss Israel’s new and expanding military campaign in Gaza, its objectives, the difference in war-fighting strategy between the IDF’s former chief-of-staff and new chief-of-staff, and the kind of enemy the IDF is facing now in Gaza compared to what the IDF was facing before the ceasefire. All of this is against the backdrop of domestic political tensions reaching a boiling point over the Government’s efforts to remove the head of the Shin Bet and the Attorney General.

We recorded an emergency episode as fighting resumes against Hamas in Gaza, ending a cease-fire that lasted 57 days; as military operations escalate between the U.S. and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen; and as Prime Minister Netanyahu moves to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet security agency.

In the immediate aftermath of October 7, 2023, many Israelis expected a political reckoning. Yet, no clear alternative to Netanyahu has emerged. While there is no shortage of politicians who oppose him, the power of those on the center and the left seems stymied at best.

Over the last 17 months, we have watched in shock as Ivy League campuses became hotbeds of support for terrorists and their ideology. A powerful new documentary that the Academy Awards refused to consider illuminates how - and more importantly why - college campuses became a pivotal front in the war against Israel. 

For the second interview in our series with General Gallant, we focused on the most difficult aspect of this war - the hostages in Gaza and the efforts to bring them home.

Though stark divisions in Israeli society remain, there now seems to be a broad consensus among the people of Israel and their political parties on one conclusion: the two-state solution is all but dead. Yet one Israeli leader - one of the very few who battled terrorists in Southern Israel and rescued Israelis on October 7 - continues to hold out hope. 

On Thursday, the IDF released the scathing findings of its probe into the military failures that led up to and accompanied the massacre of October 7, 2023.