Two bus stops in two neighboring towns capture how war can unify, and how it can divide.

The end song is Autobus Mispar Echad ("Bus Number One") by Shlomo Artzi.

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Seeking love. Called to war.

For our Tu B'Av special, we wanted to get a bird's eye view of the local, post-October 7th dating scene. So we went to visit Rebetzin Toby Einhorn, who runs a one-stop-shop for all matters of the heart.

Image courtesy of Jenny Peperman.

The end song is Shir HaShadchanit ("Matchmaker, Matchmaker") from the Hebrew adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof.

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Despite all the experts and pundits out there, few know Hezbollah as well as the members of a small, and often forgotten, community living in Israel.

This community has found itself in an impossible position: Their adoptive country (Israel) is at war with their sworn enemy (Hezbollah), but is also - as a by-product - bombing their hometowns and villages in Southern Lebanon, where many of their friends and family members still reside.

Welcome to the Middle East. As always, it’s complicated.

In today's episode, we hear from Maryam Younnes, whose father was an SLA commander who relocated to Israel back in May 2000.

The end song is Shir Matzav ("A Song of the Situation") by Mika Karni.

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For the last nine-and-a-half months, we’ve been experiencing different kinds of battlefields: There are actual battlefields, where people fight and are wounded and killed. And then, of course, there are secondary battlefields - on college campuses, in the court of public opinion, on social media, on TV, in newspapers, via text messages. And while no one has, thankfully, been killed on those battlefields, they are - in disturbing ways - no less vicious. This reality is so pervasive that for many it’s become the haunting soundtrack of the entire period. But today we want to share one small story, one of countless similar ones that have crossed our radar - about trolling, virtual bullying and Israel bashing.

The end song is Kol Ha'Olam Kulo ("The Whole Wide World") by the Djamchid Sisters.

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Arab-Israelis, or Palestinian Citizens of Israel, or Palestinian-Israelis - all these definitions are obviously complicated and personal and have hefty connotations - found themselves in a very difficult place following the attacks of October 7th. There was a lot of confusion, a lot of suspicion and mainly - a lot of fear. Any statement, any post, any tweet came under extreme scrutiny. Most people chose, therefore, to remain silent. They figured that the benefits of speaking up seemed to be dwarfed by the possible outcomes - being fired, arrested, accused of treason or support of terrorism.

But Ibrahim Abu Ahmad and Amira Mohammed are not most people. They’re both peace activists who live in between the two societies: They’re Muslim and proud Palestinians, on the one hand, but they are also Israeli citizens, speak Hebrew, have many Jewish friends and either live or work in predominantly Jewish cities in the center of Israel.

So when many people around them retreated into a self-imposed post-October 7th silence, they did the exact opposite: They started a podcast called “Unapologetic: The Third Narrative.” On the show they explore their complex identities, and talk to a wide range of guests - Jews, Arabs, Gazans, Israelis. The podcast has taken off, and Amira and Ibrahim have come to model a different kind of discourse, one that challenges the binary and dichotomous definitions we’re so accustomed to hearing.

The end song is Bahlawan ("Acrobat") by Mira Awad.

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On Saturday, four hostages - Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov - were heroically rescued by the Israeli security forces, and safely brought home alive. Still, 120 hostages remain in Gaza - 43 of whom have already been declared dead - and the pressure to sign a deal that will bring them home is mounting from day to day.

Such a deal, of course, has two sides: We tend to focus on what we stand to get, i.e. the hostages. To many, that’s really all that matters. But there are also those who emphasize the other side - what we’d be forced to give, the price we’d need to pay and the people we’d need to release. Our episode today brings us that part of the story.

Moriah Cohen is 29 years old. She and her family are part of the small Jewish settlement of Shimon HaTzadik, inside the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarah in East Jerusalem. For years this neighborhood has been a focal point of legal battles, demonstrations and violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. On December 8th, 2021, Moriah was stabbed right outside her home. Her attacker was Nafoz Hamad, her next door neighbor's 14-year-old daughter. Hamad was apprehended, tried and sentenced to 12 years in prison. But then, in November 2023, as part of the prisoner swap between Israel and the Hamas that brought 80 Israeli hostages back home, she was set free. And not only was she released, Hamad moved back home, right across the street from her victim, Moriah. We visited Moriah in her home, and talked about this complicated and utterly surreal reality.

Maya Thomas is our dubber.

The end song is Hacheder Ha'Intimi Sheli ("My Intimate Room") by Taarovet Eskot.

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Lihi Lapid is a celebrated photojournalist, columnist and best-selling author - of children's books, cookbooks and award-winning novels. She’s also married to Yair Lapid, the former Israeli Prime Minister and current Leader of the Opposition. In 2021 Lihi published Zarot, a sweeping tale that explores a complicated mother-daughter relationship, the tolls of immigration and the reality of marginalized groups within Israeli society. When it came out, it received glowing praise, especially from the notoriously harsh critics at Haaretz who called the novel, “a wonderful work written with restraint and wisdom.” And this spring, three years later and in what is an entirely different world, the English translation - On Her Own - was published by HarperCollins. We sat down to talk about October 7th, feminism, special needs, and what it’s like to have a major work of fiction - written by the former Prime Minister’s wife - come out in the middle of a war.

The end song is Hey Shketa ("Hey Quiet One") by Ivri Lider.

Photograph by Jennifer Bukovza, courtesy of Lihi Lapid.

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