Jonny Gould's Jewish State

John Ware is the BBC Panorama documentary maker who took on the Corbynites - and won. His 2019 documentary “Is Labour Antisemitic?”, which was aired on BBC1, launched three long years of bitter legal struggle. It’s unusual for a journalist to sue for defamation - but everything was at stake for John - from his own reputation to the basic principles of journalistic process. So John sued the Labour Party, Jewish Voice for Labour and a fellow journalist, Paddy French - and with great fortitude and resilience won through. It’s not entirely over. John needs to collect the damages awarded from those who defamed him and now Al Jazeera have produced what he calls “agenda journalism” in a 17 minute segment of a documentary, which vilifies a young man by the name of Luke Stranger. We highlight that in this episode too. John’s not earned a penny for twelve months: defamation is a harrowing weight on one’s mind. Not to mention the headspace one also needs to keep up with the news as a working journalist. But he’s back on

“Being a Zionist is the path to peace”. There is hope in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dr. Einat Wilf is a deep thinker on Israel’s ever-present challenge: the pursuit of existence in peace and security. It was an honour to host the Q and A session for StandWithUs UK as Einat addressed London's South Hampstead Synagogue. She was born in Jerusalem, raised in a Labour Zionist family and completed her Israeli military service as an Intelligence Officer with the rank of Lieutenant. Einat then went to Harvard University, got a BA in government and fine arts before earning an MBA from INSEAD in France and a PhD in political science at Wolfson College, Cambridge. Einat describes herself as a Zionist, a feminist and an atheist. She says the Abraham Accords has created a competing narrative in the Arab world. We’re hearing it in the Gulf from a new generation of Arabs who recognise the path to growth is both economic and spiritual. I expressly heard it myself on my first ever trip to the UAE in November 2022. List

Mumford and Sons were huge. Over 14 glorious years, Winston Marshall and his friends rocked stadia in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring fans and headlined Glastonbury! If you remember all the bearded hipsters and the tweed the kids were rocking, it’s likely they were listening to the Mumfords on their AirPods. But Winston left the band in 2021 after tweeting about Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, a book written by American journalist Andy Ngo. At first, Winston apologised for praising the book and decided he’d take a break from the band "to examine his blindspots". But a few months on, he then defended his support for Andy Ngo, and wrote about the reaction to his apology for the tweet. He then announced he was leaving Mumford & Sons permanently to exercise free speech without involving his former bandmates. It was a moment of sadness as he expected he’d be playing with the guys he grew up with until retirement age. So now he’s cast as a culture warrior, a description he’s i

This is the second podcast of discussions from a first ever trip to the United Arab Emirates. I attended the Global Media Congress in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, an impressive showcase of regional media with a clear message: “The UAE is reaching out to the world in peace and cooperation”. Amjad Taha is a well-known influencer in the Gulf Cooperation Council with a significant following on social media. The author of The Deception of the Arab Spring, an adviser to key institutions in the Arab world, Amjad was part of the first Bahrain UAE youth delegation to visit Israel as the ink was drying on the historic Abraham Accords. So what drives the UAE and how is this impacting its foreign policy? Also, in this episode, James Cleverly, Britain’s Foreign Secretary on his trip to Abu Dhabi, with a very personal experience of why the UAE and the partners of the Abraham Accords are such key allies. This episode of Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is supported by Dangoor Education. If you'd like to support Jonny's podcast

What do you know about the United Arab Emirates? Want to know more of Israel’s newest and perhaps most important partner in peace? I’ve just returned from my first ever trip to an Arab nation. I went to the capital, Abu Dhabi, to the Global Media Congress, a highly impressive showcase of regional media - with exhibitors from further afield including the Philippines, Russia, Azerbaijan - and Israel. It’s a place where East meets West. My guest today is typical of the spirit of big heartedness. His name is Loay Alshareef and he gave me a very personal guided tour of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, in which we talked about the differences between Islam, Judaism and Christianity - but more importantly their parallels, what binds us as people of faith - in a world where secular society’s norms can often compromise the beliefs of more conservative minded people. The majesty and craftsmanship of this 21st-century wonder is breathtaking. The extravagant chandeliers in each room, the beautifully etched windows includin

Support Jonny with a coffee here Fleur Hassan-Nahoum is Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem with an ambitious eye on the future. Her flying visit to the UK gave us a chance to chat on Jonny Gould’s Jewish State for the second time. Another year to go in office in Jerusalem, but will she stand for another term? There’s a Likud government to be a part of - and given her unique background, what about becoming an ambassador? She has strong diplomatic skills with her experience In Jerusalem in dealing with diverse communities. And Fleur comes from Gibraltar with English and Spanish as mother tongues (she’s the daughter of Gib’s first ever Chief Minister). Fleur also co-founded the UAE-Israel Business Council and we discuss the “baby steps” towards societal change in the conservative Arabian Gulf. Let’s also have a sober talk about Smotrich and Ben Gvir, the extreme end of Netanyahu’s comeback government. What are they really about? Is Bibi actually the root to a more stable Israel? Why has the deal with Hezbollah and Lebano

You’ve never heard a story like this! Catherine Perez-Shakdam lives in the UK. She was born and raised in France and also lived in Yemen and Iran. While living in Tehran and married with kids, she mixed in the regime classes, socialising, even going on pilgrimages to Iraq. Nothing unusual about that, you say. But Catherine is Jewish, of French Sephardi background. As an outsider in plain sight, Catherine never revealed her Jewishness - obviously - so got up close to the leadership. She says it’s a deeply political and ideological regime, not religious. Even Nihilistic. In Yemen, Catherine started writing articles critical of the Saudis which came to the attention of Iran. And while living there, she travelled with President Raisi on his private plane during election campaigning - and asked for and got a private audience with the Ayatollah Khamanei. This is Catherine’s highly revealing and detailed story of what drives Iran’s ruling class. It’s a forensic eyewitness of a regime, which she says infiltrates the

The decades old Israel-Lebanon maritime border dispute is making headlines again with the planned Israeli start-up for drilling for offshore gas in Karish in the Mediterranean. But escalating rhetoric from Iranian-sponsored Shiite terror group Hezbollah threatens war. Their leader Hassan Nasrallah claims some of Karish sits north of Lebanon’s border line. Western Europe needs Mediterranean gas since Russia invaded Ukraine. Germany and their like need to extricate themselves from Putin’s weaponisation of energy. Can Israel avoid war to become a regional energy power? And what about the Iranian protests at the same time as America attempts to renegotiate the JCPOA deal in Vienna? Edy Cohen’s a native Arab speaker, born and raised in Beirut, now living in Israel. He has over half a million followers across the Arab world. He tweets Israeli and Jewish perspectives to the Muslim neighbourhood, delving deeper than almost anyone. Edy deals in absolutes, in realpolitik and it’s the second time he’s appeared o

Jason Greenblatt joins us for a second time as he looks on at how the Abraham Accords has matured since those historic signings in 2020. In our last instalment, Jason had just left Washington DC after co-writing President Trump’s "Peace to Prosperity Plan for Palestinians and Israelis" with Jared Kushner and US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. It was a breakthrough document which helped seal the first four Abraham Accords agreements. Now he’s here to discuss his book, “In the Path of Abraham: How Donald Trump Made Peace in the Middle East - and How to Stop Joe Biden from Unmaking It”. Throughout our two interviews, Jason’s instinct for families and the worlds that revolve around them - on both sides - has always been at the fore: that each person he’s negotiated with is also a family man with roots, dreams and a future. I’d like to think this interview has a texture of two people who’ve come to know each other a bit better. I’ve come to respect Jason’s work in the pursuit of peace - always based on the r

The Elizabethan Age draws to a close. Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest serving monarch passed away peacefully at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire on Thursday 8th September 2022 after 70 years on the throne. Her loss is indescribable and her passing has sparked the most extraordinary outpouring of grief from across the world. But what did she mean to her Jewish subjects? Will the nation’s temperature change? Is the end of the Elizabethan age a symbol of the end of the post World War II settlement? Will King Charles live upto his role? And where does Israel fit into it? As the nation comes to terms with the loss of the Queen, Jonny Gould covers the whirlwind of constitutional events and political change. The episode also includes audio tributes from the Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, Lord Stuart Polak, Lord David Wolfson, the Right Hon. Grant Shapps and international royal correspondent, Jonathan Sacerdoti. I also have a lovely anecdote from Israeli President, Isaac Herzog. Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is b

Hillel Neuer is so often the lone voice talking truth to power at a United Nations seemingly on interminable mission creep. Western countries are loosening their resolve in countering dictatorships. And worse still, power groups inside the UN Human Rights Council are trying to silence him. Hillel is Executive Director of UN Watch, the human rights NGO based at the UN in Geneva. Since 2009, he’s headed the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, a renowned international gathering which provides a platform to courageous pro-democracy dissidents who put their lives on the line to demand fundamental freedoms in oppressive regimes. I was invited to host and interview Farida Khalaf, the Yazidi girl who escaped Isis. As America's vaccum is filled by China at the UN, Hillel says the repurposing of the United States' goals must start back home. What hindrance is the UN to Israel, which so often gets a rum deal in Geneva? And what future does the free world have? Is Hillel optimistic or pessimistic from hi

She’s one of Britain’s most successful and irreverent writers. I met Julie Burchill at one of her favourite places on the Sussex coast - in Hove, actually, her home town for the last 27 years. Julie started her glittering career at the NME in 1976, aged 17 and left when after just two years as she thought that people in their twenties who still wrote about music were ‘sad old men'. Since then she’s had number one best-selling novels, won an Emmy and been condemned in the House of Commons. Now, in her sixties, she proclaims she’s in glorious decline - but still a cracking little scribbler. And there’s another consistent dimension to her writings. She’s always loved Jews and Israel. For a while she learned modern Hebrew at night class and even joined a synagogue. We got together to promote her brand-new substack articles, www.julieburchill.substack.com and in particular her new novella, the Judgement of Solomons, the story of an unlikely Aliyah between an Israeli and his second wife, a non-Jewish woman wit

Only four Jewish prisoners ever escaped the vicious SS guards, their ferocious dogs, rows of tall electrified fences and men on watchtowers wielding automatic weapons of Auschwitz-Birkenau. But Walter Rosenberg, just 19-years-old used knowledge, cunning and patience to do what no Jew had done before. He and Alfred Wetzler, in his early twenties, escaped from Auschwitz. But Walter, later to become Rudolf Vrba, hasn't been legendized like others who emerged from what became known as the Holocaust. Until now. Because his audacious breakout with Fred saved the lives of 200,000 Jews, mostly from Budapest. They revealed Europe’s depraved undertaking to destroy its Jews - and warn those yet to be uprooted - Hungary’s Jews - of their inevitable destruction - if they got on trains bound for “new lives in the east” as they were told. Even if those in power had known about the mass extermination of the Jews for sometime, their vivid Auschwitz attracted mass media and exerted political pressure. And Rudi had something el

Our guest today is a Rabbi raised in Kharkiv, Ukraine from the age of 6 months, it’s pretty much all he’s known. Rabbi Mendel Moskovitz moved there as a baby with his parents, Moishe and Miriam as his family served as Chabad emissaries to rebuild Jewish life in Kharkiv, following the fall of Communism. Graduating as a rabbi in Sydney, Australia, Rabbi Moskovitz returned home with his wife, Chani. There he raised three children, and served as a Rabbi to Ukrainian youth for 7 years, until war changed everything.  Now he is ambassador to The Jewish Relief Network Ukraine. I’m making this appeal on behalf of the vital work of this charity completely voluntarily, without fee or personal gain. He highlights acute Jewish suffering to the world and raising funds for the incredible work being done by Chabad to provide vital humanitarian relief. JRNU is the umbrella organization for operations in Ukraine, providing food, medicine and medical care, housing and even security. Donate now at www.JRNU.org Through 48 regiona

Our guest today is Douglas Murray, best-selling author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity and Islam and The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity - and now The War On The West, how to prevail in the age of unreason. All the narratives and assumptions which underpin our understanding of the western societies we grew up in are under attack - from within. Much of it is being fought through the prism of race. Douglas examines how Western civilisation and its achievements in culture, science medicine and free thought, not to mention how these were so hard fought for and won, are being challenged by universities, corporations, broadcasters and the church, in what looks like a wilful self-immolation. And these anti-Western attacks also go after Jews and Israel. But what’s the purpose of it? When will this debt be paid off by Western nations and their majority populations? What’s the end game - and what are the consequences? Is this how civilisations come to an end? And if some of these prog

Ambassador Ron Dermer and Ed Husain addressed a live audience for StandWithUs UK, which I hosted in Central London. These two friends were instrumental in creating the pathway which led eventually to the Abraham Accords. This was no ordinary occasion and I won’t forget posing the questions, just as those in attendance will remember being there. We talk about Israel’s relationships with Russia, the Jews in Ukraine even Russian coordination in Syria over Israel’s security issues. Then there’s Iran and the JCPOA nuclear treaty, BDS and diaspora Jewry, Jeremy Corbyn and a growing theme of Jonny Gould‘s Jewish State: the relationship between Islam and Judaism and how it can bind people in a region where religion is so important. Sit back and enjoy a gripping conversation with two of the world’s most well-informed people on the biggest diplomatic breakthrough of our age. Help support Jonny Gould’s Jewish State (including Gift Aid) at https://www.donorbox.org/jgpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho

Len Khodorkovsky is an American story. The same one repeated throughout generations of Jewish history. And his comes from today’s Ukraine where in 1981, young Len and his refusenik parents and grandparents fled the Soviet Union for the USA. Because by 2017, Len took an oath of office in the US State Department. “That’s quite a trajectory”, he says with considerable understatement. The poignancy is there’s bound to be another Len, barely a teenager trying to escape Ukraine (and even Russia) as we listen - destination unknown - just heading west. Len served at the US State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs. He was also a Senior Advisor to the US Special Representative for Iran and the Chief Marketing Officer of America’s economic diplomacy. It was his two decades as an advertising executive which led to this extraordinary period. And it’s this creative approach which he says gave the Trump administration a greater dynamic to problem-solve than the more conservative, risk averse

The National Jewish Assembly's held its inaugural reception for brand new members and interested parties at London's Jewish Museum in Camden Town. CEO James Marlow and Chairman and founder Gary Mond were joined by members of the new advisory board to outline their plans and directions. So why has this all come about? What’s wrong with Anglo-Jewish leadership which they think needs to be addressed? Is it just a column of disaffected right wingers as certain media have insinuated? I caught up with both James and Gary, who set the record straight, outline their hopes and ambitions for the group and explain the three foundational pillars on which it's based. Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is supported by UK Toremet. Jonny produces these podcasts for free. You can help support the show with Gift Aid at https://www.donorbox.org/jgpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest today is Israel Bonds executive director of sales and operations in Europe and Latin America, Arnon Perlman. It’s never been easier or more accessible to invest in the State of Israel. This episode explains how (and you can follow the link to do so). www.online.israelbondsintl.com Arnon’s led a life of public service in Israel. Before joining Israel Bonds, he served as prime minister Ariel Sharon’s head of communications for four years, on duty and on call at every waking (and sleeping hour) and he pays a touching tribute of deep respect and love for his former boss. Arnon gives us his personal recollections of one of Israel’s most important figures in history. He was also consul general of Israel’s Consulate in Shanghai, China. Stay tuned for his experiences and takeaways from living in China, their place in the world and how they view themselves. Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is brought to you with Israel Bonds, Invest in Israel, Invest in Israel Bonds. Invest now:

Malcolm Green, filmmaker, innovator and storyteller who targets new audiences with new medium. “Finding Abraham” is his movie on how the most important diplomatic breakthrough of our age is filtering down to ground level across the Middle East. It follows a trip through Israel with the “Leaders of Tomorrow, a group from Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, Egypt and Morocco recording their reaction to what they see - and to each other. Our conversation is twice as long as the movie because we delve deeper into its themes, discussing the characters, the region, Malcolm’s own background and how his views have changed while making his many films across the world. “Finding Abraham” has won a multitude of film awards across the world and is available to watch now on YouTube and Vimeo. Jonny Gould’s Jewish State is proudly supported by Dangoor Education. Help support Jonny Gould’s Jewish State (including Gift Aid) at https://www.donorbox.org/jgpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices