• Rachel Goldberg-Polin - Unholy Conversations
    Apr 21 2026

    Watch us on Youtube: https://youtu.be/HFowIpBxqKs

    Rachel Goldberg-Polin has stood before the UN, met with presidents, and worn a number on her chest every single day until there were no more hostages in Hamas captivity. Now, months after Hersh was murderd, she sat down and wrote a book.

    When We See You Again is not a hostage story and not a political reckoning. It is, as Rachel describes it, a painful love story — a grief memoir written "with one finger from underneath a truck," with no distance, no perspective, and no pretense that any of that is coming soon.

    In this conversation with Yonit and Jonathan, Rachel talks about the moment a released hostage told her Hersh had heard her voice in captivity, why she refused to name the officials who promised and delivered nothing, the 87 pages she cut and called "the suitcase," and how Hersh's memory will become a "revolution for go.”


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    44 mins
  • Lebanon ceasefire, Senate Showdown, Orban out
    Apr 16 2026

    Watch us on Youtube: https://youtu.be/1GIuMFYYX1E

    Get more Unholy content: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/

    As Israel marks one week out of 40 days of missiles from Iran, Yonit and Jonathan take apart the week's impossible contradictions: Netanyahu delivering a triumphalist Yom HaShoah speech while 400 kilograms of enriched uranium remain intact in Iran; a fragile Lebanon ceasefire that almost no one trusts; 40 Democratic senators voting against arms transfers; and Italy's far-right prime minister — until now Israel's last ally in Europe — quietly moving toward the exit.

    They also clock a historic election in Hungary, what Orban's fall means for the Israeli opposition, and whether Gadi Eisenkot is the figure who finally changes the picture.

    CHAPTERS: [00:00] Intro

    [02:30] Two kinds of sirens — explaining Yom HaShoah to kids during active war

    [05:00] Yom HaShoah: the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and why Israel chose this date

    [06:00] The war breakfast menu — 40 days and no off switch

    [08:44] Iran ceasefire: fragile, murky, and far from over

    [14:42] Netanyahu's Holocaust Day speech — and what it got wrong

    [20:47] Israeli elections: Eisenkot, Bennett, and the Orban lesson from Hungary

    [27:00] Democrats break with Israel: Slotkin, 40 Senate votes, and who lost America

    [33:45] Italy's Meloni shifts — even the far-right is moving

    [40:41] Chutzpah Award: JD Vance tells the Pope to be careful about theology

    [43:30] Mensch Award: Parents Circle joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony


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    42 mins
  • Ceasefire on day 40 - with Bret Stephens and Amir Fuchs
    Apr 9 2026

    Follow Unholy and learn more about the pod: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/

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    Day 40 of the US-Israel war on Iran — and it's ceasefire. But the relief is complicated: Israeli bombardment of Hezbollah in Lebanon has already shifted the world's anger from Washington back to Jerusalem.

    Bret Stephens, opinion columnist at the New York Times and one of the conflict's most prominent intellectual defenders, joins Yonit and Jonathan to take stock — was it worth it, what was actually achieved, and what does an inconclusive ending mean for Israel's standing with a younger American generation that's turning away.

    Then: the death penalty bill that slipped through the Knesset on Erev Pesach. Dr. Amir Fuchs of the Israeli Democracy Institute was inside those committee rooms. He explains what passed and who it targets.

    ⏱ CHAPTERS:

    [00:00] Ceasefire — Yonit wakes up after 40 nights of sirens in Tel Aviv

    [02:10] Kids, lunchboxes, and parenting during wartime

    [05:45] Why Israel is now the global target instead of Trump

    [19:24] Bret Stephens: Was the Iran war worth it?

    [23:11] Senior Israeli official admits objectives weren't achieved

    [26:23] Iran's nuclear program — degraded, not destroyed

    [29:52] The Strait of Hormuz: Iran's trump card

    [34:08] Israel's American support — how worried should we be?

    [37:07] Israel's intelligence credibility post-October 7th

    [40:33] Young Americans and the erosion of support for Israel

    [54:28] Dr. Amir Fuchs — inside the Knesset committee rooms What the death penalty bill actually says

    [1:02:30] Will the Supreme Court strike it down?

    [1:06:42] Ben-Gvir's trap — win-win by design

    [1:10:36] Yonit: Judaism doesn't celebrate death

    [1:11:53] Jonathan: the synagogue sermon about spilling wine on Passover

    [1:14:38] Hungary elections — Orban vs. Magyar

    [1:16:52] Chutzpah Award: Kanye West banned from Britain

    [1:21:25] Mensch: Colette Avital, 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, still protesting


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    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Books special: conversations with Daniel Taub and Yardena Schwartz
    Apr 7 2026

    Watch us on Youtube and follow Unholy on social media: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/

    Day 39 of the war. Pesach. Instead of news, we brought you books — two of them, both essential.

    Jonathan speaks with Daniel Taub, former Israeli ambassador to the UK and author of Beyond Dispute: Rediscovering the Jewish Art of Constructive Disagreement — about why Jewish argument culture might be the most relevant thing in the world right now, and how families torn apart over Gaza might actually talk to each other.

    Yonit speaks with Yardena Schwartz, award-winning journalist and Emmy-nominated producer, author of Ghosts of a Holy War — about the 1929 Hebron massacre, and why this nearly-forgotten event explains almost everything about the conflict today.

    Two books. Two conversations. One mid-week treat while we wait for whatever comes next.


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    51 mins
  • Middle East Past and Present: A deep dive into history with Tom Holland
    Apr 1 2026

    Get more out of Unholy: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/

    In this special Pesach episode, Yonit and Jonathan discuss seder traditions and those who had to change due to the war. They are joined by Tom Holland — historian and co-host of The Rest Is History and author of landmark books on Rome, Persia, and the roots of Western civilization — to explain why the Romans were wrong about the Jews, why the West fundamentally misunderstands Iran, and why secularism is itself a religious inheritance. From Cyrus the Great to the Iranian Revolution to Donald Trump, this is the episode that puts the present moment in full historical context.


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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Talking peace, making war - with Jake Sullivan
    Mar 26 2026

    Please note that an (authentic!) alert sound is heard twice throughout the episode.

    Watch us on Youtube: https://youtu.be/UdhHLAquwgs

    Follow Unholy and learn more about the pod: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/

    The fourth week of the war with Iran finds both sides insisting—loudly and contradictorily—that peace talks are either underway or nowhere in sight. In the meantime, Iranian missiles continue to hit civilian neighbourhoods across Israel, while rolling news blurs day into night, tracking both the war itself and the political manoeuvres that show little sign of slowing down. And in London, another antisemitic attack raises uncomfortable questions about double standards when it comes to hatred directed at Israel.

    This week, Yonit and Jonathan sit down with Jake Sullivan, who puts it bluntly: this war should not have started. Sullivan lays out three reasons why the decision was flawed, argues that Donald Trump’s “appetite grew with the eating” from the 12-day war to the current escalation, and offers an alternative path—a renewed nuclear deal backed by long-term deterrence. He also raises a troubling possibility: could this conflict increase the likelihood of Chinese action against Taiwan?

    Plus: a rare look behind the scenes of Israel’s most-watched news broadcast, as Yonit reflects on what it means to sit in the anchor’s chair for hours on end—and the personal toll it takes.

    00:00 Day 27 — Cluster bomb near Yonit's house

    03:00 Life under sirens: sheltering in Tel Aviv

    19:48 The Rubio remark: did Israel drag America into war?

    23:28 Yonit on anchoring Israel's news during a war she's living

    31:23 Jonathan: global antisemitic attacks since the war began

    42:06 Jake Sullivan: deal or escalation?

    1:15:16 Chutzpah & Mensch Awards


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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • War with Iran Update: Trump Hits the Pause Button
    Mar 23 2026

    Watch us on Youtube: https://youtu.be/dhvM7lnkO88

    Follow us on social media and get more Unholy content: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/

    This morning, Donald Trump posted something that might — or might not — mean the US-Israeli war on Iran is coming to an end.

    A five-day pause on strikes. Secret talks via Pakistan and Turkey. Kushner and Witkoff on the American side. A shadowy Iranian speaker being cast as the pragmatist the US has been searching for. This is a special emergency episode of Unholy, recorded on 23 March 2026, as events were still unfolding.

    Jonathan and Yonit break down the two scenarios — deal or larger war — and why Trump's exit ramp looks nothing like Netanyahu's. They also turn to the daily wave of antisemitic attacks across Europe and North America since this war began, including last night's arson on four Hatzalah ambulances in Golders Green, London.

    Chapters

    00:00 Introduction to the Update Episode

    01:02 Trump's Social Media Post and Its Implications

    03:40 Negotiations and Mediating Efforts

    08:29 The Role of Iran and Potential Outcomes

    13:30 Israel's Position and Concerns

    16:26 Rising Anti-Semitism and Community Safety


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    21 mins
  • Day 20 of the Iran war - with Amos Harel. Plus: Shelter Q&A
    Mar 19 2026

    Watch us on YouTube: https://youtu.be/HeoVvd294Ww

    Follow us on social media and join Patreon to get more of Unholy: https://unholy-podcast.lovable.app/

    Day 20 of the US-Israeli war on Iran — and it's becoming a war of attrition. In the meantime, Europe refuses to lend its ships, Trump fires off about needing Israel's "consent," and Joe Kent's antisemitic conspiracy theory gets the full debunking it deserves.

    Amos Harel, Haaretz's military affairs correspondent, joins Yonit and Jonathan for a deep dive. What does the assassination of Ali Larijani — Khamenei's right-hand man — actually achieve? Is the war drifting from plan A toward something no one planned at all? And why is Netanyahu now talking less about regime change and more about Israel as a "world superpower"?

    And we turn to you, our listeners, with your most pressing questions about anything between life and war.


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    1 hr and 17 mins