The Promised Podcast: "All the iPhones in the Sea" Edition (November 13, 2025)

Episode Overview

This episode explores the complexities and paradoxes of Israeli society, politics, and culture, focusing on two main topics: the implosion of the IDF’s top legal official, Major General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, amid a scandal involving leaked evidence of prisoner abuse; and a new wave of religiosity and spirituality sweeping through Israel in the wake of war and trauma. The hosts anchor their discussions in current events, personal anecdotes, and Israeli historical memory, providing an intimate and nuanced perspective on how Israel can simultaneously warm your heart and make your blood boil.

Hosts & Special Guests

• Noah Efron (A): Host, delivers the opening monologue and historical context.
• Miriam Herslag (B): Co-host, OPS & Blogs Editor at the Times of Israel.
• Judah Ari Gross (C): Guest, Managing Editor of eJewishPhilanthropy.

Main Themes and Key Discussion Points

1. The Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin and Israel's Divided Memory

[13:00-45:43]

Context & Reflections

• Commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, its effect on Israeli society, and evolving public memory.
• The hosts reflect on public ceremonies, personal and collective trauma, and the lasting sense of division that followed the assassination.
• Key political figures (Lapid, Livni) cited Rabin’s legacy to frame current ideological battles over the nature of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Notable Moments & Quotes

• Eitan Haber’s eulogy (paraphrased at [20:00]): “Your blood, Yitzhak, your blood covers the printed words … This is the blood that drained from your body in the last minutes of your life and flowed onto the paper between the lines, between the words from this now red paper, read from the blood that cries to us.”
• The transformation of mourning into blame and further division between religious and secular Jews, and left and right.
• Miriam on being religious post-assassination [36:40]: “Because of the kippah on my head, they did not distinguish, they could not distinguish between me and a violent kahanist. … So we stopped coming [to Rabin Square memorials].”
• Noah [45:00]: “Thirty years after this thing that could have united us, it started to become yet another thing that divides us.”

Insight

The episode powerfully illustrates the way an event intended to unite a nation in grief instead deepened sectarian and political rifts, and how these wounds persist today.

2. The "All the iPhones in the Sea" Scandal: Military, Justice, and Public Trust

[49:25-76:24]

Overview

• Major General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi, former IDF Military Advocate General, attempted suicide after being placed under investigation for leaking surveillance footage of IDF soldiers abusing a Gazan prisoner.
• The video depicted severe abuse, including alleged sodomy, but its release and subsequent coverup unleashed a storm across political, military, and media circles.

Key Discussion Points

• Judah breaks down the crisis into three intertwined issues [57:31]:
  1. The original abuse and Israel’s accountability for war crimes.
  2. The leak itself, its purpose, and mishandling.
  3. The scandal’s exploitation within broader judicial and political battles.
• Miriam highlights parallels with the Elor Azaria case and post-truth media dynamics [65:45]: “What’s happening here is that there’s an opportunity for people’s political careers to rise or fall … to be used as a battering ram.”
• Noah reflects on the tragic personal toll: “For me, what this story is most of all is so nearly infinitely sad ... her life is ruined, her will to live … entirely gone. And it’s just really, really sad.” [60:28]

Notable Quotes

• Judah on war crimes and accountability [59:44]: “If Israel wants to avoid prosecution in international courts, it needs to have a functioning system that is prosecuting soldiers for war crimes. … [But] that really has not happened in a sufficiently efficient way in Israel.”
• Miriam: “We are moving toward a post-truth world where it’s just about what you think happened and what you should feel about it.” [74:28]

Insight

The discussion underscores the near-impossibility of clean justice in wartime, the corrosive effect of endless media leaks, and how public discourse quickly becomes a battleground for preexisting political disputes.

3. Faith in the Foxhole: Israel’s New Spirituality

[78:16-99:16]

Overview

• Exploring a surge in public expressions of religiosity and spirituality across all sectors of Israeli society post-October 7.
• Examples: Released hostages and their families embracing ritual and prayer; secular Israelis adopting traditional practices; increased demand for tzitzit as symbolic protection; and new “belief pop” music infiltrating mainstream culture.

Key Discussion Points

• Miriam [83:39]: “I do find that religious expression in tefillah and prayer … gives you a language for what you otherwise can’t articulate … something to sing and say together with your community.”
• Noah [87:45]: Sees this as a spontaneous, non-institutional search for connection—both historically and among secular/religious divides: “There is something about a person who’s not at all religious, but suddenly coming to appreciate something like hafrashat challah or tallit and tefillin that reduces the barrier that divides … the country.”
• Judah [92:05]: Raises caution about political “harnessing” of this energy—particularly by right-wing and Orthodox organizations like Chabad. “There’s a lot of politically inflected, maybe infected, religiosity that points people towards a specific right-wing path.”

Notable Quotes

• Noah [98:13]: “What I take to be something like a new form here, of people who are both religious and not religious at the same time.”
• Judah [96:09]: On religious outreach’s organization: “That’s not something happening by accident. He has strong philanthropic backing … so that’s not anarchic, it’s kind of concerted and organized.”

Insight

A profound shift is underway where traditional religious boundaries are blurring, and new forms of spirituality are emerging—sometimes organically, sometimes via organized outreach. The hosts debate whether this wave will transform Israeli society or pass as a temporary response to trauma.

Notable and Memorable Moments

• Judah’s Gilbert & Sullivan Parody [10:04]: “I’m the very model of a promised podcast listener. I’ve read the bios of Achad Ha’am, Ben-Gurion, and Kissinger…”
• Miriam’s personal reflection on seeking meaning through prayer [83:39]: “I do find that religious expression… gives you, like, language for what I otherwise can’t articulate.”
• Noah on the tragic reality of enforcement vs. empathy [68:34]: “There is no way to be decent.”
• On media coverage: [74:28]
  • Miriam: “Once they put music behind news, we know we’re not in news anymore, and we are in a post-truth world where it’s really just about what you think happened and what you should feel about it.”
• On the “new Hasidism”: [87:45ff]
  • Noah: “I think some like that is happening, and you feel it… Like the world is kind of re-enchanted in all sorts of ways.”

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [00:00] – Opening monologue & historical context (Chabad in Tel Aviv, early labor/craft neighborhoods)
• [13:00] – Rabin memorial, personal and national reflections
• [38:33] – Heated debate over Netanyahu’s culpability and collective blame
• [45:43] – Main topics introduction; article “Does it matter what your therapist thinks about Israel?”
• [49:25] – Segment 1: Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi scandal (“All the iPhones in the Sea”)
• [57:31] – Breakdown of the “three interconnected issues” (abuse, the leak, political exploitation)
• [78:16] – Segment 2: Israel’s new religiosity and spiritual searching
• [101:54] – "What a Country" segment (personal vignettes by the hosts)
• [112:34] – Closing anecdotes and thoughts

“What a Country” Segment Highlights

• Judah shares his experience visiting Soroka Medical Center post-Iranian missile strike and reflects on the role of philanthropy in Israeli society. [101:54]
• Miriam describes the living spirit of Tel Aviv’s lesser-known Hatikva market, sharing food, recipes, and the ties of community across generations. [107:22]
• Noah tours the newly expanded city animal clinic, reflecting on the integration of Jewish traditional sources in a secular context. [112:34]

Overall Tone & Style

Reflective, self-effacing, and intellectually expansive, with frequent asides, personal anecdotes, and a style that is simultaneously scholarly and warm. The hosts balance humor, deep empathy, historical continuity, and political critique, capturing the lived texture of life in Israel—fraught, full of contradictions, endlessly debated, and always, somehow, moving forward.

Memorable Closing

• The importance of kindness (timed for World Kindness Day), both as a moral imperative and as an ethos that the podcast aspires to uphold—closing with a playful, tongue-in-cheek take on the day’s significance. [122:33]

Summary Takeaway

This episode grapples with how trauma and conflict continually remake Israeli society—dividing and uniting, exposing fault lines, and giving rise to new collective rituals and identities. It reminds listeners that, despite the turmoil, hope and connection are found in the small, everyday acts of kindness, memory, and meaning-making.