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Unholy: Two Jews on the News

Flotilla Disgrace, Election Fever and Football Joy

Unholy: Two Jews on the News

Unholy Media

News, Yonit Levi, News Commentary, Society & Culture, Jews, Religion & Spirituality, Israel, Jewish, Judaism, Israel Podcast, Middle East, Jonathan Freedland, Documentary

4.7770 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week Jonathan is in celebratory mode—and no, it's not only because it’s the festival of Shavuot, but because his beloved Arsenal finally won the Premier League, sparking a spontaneous tribal gathering of ‘marauding revellers’ in North London. Meanwhile, Yonit and Jonathan unpack the volatile situation with Iran, and ask where President Trump’s vague threats of a renewed strike are heading. Then, it's wall-to-wall condemnation for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose grotesque 56-second video taunting Gaza flotilla detainees was a nightmare for Israel’s defenders especially. And Jonathan describes his visit to the Nova exhibition in London, which offers a powerful, heart-rending glimpse of the human faces of the October 7th massacre and the shocking refusal of much of the world to look directly at what happened on that day. Plus: a musical mensch for the ages.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Renewed threats on Iran is an attempt to reach a deal.

0:04.0

Continue wall-to-wall condemnation outside Israel and inside Israel of Itamal Ben-Gville's treatment of flotilla detainees.

0:11.2

And the elections are now clearly in the rear view and objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

0:16.5

It's unholy. I'm Unite-Levy in Tel Aviv.

0:18.4

And I'm Jonathan Friedland in London. Unholy two Jews on the news dropping a tiny bit early this week because the festival of Chavuot is hours away.

0:48.8

None of us are wearing white. How is this possible? Two Jews not wearing white on Chavuots.

0:53.9

Well, I've got a little bit of white there.

0:56.2

If I was to undo a few buttons, which I'm not going to do, people would see the word

1:00.9

mensch on this t-shirt because this was a birthday gift from you to me, a mensch t-shirt,

1:06.6

a chutzpah t-shirt. They have been cited in a few places. But let's get to Chauvelot because I can't remember,

1:14.4

and I want to remember what our brilliant guest, Alex Edelman.

1:17.6

We did this fantastic freestyle round of which Jewish festivals are Jewish and which are not.

1:22.6

I have a feeling that he said that Chavuot is not a Jewish festival.

1:27.3

Of course, Chavuat, he said, is not a Jewish festival. Of course, Chavuat he said,

1:28.7

is not a Jewish festival, of course. Because no Jew can take that much daring. Is that,

1:33.3

have I remembered that right? That is pretty correct. I think we're posting it on our Instagram

1:37.6

account today to remind our listeners and viewers of that wonderful. I think now I've just just, I think, achieved cult status at this point,

1:46.9

a clip of Alex Edamon telling us on unholy white Jewish holidays, indeed Jewish, and not.

1:52.5

He was making a sort of Ashkenazi gastroenterological point, I think, about lactose tolerance,

1:59.0

because, of course, this is the festival of wearing white and sort of

2:02.5

eating white as in cheesecake and so on but in a sentence I mean I will be honest with you and I

2:09.4

have sort of hug fatigue festival fatigue by this time of year because we've done we've done

...

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