Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

The United States is electing its next president on November 5 and according to a poll published this week, Israelis massively favor Republican Donald Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris.

So ahead of next week's results, we take a closer look at exactly how Israelis are polling, which candidate they favor -- and some reasons why. We also learn how the current polling matches previous surveys of Israelis ahead of past US elections and who was actually elected in the end.

We also hear from Rettig Gur, who has been touring Jewish communities over the past week, what concerns he's gathered about both candidates from the American Jews he's spoken with.

And finally, we look at the recently published AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of Americans which, among other things, drills down into the US population's partisan divide on all things Israel and Middle East.

So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now?

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: This combination of pictures shows US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (L) speaking during a Get Out the Vote rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on October 30, 2024, and former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 29, 2024. (Angela Weiss / AFP)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.

This week, a sukka that was reportedly put up by the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace caused a social media storm because of the cynical use of Palestinian iconography on a hut that was plastered with symbols of the Sukkot holiday and phrases in English and Yiddish. Rettig Gur weighs in on why this misuse of a (not kosher) temporary hut so irks many Jews.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated during a meeting with President Isaac Herzog and in other forums in his whirlwind Israel trip this week that the death of Hamas head Yahya Sinwar offers a window of opportunity to shift the course of the war.

We discuss how the US's input wouldn't have allowed the IDF to enter Rafah, where Sinwar was eliminated, and the frustrations felt by Israelis for a perceived shackling of Israel's capabilities.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: A sukka reportedly put up by Jewish Voice for Peace on a US campus that caused a social media storm, October 2024. (Social media/X; used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.

This week we speak with the editors of a new prayerbook -- "Az Nashir - We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need" -- written by women, for women, in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel.

The anthology was compiled and edited by Shira Lankin Sheps, Anne Gordon, and Rachel Sharansky Danziger, and it was published by The Layers Press, an imprint of The SHVILLI Center.

The three editors join Borschel-Dan in The Times of Israel's Jerusalem office this week and explain their impetus to tackle such an ambitious project and the decisions they made while putting it together, such as the inclusion of "visual prayer" -- 30 colorful illustrations by female artists.

According to the editors, the Hebrew-English tome is a prayerbook companion that emulates a long tradition of Jewish women writing prayers, supplications and liturgical poems in their own mother tongues.

So this week, we ask Shira Lankin Sheps, Anne Gordon, and Rachel Sharansky Danziger, what matters now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: The editors of 'Az Nashir - We Will Sing Again: Women’s Prayers for Our Time of Need,' (from left to right): Anne Gordon, Rachel Sharansky Danziger and Shira Lankin Sheps. (courtesy)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.