Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with the coordinator of The Times of Israel's Those We Have Lost project, Amy Spiro, for this special episode in honor of Israel's Memorial Day to Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror.

We explain about the genesis of our Those We Have Lost project, and how we aim to tell the stories of individuals slain in Hamas's brutal attack on October 7, 2023. The first entry was written on October 11, 2023, when the number of the murdered was still unclear and funerals were held around the clock.

Today, with 1,100 individual entries covering almost every single person killed by Hamas, our Those We Have Lost project paints a picture of each of their lives and the ongoing ripple effects of their deaths.

Spiro speaks to the challenges she's faced -- including the mundane issue of how to write names in Latin letters -- and where she draws her information from.

The Those We Have Lost project works to ensure that despite the massive scale of the loss, no one is forgotten. On behalf of The Times of Israel, Borschel-Dan urges listeners to visit the project's home page this Memorial Day and keep the fallen's memories alive.

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 and video edited by Thomas Girsch.

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Prof. Manuela Consonni, director of Hebrew University's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism.

Consonni, a leading scholar of Holocaust memory, gender, and post-war European culture, decided to mark Yom Hashoah, Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, with an exhibition at the Mount Scopus campus called, "Faces of Women's Resistance."

The exhibition looks at how women -- Jewish and non-Jewish -- resisted the Nazi regime. Like men, many were fighters, partisans and rescuers, but also the sheer survival of their family was put on the shoulders of many mothers.

We discuss definitions of resistance and what means were available to women during the Nazi regime.

And finally, we delve into the use of Holocaust language when discussing the hostages kept by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

So this week, we ask Prof. Manuela Consonni, 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: Two young women who managed to survive over a year in the concentration camp at Belsen, Germany, are shown, April 30, 1945. (AP Photo)

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Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World, with host Amanda Borschel-Dan speaking with Mitch Ginsburg, a producer at the Israel Story podcast.

Ginsburg, a former military reporter for The Times of Israel, brings us a special episode from Israel's flagship podcast series, called The Hebrew Hobbit: A Passover Special.

In it, Ginsburg charts the tale of a number of Israeli POWs who took upon themselves the unlikely task of translating JRR Tolkien's "The Hobbit" while imprisoned together in an Egyptian jail.

In a vivid soundscape, Ginsburg brings a 360-degree account of life before, during and after their detention -- for the soldiers and those they left behind.

This Passover holiday, we hear the improbable story of a group of Israeli men who formed a mini-kibbutz in the heart of an enemy country's prison and what happened after their exodus from Egypt.

So this week, we ask Israel Story's Mitch Ginsburg, 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: An undated photo of the POW group who together translated 'The Hobbit' into Hebrew prior to their release from an Egyptian prison in November 1973. (courtesy)

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