The New Yorker Radio Hour:

Two writers, Ruth and Avishai Margalit, discuss the extensive protests against anti-democratic maneuvering by the government.

With David Remni

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed law changing the judiciary is described as a reform. To opponents, it’s a move to gut the independence of the Supreme Court as a check on executive power—and a move from the playbook of autocrats like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Ruth Margalit, who is based in Tel Aviv, covered the extensive protests against the judicial overhaul for The New Yorker, and she tells David Remnick that the strength and success of the protests so far has brought a sense of hope for many who were losing faith in the country’s political future. Remnick also speaks with Margalit’s father, the political philosopher Avishai Margalit, about demographic and cultural factors driving Israeli politics. “The new element,” Avishai says, “is the strong fusion of religion and nationalism”—which were once kept separate in Israel. Plus, Emily Nussbaum talks with the country singer Margo Price about her new album, “Strays,” and a memoir of struggling to make it in Nashville.

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