AMI EDEN

61 seats to control Israel's parliament, the Knesset, sounds simple enough, but in Israeli politics, nothing is simple.

I'm Ami Eden, CEO of 70 Faces Media, the organization behind the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

And I'm Ruth Eglash, JTA's Senior Israel Correspondent reporting from Jerusalem.

Together, we're bringing you Waiting for 61, JTA's new podcast exploring the people, history, and political forces driving Israel's upcoming elections.

And on the English side, ultra-Orthodox goes back further than people assume.

Hillel Halkin suggests the 1950s, when Holocaust survivors arrived in America and editors reached for a word.

But Isaac Leeser, who died in 1868, was already being described as ultra-Orthodox in a 1916 biography.

So the English label predates the community it now names.

Grace Yagel is our art director.

Ami Eden is the CEO of Seventy Faces Media, and Rebecca Phillips is the publisher.

Shofar So Good was originally developed in the Jewish Writers Institute Digital Storytellers Lab and produced with support from Maimonides Fund.

[upbeat music] The people who helped make this season a reality are Claremont Vallos, Judd Lieberman, Harry and Max Frischberg, Corinne Ruff and Zushon Ochoa, Barbara Mutnick and Robert Mishkin, Jeff Kellum, Dave McKinney and Ann Liston, and Ariel McCullough.