the preliminary results from Israel’s election (held the same day as this talk), the influence Jews from Arab countries have had in Israeli politics, Mizrahi Jews’ roles behind enemy lines when Israel was founded, and AP bias in media coverage of Israel.
A former Associated Press correspondent, Friedman’s work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tablet Magazine, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. His 2016 book Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War was chosen as a New York Times’ Notable Book and as one of Amazon’s 10 best books of the year. His most recent book, Spies of No Country, the story of Israel’s first intelligence agents in 1948, has received the 2018 Natan Book Award. Friedman was born in Toronto and lives in Jerusalem with his family.
You can watch this interview with Matti Friedman by clicking here. (If the link doesn’t work, copy and paste the following into your browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgSe-tKsIQ0&feature=youtu.be). Send the link to friends and family – everyone should hear Matti’s astute analysis.
by Halley Faust.
Feedback from the audience on September 17 was highly enthusiastic. Many felt Matti’s explanations were the best they’ve heard in Santa Fe in years. His discussion and analysis from an Israeli journalist and New York Times opinion columnist perspective opened their eyes to the robustness of democracy in Israel, and the differences in the concepts of “right” and “left” between the US and Israel – differences often glossed over or misconstrued by American and European reporters.
Kudos to Marcia Torobin and the SFJFF for organizing this activity, and thanks for inviting SFMEW to co-sponsor. Many thanks also to Ron Duncan-Hart and Gloria Abella-Ballen of GaonWeb for recording the program.
Besides Friedman’s books, available on Amazon, astute articles by and about him can be found at various websites:
On media bias vis a vis the Middle East conflict with Israel: “What the Media Gets Wrong About Israel“, The Atlantic, Nov. 30, 2014.
On properly defining the conflict between Arabs and Israelis: “There Is No ‘Israeli-Palestinian Conflict’”, The New York Times, Jan. 16, 2019.
Times of Israel interview with Matti, July 29, 2019: “Nobody hijacked Israel. It’s just not what its pioneers thought they’d created.”
Many additional opinion pieces and articles by Friedman can be found at his website: http://mattifriedman.com/ .
SFMEW is a beneficiary organization of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.