More than a year into this war and in the midst of the worst crisis the Jewish state has ever faced, it seemed time to take stock. The war in Lebanon may or may not be reaching a negotiated settlement. The war in Gaza may or may not end, and whatever “end” means, might or might not “end” with Israeli troops staying in Gaza for a very, very long time. Nothing will really change in this region until the Iranian regime is toppled, but Israel may or may not be able to or interested in doing that. The numbers of soldiers reporting for reserves is declining, but those reporting are dedicated beyond anything we might have imagined.
Then there is politics, Israeli-American relations, the possibility of renewed judicial reform, the draft of the Haredim.
And so on …
This is a very complex time in a hurting but resilient state, and it seemed time to ask thoughtful people from across various spectra—people we’ve interviewed and people we haven’t, left and right, religious and secular—how they see this country now.
Are they optimistic? Do they think that their children will raise their children here? What about the Haredim? Netanyahu? America under Trump?
We begin today with a fabulously talented writer, deep thinker, caring soul—Matti Friedman.
Matti is the author of four superb, awarding winning, much lauded books, and as noted in his bio below, does much more.
Matti Friedman, a journalist, is the author of four works of nonfiction.
His 2019 book Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel, won the Natan Book Award and the Canadian Jewish Book Award. Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War (2016) was chosen as a New York Times’ Notable Book and as one of Amazon’s 10 best books of the year. Pumpkinflowers was selected as one of the year’s best by Booklist, Mother Jones, Foreign Affairs, the National Post, the Globe and Mail. It won the 2017 Vine Award for Canadian Jewish literature and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for memoir and was shortlisted for the 2017 RBC Taylor Prize, the Writer’s Trust Prize, and the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize for military writing (Israel). Editions were published in the US, Britain, Canada, Israel, and China.
The Aleppo Codex, an investigation into the strange fate of an ancient Bible manuscript, won the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize, the ALA’s Sophie Brody Medal, and the Canadian Jewish Book Award for history. It was translated into seven languages.
Matti’s work as a reporter has taken him from Israel to Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. A former Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section, he currently writes a monthly feature for Tablet Magazine. His writing has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, The Atlantic, and elsewhere.
He was born in Toronto, made aliyah at age 17, and lives in Jerusalem with his family.
The link above will take you to a very brief excerpt of our conversation; the full conversation, along with a transcript for those who prefer to read, is being made available to paid subscribers to Israel from the Inside.
Music credits: Medieval poem by Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gvirol. Melody and performance by Shaked Jehuda and Eyal Gesundheit. Production by Eyal Gesundheit. To view a video of their performance, see this YouTube:
