“War In 140 Characters,” Washington Post Book Review

In war, the battle today is less on the ground than on social media Dec. 14, 2017 In the 1990s, I served as an infantryman at an obscure Israeli outpost in southern Lebanon whose claim to fame was a curious incident one Saturday morning in 1994: A Hezbollah team assaulted the hilltop base, surprised the garrison, planted a flag and …

Natan Book Award for “Spies of No Country”

From the Natan Book Award press release: Matti Friedman’s Spies of No Country, which will be published by Algonquin Books in Fall 2018, is the recipient of the 2018 Natan Book Award run in partnership with Jewish Book Council (JBC). The Award, is a pre-publication prize of $25,000 intended to support books that can catalyze important conversations about Jewish life. By focusing on …

My Forgotten War and Their Forgotten Graves (New York Times, Nov. 10, 2017)

JERUSALEM — My most unsettling neighbors here in Jerusalem are Indians: Afzal Hussein Shah, Chulam Muhammad, Mansub Ali. They occupy a lot on a street near my home. You pass No. 22, then No. 24, but instead of No. 26 you find a rectangle of grass and rosemary shrubs. Engraved on two memorial stones are the names I mentioned, along …

Vine Awards announced

Pumpkinflowers was chosen as the winner of the Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature in the history category. The awards were presented by the Koffler Center for the Arts at a ceremony in Toronto this week. More from the CBC here.

Distant Cousins (Jewish Review of Books)

A short essay on a striking turn to Israel in American Jewish fiction this year, from the latest Jewish Review of Books: Distant Cousins Reading novels published in the last year by some of America’s best Jewish writers, I found myself struck by a recurring character—Israel. That Jonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am and Joshua Cohen’s Moving Kings both feature Israel and Israelis as …

Washington Post review of “Kingdom of Olives and Ash”

A review (The Washington Post, June 23, 2017)  of a new collection of essays about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank: What happens when famous novelists ‘confront the Occupation’ in the West Bank By Matti Friedman Last year, the American novelists Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman and Dave Eggers led a group of writers to “bear witness” to the crisis in Iraq, …

Upcoming speaking dates in the US (May 2017)

A few speaking dates coming up — for more details click on the date: May 8, 2017: Philadelphia. Jewish Community Services Building, 6:30 p.m.  A conversation with Middle East historian Asaf Romirowsky. May 9: Washington, DC. New America (740 15th St NW), 6 p.m. A discussion with Douglas Ollivant, former Iraq director at the National Security Council under presidents Bush and …

“Pumpkinflowers” in Hebrew

“Pumpkinflowers” was published in Hebrew last week by Dvir, an imprint of Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan. The Hebrew title is דלעת: מוצב אחד בלבנון, or “Pumpkin: One Outpost in Lebanon.”

Foreign Affairs, Best of 2016

“Pumpkinflowers” is on the Foreign Affairs list of the best books of 2016, one of three in the “military, scientific, and technological” category. The list is here.