The Wisdom of Hamas (The Free Press, Dec. 28, 2023)

They understand the war they’re fighting. Many in the West still don’t. JERUSALEM — In the days after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on October 7, triggering the current war in Gaza, many believed that Hamas had erred. The word “miscalculation” recurred in news analysis and in statements from Israeli leaders. People here in Israel were galvanized into action by the …

Let Objects Speak: A web series from Beit Avi Chai

“Let Objects Speak,” produced by Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem, takes viewers on a tour of some of the Jewish treasures of the great Russian collections, looking for the human stories behind the artifacts. I was honored to translate the series from Russian, adapting it for an English-speaking audience, and narrating six episodes — three from the Hermitage in St. …

Back to 1948 (The Free Press, Oct. 19, 2023)

My smartphone says it’s October 2023, but in Israel it feels like 1948.  That was the year this country was established as 600,000 Jews fought the combined might of the Arab world three years after the genocide in Europe. You can still feel that war in the air and underbrush of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek in northern Israel, where I traveled this week, …

When Did Humans Start Settling Down? (Smithsonian Magazine, July/August 2023)

Matti Friedman Twelve thousand years ago, long before the beginning of recorded history, a group of perhaps 200 people lived in a small village by a stream flowing into the Sea of Galilee, in what today is northern Israel. The villagers hunted gazelle and hares, fished for carp, built stone houses, and buried their dead in a cemetery next to …

The New Bitcoin (Tablet Magazine, Dec. 7, 2021)

The incredible strength of the shekel is playing havoc with Israel’s economy, while leaving its humble and egalitarian past in the dust MATTI FRIEDMAN For people of my disposition, the financial news is a blur in the background: a graph in the newspaper, a ticker with ominous acronyms, a smattering of words like “fiscal,” which have an effect equivalent to …

The Mysteries of “King Solomon’s Mines” (Smithsonian, cover story, Dec. 2021)

Photo: Yadid Levy   An Archaeological Dig Reignites the Debate Over the Old Testament’s Historical Accuracy Beneath a desert in Israel, a scholar and his team are unearthing astonishing new evidence of an advanced society in the time of the biblical Solomon Matti Friedman If you stand on one of the outcroppings of the Timna valley, the most salient fact …

The Next Lebanon War (Tablet Magazine, Sept. 10, 2021)

By Matti Friedman (Read the piece in Tablet here.) The rule for watching the Israel-Lebanon frontier is that although nothing seems to be going on, something always is. Nothing seemed to be going on, for example, on one of the afternoons I recently spent along the electrified fence trying to sense the course of events this fraught summer, gazing out …

Building Israel’s Dust City (Tablet Magazine, Aug. 10, 2021)

Photo: Moshe Milner, GPO After decades of great expectations, Beersheba often seems like a lost cause. But a recent visit revealed a city finally on the cusp of a breakthrough. (Read the piece in Tablet here.) Every city is a battle against entropy, and Beersheba (to paraphrase a famous saying about Jews) is like other cities, but more so. There’s …

Kids Need Dirt and Danger (The Atlantic, June 16, 2021)

Photo courtesy of Elisha Haas Malka Haas turned children loose to play with discarded objects, giving them a different sort of preparation for life. By Matti Friedman (Read the piece in The Atlantic here.) When you pass the kindergarten at Sde Eliyahu, a kibbutz near the Jordan River in northern Israel, you might not recognize it. Instead, you’ll see a yard for …

Theodor Herzl Is Alive and Well and Living in New York (Tablet Magazine, June 3, 2021)

(Read the piece at Tablet here.) A few weeks ago, between watching thugs drive through north London shouting “F*** the Jews, rape their daughters,” and reading a tweet from an American TV personality with a pink bikini and 275,000 Twitter followers that read “These Jewish people are really killing children,” I picked up a vintage hardcover that was gathering dust …