{"id":1401,"date":"2022-04-17T16:01:56","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T13:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/?p=1401"},"modified":"2022-04-17T16:01:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-17T13:01:56","slug":"who-by-fire-jewish-book-council-review-march-28-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/2022\/04\/17\/who-by-fire-jewish-book-council-review-march-28-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Who By Fire (Jewish Book Council review, March 28, 2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Beth Dwoskin<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leonard Cohen fans know that Judaism was a crit\u00adi\u00adcal part of his iden\u00adti\u00adty. Experts know that sec\u00adu\u00adlar Israelis revere his mem\u00ado\u00adry. These two facts come togeth\u00ader in this riv\u00adet\u00ading book by Mat\u00adti Fried\u00adman. When the Yom Kip\u00adpur War began in 1973, Cohen was one of so many dias\u00adpo\u00adra Jews who went to Israel with the com\u00admon and naive expec\u00adta\u00adtion that they would work the har\u00advest in kib\u00adbutz\u00adim in place of mobi\u00adlized sol\u00addiers. Liv\u00ading on the remote Greek island of Hydra, Cohen was thir\u00adty-nine, in an unhap\u00adpy rela\u00adtion\u00adship and a stalled career. He hopped a boat to Israel with\u00adout even a gui\u00adtar and land\u00aded in the mid\u00addle of the Tel Aviv music scene, where sev\u00ader\u00adal of Israel\u2019s top per\u00adform\u00aders spot\u00adted him and con\u00advinced him to ride along and enter\u00adtain the sol\u00addiers who were fight\u00ading and dying in the Sinai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sto\u00adry has nev\u00ader been told before in full, but Fried\u00adman takes it on in a spare, inci\u00adsive, infor\u00adma\u00adtive style. He pro\u00advides the back\u00adground and mil\u00adi\u00adtary nar\u00adra\u00adtive of the war from the view\u00adpoint of Israeli forces on the ground in the Sinai. Fried\u00adman cap\u00adtures the har\u00adrow\u00ading real\u00adi\u00adty of fight\u00ader pilots dying by the dozen while Israeli civil\u00adians went about their com\u00adpla\u00adcent lives. Even more remark\u00adable, Fried\u00adman gained access to the note\u00adbook that Leonard Cohen kept with him dur\u00ading his weeks in the Sinai, and it is excerpt\u00aded here for the first time. He also acquired ama\u00adteur pho\u00adtographs and rem\u00adi\u00adnis\u00adcences from sol\u00addiers and musi\u00adcians who encoun\u00adtered Cohen at that piv\u00adotal peri\u00adod of Israel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book tells two sto\u00adries togeth\u00ader, eco\u00adnom\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly, yet in depth\u2009\u2014\u2009the sto\u00adry of the Yom Kip\u00adpur War and its influ\u00adence on Israeli musi\u00adcal cul\u00adture, and the sto\u00adry of the rela\u00adtion\u00adship that devel\u00adoped between Leonard Cohen and the land of Israel. Dur\u00ading his time in the Sinai, Cohen lived in tents, ate with sol\u00addiers, and even helped load the wound\u00aded onto heli\u00adcopters. Fried\u00adman describes Cohen\u2019s route through the war zone and the var\u00adi\u00adous infor\u00admal sets he played with whichev\u00ader musi\u00adcians and sol\u00addier audi\u00adences were avail\u00adable. But when he\u2019s not writ\u00ading about Cohen, Fried\u00adman also recounts the mem\u00ado\u00adries of the many Israelis he inter\u00adviewed. Some were in the army or air force when the war start\u00aded, and some were abroad. Their rec\u00adol\u00adlec\u00adtions inform the way that the war changed Israel, and their pho\u00adtos of exhaust\u00aded young fight\u00aders with their\u00a01970s side\u00adburns are heart\u00adbreak\u00ading. Fried\u00adman weaves the sto\u00adry of the Israelis and the sto\u00adry of Cohen togeth\u00ader in a\u00a0way that gives them each equal weight and makes them mutu\u00adal\u00adly rel\u00ade\u00advant. This is mas\u00adter\u00adful writ\u00ading, and it makes a\u00a0reward\u00ading read for lovers of Leonard Cohen and for lovers of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(For the review on the Jewish Book Council website, click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Beth Dwoskin  Leonard Cohen fans know that Judaism was a crit\u00adi\u00adcal part of his iden\u00adti\u00adty. Experts know that sec\u00adu\u00adlar Israelis revere his mem\u00ado\u00adry. These two facts come togeth\u00ader in this riv\u00adet\u00ading book by Mat\u00adti Fried\u00adman. When the Yom Kip\u00adpur War began in 1973, Cohen was one of so many dias\u00adpo\u00adra Jews who went to Israel with the com\u00admon and naive expec\u00adta\u00adtion that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1403,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions\/1403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattifriedman.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}