Join me in my conversation with Matti Friedman as we discuss his new book Who By Fire, Leonard Cohen in the Sinai which recounts the singer/songwriter’s performances in Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Relying on newly revealed notes kept by Cohen, Friedman takes us into the war as Cohen traveled across the Sinai and Suez to perform for the Israeli troops in the most important time in Israeli history.

Matti Friedman is a journalist and the author of three previous works of nonfiction. He was born in Toronto and lives in Jerusalem with his family. Formerly he worked as an Associated Press correspondent and essayist for the New York Times opinion section, he currently writes a monthly feature for Tablet Magazine.

Matti Friedman

Matti Friedman, a journalist, is the author of three previous 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, and 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 and lives in Jerusalem with his family.

Michael Zeldin

Michael Zeldin is a well-known and highly-regarded TV and radio analyst/commentator.

He has covered many high-profile matters, including the Clinton impeachment proceedings, the Gore v. Bush court challenges, Special Counsel Robert Muller’s investigation of interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the Trump impeachment proceedings.

In 2019, Michael was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he taught a study group on Independent Investigations of Presidents.

Previously, Michael was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as Deputy Independent/ Independent Counsel, investigating allegations of tampering with presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s passport files, and as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, October Surprise Task Force, investigating the handling of the American hostage situation in Iran.

Michael is a prolific writer and has published Op-ed pieces for CNN.com, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Hill, The Washington Times, and The Washington Post.

Follow Michael on Twitter: @michaelzeldin

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