Jewish 100, 2015: Matti Friedman – Voices
by Algemeiner Staff
Matti Friedman
Reporter
Former Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman continued to make headlines in 2015, writing a scathing criticism of the report from NGO Breaking the Silence on the conduct of Israeli soldiers during last summer’s Gaza war.
In an extended Facebook post, Friedman blasted the report, and simultaneously tried to put it in context. “Some of the things described in the report no doubt happened as they were described,” he stated. “Others didn’t. Infantrymen at the bottom of the hierarchy often don’t understand what they’re seeing, or the reasons for what they’re doing, and I’m speaking from experience.”
Earlier, while the Gaza War raged in 2014, Friedman, who worked for the AP in Jerusalem, crafted a Tablet magazine feature on the media’s flawed coverage of Israel.
Friedman is the author of the forthcoming book “Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story.” He also won the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for “The Aleppo Codex: In Pursuit of One of the World’s Most Coveted, Sacred, and Mysterious Books.”