“The Dawn of Mossad” (Wall Street Journal review, March 4, 2019)
By Edward Kosner No intelligence agency in the world has quite the crafty mystique of Mossad, Israel’s spy service. Shrewd, patient and ruthless, Mossad’s spooks are celebrated for their triumphs, and...
View ArticleNew York Journal of Books review, March 5, 2019
By Roger Abrams […] Matti Friedman, a former Associated Press reporter in the Middle East, has constructed a noteworthy and authentic spy story. Spies of No Country tells the story of the birth of the...
View ArticleBookPage review, March 5, 2019
Journalist Matti Friedman has reported from around the world, including Israel, Lebanon, Morocco and Moscow, and is the author of Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier’s Story of a Forgotten War, about Israeli...
View ArticleHow Israel welcomed Jews from Arab lands — as spies (JTA/Times of Israel,...
By Emily Burack At the beginning of his new book, Matti Friedman writes that “time spent with old spies is never time wasted.” When he went to meet Isaac Shoshan in his suburban Tel Aviv home, Friedman...
View ArticleJerusalem Post review, March 6, 2019
Mizrahi Jewish spies built Israel, their descendants meet racism there By Hen Mazzig In 1951, my great-grandfather was executed in the city of Baghdad, Iraq. He was accused by the government of being...
View ArticleWashington Independent Review of Books, March 8, 2019
By Chris Rutledge Like its subjects, Matti Friedman’s Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel is more than just its “cover story.” Yes, on the surface, it’s an engaging spy saga....
View ArticleForgotten ‘Spies’ Finally Get Their Due (LA Jewish Journal review, March 13,...
By Jonathan Kirsch Israel is much admired, even among its enemies, for the valor and acuity of its storied secret service, Mossad. Before there was a Mossad, however, and even before there was a State...
View ArticleThe Jewish Spies Who Posed as Arabs (New York Times review, March 22, 2019)
By Neal Bascomb If experience is any guide, spies are not wont to emote. On the rare occasions they do speak about their perilous missions, they avoid sentiment, as if recounting a visit to the dry...
View ArticleNational Public Radio review, March 7, 2019
‘Spies Of No Country’ Offers Nuanced Understanding Of Israel’s Complexity By Lily Meyer My grandfather was too young to serve in World War II. He watched from Bridgeport, Conn. as Hitler, then Stalin,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Before the Mossad, Israel Had the ‘Arab Section’ (Haaretz review, April 1, 2019)
By Steven Silber Haaretz English edition, April 1, 2019 In his 2004 book “The Yom Kippur War,” Abraham Rabinovich notes how an Egyptian cameraman, arriving to film captured Israeli soldiers near the...
View Article
